Holy Spirit Research Paper

According to the teaching of Saint Paul, the body is called to be the “temple” of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). Right before this, he said, “Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body; but the immoral person sins against his own body” (6:18). These sins are against the “holiness” and “honor” of the body. Such sins “profane” the body, and therefore the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of the indwelling of God in the person, man’s body is not “his own.” The Holy Spirit is another source of the dignity of the body and of the moral duty flowing from this dignity. In the redemption, Christ has imprinted on the body a new dignity, since the body with the soul has been admitted to union with the Person of the Son through the redemption of the …show more content…
Man was bought “with a price” (6:20). This brings about the duty of controlling one’s body in holiness and honor. The fruit of redemption is the Holy Spirit, who dwells in man and his body as in a temple. The body is therefore not meant for “immorality” but “for the Lord” and “the Lord for the body” (6:13). In the Incarnation, the human body becomes the body of the God-man. In Christ, the human body receives a new supernatural elevation, which must impact human behavior with regard to his and others’ bodies. The redemption of the body involves a new measure of the holiness of the body, to which St. Paul refers in drastic terms: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Of course not! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, 'The two shall become one flesh' But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1Cor 6:15-17). We are called to this unity of spirit with Christ in the body. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the temple of the human body bears fruit in the man who lives according to the