If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
If any ... defile ... destroy - rather, as the Greek is the same in both, 'destroy ... destroy;' or х ftheirei (G5351), ftherei (G5351)], 'If any corrupt, God will give him to corruption.' God repays in kind by righteous retaliation. The destroyer shall be destroyed. The destroyers are distinct from the unwise builders (1 Corinthians 3:12; 1 Corinthians 3:15); these hold fast the "foundation" (1 Corinthians 3:11); therefore, though they lose their superstructure and the special reward, yet they are themselves saved, though by a narrow escape: those, on the contrary, assailed with corrupt teaching the foundation, and so the temple itself, and shall therefore be destroyed. All, whether teachers or laymen by profession, are "priests unto God" (Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6). As the Aaronic priests were doomed to die if they violated the old temple (Exodus 28:43; Leviticus 16:2), so any Christian who violates the spiritual temple shall perish eternally (Hebrews 10:26). All who build hay, etc., as a superstructure, are herein warned; for though, if they retain "the foundation," they shall be saved, however narrowly, yet they are in danger of corrupting this, which would entail their own destruction. Theophylact, from the parallelism between 1 Corinthians 3:15 and 1 Corinthians 3:17, takes 1 Corinthians 3:15, 'he shall be reserved (not annihilated as his work) so as to be burned in the fire' eternally; answering to 'him God shall destroy' (Mark 9:44). But this Greek of "saved" is not so used in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 3:17 seems rather a further and more deadly stage of error.
Holy - inviolable (Habakkuk 2:20).
Which temple ye are - or 'the which х hoitines (G3748)] (i:e., holy) are ye;' therefore, to tamper with the foundation being a violation of the temple's inviolability entails ruin.