BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 KJV (WS)

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.

18 Flee fornication.

Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

With what eagerness does the apostle pursue sin to destroy it!

He is not so formal as to let sin alone, but cries out, in plainest language, “Flee fornication.”

The shame is not in the rebuke, but in the sin which calls for it.

He chases this foul wickedness with arguments (see v. 18).

He drags it into the light of the Spirit of God.

“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” (v. 19).

Temple - a building for religious worship.

He slays it at the cross. “Ye are bought with a price.”

Lease or purchase agreement.

Let us consider the last argument, that we may find therein death for our sins.

I. A Blessed Fact. “Ye are brought with a price.”

“Ye are bought.”

This is that idea of Redemption which modern critic dare to style mercantile.

The mercantile redemption is the Scriptural one; for the expression, “bought with a price,” is a double declaration of that idea.

1. This is either a fact or not. “Ye are brought, or ye are unredeemed.”

Redeemed - The term “redeem” denotes buying, acquiring, and this word was widely used to refer to the payment made to slaves.

When we apply this word to refer to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary, it means the same thing.

Therefore, if we are redeemed, it assumes that we were previously slaves.

2. If a fact, it is the fact of your life. A wonder of wonders.

3. It will remain to you eternally the greatest of all facts.

If true at all, it will never cease to be true, and it will never be outdone in importance by any other event.

4. It should, therefore, operate powerfully upon us both now and forever.

II. A Plain Consequence. “Ye are not your own.”

Negative. It is clear that if bought, ye are not your own.

1. This involves privilege.

You are not your own provider: sheep are fed by their shepherd.

You are not your own guide: ships are steered by their pilot.

2. This also involves responsibility.

We are not our own to hurt or wound. Neither body nor soul.

Not our own to waste, in idleness, amusement, or speculation (the forming of a theory without firm evidence:)

Not our own to exercise caprice (a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior:), and follow our own prejudices (preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience:), depraved affections, wayward wills, or irregular appetites.

Positive. “Your body and your spirit, which are God’s.”

We are altogether God’s. Body and spirit include the whole man or the whole woman.

We are always God’s. The price once paid, we are forever His.

III. A Practical Conclusion. “Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Glorify God in your body.

By cleanliness, chastity, temperance, self-denial, patience, etc.

Glorify God—

In a suffering body by patience unto death.

In a working body by holy diligence.

In a worshiping body by bowing in prayer.

In a well-governed body by self-denial.

In an obedient body by doing the Lord’s will with delight.

Glorify God in your spirit.

By holiness, faith, zeal, love, heavenliness, cheerfulness, fervor, humility, expectancy, etc.

• But why should so vast a price be required? Is man worth the cost?

A man may be bought in parts of the world for the value of an ox.

It was not man simply, but man in a certain relation, that had to be redeemed.

See one who has been all his days a drunken, idle, worthless fellow.

All appropriate to him the epiphet “worthless”—worth nothing.

But that man commits a crime for which he is sentenced to be hanged, or to be imprisoned for life.

Go and try to buy him now.

Redeem him and make him your servant.

Let the richest man in Cambridge offer every shilling he possesses for that worthless man, and his offer would be wholly vain, why?

Because now there is not only the man to be considered, but the law.

It needs a very great price to redeem one man from the curse of the law of England; but Christ came to redeem all men from the curse of the Divine law.