I listened to John Piper preached on this topic and was struck by the same verse I have read many times before, about your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In this article I just want to bring up one aspect of the power of that verse.

He mentioned that 85% of abortions today are committed under fornication, a word that doesn’t even get used much anymore but in the older bibles. The bible today translates it as sexual immorality. Fornication is sex outside of marriage. It can be adultery as well.

But no matter how you try to preach against abortions, Christians still do that, though it has declined recently.

God Saw Our Form in Mother’s Womb

I have looked at it purely from the word of God prohibition against killing, and the verse that says even when we are in our mother’s wombs, God saw our form, and we are wonderfully and fearfully made in our mothers wombs. To terminate life of these unborn babies, is to kill the child inside his or her mother’s womb, and it is so against God’s word. To argue that before birth, babies are not life, but only tissues, is abominable, looking at psalm

Psalm 139:13–14 (NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

God created my inmost being, God knit me together in my mother’s womb, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, how beautiful these words are. How can any Christians kill the inmost being in his or her mother’s womb??

Holy Spirit Lives in our Bodies

That’s one argument, but the temple of the holy Spirit hit me hard.

As young women pregnant with a child, she will have to think twice if she wants to abort that baby of hers. As the man who caused her pregnancy, by looking at these verses, he will have to think hard before asking the woman to abort. The blood of such cries out for justice to God. But the very thought of God living in our bodies is a staggering thought.

Our bodies is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The word temple goes back to the Old Testament, like David worshipped God in the temple. Solomon built the most glamorous temple, and he offered hundreds of thousands of sheep, lambs as sacrifice and sang unto the Lord in the temple. The holy of holies is in the temple. So when Holy Spirit dwells in our bodies, calling bodies as temples for him, that is sacred.

1 Corinthians 6:18–20 (NIV)

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Imagine the Spirit of God dwells in our bodies. Doesn’t that scare you? In other words, wherever you go, and whatever you do, the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, is with you, because he dwells in you. Your bodies is the temple of God now. What does the temple do in OT? Place where people come to sacrifice to God, worship God. So our bodies is really a place of sacrifice to God.

Romans 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Paul says, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. There you go, our bodies is the temple of God, where Spirit lives, and yet, Paul exhorts us, because of God’s mercy, offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Wow, so our bodies is the temple of God, it is also a living sacrifice to God!

We Are Not Our Own

We are bought with a price, that’s the death of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection. Therefore we can’t mess around with our bodies. V19 says we are not our own. That’s huge. You can’t decide to do what you want with your body anymore, because Jesus bought it back from condemnation, now we belong to Christ. Besides He has sent the Holy Spirit to live in us. That will take time to sink in. That will be the hardest for modern American Christians to absorb as we love liberty and freedom. But that’s a fact, otherwise we will be far worse off, doomed for eternity. You don’t want that!

Say No to Sexual Immorality & Abortion

We must respond to God now we know who own our bodies, and meditate on that, and let it resonate in us, and that will be a far better and stronger ways to fight sexual immorality and abortion.