---
title: 1 Corinthians 6:19
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-6-19/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-6-19.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 6:19
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 6:19

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit within you, which you have from God? Also, you do not belong to yourselves,"

## JW Usage

Witnesses cite this verse for the holiness of the body — a basis for moral counsel against immorality, drunkenness, smoking, and blood transfusions, since the body is described as a "temple of the holy spirit." Within Watchtower pneumatology the spirit is an active force that operates in the believer's life, and the "household" framing in JW pastoral language can describe this spirit as blocked or hindered when serious sin enters the home.

## Protestant Usage

Read the verse against the situation in Corinth. Paul is writing to a congregation getting drunk at the Lord's Supper, suing each other in court, tolerating an incestuous adulterer — and he still addresses every one of them as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Not "you used to be" but "you are." The Spirit's indwelling is not conditional on the believer's current cleanness; it is grounded in Christ's finished work. Pair this with Ephesians 1:13-14 (sealed with the Spirit until the day of redemption), Ephesians 4:30 (the Spirit is grieved by sin but not extracted), Romans 8:9 (anyone without the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him), and John 14:16 ("he will be with you forever"). At the doorstep, ask: if the Spirit can be blocked from the household by personal sin, why did Paul still call the Corinthian church a temple? The verse refuses the household-blocking framing on its face. The Spirit who indwells is grieved by sin and never withdrawn from the believer he has sealed.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders pneuma here in lowercase as "the temple of the holy spirit within you," matching its broader pattern of presenting the Spirit as an impersonal active force rather than the Third Person of the Trinity. The lowercase rendering supports the Watchtower's pastoral framing of the Spirit as a flow that operates in clean conditions and is hindered by sin — a picture the same verse undercuts by calling the believer's body a temple in which the Spirit dwells. Standard English translations capitalise "Holy Spirit" here precisely because the Spirit is the divine Person whose indwelling makes the body a temple.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Sin Doesn't Block the Spirit from the Household — The Seal That Stays](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/sin-blocks-holy-spirit-household.md) — Ephesians 1:13-14 — Sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise [Holy Spirit]