The Sanctity of The Body
Notes
Transcript
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
1. Two guardrails to protect our Christian liberty, v. 12.
1. Two guardrails to protect our Christian liberty, v. 12.
Paul preached Christian liberty. To the churches in Galatia he wrote, Gal 5 1
It was for freedom that Christ set us free . . . .
However, many have ripped this verse from its context to justify all manner of excessive lifestyle or wanton immorality. In the culture that pervaded the city of Corinth, it is not hard to imagine that this word might have been taken as an endorsement for a hedonistic lifestyle among Christians.
Their imbalance fully embraced one side of Paul’s doctrine of liberty without embracing the other. Let’s read Galatians 5:1 once more.
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
They shouted “Amen” to the first part of Galatians 5:13
For you were called to freedom, brethren; .…
— but forsaken the rest of the sentence — Galatians 5:13
. . . only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
These indeed had been free from serving the old master, the Law of Moses, but forgotten that they have been joined to Christ in order to bear righteous fruit for God, Rom 7:4
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
It seems obvious that Paul said and what the Corinthians heard were two different things. To clear up this misunderstanding, Paul gives two guardrails to keep Christian liberty within its proper bounds:
1) Is it spiritually profitable?
1) Is it spiritually profitable?
The Greek word has the meaning of advantageous, useful, or beneficial and here implies a mutual edification—building up a group. Christian freedom should not be perverted into a license to do things that are not spiritually edifying.
2) Will my freedom become my master?
2) Will my freedom become my master?
Here is a wordplay; literally it means “I will allow nothing to win power over me.” Freedom must not be allowed to become a means of bondage.
The statement “All things are lawful for me” is considered by some scholars a slogan, a “Corinthianism,” a catchy statement that expresses a common thought in the culture of Corinth.
The next verses include another slogan in Corinth.
2. The significance of the body, vs. 13-14.
2. The significance of the body, vs. 13-14.
The slogan is “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them” found in the first part of verse 13. The foundational principle is the moral irrelevance of the body. It is because God allows for the destruction of the physical body that it is morally irrelevant. Therefore if the body is morally irrelevant, then whatever is done in the body is irrelevant, i.e. sexual promiscuity in the body doesn’t matter because the body will be destroyed. They reasoned something like this: “When your body is hungry, feed it. When it thirsts, quench it. When it lusts, indulge it. When it craves, satiate it.”
The last part of verse 13 is Paul’s contradiction to the slogan: the body is not for immorality. The body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. Paul’s gospel truth follows in verse 14.
Paul is saying that death is not the end of the believer’s body; resurrection is the ultimate end. Just as God raised the Lord, He will also raise us up; He is the efficient cause of both resurrections. God truly raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and His very body was not disposed of or annihilated, but glorified, transformed, and made immortal by the power of God. Our bodies also will be resurrected by the same power to live in an immortal, glorious, spiritual condition. qualitatively transformed, but the very bodies that have existed on this earth. Therefore, the Lord is for the body in that He will raise these same bodies up on the last day so that we may reign and rule as judges over heaven and earth with Christ. They should never be used for sexual immorality of any kind.
3. The worth of our bodies to God, vs. 15-20.
3. The worth of our bodies to God, vs. 15-20.
a. Our bodies are a physical extension of Christ in this world (15).
a. Our bodies are a physical extension of Christ in this world (15).
Figuratively speaking, each individual Christian are members of Christ’s body and together they form His body on earth, the church.
b. May it never be! (15).
b. May it never be! (15).
When a believer engages his/her body in sexual immorality, he/she is involving Christ’s own members in the illicit act. That is why Paul asks the hypothetical question: to expose the real meaning of a libertarian willingness to sleep with a prostitute, even though the Corinthians have not reached this conclusion yet for themselves.
To sleep with a prostitute is to involve Christ’s body in a sinful act. This is why Paul uses the strongest Greek term possible to negate a proposition.
God has declared in Genesis 2:24
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Moral or immoral, according to Genesis sexual intercourse effects a union between two people.
In verse 17, the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him, therefore the command to “Flee Immorality!” (v. 18).
The Corinthians may say, “ every sin that man commits is outside the body,” contending that the physical body is morally insignificant and cannot be used as an instrument of sin. One scholar put it this way: “Sin was possible but only on the level of motive and intention.”
But to Paul, the body matters both now and in the age to come, where verse 14 reminds us that the resurrection makes the body matter for the age to come.
c. Our body is a living temple of the Holy Spirit (19).
c. Our body is a living temple of the Holy Spirit (19).
The body is morally relevant in the present. Why?
1) The Holy Spirit dwells within the believer’s body; therefore making the physical body of the utmost importance in the present age.
1) The Holy Spirit dwells within the believer’s body; therefore making the physical body of the utmost importance in the present age.
2) The Holy Spirit is given by God to each believer.
2) The Holy Spirit is given by God to each believer.
3) Because we have been bought with a price, we are not our own, but are God’s.
3) Because we have been bought with a price, we are not our own, but are God’s.
The Corinthians are owned by God because He bought them at the cost of His Son. God’s indwelling Holy Spirit is the very ground of the believer’s hope that God will resurrect his/her body.
Contrast 1 Cor. 15:12
Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
There were those who yet denied the resurrection of the body.
Therefore, there were some who wanted to justify their immorality on a false belief that the body is morally irrelevant and does not fit in Christ’s redemptive work in the present or future.
Paul teaches because Christ has been bodily resurrected, so we too will be bodily resurrected into a better bodily existence to come.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul will write of the certainty of bodily resurrection. In these verses of Chapter 5, Paul focused on this hope of bodily resurrection to confront present bodily sexual sin (porneia).
The first imperative: Flee Immorality!
The second emphatic imperative: Glorify God in your body.
