If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
17. If any man corrupts the temple of God. He subjoins a dreadful threatening — that, as the temple of God ought to be inviolably sacred, that man, whoever he may be, that corrupts it, will not pass with impunity. The kind of profanation of which he now speaks, is, when men intrude themselves, so as to bear rule in the Church in the place of God.
Here the apostle resumes his argument and exhortation, founding it on his former allusion, You are God's building, Co1 3:9, and here, Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
If any man defile the temple of God,.... By the wisdom of the world, through philosophy, and vain deceit; by bringing in false doctrines, errors, and heresies, and hereby corrupt their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ; and make rents, factions, and divisions among them: him shall God destroy; body and soul in hell; for as their wicked principles and heretical notions are...