Paul gives the Corinthians two more reasons to honor God with their bodies. Barnes counts them as the fifth and sixth arguments in the passage. First, the Holy Spirit lives in the believer: "our bodies are his temples; and they should not be defiled and polluted by sin." Second, believers belong to God: "We are purchased; we belong to God." Gill notes that what Paul said of the whole church in 1 Corinthians 3:16 he now says "of their bodies in particular." The question calls the Corinthians to remember who lives in them and who owns them.

Paul answers by explaining why they are not their own: "For ye are bought with a price." Then he draws the conclusion: "therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:20).

The word Paul uses for "temple" is naos. Thayer explains that it means the sanctuary itself, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, rather than the whole temple area with its courts (hieron). Thayer lists 1 Corinthians 6:19 among the places where naos is used of the bodies of Christians. So Paul is not comparing the body to the outer courts but to the inner place where God dwelt. Paul returns to the idea of being bought later in the letter: "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23).

This question reveals God's nearness. In the Old Testament, God's presence dwelt in the temple. Now the Holy Spirit dwells in His people, and Paul says that makes even their bodies His sanctuary. The believer's body is holy ground.

It also reveals what God paid. "Ye are bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20). Barnes says we belong to God "by redemption; by a precious price paid." Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary concludes that "the believer should consider himself as wholly the Lord's, by the strongest ties."