When someone comes to faith in Christ, the speed at which they progress in the faith varies greatly. For some, there is an immediate and noticeable change. Old habits die quickly; they lose the desire for certain things almost instantaneously (I recently listened to the testimony of such a man, and you will be encouraged by listening to it as well.) For other Christians, the growth is much slower. However, both types of people are in a right standing before God. One of the keys to sanctification and growth is grasping what has happened to us through faith in Christ. I am thankful for the Corinthians because their slow growth reminds us of God’s patience towards us in our continual failures.
Throughout this letter, Paul has primarily addressed the spiritual pride and immaturity that was prevalent in this church. In this passage, Paul represents the Corinthians’ justification of their actions through a series of quotations, then corrects them. The Corinthians had spiritual knowledge, but they lacked Biblical wisdom. They used their knowledge, not to glorify God, but to satisfy their lusts. The primary issue in 6:12-20 is that some members of the church were continuing to have sex with prostitutes!
The Corinthians lived in a highly sexualized culture. The city was so associated with debauchery that if someone from a different region behaved in immoral ways, they would say they were behaving like a Corinthian. Sex with prostitutes was not only common, but was part of pagan worship. A Corinthian man would commonly have sexual relations with a concubine, a mistress, and a wife. Like the Corinthians, we live in a highly sexualized culture that tells us we should do whatever feels right. Just like the church at Corinth, we need God’s Word to show us how we glorify him with our bodies.
Christians do not have the freedom to sin (12-14).
The Corinthians knew that the gospel brings freedom that permits different convictions (Rom. 14). When confronted about their behavior, their response was, “All things are lawful for me.” There are, however, many issues to which the category of Christian freedom does not apply—the things the Bible calls sin.
Paul gives two responses to the Corinthians’ justification of their behavior. First, he states that not all things are helpful or profitable. This could be applied to issues of conscience, like should they eat meat offered to idols or not (chapter 8). But more than that, sin, specifically sexual immorality, is not helpful or profitable for anyone engaged in the act. As John MacArthur said, “Sin never brings profit; it always brings loss.” Second, Paul points out the enslaving nature of sin. This is especially necessary to consider with sexual sin. There is an addictive and enslaving nature to it. It always grows, escalates, and dominates those who give themselves to it.
The second justification the Corinthians make for their sin relates to their sexual appetites and desires. “Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food—and God will destroy both one and the other.” The Corinthians viewed sexual appetites like appetites for food. Just as you eat when you are hungry, so you should be able to have sex whenever and with whomever you want. While the ESV ends the quotation after the phrase, “and the stomach for food,” some scholars believe the Corinthian quotation continues through the statement about God destroying the body. In essence, their argument is, “Why does it matter what we do with our bodies? They’re going to burn in the end anyway!” The Corinthians had a low view of the body.
Paul corrects their faulty thinking about the body. God created our bodies, and he created them so we would glorify him in them (21). Our bodies were not made for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. Not only that, but our bodies are destined not for destruction, but resurrection. We will be raised just as Jesus was raised. What we do with our bodies matters now.
Christians are one with the Lord (15-17).
Like he has done repeatedly in this letter, Paul grounds the Christian’s change of behavior in their identity in Christ. Christians are members of Christ’s body, spiritually joined to the Lord. Paul paints a preposterous picture—a member of Christ’s body being joined to a prostitute! When a Christian commits sexual immorality, a part of Christ’s own body is involved in the adulterous act.
Christians are to abstain from sexual immorality because of what sex is: a uniting of two bodies and two souls. The union of two bodies in a sexual relationship is reserved only for marriage between one man and one woman for life. Sex outside of marriage is a pollution of God’s design. The marriage relationship is a picture of how we have become one Spirit with the Lord. Just like sexual immorality joins a part of Christ’s body in an adulterous act, so the union we have with Christ is tarnished through sexual immorality.
Flee from sexual immorality, for you are a temple of the Holy Spirit (18-21).
As Joseph fled from Potiphar’s wife, so we are to flee from sexual immorality. In addition to the reasons already given, Paul gives one more reason to flee sexual immorality; it is a sin against one’s own body. This is not what the Corinthians thought. They thought sin was simply something outside the body, not something against our bodies.
To further bolster his argument, Paul helps us understand what our body is—our body is the place where God’s Spirit dwells. The temple was the place where God’s presence dwelt uniquely. The Garden of Eden was a temple where God’s presence dwelt. Israel had the tabernacle, then the temple, where God’s presence dwelt. The church is a temple, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and in the New Creation there will be no need for a temple because the Lord will dwell in the midst of his people forever (Rev. 21:22).
In every temple in Scripture, we also see the necessity of holiness for the people of God. Since our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, we must be a holy people. If my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, then what I do with it matters to God. Not only that, but there was a cost paid in order to cleanse us and make us a dwelling fit for God. That cost was the blood of Jesus Christ. We are no longer our own; our redemption has been purchased at an infinite cost.
Conclusion
There is no neutral ground in the Christian life. There is no area of our lives or bodies over which the Lord does not have claim. Christians are not immune to the temptations of sexual immorality. We must take God’s commands seriously regarding sexual immorality. But what about other things we do with our bodies: what we eat and drink; how much or little we exercise; what we wear, or don’t wear; how far we go physically with our boyfriends or girlfriends? All these things matter because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Like the Corinthians, we all have sinned with our bodies—we do each day—but the truth of the gospel remains the same. For all our sexual immorality, gluttony, and obsession over our appearance, the truth remains the same: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (6:11).