1 Corinthians 6:12-20

(1 Corinthians 6:12-20)

 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.  Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.  And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.  Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.  What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.  Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

 

Among the members of the Corinthian Church, there were people with a morally disordered attitude of life, and 1 Corinthians is the record of the letters of the apostle Paul's reproof and counsel against them. As is well known, the Corinth region was the center of Greek culture, and following the social customs of the bustling Greek port towns at the time, it was common for female priests working in idol temples to engage in prostitution against men for money.

 

So, the word “act like a Corinthian” meant an act of prostitution. However, some of the Corinthian church members still failed to abandon the old habits they had before believing in Christ, and were committing the sin of prostitutes and fornication with the local people. Accordingly, Paul rebuked that “Christians are those who have become one spiritually with Jesus,” and if they commit adultery with prostitutes, they become one body with prostitutes, so they are never acceptable. 『Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid..』

Nevertheless, if a saint uses his body as an instrument of fornication, it becomes a serious sin that defiles the temple where the Holy Spirit dwells. 『What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 』 That is why he commanded "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body."

 

The reason why the Corinthians fell into fornication was that there were some who could not abandon the habits and customs of the past and followed them, but the bigger reason was that Christians misunderstood their freedom. At the time when Greek philosophy was swept, people had a dualistic thinking about humans, that is, that the body and the spirit were thoroughly separated, and that the body was evil and dirty, and it was irrelevant to any use. On the other hand, they misunderstood that since the spirit is a completely different noble being, the body has no effect on the spirit even if the body does nothing.

 

Those who believe in these ideas are called Gnostics. Christians are freed from all sins and liberated from the law by the grace of the cross of Jesus. In this regard, because Christians are free, everything is possible. By the way, they changed freedom in Christ to indulgence outside Christ, and considered it as freedom of crime. So, the apostle Paul accurately summarizes and explains their wrong thoughts and logic. 『All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. 』

 

In terms of jurisprudence, Christians have infinite freedom, but Christians have a spiritual and moral responsibility to God, and temperance is essential even for practical reasons of balance and order. Just because Christians are exempt from guilt does not mean that the distinction between good and evil and even the moral obligations of the saints have disappeared. Moreover, since the spirit and the body are inseparable for a person, spiritual holiness and moral responsibility are the most important duties of the saints. In Galatians 5:13, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. 』

 

The apostle Paul speaks clearly of the body of the saints. The body of a saint refers to the body of the spirit, not the body of the body. Because the physical body is present, we are thinking of the physical body, but the physical body has already been crucified with Jesus Christ. First, he said that the body (spirit body) is for the Lord, and the Lord is for our body. 『Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 』Jesus saved us by dying on the cross, not only for the spirit of the saints, but also for the body of the saints (spirit body). That is why our bodies should also be used for the Lord and used by the Lord.

 

Second, the body of a believer must be cleanly distinguished because it is a holy temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and the body of a member must be a tool to give glory to God. 『What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's, says 1 Corinthians 15:44. 『It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. In other words, it was declared that the physical body had already died on the cross. In Romans 6:4-5, `` Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 』