2 Corinthians 6:16

And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? for we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

As Plumptre said: "We see clearly the drift of the apostle's thought. His mind travels back to the controversy about things sacrificed to idols. [17] Paul no doubt remembered those broadminded "Christians" who could sit down in an idol's temple; but the bitter fruit of it was the rejection of himself by those who should have loved him. He had never intended any license whatever in regard to idols; but he had done his best in that first letter to keep from saying anything that might be construed as a denial of Christian liberty; but no such necessity is upon him now. Their liberty had become license, their love hatred, or at best lukewarmness; and their Christianity had degenerated until they stood in danger of having received the grace of God in vain.

We are a temple of the living God ... This is the basis of Paul's demand that no compromise whatever be made with paganism. He had developed that metaphor extensively in the first letter; but he reinforced it here with the quotation from Exodus 29:45, deriving from it the principle that "wherever God dwells is the true temple of God." As Tasker expressed it, "There is still a temple of God, but it consists of the whole company of Christian believers."[18] For further discussion of the church as God's true temple, see my Commentary on Acts, pp. 142-144. Not only did Paul view the church as God's true temple as contrasted with the idol temples of Corinth, but it was also God's true temple with respect to the great temple of the Jews in Jerusalem.

[17] E. H. Plumptre, op. cit., p. 386.

[18] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 99.