Running Away From Sin: Your Body Is Not Your Own
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Some difficulties in this passage
Subject is sexual immorality (porneia)
Prostitution? General? Something more specific?
General principle applied to a specific situation.
Exposition 1 (12-14)
12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
v 12 - Notice, your translation likely places quotation marks around “All things are lawful for me.”
Though the Greek does not grammatically signify this as a quote, it seems from the textual and historical context the best choice.
Remember that 1 Corinthians is a response letter to the church in Corinth.
The phrase in question is something that the church probably said to Paul in their letter and seems to be adopted from their secular philosophers.
It seems to me that this phrase “all things are lawful for me” is also adapted from the concept of freedom in Christ or Christian Liberty.
Notice how Paul responds.
He doesn’t argue against their principle but instead gives limiting principles. They compete in decision making. This doesn’t mean that they are right but rather that even if they were, there are Christian principles that limit the freedom that they assert that they have.
He gives two principles in this verse that counter their slogan
1. Christians ought to do things that are helpful.
2. Christians ought not to allow anything other than God to have mastery over them.
Paul doesn’t elaborate on the meaning of these. Based on context, helpfulness is likely others-focused (Church? World?).
Not having mastery or domination is easier to understand and is more self focused. Remember from our Scripture reading that Paul is going to quote Genesis 2:24.
What he is referring top here is the one flesh union of marriage...
In chapter 7 Paul tells us that husband and wife have authority over each other’s bodies...
There is irony here. While claiming freedom they are actually placing themselves under bondage.
13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
v 13
In verse 13, Paul presents another “slogan” that they used
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both one and the other. ”
The implication is that just as the stomach was designed to receive food, the human body was made to receive sexual pleasure.
They also seem to promote some type of gnostic idea here in that the body dies anyway so physical pleasures are of little consequence.
Paul, in this case responds with a more direct counter than in verse 12.
This time he says, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The First Letter to the Corinthians a. The Bodily Resurrection of Christ Underscores the Sanctity and Future of the Believer’s Body, 6:12–14
We may paraphrase: “The body is for service of and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ;44 and the Lord Jesus Christ stands for the sanctity and future of the believer’s body.”
The body is of value, it serves a purpose and that purpose is not your own but the Lord’s. In otherwords, using the body for your own desires rather than what the Lord would have you do is
14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
v 14
The Corinthians are undervaluing their own bodies
This leads us to our first point which is a ery general principle that Paul uses to make a very specific application. That general point is…NEXT SLIDE
I. Your body is of value and must be used for the purposes of God (12-14)
I. Your body is of value and must be used for the purposes of God (12-14)
Applications:
Sexual
Leisure
Eating
Exercise
Work
Rest
Exposition 2 (15-17)
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Your individual bodies are a “member” of the larger, corporate, body of Christ.
Prostitute is literal but also represents all that is opposed the Christ
16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”
Paul is not saying that “casual sexual relations” = marriage but that there is no such thing as “casual sexual relations” theses are things that only belong within the “one-flesh union” of a marriage. He is not telling them they are now married to these prostitutes but that they have bonded with them in a way that is unthinkable among Christians.
17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
As a member of the bride of Christ, you are bonded to the Lord
II. Members of Christ have no part in prostitution (15-17)
II. Members of Christ have no part in prostitution (15-17)
Obvious application
Extramarital sexual relationships?
premarital?
Pornography?
Further application beyond sexual sin
Perhaps you have sinned in this area, either pre or post conversion… Where is the hope you ask? …
Gospel
Exposition 3 (18-20)
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
III. Run away from sin and run toward Christ because you are God’s temple (18-20)
III. Run away from sin and run toward Christ because you are God’s temple (18-20)
Conclusion