GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

King James Bible
And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

Darby Bible Translation
and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

English Revised Version
and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

Webster's Bible Translation
And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

Weymouth New Testament
and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

World English Bible
and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Young's Literal Translation
and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Cross References

1 Corinthians 11:3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming,

1 Corinthians 15:28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

2 Corinthians 10:7 You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ's, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ's, so also are we.

Galatians 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 21-23

Here the apostle founds an exhortation against over-valuing their teachers on what he had just said, and on the consideration that they had an equal interest in all their ministers: Therefore let no man glory in men (v. 21)-forget that their ministers are men, or pay that deference to them that is due only to God, set them at the head of parties, have them in immoderate esteem and admiration, and servilely and implicitly follow their directions and submit to their dictates, and especially in contradiction to God and the truths taught by his Holy Spirit. Mankind are very apt to make the mercies of God cross their intentions. The ministry is a very useful and very gracious institution, and faithful ministers are a great blessing to any people; yet the folly and weakness of people may do much mischief by what is in itself a blessing. They may fall into factions, side with particular ministers, and set them at their head, glory in their leaders, and be carried by them they know not whither. The only way to avoid this mischief is to have a modest opinion of ourselves, a due sense of the common weakness of human understanding, and an entire deference to the wisdom of God speaking in his word. Ministers are not to be set up in competition with one another. All faithful ministers are serving one Lord and pursuing one purpose. They were appointed of Christ, for the common benefit of the church: "Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, are all yours. One is not to be set up against another, but all are to be valued and used for your own spiritual benefit." Upon this occasion also he gives in an inventory of the church's possessions, the spiritual riches of a true believer: "All is yours-ministers of all ranks, ordinary and extraordinary. Nay the world itself is yours." Not that saints are proprietors of the world, but it stands for their sake, they have as much of it as Infinite Wisdom sees to be fit for them, and they have all they have with the divine blessing. "Life is yours, that you may have season and opportunity to prepare for the life of heaven; and death is yours, that you may go to the possession of it. It is the kind messenger that will fetch you to your Father's house. Things present are yours, for your support on the road; things to come are yours, to enrich and regale you for ever at your journey's end." Note, If we belong to Christ, and are true to him, all good belongs to us, and is sure to us. All is ours, time and eternity, earth and heaven, life and death. We shall want no good thing, Ps. 84:11. But it must be remembered, at the same time, that we are Christ's, the subjects of his kingdom, his property. He is Lord over us, and we must own his dominion, and cheerfully submit to his command and yield themselves to his pleasure, if we would have all things minister to our advantage. All things are ours, upon no other ground than our being Christ's. Out of him we are without just title or claim to any thing that is good. Note, Those that would be safe for time, and happy to eternity, must be Christ's. And Christ is God's. He is the Christ of God, anointed of God, and commissioned by him, to bear the office of a Mediator, and to act therein for the purposes of his glory. Note, All things are the believer's, that Christ might have honour in his great undertaking, and God in all might have the glory. God in Christ reconciling a sinful world to himself, and shedding abroad the riches of his grace on a reconciled world, is the sum and substance of the gospel.

Calvin's Commentary

16. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

16. An nescitis, quod templum Dei estis et Spiritus Dei habitat in vobis?

17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

17. Si quis ternplum Dei corrumpit, [188] hunc perdet Deus. Templum enim Dei sanctum est, quod estis vos.

18. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise,

18. Nemo se decipiat, si quis videtur sapiens esse inter vos: in saeculo hoc stultus fiat, [189] ut fiat sapiens.

19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

19. Sapientia enim mundi huius stultitia est apud Deum. Scriptum est enim (Job 5:13) Deprehendens sapientes in astutia sua.

20. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

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New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.

GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.

Alphabetical: and are belong belongs Christ God is of to you

Bible Browser

November the Ninth the Holy Spirit as Emancipator
2 CORINTHIANS iii. 4-18. In the Holy Spirit I experience a large emancipation. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." I am delivered from all enslaving bondage--from the bondage of literalism, and legalism, and ritualism. I am not hampered by excessive harness, by multitudinous rules. The harness is fitting and congenial, and I have freedom of movement, and "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." And I am to use my emancipation of spirit in the ministry of contemplation. I am to …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Temples of God
'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?'--1 COR. iii. 16 The great purpose of Christianity is to make men like Jesus Christ. As He is the image of the invisible God we are to be the images of the unseen Christ. The Scripture is very bold and emphatic in attributing to Christ's followers likeness to Him, in nature, in character, in relation to the world, in office, and in ultimate destiny. Is He the anointed of God? We are anointed--Christs in Him. Is He the Son of God? We in Him receive the …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

God's Fellow-Workers
'Labourers together with God.'--1 COR. iii. 9. The characteristic Greek tendency to factions was threatening to rend the Corinthian Church, and each faction was swearing by a favourite teacher. Paul and his companion, Apollos, had been taken as the figureheads of two of these parties, and so he sets himself in the context, first of all to show that neither of the two was of any real importance in regard to the Church's life. They were like a couple of gardeners, one of whom did the planting, and …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Death, the Friend
'... All things are yours ... death.'--1 COR. iii. 21, 22. What Jesus Christ is to a man settles what everything else is to Him. Our relation to Jesus determines our relation to the universe. If we belong to Him, everything belongs to us. If we are His servants, all things are our servants. The household of Jesus, which is the whole Creation, is not divided against itself, and the fellow-servants do not beat one another. Two bodies moving in the same direction, and under the impulse of the same …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Servants and Lords
'All things are yours; 22. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23. And ye are Christ's.'--1 COR. iii. 21-23. The Corinthian Christians seem to have carried into the Church some of the worst vices of Greek--and English--political life. They were split up into wrangling factions, each swearing by the name of some person. Paul was the battle-cry of one set; Apollos of another. Paul and Apollos were very good friends, …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Sanctified for Service.
"We are labourers together with God; ye are God's husbandry; ye are God's building."--1 COR. iii. 9. In this passage St. Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for that spirit of party which was dividing them into followers of this or that teacher and so destroying their unity in Christ. You do not belong, he says, to Paul or to Apollos; we have no claim upon you; ye are not to be called by our name: you are God's husbandry, and God's building, not ours; we are but labourers in His service and …
John Percival—Sermons at Rugby

On the Wisdom of this World
"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."--I Cor. iii. 19. It is remarkable that about the time of our Saviour's coming into the world all kinds of learning flourished to a very great degree, insomuch that nothing is more frequent in the mouths of many men, even such who pretend to read and to know, than an extravagant praise and opinion of the wisdom and virtue of the Gentile sages of those days, and likewise of those ancient philosophers who went before them, whose doctrines are left …
Jonathan Swift—Three Sermons, Three Prayers

On the Interpretation of Scripture
IT is a strange, though familiar fact, that great differences of opinion exist respecting the Interpretation of Scripture. All Christians receive the Old and New Testament as sacred writings, but they are not agreed about the meaning which they attribute to them. The book itself remains as at the first; the commentators seem rather to reflect the changing atmosphere of the world or of the Church. Different individuals or bodies of Christians have a different point of view, to which their interpretation …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World

The Existence of Merit
1. HERETICAL ERRORS AND THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.--a) The medieval Beguins and Beghards held that man is able to attain such a perfect state of holiness here below as no longer to require an increase of grace or good works.(1226) Luther, holding that justification consists in the covering up of sin and the external imputation of the justice of Christ, consistently though falsely asserted that "the just man sins in every good work,"(1227) that "a good work, no matter how well performed, is a venial …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual

The Objects of Merit
After defining the existence of merit the Tridentine Council enumerates its objects as follows: "If anyone saith that the justified, by the good works which he performs, ... does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,--if it be so, however, that he depart in grace,--and also an increase of glory: let him be anathema."(1320) Hence merit calls for a threefold reward: (1) an increase of sanctifying grace; (2) heavenly glory; and (3) an increase of that …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual

The Christian Church
Scriptures references: 1 Corinthians 3:11; 3:6-9; Colossians 1:18; Acts 2:47; Ephesians 5:23-27; Matthew 16:16,18; 18:17; Acts 5:11,12; 13:1,2; 14:23; 16:5; 1 Corinthians 11:18-34; 12:28-31; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2:14; 1 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 12:22,23; Revelation 1:4,11,20; 2:7,11; 22:16; 22:12-15,17. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH What is the Christian Church?--One of the best definitions is as follows: "The church consists of all who acknowledge the Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, the blessed Saviour …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Carnal Christians.
1 Corinthians 3:1.--And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. The apostle here speaks of two stages of the Christian life, two types of Christians: "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." They were Christians, in Christ, but instead of being spiritual Christians, they were carnal. "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet are ye able, for ye are …
Andrew Murray—The Master's Indwelling

The Indwelling Spirit Fully and Forever Satisfying.
The Holy Spirit takes up His abode in the one who is born of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul says to the believers in Corinth in 1 Cor. iii. 16, R. V., "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" This passage refers, not so much to the individual believer, as to the whole body of believers, the Church. The Church as a body is indwelt by the Spirit of God. But in 1 Cor. vi. 19, R. V., we read, "Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

Dedicatory Letter.
To the respected and worthy NICOLAUS VON AMSDORF, Licentiate in the Holy Scriptures and Canon of Wittenberg, [14] My particular and affectionate friend. Dr. MARTIN LUTHER. The Grace and Peace of God be with you! Respected, worthy Sir and dear friend. The time for silence is gone and the time to speak has come, as we read in Ecclesiastes (iii. 7.) I have in conformity with our resolve put together some few points concerning the Reformation of the Christian Estate, with the intent of placing the same …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

Alcuin on True Missionary Labours.
THE cause of the first failure of the mission amongst the Saxons, may serve as a lesson and a warning to all times. It was this: that they sought to introduce from without what can only be effected from within; that worldly aims were blended with the diffusion of Christianity; that men did not follow the example of the Apostle Paul, who, in preaching the Gospel, allowed the Jews to remain Jews, and the Greeks, Greeks, and knew how to become to the Jews as a Jew, and to the Greeks as a Greek. The …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places

Certain it Is, Albeit all this Disputation Go from Side to Side...
38. Certain it is, albeit all this disputation go from side to side, some asserting that it is never right to lie, and to this effect reciting divine testimonies: others gainsaying, and even in the midst of the very words of the divine testimonies seeking place for a lie; yet no man can say, that he finds this either in example or in word of the Scriptures, that any lie should seem a thing to be loved, or not had in hatred; howbeit sometimes by telling a lie thou must do that thou hatest, that what …
St. Augustine—On Lying

It Follows after Commendation of the Trinity, "The Holy Church. ...
14. It follows after commendation of the Trinity, "The Holy Church." God is pointed out, and His temple. "For the temple of God is holy," says the Apostle, "which (temple) are ye." [1801] This same is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can: be fought down, it cannot. As for heresies, they went all out of it, like as unprofitable branches pruned from the vine: but itself abideth in its root, in its Vine, in its charity. "The …
St. Augustine—On the Creeds

Now it Has Been My Wish on this Account to Say Something on This...
22. Now it has been my wish on this account to say something on this subject, by reason of certain of our brethren most friendly and dear to us, and without willful guilt indeed entangled in this error, but yet entangled; who think, that, when they exhort any to righteousness and piety, their exhortation will not have force, unless the whole of that, wherein they would work upon man that man should work, they set in the power of man, not helped by the grace of God, but put forth by the alone choice …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Widowhood.

Homilies on the Statues.
Abel, beloved of God, yet slain, [466]342; more blessed in his death than Cain, [467]374; died the first to instruct Adam, [468]414; his sacrifice good, [469]422. Abraham, rich but not covetous: entertaining angels, [470]349; tent of, stronger than Sodom, [471]456. Absolution, [472]356; at the altar, [473]443. Accused at Antioch, tortured, [474]474. Acrobats, [475]470. Actions, few, for their own sake, [476]379; end of, [477]459, n.; the proof of philosophy, [478]465. Adam, fell when idle, [479]353, …
St. Chrysostom—On the Priesthood

Epistle Xlvi. To Isacius, Bishop of Jerusalem .
To Isacius, Bishop of Jerusalem [159] . Gregory to Isacius, &c. In keeping with the truth of history, what means the fact that at the time of the flood the human race outside the ark dies, but within the ark is preserved unto life, but what we see plainly now, namely that all the unfaithful perish under the wave of their sin, while the unity of holy Church, like the compactness of the ark, keeps her faithful ones in faith and in charity? And this ark in truth is compacted of incorruptible timber, …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Epistle Xlix. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch .
To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch [35] . Gregory to Anastasius, &c. I received the letters of thy Fraternity, rightly holding fast the profession of the faith; and I returned great thanks to Almighty God, who, when the shepherds of His flock are changed, still, even after such change, guards the faith which He once delivered to the holy Fathers. Now the excellent preacher says, Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor. iii. 2). Whosoever, then, with love of …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

How the Wise and the Dull are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 7). Differently to be admonished are the wise of this world and the dull. For the wise are to be admonished that they leave off knowing what they know: the dull also are to be admonished that they seek to know what they know not. In the former this thing first, that they think themselves wise, is to be thrown down; in the latter whatsoever is already known of heavenly wisdom is to be built up; since, being in no wise proud, they have, as it were, prepared their hearts for supporting …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

First Sunday in Lent
Text: Second Corinthians 6, 1-10. 1 And working together with him we entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain 2 (for he saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation): 3 giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our ministration be not blamed; 4 but in everything commending ourselves, as ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II