Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 6:12
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.
12 20. The guilt of the Fornicator
12. All things are lawful unto me ] In this and the next two verses the main argument of the rest of the Epistle is sketched out, though not in the order afterwards followed by the Apostle. At present he takes them in the order of their importance. First he touches on the comparatively unimportant question of the distinction of meats, treated of at length in ch. 8, 10. Then he alludes to the relations of the sexes, the subject of ch. 1Co 6:12 to 1Co 7:40. And lastly he speaks of the great doctrine of the Resurrection, which stands in a close practical relation to the two former, and which is dealt with in ch. 15. The words in this verse appear to have become a watchword with some among the Corinthian Christians. Starting from the doctrine of Christian liberty taught by Christ (St Joh 8:32; Joh 8:36), and proclaimed with one mouth by His Apostles (Rom 8:2; Jas 2:12; 1Pe 2:16), they declared that the Christian was bound to a ‘service’ which was ‘perfect freedom.’ St Paul accepts the principle, but with limitations. No actions were in themselves unlawful, he was ready to admit, provided (1) that they were in accordance with God’s design in creation; (2) that they were calculated to promote the general welfare of mankind; and (3) that we were masters of our actions, not they of us. Bengel well remarks: “Spe Paulus prima persona eloquitur qu vim habent gnomes in hac prsertim epistola. 1Co 6:15, 1Co 10:23; 1Co 10:29-30 , 1Co 14:11,” and throughout Romans 7.
but all things are not expedient ] The word expedient ( profitable, margin, spedeful, Wiclif) from ex and pes, signifies originally, the condition of one who has his feet free; and hence that which frees us from entanglements, helps us on, expedites us, as we are accustomed to say. Its opposite, that which entangles us, is similarly called an impediment, Cf. the word speed. The sense “that which is advisable for the sake of some personal advantage,” “expedient” as opposed to what is based on principle, is a more modern sense of the word. Hence the meaning here is profitable: i.e. for others as well as ourselves. Cf. ch. 1Co 7:35, 1Co 10:33, where the derivative of the verb here used is translated ‘profit.’ Robertson gives a valuable practical illustration of the principle here laid down. “In the North on Sunday, men will not sound an instrument of music, or take a walk except to a place of worship. Suppose that an English Christian found himself in some Highland village, what would be his duty? ‘All things are lawful’ for him. By the law of Christian liberty he is freed from bondage to meats and drinks, to holidays or Sabbath days; but if his use of this his Christian liberty should shock his brother Christians, or become an excuse for the less conscientious among them to follow his example, against the dictates of their own conscience, then it would be his Christian duty to abridge his own liberty, because the use of it would be inexpedient,” or rather, unprofitable. Cf. 1Co 14:26-32.
brought under the power of any ] Compare the use of the same Greek word in St Luk 22:25, ‘exercise authority,’ and also in ch. 1Co 7:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
All things are lawful unto me – The apostle here evidently makes a transition to another subject from that which he had been discussing – a consideration of the propriety of using certain things which had been esteemed lawful. The expression, all things are lawful, is to be understood as used by those who palliated certain indulgences, or who vindicated the vices here referred to, and Paul designs to reply to them. His reply follows. He had been reproving them for their vices, and had specified several. It is not to be supposed that they would indulge in them without some show of defense; and the declaration here has much the appearance of a proverb, or a common saying – that all things were lawful; that is, God has formed all things for our use, and there can be no evil if we use them. By the phrase all things here, perhaps, may be meant many things; or things in general; or there is nothing in itself unlawful.
That there were many vicious persons who held this sentiment there can be no doubt; and though it cannot be supposed that there were any in the Christian church who would openly advocate it, yet the design of Paul was to cut up the plea altogether wherever it might be urged, and to show that it was false and unfounded. The particular flyings which Paul here refers to, are those which have been called adiaphoristic, or indifferent; that is, pertaining to certain meats and drinks, etc. With this Paul connects also the subject of fornication – the subject particularly under discussion. This was defended as lawful, by many Greeks, and was practiced at Corinth; and was the vice to which the Corinthian Christians were particularly exposed. Paul designed to meet all that could be said on this subject; and to show them that these indulgences could not be proper for Christians, and could not in any way be defended – We are not to understand Paul as admitting that fornication is in any case lawful; but he designs to show that the practice cannot possibly be defended in any way, or by any of the arguments which had been or could be used. For this purpose, he observes:
- That admitting that all things were lawful, there were many things which ought not to be indulged;
- That admitting that they were lawful, yet a man ought not to be under the power of any improper indulgence, and should abandon any habit when it had the mastery.
(3)That fornication was positively wrong, and against the very nature and essence of Christianity, 1Co 6:13-20.
Are not expedient – This is the first answer to the objection. Even should we admit that the practices under discussion are lawful, yet there are many things which are not expedient; that is, which do not profit, for so the word sumpherei properly signifies; they are injurious and hurtful. They might injure the body; produce scandal; lead others to offend or to sin. Such was the case with regard to the use of certain meats, and even with regard to the use of wine. Pauls rule on this subject is stated in 1Co 8:13. That if these things did injury to others, he would abandon them forever; even though they were in themselves lawful; see the 1 Cor. 8 note and Rom 14:14-23 notes. There are many customs which, perhaps, cannot be strictly proved to be unlawful or sinful, which yet do injury in some way if indulged in; and which as their indulgence can do no good, should be abandoned. Anything that does evil – however small – and no good, should be abandoned at once.
All things are lawful – Admitting this; or even on the supposition that all things are in themselves right.
But I will not be brought under the power – I will not be subdued by it; I will not become the slave of it.
Of any – Of any custom, or habit, no matter what it is. This was Pauls rule; the rule of an independent mind. The principle was, that even admitting that certain things were in themselves right, yet his grand purpose was not to be the slave of habit, not to be subdued by any practice that might corrupt his mind, fetter his energies, or destroy his freedom as a man and as a Christian. We may observe:
(1) That this is a good rule to act on. It was Pauls rule 1Co 9:27, and it will do as well for us as for him.
(2) It is the true rule of an independent and noble mind. It requires a high order of virtue; and is the only way in which a man may be useful and active.
(3) It may be applied to many things now. Many a Christian and Christian minister is a slave; and is completely under the power of some habit that destroys his usefulness and happiness. He is the slave of indolence, or carelessness, or of some vile habit – as the use of tobacco, or of wine. He has not independence enough to break the cords that bind him; and the consequence is, that life is passed in indolence, or in self-indulgence, and time, and strength, and property are wasted, and religion blighted, and souls ruined.
(4) The man that has not courage and firmness enough to act on this rule should doubt his piety. If he is a voluntary slave to some idle and mischievous habit, how can he be a Christian! If he does not love his Saviour and the souls of people enough to break off from such habits which he knows are doing injury, how is he fit to be a minister of the self-denying Redeemer?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 6:12-20
All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.
The lawful and the expedient
I. What is lawful for us in life? All things indifferent, i.e., not evil in themselves. The Christian has the widest liberty. He is not under the restriction of the older economy. To him every creature of God is good (1Ti 4:4). He must abide within the limits of the lawful; nothing that seems expedient outside those limits must be touched by him.
II. What is expedient within the limits of the lawful.
1. The Christian must not use his liberty indiscriminately; he must consider probable results. The end does not justify the means, hut the end often determines whether means, justifiable in themselves, shall he used or not. Means good enough in themselves may under certain conditions lead to most undesirable ends. Those ends foreseen determine that those means should not be employed.
2. The Christian has to select the truly expedient out of the truly lawful. Unlawful means ruin thousands; lawful means, unlawfully used, tens of thousands. Nowhere does the devil build his chapels more cunningly than by the side of the temple of Christian liberty. A Christian, before availing himself of his liberty, had need ask what will be the effect–
(1) On myself. Shall I be made less spiritual and useful?
(2) On my liberty. Liberty may commit suicide. Undue indulgence of liberty results in slavery. Paul was anxious not to he brought under the power of any, even lawful things.
(3) On my fellows. Will it aid or hinder them? (1Co 8:13).
(4) On God. Will it glorify Him? (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)
The practical distinction between things lawful and expedient
The text leads us to the contemplation of two very important particulars, the latter illustrative of the former, and closely connected with it, yet demanding separate consideration. The first is the practical distinction between things lawful and expedient; the second, the universal inexpediency of all those things which, by bringing us under their power, I will just remark that while the former of these particulars leads us to guard against the evils arising from external events and influences, the latter points more immediately at such as exist within us: the former has most direct reference to the effect of our conduct generally, and perhaps, in a principal degree, to its effect on others; the latter has relation chiefly to its operation upon ourselves. We may be led by both to the avoidance of one and the same evil; but they will present it under different aspects: the first as manifestly irreconcilable with our integrity or our profession, or injurious because of its obstructing the great purposes of our life; the last as insidious, as tending to lower the standard of our views and feelings, abating the energy of our resolutions; enfeebling the operation of our loftiest motives; making us, in short, less holy, less spiritual. These remarks will be confirmed by a simple reference to the text, which, in the most forcible manner, places the two points unitedly in our view. Of lawful things there are some it describes as to be avoided by a Christian, because they are not expedient; others it warns us to shun, because they would bring us under their power. Rather, perhaps, we ought to say, it speaks of the same objects, and leads us to regard them as connected with a twofold evil; that they are unprofitable in their direct influence, and calculated, in their indirect, to impair our spiritual and mental freedom. We may apply the passage in either way, and in both with manifest advantage. In some cases these evils are separate, in others they coincide. There are some things that merely hinder and obstruct our usefulness, and are for that reason inexpedient; there are others that have a perpetual tendency to debase us, and to bring us into vassalage under their power; but the greater number of inconsistencies unite both these effects, and are therefore to be avoided not only as improper in themselves, but because they will make us feel enslaved by them for the future. Having thus glanced at the general bearings of the subject, we shall now confine ourselves to the former of these particulars. We proceed, therefore, to exhibit the practical distinction between things lawful and things expedient. Is it asked, then, what is the foundation and essential nature of virtue? what the ultimate standard of morality? The answers to this question are various, and each appears supported by an array of the most specious reasonings. All cannot be true. They may, and do in many points, coalesce; but as far as they differ, they afford a presumption that each of them is imperfect, if not erroneous. It is said the standard is expediency; the tendency of every action to promote or hinder the general good: that those actions are right which advance, those unlawful which impede, the happiness not of the individual only, but of the whole. Thus morality is made the same thing with expediency, and the only reason for which any particular conduct is right, is because it is calculated for the increase of the general good. Now, against this principle there are very strong objections, and some which involve the most extensive consequences. When, in reply to such inquiries as these, Why am I obliged to speak the truth? (proposed by Dr. Paley himself, the author of the system referred to); or, Why is falsehood to be accounted criminal? When this limited answer is given, Only because they are contrary to the general good, we apprehend there is involved a serious and fundamental error, the substitution of what is secondary and adventitious for what is primary and in its nature essential. Surely there is a distinction, prior to all considerations of utility, between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, probity and baseness, spotless chastity and brutal indulgence. Surely there is another and an earlier reason for which to condemn some of these things, and to approve the opposite. We apprehend, also, that even if the principle were true, it would be practically inapplicable and useless; for it could be known only to God what actions were really calculated to advance the happiness of the whole. The ultimate consequences of every action are obviously beyond our knowledge, demanding a comprehensiveness of thought not less than that of Omniscience itself. Again, it appears to us to imply what can never be admitted in practice: that such considerations should, in many cases, prevail as relate to the general and last consequences of our actions, in opposition to all those which connect themselves with the individual and his present circumstances; for certainly no man is bound to sacrifice his personal welfare, and all that is most dear and necessary to himself, from a vague regard to the increase of the general happiness, nor yet to suspend all reference to the present, whatever its character may most imperiously require, till he shall have traced out the issue of his determinations in a distant and unknown futurity. Yet this impracticable and visionary principle is truly involved in the question of ultimate expediency as the law of our conduct. We will add only once more that this standard cannot be applied to the actual and immediate determination of mens conduct, and hence is of no practical utility even if it were ever so well established by argument. Before we could act according to this rule we must first balance and examine all the results of our conduct, through the wide extent of all connected being, and the long series of all even collateral and accidental consequences. But this is impossible, and the system which requires it cannot, as we think, be true. It is worthy of observation, then, that in the text there is an evident distinction made between the expediency and the lawfulness of actions, for it affirms that those things may be lawful that are not expedient. May we venture to deduce the converse–that some things may be, or seem, expedient, which yet are not lawful? We are aware that the advocates of the system to which we now object would demur to this suggestion, and say that nothing can be truly expedient, that is, truly and in the largest sense useful, which is not in itself good; and we admit that the statement is well founded, but it will not prevent the most mischievous mistakes in practice. He that shall make expediency alone, whether political or religious, or of whatever kind, his guide in conduct, will be betrayed inevitably into the most dangerous errors. When what is useful is substituted for what is just, or made identical with it, and the standard of rectitude is abandoned for, that of utility, the door is opened to a thousand evils. There are not wanting those who will plead for the worst abuses, the greatest perversions of principle and practice, upon the pretence that they are productive of advantage more than sufficient to outweigh the evil of their own nature. What other plea is adduced by those who disguise or modify their own Christian profession, lest they should give offence to the unthinking and the profane, on whom they may choose to be dependent? Paul resolves not, I will perform those things that are expedient, though they be not lawful; but I will not venture even upon lawful actions, if they be not expedient. I fear there is but too little of this strictness of principle amongst us. Many, alas! are willing to make a sad commutation of the just, the honourable, and the lawful, for the convenient, the profitable, and the agreeable, both in religion and in common life. Suffer me now to call your attention to the import of that striking expression in the text employed to characterise the things that are thus to be avoided: they are not expedient; rather, they are not profitable. They will not coalesce with that great purpose of the Christian life which alone is worthy of our desire and our exertions: that we may advance the glory and the cause of God; that we may be useful to our fellow-creatures. To the generous mind of the apostle nothing else seemed honourable or happy. Like his blessed Lord he had made it his meat and his drink to do the will of God. You behold, then, illustrated in the personal history of the apostle, the extent of his own language, and you will need no further comment on the phraseology of our text. Do you for a moment ask what is it that he disavows as inexpedient? You are prepared yourselves to reply; all that is thus unprofitable; or, as he has varied the expression in another place, All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not (1Co 10:23). All things are inexpedient which are found to be unprofitable–not those alone which may issue in direct injury. Whatever hinders his preparation for the exercises of religion, for the duties of common life, for the endurance of the Cross, for the resistance of temptation, and for his entrance, even in its very performance or enjoyment, into the world above, is thus manifestly unprofitable and inexpedient. That, too, is inexpedient which would restrict the usefulness either of our direct exertions or our general example, impairing the uniformity, the completeness, and the accuracy of our representation in practice, of all that constitutes the Christian character. For the same reason we must avoid what would, in any measure, interfere with the fullest and most unembarrassed discharge of every obligation, whether official or personal. There ought to be no disguise, no mystery, nothing dark and unintelligible, in one who is not of the night but of the day. Many things which the men of the world allow in others, they deem unsuitable to the character of a Christian. We should respect their judgment. We should watch over our actions with a godly jealousy. There remains one other class of cautions more momentous than the whole, which we have not hitherto presented. We must abstain, then, from the things that we have specified, not merely as tending to diminish our personal happiness and piety, or to lessen the effects of our example in promoting that of others, but as operating in a pernicious manner upon the cause of God and the honour of the Redeemer. Little do we often think how much our conduct is identified with that of Christianity itself, in the estimation of the world around us. We shall suppose the principle, then, to be admitted. You readily subscribe to the sentiment that if any action be found to be unprofitable and inexpedient it must therefore be avoided, even though it be not absolutely unlawful; and now you have no other duty remaining but to propose to your own conscience, as in the sight of God, the following practical inquiries. Is the indulgence in question such as would, in any measure, oppress or agitate my feelings, and indispose me for the duties of the sanctuary, or the family, or the closet? Should I reflect on it with approbation, or with regret, upon the bed of sickness, or in the chamber of death? Would it tend to the diminution of my present usefulness, bringing a cloud to hide the lustre of my character in the sight of the world; and so presenting an imperfect and inadequate, not to say positively erroneous, view of the Christian life? (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
Liberty in the use of the lawful
Our aim, in the former discourse, was to excite you to Christian vigilance and to a high appreciation of the obligations and effect of Christian consistency. We now proceed to a somewhat different view of the same subject, founding our remarks not on the former but the latter clause: All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any; and our object is to show that there is a necessity of caution in the use of even lawful things from their probable effect upon ourselves; that many may be dangerous which are not originally criminal. We shall endeavour to convince you that there are many things which, in single instances and acts, may not be very censurable, which yet, when suffered to become habitual, would tend to diminish or to destroy the holiness and elevation of a Christian character. You will be reminded that all the powers of men are in a state of imperfection and disorder; that they naturally incline to the corruptions of that state through which we now are passing. We shall call on you to recollect how hard it is to retrace our steps–to regain the path from which we may have wandered. The design which we shall principally pursue is to warn you against yourselves–against the allowance of too great a latitude to your natural tastes and inclinations. There may be some to whom the exhortations of our former discourse might seem inapplicable. They may reason thus: It is true that such indulgences as I delight in, and think it no crime to enjoy, might be most unseemly for a man of piety; but I have made no such profession; I am not, and I wish not to appear, a pious man. Now, in such circumstances, our text is fitted to afford a most instructive lesson. You are in the greater danger, and require the more scrupulous caution. You are the more liable to fall beneath the power of those indulgences which you think not sinful. What if in such as you they be not unlawful, are they, therefore, expedient? Will they involve you in no exposure to evil? And is there no need of watchfulness in one, that, even according to his own confession, is without God in the world–a man left to himself? Are you safer, then, while you are destitute of the grace of God than such men are with it? But, you reply, it is not the danger to their principles that would render such things inexpedient, neither is that danger to be apprehended to your own; it is the incongruity of their performance with the name they bear, and the superior strictness they are pledged ever to maintain. Still, the sentiment of our text applies to you; for that sentiment supposes that there is danger even in lawful things, and that the form wherein it is most to be apprehended is that they bring us insensibly under their power. And, besides, the question solemnly recurs, Why are you not a follower of Christ? Is sin not sin, then? Are trifling and dissipation and folly free from the charge of evil? But I must recall your attention to the subject immediately before us. There may be some who reflect that the cautions we have already given are suited only to the circumstances of such as are advanced in life; that they apply, with the greatest force to those in public stations, and of a conspicuous character; but that they are exempt. Their state of life is humble and obscure, or their age excuses them from the burden of so great a responsibility. Their example will not be productive either of injury or good. Now, surely there is no man, whatever his age or station, that can plead exemption from the necessity of the caution we would thus enforce. It is often a happiness and a safeguard to feel that our circumstances call on us for vigilance. But, on the other hand, I scarcely know a more fatal mistake than, from undervaluing the effect of our example, to suppose ourselves at liberty to relax our watchfulness.
I. We will briefly glance at the first of these particulars. It may perhaps surprise some to hear that we regard the text as presenting an enlarged and noble view of Christian liberty. They may fear, from the comprehensiveness of the terms, lest we are about to loosen the obligations of all morality, and maintain the pernicious dogma that there is no sin to a believer in Christ; that his transgressions are so fully visited upon his Surety, in their guilt and punishment, that they no longer attach to himself. We go as far as any man in maintaining the extent and absoluteness of the imputation of our sins to the Redeemer. But far be from us the impiety of saying, that in their case morality and immorality cease to retain their opposite and immutable nature. All things are lawful to them. Surely not such as are in their own nature criminal; but all that are usually regarded as indifferent. To be a Christian is to be delivered from the obligation of all that is ritual and secular in the ordinances of religion, and to be brought into the enjoyment of a faith the most pure, simple, spiritual. Further, the impositions of all authority which is merely human are contrary to the genius and spirit of the gospel. Again, a Christian is not to be subject to the scruples and superstitious fears that so often perplex the mind, when it has conceived, in an inadequate manner, of the boundaries of its obligations and duty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, and the man who has that Spirit is to preserve himself from bondage, with relation to those groundless apprehensions that perpetually haunt the consciences of many among the disciples of Jesus. Niceties of phrase and of observance, of dress and manners and external circumstances, reaching not to the vitals of Christianity. Good men sometimes encumber themselves with an unnecessary yoke, by the excess of their suspicion as to the lawfulness of many things to which no law can apply, and which can, in the strict sense, constitute neither a fulfilment nor a violation of our duty. There is a sickly tenderness of conscience, an excessive and shrinking sensibility, which not only exposes us to a large amount of pain such as it was never the design of our Master that we should be called to endure, but which also incapacitates us for the vigorous and efficient discharge of our duty. We may go on, then, upon our way rejoicing; and let no unnecessary fears harass and distract us. There are many gratifications and indulgences which the law of Christ has not forbidden, and of them therefore His followers may freely and innocently partake. Yet they have been prohibited as sinful by the injudicious zeal and false prudence of some who call themselves His disciples. Christianity is not a system of restriction and oppression. There is nothing forbidden us but what is evil either in itself or in its influence.
II. We proceed, then, to the second of the particulars, in what manner that Christian liberty of which we have spoken is to be practically secured; it is, in one word, by the exercise of Christian moderation. We are to say, with reference to every enjoyment, It is not unlawful, but it is inexpedient, and I will not be brought beneath its power. Are you solicited by gratifications that would consume your invaluable time, perhaps not in a very extensive degree in their single instances, but in their almost inevitable repetition; in their preparation and their consequences? Then stop; consider; calculate the results; ask yourselves whether you will gain or ultimately lose by such indulgence. Say if you have arrived at the conclusion that they will be hurtful in the end. They are lawful; I forswear them not. I could mingle, like others, delightfully in all the raptures they are fitted to impart; but I am a dying man; I know not how soon the frail thread of life may be cut off for ever; I must work while it is called to-day. Is the character of the delights you are tempted to participate, such as to excite, to undue and dangerous activity, any of the passions of our nature? Then they are inexpedient and hurtful. Let a Christian learn, in such things, to restrain his freedom that he may be truly free. There are forms of pleasure which, though innocent in themselves, yet place our conduct, in their ulterior consequences, injuriously in the power of others. They cannot be enjoyed alone, and hence they bring us into associations, the effect of which, though not immediately apparent, is to abridge our personal freedom by placing us in contact with the opposite sentiments and practice of those whom it is not safe to follow, in matters that even remotely affect religion and the concerns of the soul. But for such enjoyments, we might have remained in a happy separation from the ungodly. The recurring sight of what is evil, or even the habit of associating, without visible discrimination, with those who practise it, will tend to abate our positive disgust at its commission. In such instances, again, we behold the necessity of acting upon the salutary maxim presented in our text. It must be familiar to every serious and reflecting mind that there are many pleasures which, if they were in all other respects free from reproach, yet are on this account to be suspected; that they have a secret tendency to indispose and unfit us for the regular fulfilment of our duty. They exhaust the feelings; they impair our spirituality; they generate other and uncongenial habits; they are unfavourable to retirement; they produce a vagrancy of thought. I think it will be readily conceded by the candid hearer that our judgment, relative to the lawfulness or impropriety of many of our pleasures, is affected in a degree it would be very difficult to estimate, by our natural and constitutional temperament; by our tastes and aptitudes to the several diversities of sensitive or intellectual enjoyment. And hence arises a twofold fallacy. There are not a few who too severely condemn those whose gratifications they are themselves unable to participate. There are others who will at all hazards excuse and justify their own. Men of the former class need to be reminded that moroseness is not principle, and that a defective or a failing sense is a far different thing from Christian self-denial. And those of the latter must be warned that they extenuate not, in their own favourite department, what they would denounce with unmeasured condemnation in every other, that they do not substitute the impulses of natural feeling, or the pleasures of physical excitement for the joys of piety and the dictates of religion. Let them suppose the gratification in question to be one of another class, adapted to the indulgence of a different sense or a faculty which they have not cultivated, and then judge of their own as they would of that which their fancy has thus placed in its stead. Let the lover of music, for example, the man who professes himself exalted to the third heavens, while he listens to the deep and solemn strains of the pealing organ or the majestic choir; let him then, I say, while he feels the thrilling luxury of magic sound, and calls it worship and religion, imagine only that the lover of statuary or painting should, under the influence of the like excitement, describe the ecstasy of his enjoyments by the same appellation, and plead for the indulgences from whence they arise with the same earnestness, and on the same pretext. And, if he should plead by arguments like these for the introduction of objects calculated to afford him such delight in the same circumstances and on the same occasions, let the supposed devotee of music decide the question whether his plea were legitimate and his principles well founded; then let him transfer this judgment to himself, and he will perhaps discover that it is not his conscience but his taste, that has hitherto determined him with reference to those pleasures that he has accounted sacred; and he may thus be guided to a more just decision; and so in every ease. We are not concerned, then, to maintain that no emotions of piety, no sense of sacredness and reverence, may be connected with such enjoyments as we should account unseemly for a Christian, and from which it would be our counsel that he should conscientiously abstain, lest they lead him into danger, or fetter him in mental vassalage. From the whole subject we would briefly deduce the following practical exhortations. Bear ever in mind the intimate connection between your general consistency and the satisfactory evidence of your Christian character. Forget not that such consistency has an equal and inseparable connection with your habitual preparation for heaven. Reflect seriously on the awful consequences of being involved, through our unwise and dangerous indulgences, in the ruin and final condemnation of our brethren. Does any man object that we make the way of piety gloomy and difficult? We reply, this is at least more desirable than to leave it insecure. (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
The Christian rule in things indifferent
I. In the abstract all things are lawful. Because–
1. Every creature of God is good.
2. May be used with thanksgiving.
II. In practice all things are not expedient.
1. It may rob us of influence, &c.
2. It may become a stumbling-block to another.
III. In general all things must be under control.
1. Otherwise we become slaves.
2. Which is to degrade and imperil Christian character. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The limits of Christian rights
Men in the Corinthian Church, having heard the apostle teach the law of liberty, pushed that doctrine so far as to make it mean a right to do whatsoever a man wills to do. By these self-gratification was maintained on the ground of–
I. The rights of Christian liberty. Their watchword was, All things are lawful. It is easy to understand how this exaggeration came about. Men suddenly finding themselves freed from the restrictions of Jewish law naturally went very far in their Dew principles. St. Paul met this by declaring that Christian liberty is limited–
1. By Christian expediency. There are two kinds of best. It is absolutely best that war should cease. Relatively, it is best under present circumstances that a country should be ready to defend itself. A defensive fleet is expedient, and relatively best, but not the absolutely Christian best. Now that which limits this liberty is the profit of others.
2. By its own nature. I will not be brought under the power of any. It is that free self-determination which rules all things, which can enjoy or abstain at will. This liberty can manifest itself under outward restrictions. A Christian, as Christs freed man, had a right to be free; but if by circumstances he is obliged to remain a slave, he is not troubled. He can wear a chain or not with equal spiritual freedom. Now upon this the apostle makes this subtle and exquisitely fine remark:–To be forced to use liberty is actually a surrender of liberty. If I turn I may into I must, I am in bondage again. For observe, there are two kinds of bondage. I am not free if I am under sentence of exile, and must leave my country. But also I am not free if I am under arrest, and must not leave it. So too, if I think I must not touch meat on Friday, or that I must not read any but a religious book on a Sunday, I am in bondage. But again, if I am tormented with a scrupulous feeling that I did wrong in fasting, or if I feel that I must read secular books on Sunday to prove my freedom, then my liberty has become slavery again. It is a blessed liberation to know that natural inclinations are not necessarily sinful. But if I say all natural and innocent inclinations must be obeyed at all times, then I enter into bondage once more. He alone is free who can use outward things with conscientious freedom as circumstances vary; who can either do without a form or ritual, or can use it.
II. The rights of nature. There is some difficulty in the exposition of this chapter, because the apostle mixes together the pleas of his opponents with his own answers.
1. The first part of 1Co 6:13 contains two of these pleas.
(1) Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats–a natural correspondency. Nature, said they, herself says, Enjoy!
(2) The transitoriness of this enjoyment. God shall bring to an end both it and them. They do not belong to eternity, therefore indulgence is a matter of indifference. It is folly to think that these are sins, any more than the appetites of the brutes which perish.
2. To these two pleas St. Paul makes two answers.
(1) The body is not for self-indulgence, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, He tells of a more exact mutual correspondency. He reveals a true and higher nature. There is much confusion and dispute about this word nature. The nature of a watch is correspondence with the sun, perfect harmony of wheels and balance. But suppose that the regulator was removed, and the mainspring unchecked ran down, throwing all into confusion. Then two things might be said. One might say, It is the nature of that watch to err. But would it not be a higher truth to say, Its nature is to go rightly, and it is just because it has departed from its nature that it errs? So speaks the apostle. To be governed by the springs of impulse only–your appetites and passions–this is not your nature. For the nature is the whole man; the passions are but a part of the man. And therefore our redemption must consist in a reminder of what we are–what our true nature is.
(2) To the other plea he replies, The body will not perish. It is the outward form of the body alone which is transitory. Itself shall be renewed–a nobler, more glorious form, fitted for a higher and spiritual existence. Now here is the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and an awful argument against sin. Our bodies, which are members of Christ, to be ruled by His Spirit, become by sensuality unfit for immortality with Christ. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. All things are lawful unto me] It is likely that some of the Corinthians had pleaded that the offence of the man who had his father’s wife, as well as the eating the things offered to idols, was not contrary to the law, as it then stood. To this the apostle answers: Though such a thing be lawful, yet the case of fornication, mentioned 1Co 5:1, is not expedient, -it is not agreeable to propriety, decency, order, and purity. It is contrary to the established usages of the best and most enlightened nations, and should not be tolerated in the Church of Christ.
They might also be led to argue in favour of their eating things offered to idols, and attending idol feasts, thus:-that an idol was nothing in the world; and as food was provided by the bounty of God, a man might partake of it any where without defiling his conscience, or committing sin against the Creator. This excuse also the apostle refers to. All these things are lawful, taken up merely in the light that none of your laws is against the first; and that, on the ground that an idol is nothing in the world, there can be no reason against the last;
But I will not be brought under the power of any.] Allowing that they are all lawful, or at least that there is no law against them, yet they are not expedient; there is no necessity for them; and some of them are abominable, and forbidden by the law of God and nature, whether forbidden by yours or not; while others, such as eating meats offered to idols, will almost necessarily lead to bad moral consequences: and who, that is a Christian, would obey his appetite so far as to do these things for the sake of gratification? A man is brought under the power of any thing which he cannot give up. He is the slave of that thing, whatsoever it be, which he cannot relinquish; and then, to him, it is sin.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The words of this text are not so difficult in themselves, as it is to make out the connection they have with, and the dependence they have upon, what went before and what followeth after. Some, thinking that they refer unto what the apostle had said before about their going to law before infidels in the first seven verses, lest any should say: Is it not then lawful for men to sue at law for their just dues and rights? The apostle answers: Admit it be, yet Christians ought not only to consider what is strictly lawful and just, but they ought to consider circumstances; for: Quicquid non expedit, in quantum non expedit non licet, is an old and good rule; An action that is in itself lawful, may be by circumstances made sinful and unlawful; and that was the case as to the Christians going to law before infidels. But others, and those the most, think that the apostle here begins a new head of discourse to dissuade from the sin of fornication, and from an intemperate use of meat and drink, as being provocative of lust, and disposing them to that sin. Now, lest they should say, Is it not lawful then to eat and drink liberally, must we eat and drink for bare necessity? He answereth:
All things are lawful for me; that is, all things which are not forbidden by the law of God may be used, may be done, under fair circumstances; but circumstances may alter the case,
all things may not be expedient to be used or done by all persons, or at all times. The Corinthians might possibly conclude too much from what he had told them, that they were washed, justified, and sanctified, viz. that now all things were lawful to them, at least all things not simply and absolutely condemned in the word of God: the apostle correcteth their mistake, by telling them they were to have a regard to expedience, and the profit of others, the neglect of which might make things that were in themselves lawful to become unlawful. Besides that, they must take heed that they did not make such a use, even of lawful things, as to
be brought under the power of them; which men are, when they become potent temptations to them to sin against God any way.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. All things are lawful untomeThese, which were Paul’s own words on a former occasion (tothe Corinthians, compare 1Co 10:23;Gal 5:23), were made a pretextfor excusing the eating of meats offered to idols, and so of what wasgenerally connected with idolatry (Ac15:29), “fornication” (perhaps in the letter of theCorinthians to Paul, 1Co 7:1).Paul’s remark had referred only to things indifferent: butthey wished to treat fornication as such, on the ground that theexistence of bodily appetites proved the lawfulness of theirgratification.
mePaul giving himselfas a sample of Christians in general.
but Iwhatever othersdo, I will not, c.
lawful . . . brought underthe powerThe Greek words are from the same root, whencethere is a play on the words: All things are in my power,but I will not be brought under the power of any of them (the”all things”). He who commits “fornication,”steps aside from his own legitimate power or liberty, and is “broughtunder the power” of an harlot (1Co6:15 compare 1Co 7:4). The”power” ought to be in the hands of the believer,not in the things which he uses [BENGEL];else his liberty is forfeited; he ceases to be his own master(Joh 8:34-36; Gal 5:13;1Pe 2:16; 2Pe 2:19).Unlawful things ruin thousands; “lawful” things (unlawfullyused), ten thousands.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
All things are lawful unto me,…. That is, which are of an indifferent nature; otherwise everything is not lawful to be done:
but all things are not expedient; when the doing of them destroys the peace, comfort, and edification of others; when it stumbles and grieves weak minds, and causes offence to them; see 1Co 10:23
all things are lawful for me; which is repeated for the sake of saying the following words:
but I will not be brought under the power of any; which would be very inexpedient, should any by the use of liberty in things indifferent, on the one hand, offend his brethren, and, on the other, bring himself into bondage to those very things he has the free use of; and therefore the apostle determines, that these shall not have the mastery over him, that he will use them, or not use them, at his pleasure. It is somewhat difficult to know what in particular he has respect unto, whether to what he had been treating of before, concerning going to law before unbelievers; and his sense be, that however lawful this might be in itself, yet it was not expedient, since it was exposing of themselves to ungodly persons, and a putting themselves under their power to judge and determine as they pleased; or whether to the use of meats forbidden under the law, or offered to idols; which though in themselves lawful to be eaten, every creature of God being good, and not to be refused and accounted common and unclean; yet it was not expedient to use this liberty, if a weak brother should be grieved, or a man himself become a slave to his appetite.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Against Fornication. | A. D. 57. |
12 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. 13 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. 14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. 15 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 a harlot? God forbid. 16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19 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? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
The 1Co 6:12; 1Co 6:13 seem to relate to that early dispute among Christians about the distinction of meats, and yet to be prefatory to the caution that follows against fornication. The connection seems plain enough if we attend to the famous determination of the apostles, Acts xv., where the prohibition of certain foods was joined with that of fornication. Now some among the Corinthians seem to have imagined that they were as much at liberty in the point of fornication as of meats, especially because it was not a sin condemned by the laws of their country. They were ready to say, even in the case of fornication, All things are lawful for me. This pernicious conceit Paul here sets himself to oppose: he tells them that many things lawful in themselves were not expedient at certain times, and under particular circumstances; and Christians should not barely consider what is in itself lawful to be done, but what is fit for them to do, considering their profession, character, relations, and hopes: they should be very careful that by carrying this maxim too far they be not brought into bondage, either to a crafty deceiver or a carnal inclination. All things are lawful for me, says he, but I will not be brought under the power of any, v. 12. Even in lawful things, he would not be subject to the impositions of a usurped authority: so far was he from apprehending that in the things of God it was lawful for any power on earth to impose its own sentiments. Note, There is a liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, in which we must stand fast. But surely he would never carry this liberty so far as to put himself into the power of any bodily appetite. Though all meats were supposed lawful, he would not become a glutton nor a drunkard. And much less would he abuse the maxim of lawful liberty to countenance the sin of fornication, which, though it might be allowed by the Corinthian laws, was a trespass upon the law of nature, and utterly unbecoming a Christian. He would not abuse this maxim about eating and drinking to encourage any intemperance, nor indulge a carnal appetite: “Though meats are for the belly and the belly for meats (v. 13), though the belly was made to receive food, and food was originally ordained to fill the belly, yet if it be not convenient for me, and much more if it be inconvenient, and likely to enslave me, if I am in danger of being subjected to my belly and appetite, I will abstain. But God shall destroy both it and them, at least as to their mutual relation. There is a time coming when the human body will need no further recruits of food.” Some of the ancients suppose that this is to be understood of abolishing the belly as well as the food; and that though the same body will be raised at the great day, yet not with all the same members, some being utterly unnecessary in a future state, as the belly for instance, when the man is never to hunger, nor thirst, nor eat, nor drink more. But, whether this be true or no, there is a time coming when the need and use of food shall be abolished. Note, The expectation we have of being without bodily appetites in a future life is a very good argument against being under their power in the present life. This seems to me the sense of the apostle’s argument; and that this passage is plainly to be connected with his caution against fornication, though some make it a part of the former argument against litigious law-suits, especially before heathen magistrates and the enemies of true religion. These suppose that the apostle argues that though it may be lawful to claim our rights yet it is not always expedient, and it is utterly unfit for Christians to put themselves into the power of infidel judges, lawyers, and solicitors, on these accounts. But this connection seems not so natural. The transition to his arguments against fornication, as I have laid it, seems very natural: But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, v. 13. Meats and the belly are for one another; not so fornication and the body.
I. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. This is the first argument he uses against this sin, for which the heathen inhabitants of Corinth were infamous, and the converts to Christianity retained too favourable an opinion of it. It is making things to cross their intention and use. The body is not for fornication; it was never formed for any such purpose, but for the Lord, for the service and honour of God. It is to be an instrument of righteousness to holiness (Rom. vi. 19), and therefore is never to be made an instrument of uncleanness. It is to be a member of Christ, and therefore must not be made the member of a harlot, v. 15. And the Lord is for the body, that is, as some think, Christ is to be Lord of the body, to have property in it and dominion over it, having assumed a body and been made to partake of our nature, that he might be head of his church, and head over all things, Heb 2:5; Heb 2:18. Note, We must take care that we do not use what belongs to Christ as if it were our own, and much less to his dishonour.
II. Some understand this last passage, The Lord is for the body, thus: He is for its resurrection and glorification, according to what follows, v. 14, which is a second argument against this sin, the honour intended to be put on our bodies: God hath both raised up our Lord, and will raise us up by his power (v. 14), by the power of him who shall change our vile body, and make it like to his glorious body by that power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself, Phil. iii. 21. It is an honour done to the body that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead: and it will be an honour to our bodies that they will be raised. Let us not abuse those bodies by sin, and make them vile, which, if they be kept pure, shall, notwithstanding their present vileness, be made like to Christ’s glorious body. Note, The hopes of a resurrection to glory should restrain Christians from dishonouring their bodies by fleshly lusts.
III. A third argument is the honour already put on them: Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? v. 15. If the soul be united to Christ by faith, the whole man is become a member of his mystical body. The body is in union with Christ as well as the soul. How honourable is this to the Christian! His very flesh is a part of the mystical body of Christ. Note, It is good to know in what honourable relations we stand, that we may endeavour to become them. But now, says the apostle, shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Or, take away the members of Christ? Would not this be a gross abuse, and the most notorious injury? Would it not be dishonouring Christ, and dishonouring ourselves to the very last degree? What, make a Christ’s members the members of a harlot, prostitute them to so vile a purpose! The thought is to be abhorred. God forbid. Know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with hers? For two, says he, shall be one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit,1Co 6:16; 1Co 6:17. Nothing can stand in greater opposition to the honourable relations and alliances of a Christian man than this sin. He is joined to the Lord in union with Christ, and made partaker by faith of his Spirit. One spirit lives and breathes and moves in the head and members. Christ and his faithful disciples are one, Joh 17:21; Joh 17:22. But he that is joined to a harlot is one body, for two shall be one flesh, by carnal conjunction, which was ordained of God only to be in a married state. Now shall one in so close a union with Christ as to be one spirit with him yet be so united to a harlot as to become one flesh with her? Were not this a vile attempt to make a union between Christ and harlots? And can a greater indignity he offered to him or ourselves? Can any thing be more inconsistent with our profession or relation? Note, The sin of fornication is a great injury in a Christian to his head and lord, and a great reproach and blot on his profession. It is no wonder therefore that the apostle should say, “Flee fornication (v. 18), avoid it, keep out of the reach of temptations to it, of provoking objects. Direct the eyes and mind to other things and thoughts.” Alia vitia pugnando, sola libido fugiendo vincitur–Other vices may be conquered in fight, this only by flight; so speak many of the fathers.
IV. A fourth argument is that it is a sin against our own bodies. Every sin that a man does is without the body; he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body (v. 18); every sin, that is, every other sin, every external act of sin besides, is without the body. It is not so much an abuse of the body as of somewhat else, as of wine by the drunkard, food by the glutton, c. Nor does it give the power of the body to another person. Nor does it so much tend to the reproach of the body and render it vile. This sin is in a peculiar manner styled uncleanness, pollution, because no sin has so much external turpitude in it, especially in a Christian. He sins against his own body he defiles it, he degrades it, making it one with the body of that vile creature with whom he sins. He casts vile reproach on what he Redeemer has dignifies to the last degree by taking it into union with himself. Note, We should not make our present vile bodies more vile by sinning against them.
V. The fifth argument against this sin is that the bodies of Christians are the temples of the Holy Ghost which is in them, and which they have of God, v. 19. He that is joined to Christ is one spirit. He is yielded up to him, is consecrated thereby, and set apart for his use, and is hereupon possessed, and occupied, and inhabited, by his Holy Spirit. This is the proper notion of a temple–a place where God dwells, and sacred to his use, by his own claim and his creature’s surrender. Such temples real Christians are of the Holy Ghost. Must he not therefore be God? But the inference is plain that hence we are not our own. We are yielded up to God, and possessed by and for God; nay, and this is virtue of a purchase made of us: You are bought with a price. In short, our bodies were made for God, they were purchased for him. If we are Christians indeed they are yielded to him, and he inhabits and occupies them by his Spirit: so that our bodies are not our own, but his. And shall we desecrate his temple, defile it, prostitute it, and offer it up to the use and service of a harlot? Horrid sacrilege! This is robbing God in the worst sense. Note, The temple of the Holy Ghost must be kept holy. Our bodies must be kept as his whose they are, and fit for his use and residence.
VI. The apostle argues from the obligation we are under to glorify God both with our body and spirit, which are his, v. 20. He made both, he bought both, and therefore both belong to him and should be used and employed for him, and therefore should not be defiled, alienated from him, and prostituted by us. No, they must be kept as vessels fitted for our Master’s use. We must look upon our whole selves as holy to the Lord, and must use our bodies as property which belongs to him and is sacred to his use and service. We are to honour him with our bodies and spirits, which are his; and therefore, surely, must abstain from fornication; and not only from the outward act, but from the adultery of the heart, as our Lord calls it, Matt. v. 28. Body and spirit are to be kept clean, that God may be honoured by both. But God is dishonoured when either is defiled by so beastly a sin. Therefore flee fornication, nay, and every sin. Use your bodies for the glory and service of their Lord and Maker. Note, We are not proprietors of ourselves, nor have power over ourselves, and therefore should not use ourselves according to our own pleasure, but according to his will, and for his glory, whose we are, and whom we should serve, Acts xxvii. 23.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Lawful (). Apparently this proverb may have been used by Paul in Corinth (repeated in 10:23), but not in the sense now used by Paul’s opponents. The “all things” do not include such matters as those condemned in chapter 1Cor 6:1; 1Cor 6:1-11. Paul limits the proverb to things not immoral, things not wrong per se. But even here liberty is not license.
But not all things are expedient (‘ ). Old word , bears together for good and so worthwhile. Many things, harmless in themselves in the abstract, do harm to others in the concrete. We live in a world of social relations that circumscribe personal rights and liberties.
But I will not be brought under the power of any ( ). Perhaps a conscious play on the verb for is from and that from . Verb from Aristotle on, though not common (Dion. of Hal., LXX and inscriptions). In N.T. only here, 1Cor 7:4; Luke 22:25. Paul is determined not to be a slave to anything harmless in itself. He will maintain his self-control. He gives a wholesome hint to those who talk so much about personal liberty.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Are lawful [] . There is a play between this word and ejxousiasqhsomai be brought under the power, which can hardly be accurately conveyed to the English reader. The nearest approach to it is :
“all things are in my power, but I shall not be brought under the power of any.”
Will – be brought under the power [] . From ejxousia power of choice, permissive authority. See on Mr 2:10. This in turn is derived from exesti it is permitted. See above on are lawful. This kinship of the two words explains the play upon them.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) All things are lawful unto me. (panta moi eksestin) all kind of things are lawful to me, to have and hold. Paul had civil liberties, rights under law for which it was not best to claim where and when such would be hurtful to the brethren or the Church.
2) But all things are not expedient. (alla ou panta sumpherei) but all kinds of things are not advantageous, or expedient to me, in using my influence best to the glory of God, Paul asserted.
3) All things are lawful for me. One had a civil legal right, to resort to civil law to secure the object of his contention in business or civil disputes, but Paul argued that he would not pursue such to the hurt of the church, See?
4) But, I will not be brought under the power of any. (alla ouk ego eksousiasthesomai hupo tinos) But I will not permit myself to be ruled by a single lawful thing to the hurt of my influence.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
12. All things are lawful for me. Interpreters labor hard to make out the connection of these things, (345) as they appear to be somewhat foreign to the Apostle’s design. For my own part, without mentioning the different interpretations, I shall state what, in my opinion, is the most satisfactory. It is probable, that the Corinthians even up to that time retained much of their former licentiousness, and had still a savor of the morals of their city. Now when vices stalk abroad with impunity, (346) custom is regarded as law, and then afterwards vain pretexts are sought for by way of excuse; an instance of which we have in their resorting to the pretext of Christian liberty, so as to make almost everything allowable for themselves to do. They reveled in excess of luxury. With this there was, as usual, much pride mixed up. As it was an outward thing, they did not think that there was any sin involved in it: nay more, it appears from Paul’s words that they abused liberty so much as to extend it even to fornication. Now therefore, most appropriately, after having spoken of their vices, he discusses those base pretexts by which they flattered themselves in outward sins.
It is, indeed, certain, that he treats here of outward things, which God has left to the free choice of believers, but by making use of a term expressive of universality, he either indirectly reproves their unbridled licentiousness, or extols God’s boundless liberality, which is the best directress to us of moderation. For it is a token of excessive licentiousness, when persons do not, of their own accord, restrict themselves, and set bounds to themselves, amidst such manifold abundance. And in the first place, he limits liberty (347) by two exceptions; and secondly, he warns them, that it does not by any means extend to fornication. These words, All things are lawful for me, must be understood as spoken in name of the Corinthians, κατ ᾿ ἀνθυποφορὰν, (by anticipation,) as though he had said, I am aware of the reply which you are accustomed to make, when desirous to avoid reproof for outward vices. You pretend that all things are lawful for you, without any reserve or limitation.
But all things are not expedient Here we have the first exception, by which he restricts the use of liberty — that they must not abandon themselves to licentiousness, because respect must be had to edification. (348) The meaning is, “It is not enough that this or that is allowed us, to be made use of indiscriminately; for we must consider what is profitable to our brethren, whose edification it becomes us to study. For as he will afterwards point out at greater length, (1Co 10:23,) and as he has already shown in Rom 14:13, etc., every one has liberty inwardly (349) in the sight of God on this condition, that all must restrict the use of their liberty with a view to mutual edification.
I will not be brought under the power of anything Here we have a second restriction — that we are constituted lords of all things, in such a way, that we ought not to bring ourselves under bondage to anything; as those do who cannot control their appetites. For I understand the word τινος (any) to be in the neuter gender, and I take it as referring, not to persons, but to things, so that the meaning is this: “We are lords of all things; only we must not abuse that lordship in such a way as to drag out a most miserable bondage, being, through intemperance and inordinate lusts, under subjection to outward things, which ought to be under subjection to us.” And certainly, the excessive moroseness of those who grudge to yield up anything for the sake of their brethren, has this effect, that they unadvisedly put halters of necessity around their own necks.
(345) “ A le conioindre avec ce qui a este dit auparauant;” — “To connect it with what has been said before.”
(346) “ Or ou on peche a bride auallee, et la ou les vices ne sont point corrigez;” — “Where persons sin with a loose bridle, and where vices are not punished.”
(347) “ La liberte Chrestienne;” — “Christian liberty.”
(348) “ L’edification du prochain;” — “The edification of their neighbor.”
(349) “ En sa conscience;” — “In his conscience.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
SECOND MAIN TOPIC.1Co. 6:12-20
1Co. 6:12. Lawful.Here, and in 1Co. 10:23. To be put in quotation marks, All lawful. His own words, or something like them, quoted and misused by the Antinomian party. [Cf. the misuse of Christs actual words, Mar. 14:58, from Joh. 2:19.] Expedient.Study Pauls expediency; here, 1Co. 10:23; 2Co. 8:10; 2Co. 12:1; Rom. 14:13 sq, Compare All things to all men, that I may save, 1Co. 9:22. (See Appended Homilies, more fully.)
1Co. 6:13.Christ ate broiled fish and honeycomb (Luk. 24:42) after His resurrection, but only to help affrighted, bewildered disciples to realise that He was not simply a phantasm, but a substantial reality.
1Co. 6:15. Take.Take away, q.d. from Christ to whom they belong and are joined (Evans).
1Co. 6:16. Saith he.Adam; or saith it, viz. Genesis. In either case notice that the word is regarded as a fundamental, inspired word of God.
1Co. 6:18. Flee.When a temptation of lust assaults thee, do not resist it by heaping up arguments against it and disputing with it, considering its offers and its danger; but fly from it, that is, think not at all of it; lay aside all consideration concerning it, and turn away from it by any severe and laudable thought of business. St. Hierome very wittily reproves the Gentile superstition, who pictured the Virgin Deities armed with a shield and lance, as if chastity could not be defended without war and direct contention. No; this enemy is to be treated otherwise. If you hear it speak, though but to dispute with it, it ruins you, and the very arguments you go about to answer leave a relish upon the tongue. A man may be burned if he goes near the fire, though but to quench his house; and by handling pitch, though but to draw it from your clothes, you defile your fingers (Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, sect. iii.). He also quotes Augustine: Contra libidinis impetum apprehende fugam, si vis obtinere victoriam. Observe imperfect tense, q.d. Flee, and flee (Evans). Every sin.Natural to supply, and read, Every other sin. But query? Does he rather put fornication into a category, a genus, with but one species, and that having but one, unique, abnormal, abhorrent example? Sins may sufficiently classify and condemn other evil acts. But this? We want another, blacker, more terrible name with which to head its category. Difficulty oftener with every. Common view that Apostle speaking in general form, that exact words not to be pressed (tales sententi morales non morose urgend, Beng.), there being some sins, e.g. intemperance, which can hardly be said to be completely without the body. The true force of what already said thus seriously weakened: there is no sin which is within the body in the frightful form in which fornication is. By it the whole body, inwardly as well as outwardly, is made over to another, and is utterly separated from Christ. Intemperance and self-murder involve acts injuriously affecting the body, yet done from without; but the sin of the fornicator is, so to say, within the body, and using it as a direct agent and implement. Fornication is a sin against the personality, in a form and to an extent far beyond that of any other sin of sensuality (slightly condensed from Ellicott). Without the body.They require some motive or weapon other than the body. But this sin stands alone in making the human body, the chosen medium of Christs self-manifestation to the world, to be itself a sufficient motive and instrument of sin (Beet). Observe not without within, but without against; as if others missed, though aimed at; this hits, the body. (So Evans.)
1Co. 6:19.This more than Ye are (collectively) the Temple (1Co. 3:16).
1Co. 6:20.It is an over-subtle, over-pressing, use of idea of ransom to endeavour to fix precisely to whom price paid. Analogy of ransom only fits serviceably the two ideas,bought by the new owner, to deliver from an old, to keep for himself, whose new service is (practically) liberty, and is (absolutely) deliverance from old bondage. 1Pe. 1:19, Precious blood, (even the blood) of Christ. Note particularly the true reading here. Last words to be omitted.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.1Co. 6:12-20
[Direct, public, homiletic use of whole paragraph plainly possible only under exceptional circumstances and within narrow limits. Particular clauses very available and fruitful. May suggest:]
I. A great principle (1Co. 6:12). Its limitations.
II. A great sin (1Co. 6:18; 1Co. 6:15).
III. A great honour (1Co. 6:17; 1Co. 6:13-15; 1Co. 6:19), of even the body.
IV. A great ransom (1Co. 6:20).
V. A great obligation (1Co. 6:20).
I. A. Christianity is liberty.
1. From old Jewish law, as such; from external law, as the prime principle of action or guide of life. Not a religion of restrictions, external prescriptions; its law is the love of the renewed heart. If this were perfectin proportion as this love advances to being made perfect (1Jn. 4:17-18)so far, and then, obedience is perfect. Love God with all the heart, love neighbour as oneselfthese mean, worked out in detail, all piety, all benevolence, taught by the instinct of a renewed heart, needing therefore no command (Rom. 13:8; Rom. 13:10). Hence Augustines bold word, Dilige, et quod vis fac.
2. In practice, even the growing love still needs the guidance of external command; to guard from mistakes arising from ignorance, and from the half-enlightened instinct; to defend itself against the blinding and bias of indolence, indifference, self-interest, pressure of example or fear. The Jewish law embodied, in temporary forms and in particular instances, principles, permanent and perfectly general, still binding upon Christians; under (even that) law to Christ (1Co. 9:21). The heart runs in the way of the commandment. Law and liberty, love and life, coincide.
3. Paul had probably said this; but it had been repeated as, Do what you like. True, as a theory of life, but not as working basis of action. What you like will be Gods lawnot less nor morewhen perfect love and perfect judgment are found, and in a perfect world. But so long as, in this complex social order, light is scanty, judgment imperfectly cleared, love only variable or feeble, what you like is the true centre indeed from which to strike the circle of Christian liberty, but the radius varies in length from age to age, country to country, person to person, and may widen or narrow the sphere of Christian liberty.
B. Three limitations formulated by Paul.
1. Not expedient; (a) because tending to mastery; (b) because unedifying.
2. Distinctly sinful. (See Separate Homily.) Expediency, on Pauls lips, is a solemnly weighed rule of life, limiting his liberty in even things indifferent; the worlds expediency extends liberty, even to things doubtful or wrong, depending as it does upon no higher considerations than of prudence and interest, or even profit. A Christian is lord of this world and its life. His lordship is part of another Lordship, that of Christ (Heb. 2:5-10; Mar. 2:28). All things are His (1Co. 3:21). But all do not, or do not equally, help his true, eternal life; many things tend to establish a sway over his will, fatal to his freedom to serve his Lord; these it is expedient for him to let alone. Some actions (e.g. the use of stimulants) tend to create in some persons an irresistible habit. Now whatever deprives us of self-control does us harm, and must therefore be avoided, even though in itself lawful (Beet). Master of all things, he must first, and at all costs, be master of himself. Otherwise in the individual is repeated that bondage of the designed Master and Lord to that Nature and that World which were designed to serve him; a bondage from which The Man, Jesus, has recovered Man; that He may then recover the individual man, and reinstate him with Himself in Mans rightful dominion. (The far-reaching teaching of Hebrews, ubi supra.) The Christian must be a co-worker with his Liberator, Christ, in seeing that no new, needless bondage is imposed by his own inadvertence, or by his ill-judged use of an abstract liberty.
II. A. Fornication not a thing indifferent.[Best classical, heathen ethics put it perfectly on a level with the desire for, and indulgence in, food and drink. Physical purity was a thing hardly known outside the Jewish and Christian pale. They hardly regarded the body as part of the true man. Its acts and appetites seemed, in a sense, external to the man himself, and therefore indifferent.]
1. In the animals the three bodily appetites do stand upon same level; in them each is quite neutral, non-moral; needful to sustain, or to hand on, animal life. In man they do not occupy same level. [Jeremy Taylor points out thus one plain distinction: If a man be hungry he must eat, and if he be thirsty he must drink in some convenient time, or else he dies; but if the body be rebellious, so the mind be chaste, let it do its worst, if you resolve perfectly not to satisfy it, you can receive no great evil by it.]
2. We cannot state an equality of ratios thus: As Belly to Meats so is Body to Fornication. [Probably, so baldly stated as that, not even a Corinthian Christian would have defended the principle which seemed to underlie the arguments (? and the practice) of the Antinomian party.] Not even in the case of the Belly was the physical pleasure the design of its creation and co-adaptation to Meats. Certainly, in the parallel case, the body was not created for the pleasure.
3. Belly and Food have a mutual adaptation for the sake of the bodys support; yet they have only in view the support of a life which must end at the same time as they are destroyed together. So far as the body, in its formation and endowment with the third appetite, has reference to mans life, it is to that whole complete life which has a capacity for God and Eternity. Food and the food organs co-operate to keep the mere physical and dying part of the man in temporary repair. Man and woman are co-workers with God in reproducing or handing on manhood in its entirety, with a future, eternal, destiny for the body as well as for the soul and spirit. Belly has no higher end than meats. The body is for the Lord. Belly and Meats perish together when their work is done; God will raise (not body, but) us. That is the end and future of the body. The cases are quite distinct. Again,
4. Fornication is paralleled by no other physical sin in its relation to the body. Beyond any other, it finds within the body itself what it makes the means of pleasure. The man makes his very self the instrument of his sin.
B. Further reasons arise out of the fact that this sin runs most utterly counter to III. (See also under 1Co. 6:1).
III. A great honour, and that for even the body of man.A. A most intimate oneness with Christ. One spirit.
1. Compare with this the closest friendship based upon similarity of tastes, pursuits, interests, long association from childhood; however closely these may approximate two hearts and lives, yet there are diversities, which may widen into divergencies and divisions. Change on either sideif even only as the result of individual growth, which cannot be enforced to a pattern, and made to proceed in duplicatemay make a very choice, close, intimate association drop through. Much more may a wrongly spoken or wrongly understood word, break it up.
2. Compare the bond set up by blood-relationship, as between sisters, or sisters and brothers in same family, with many sympathies in common, and all the bond of clannishness to hold them together, and even to make external attack draw the bond only tighter. Yet a brother may become a stranger; there are friends that stick closer than brethren. [Pro. 18:24 is a general observation on human life; though fairly to be applied, as the highest exemplification, to Christ.] The bond between Christian and Christian is often stronger than between a man and his (non-Christian) kith-and-kin; the common understanding of each others aims and feelings and experiences is deeper and truer than that which natural kinship gives; Christian affinity is often more than brotherly, sisterly affinity.
3. Nearest to it approachesand that for a very real and profound reasonthe union between a Christian husband and wife, where to all the natural basis of an ideal marriage there is added the common sharing in the life of grace. (See chap. 7, passim.)
4. Yet in these there is association, approximation, assimilation, union, communionno more. In this other there is unity. In those there is individual life, with its self-contained independence, its possibilities of divergence, its peril of developing antagonism. The soul of Jonathan was knit to soul of David (1Sa. 18:1) comes very near. Yet each heart even then has its penetralia, its Holy of Holies, of privacy, into which no most trusted and beloved foot must intrude, or can be admitted.
5. Here is unity, almost identification. I live no longer; Christ liveth in me. As if in the believer the man came into contact and relation with an extension of his Lord. Not only two parallel lives, however perfectly conformed to each other, echoing, reflecting, each otheras in the ordinary human unions; but one life. Because of one life principle. [One because of one .] [Dare we illustrate by seal and impression (Heb. 1:3), resting on a deeper onenessthe unity of the Godhead? Distinction, with likeness and oneness. Note, As the Father hath loved me, so (= thus, in that way), have I loved you (Joh. 15:9).] As if, in a body, intelligence and affection were distributed as life is, so that, e.g., the hand or foot could know each other, or either could know and understand the head, as the head knows and understands them. Not only a similar, or the same, kind of life, but one and the Same life, distributes itself throughout both and all. [Not be overpressed: these are all serviceable analogies, no more; to be criticised and checked each one by the others. No Mystic extreme of a literal merging of the believer and his life into Christ and His life till the man is lost. The individuality, the personality, the Ego, remains unimpaired. I am I, and He is He; even when I become one spirit with Him.]
6. To be remembered that the unity rests upon, and is effected and maintained by, the Work and Indwelling of the Holy Ghost (1Co. 6:19, and Separate Homily). See how interchangeablythough not without a reason for, and a propriety in, each chosen expressionare employed the phrases, The Spirit of God dwells in you, and Christ be in you (Rom. 8:9-10); the Spirit dwelling in a man, and yet so the Spirit of Christ, that He becomes the common element of life between the believer and his Lord.
7. And thus, further, the Unity was set up in the moment of our faith in (into) Christ, and is maintained so long, and only so long, as nothing impairs or hinders, or negatives and interrupts, a continuous believing.
8. What suggestions in all these, avowedly imperfect, and soon misleading, analogies! They help us to climb to a height from which we see rather than reach possibilities that stretch away in length, breadth, depth, height,a Canaan of blessing spread out before our eyes in fair extent, and One by usno temptersaying, All may be thine, soul! They guide, not actually leading very far, but sufficiently far to show us the direction in which our thought and heart may prayerfully, hopefully, believingly, venture to go forward and explore. Partakers of the Divine nature (2Pe. 1:4) opens a wonderful vista before the eyes.
9. What a profound understanding of Christ is suggested. We have the mind of Christ (1Co. 2:16; where mind is not characteristics, or the mind which was in Christ, but a knowledge of His mind). Love is a good master-key, unlocking one mind to the entrance of another into its movements and workings. He who loves me understands me. (Conversely: He will never understand or know me; he does not like me.) But to be partaker of His life! Sharing, as well as understanding, His sympathies [e.g. how Paul longs after his people in the bowels of Christ (Php. 1:8)]; making plans, and yet these not a mans own, but Christs in him [Paul lays his plans in Christ, cf. 2Co. 1:17]. [Paul speaks in Christ repeatedly, as if his were no independent voice.]
10. What a conformity of thought and will and practice to those of Christ Himself is suggested. [Grow up into Him in all things (Eph. 4:15, etc.).] Beginning with inward likeness, the outward expression of my life and His will more and more coincide. The two wills both there [as against Mysticism], but the free-will of man using its freedom to choose to choose what He chooses, and working in coincident movement with His will.
B. In all this the body has its part.The inner union carries the body with it.
1. It has now an object and a destiny; it is not a mere separable accident of the man. It belongs to Christ; it lives for the Lord. The Lord does not disdain it; He once made it the vehicle of His self-manifestation. He died for the body which He once deigned to wear, in that He died for the whole man; and when the man is raised, His body will not be forgotten. As when God raised up by His own power the whole humanity of the Incarnate Redeemer, so will He raise up the whole of our redeemed humanity too. In human thought the body had been the slave, the outcast, the Pariah-part, of mans complex nature. Now it was elevated and set by the side of its companions, soul and spirit, with an outlook and a hope.
2. If, in any sense, believers are so one spirit with Christ that they can be said to be extensions of Him, part of His enlarged Self, then the bodys members are His; He appropriates them for His own.
3. This more definitely, because, not only is the Church, in its totality and aggregate, a Temple within whose precincts dwells the Spirit of God, but also the very body of the individual believer has its own special, peculiar indwelling, and is a veritable shrine of the Spirit upon earth. (See Separate Homily.)
IV. A great ransom price.A. A true and beautiful distinction may be drawn between redemption by price and by power: here by price. Not the redemption of (say) Lot and his fellow-captives by victorious Abraham, but the ransom of a slave by the payment of the price fixed by his owner. Measure the greatness by:
1. Blood.The last, greatest, most sacred thing a man can give for his fellow-man (Joh. 15:13; 1Jn. 3:16). The fountain of life; the first to live, and the last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body (Harvey, in Speakers Commentary). Shedding the blood is the most solemn method of self-surrender of life.
2. Blood of Christ.Of Christ! Do men hear that? Of Christ! Silver and gold? Not to be put into comparison. The very blood of the old sacrifices only serves by comparison to bring out this as more gloriously excellent (Heb. 9:12-13). When it became a question of redeeming man, it must be by the blood-shedding of none other, none less, than Christ!
3. The great deliverance it has wrought.Said the Roman, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. So such a liberty as ours, liberty, that we might have conferred on us the citizenship (Php. 3:20 true reading)could be purchased at no cheaper rate. Perfect, eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). Liberty, and power, to be holy.
4. Gods noblest creature has been redeemed by it.What will a man give in exchange for hisa manssoul? God gave this price in exchange for each soul.
B.
1. It has redeemed from curse, bondage, death, into blessing and privilege, viz. liberty, peace, life. Fundamentally it is the price of release from Sin as a condemnation and as a power. Satan and death are real, but subordinate, accidental, representatives of the power of evil; evil might have had its dominion in a world where were no Satan and no death.
2. Complementary truth to the release, whether from penalty or power, is the buying for the Redeemers purposes and use and glory.
3. Also, by payment of price, debt cancelled, bond cancelled, liability and fear gone. [Illustrate to children by Gregory and slave-boys in the market at Rome. Buying them from the slave-dealer, by putting down so much money. Yet buying for his own purpose. They are not free, but are his slaves now; to be set free by him, indeed, so that they might study, and serve, under Gregory, from love and gratitude, and that they might in turn go to Angle-land to preach to their fellow-countrymen the Gospel and its greater ransom and deliverance.] All this brings:
V. A great obligation. [Notice the true reading, 1Co. 6:20.] The Religion of the Body.
1. Non-Christian view of body branches into
(1) asceticism, or
(2) licentiousness. Suicide was Stoicism confessing itself defeated, confessing that it could not change man, or the world; nothing for it but to get out of it nobly. So Asceticism is Christianity confessing itself defeated, and thinking only of self-preservation. [Are suicides intense egotists? (Paxton Hood). Disavowing, or in their self-absorption forgetting, that others have claims upon their life and service. Are asceticism, monasticism, simply egotism thinking chiefly of saving itself?] At least this has been the practical issue of the monastic life, though this began in a nobler ideal, and with a fair justification of celibacy in the special circumstances of the time. [Was good even for civil society that there should not be a powerful, hereditary, sacred caste.] Asceticism proclaims that one whole province of human life, one whole side of human nature, can be done nothing with except (like slaves shut down beneath deck of a slave-ship, or like the Devil in Rev. 20:3) to suppress it, keep it under hatches, under lock and key and chained up. [Licentiousness is an acknowledged defeat in another way. Religion, and even temporal motives, cannot control the physical; it must be left to do its will; even the nobler part of man must submit to its imperious demands.] Christianity assumes, and shows, that there is no part of mans redeemed nature which ought not to, and cannot be made to, glorify its Redeemer. It is the one, only religion which has ever taken full account of the body, and laid it under contribution to accomplish any holy end. [In heathenism, ancient and modern, only too common for devotees to present their bodies a living sacrifice; which indeedremembering how sins of the body had played large part in the lives of Roman convertsgives the form to that exhortation (Rom. 12:1).] Sensual, impure sin is really heathen, even when decked out with all the beauty that culture and poetry can lay upon it. It gives the lie to one of the profoundest ideas of God in creation. The merely physical unions of the sexes in plants and animals are the beginning of the disclosure of a thought of God, which passes on through the physical side of marriage, and through the mating of two perfectly suited partners (above all, if these be both Christians), up to the final, full exhibition of it,the union between Christ and His Church. Sins of impurity empty this grand idea of its contents, till nothing but an appetite and its gratification remains; a reversion to the crude, elementary beginnings of Gods order in creation. Christianity with firm, yet kind, hand traces out limits of lawful exercise of appetites, denying anything beyond, for our good alway (Deu. 6:24, a far-reaching truth).
2. Glorify Him by keeping the body in health for His service. Noble service is done by invalids and sick persons. But the bulk of work of Christ must be done by those who are in health. Other things being equal, the best body makes the best worker.
(1) Cleanliness is therefore part of godliness. It is Christian duty to give body, brain, eye, hands, etc., sufficient sleep to make it morning by morning at its best for Christs service. Holidays find their chiefest benefit, and honour, when they send a run-down Christian back to office, or shop, or church, with physical powers reinvigorated by rest and change. It is more than folly not to take sufficient, regular meals of good food, even under pressure of the claims of Gods work. Some spiritual phenomena, visions, trances, or the like, have sometimes found basis and explanation in a mistaken, overdone fasting.
(2) Every habit or indulgence which exhausts the bodily powers, or destroys their health, is sin against Christs lordship of the body. Too much pleasure, in any form which leaves body or brain unfit for prayer or thought, or even for that honest work of the daily calling which is really a most important sphere for glorifying Christ, is condemned. There are sports that kill the sportsmen soul and body. All intemperance or excess in gratifying any physical desire, eating, drinking, is condemned. There are prudential reasons against such pleasures or sins; such reasons are Gods danger-signals at the entrance of roads to ruin. But only two reasons have very much practical force against passion: to the ungodly, hell-fire; to the godly, the love of God and the twin truths, Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and thisThe body for the Lord (Christ).
3. Even the dress of a Christian will find a regulating principle here. The body needs covering for comfort and decency. The instinct of taste is implanted, and may have its rightful gratification. No Christian man or woman is required to dress in an ugly, or ridiculous, or eccentric fashion. One supreme questionhaving taken account of station, means, proportion of expenditure upon dress, claims of Christs poor and Christs worksettles everything: Do IInot somebody else dressing as I doglorify God in my body? [Early Christian women very noteworthy in this respect.]
4. As said above, the consecrated service of the body to the glory of Christ may be wrought outmay be asked for by Himin its sickness and weakness rather than its health and vigour. The man may not only be employed for Christ; he may also be laid aside for Christ. It may glorify Christ that he should be a concrete example of the patience, peace, resignation, triumph, which grace can work in ordinary human nature. The testimony of sickness is sometimes a powerful argument and appeal. [Faith-healing exaggerates a true principle, of particular application, into an entirely general rule; teaching that Christ is as certainly, and to as full extent, the present Saviour of the body as of the soul; that it dishonours Him for a believer to lie under the burden of sickness as really as to lie under the burden of sin; that faith in Him would now and in all cases remove both.] [We dare hardly censure those holy spendthrifts of the powers of the body which belongs to Christ, who kill themselves by excessive labours, and, still oftener, by taking no proper care of their general health, or of the body when exhausted after labour; who kill themselves because they cannot stand and see men unsaved, or work undone. Yet, for most servants of God, more moderate labour, making the body last longer for Christ, is better consecration of the body.]
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1Co. 6:12. Christian Expediency.[Combine also for study of this text chaps. 8, 10, and Romans 14.]
I. A Christian mans rule in regard to things indifferent. All things are lawful to me seems strong; it had been made to carry a stronger and broader meaning than Paul intended. Verbally, he is correctly reported; actually, he is misrepresented. Three specimen cases of what he had in mind found here:
1. The observance of days by Christian convertsthe fasts and festivals of the law of Moses.
2. Circumcision.
3. Eating of flesh, especially such as had been offered to an idol. Intrinsically indifferent all these. No natural mark of distinction upon any day. Flesh-meat or vegetables equally creatures of God, nothing to be refused (1Ti. 4:4). An idol nothing in the world (1Co. 8:4), and never made any real difference to any healthy food. God had been pleased for a time to make some days holy; to have disregarded them would have been sin; but the Jewish system was now done away in Christ, and the old schedule of fasts and festivals with it. Circumcision had become a mere piece of surgery. All such things are lawful to me; I may do or forbear according to circumstances and expediency. Evident that before expediency can settle a point of conduct for a Christian, it must be quite clear that essential wrong and right are not involved. The business practice, the amusement, the pleasure, must be morally indifferent, before a Christian can permit himself to conform to it. He will remember, too, how much keener his sense of sin should be, how much higher, and stricter, his standard. Not only nothing that violates the letter, but nothing that touches the spirit, of the moral law, is lawful, or indifferent, to him. There is, then, no question of expediency.
As to really indifferent things, Paul gives four cases of inexpedient things.
II. (Chap. 8) Paul could with a clear conscience eat any wholesome food; ceremonially clean or unclean offered to an idol or not. The kind of food he ate did not affect his standing before God (1Co. 6:8). Many Jewish converts could not so rapidly unlearn the teaching of years, or get rid of the habit [reading as, e.g., R.V.] of thinking of some things as unclean, and so not allowable to eat. Many Gentile converts could not get rid of old ideas and associations, but still ate with conscience of the idol [displaced reading of, e.g., A.V.; true in fact]. Idol to them not nothing, but a devil (1Co. 10:20-21; a demon to Paul also). The unreasoning, needlessly tender, habit of their mind made them attach some importance to it. Moreover, public heathen banquets were so full of sin and sinful associations, that to join in them was likely to be ensnaring (1Co. 6:12, Not be mastered by any), and a source of weakness. Call it prejudice, if you will (Rom. 14:14 sqq.), he is a weak brother. But if he cannot do these things with a clear conscience, or without danger to himself, he may not do them at all. Doubteth is condemned. Not of faith sin. Conscience, even half enlightened, must be respected and obeyed. Let a man seek for light; but until he gain more, let him follow conscience with the light it has. (Better a faithful judge, doing his best with an imperfect law, than a more perfect law with a less faithful judge. Help conscience, train it, to be faithful, by obeying it, whilst it acts up to all light it has.) Principle touching (notably) amusements. Whole territory of our life ought to be wholly subject to God. In point of fact, Sin and Satan have entered, and in the pleasures of life notoriously been enthroned, and around their seat is a wide area of occupations manifestly belonging to the territory of evil. A group of pleasures still left manifestly good. Between lies a debatable ground of things indifferent, to be apportioned by Christian expediency. The boundary of evil tends to widen. Expedient readily becomes inexpedient; seldom or never the reverse. Christian men must have relaxations. They may only have such as abide these first tests: Can I take them with a clear conscience? Can I take them without being mastered by them? Training may have been (like Jewish) in a narrow school. Or (as with Gentiles) associations of the things may be full of sins of past life, and they seem sinful to me, or are really snares. These at any rate not expedient, probably not lawful. A young convert just rescued from the maelstrom of wordliness must say: A thing doubtful to my conscience or dangerous to my soul is not a thing lawful for me.
III. The weaker brother may still further narrow the range of my liberty (Rom. 14:1 sqq.). I am not to harass him with stronger views, on these doubtful disputations, when he first enters the Church. The clever pupils in the school of Christ must not force such a man on too fast in his learning. Be tender of his conscience; try to enlighten it, and so establish his principles; help him to strength of Christian character. But to force him to build himself up in knowledge before the foundation is settled, is to edify him to his ruin (1Co. 6:19; 1Co. 6:15). May not with sneer, or contempt, taunt him about weakness, old prejudices, or the like. Granted that his is not the highest type of Christian manhood, neither teaching nor practice of stronger ones must urge trifling with his conscience. Destroy not with thy meat etc.; If meat make stumble, I will eat no meat, etc. (Or, again, chap. 1Co. 8:8 sqq.). To see you eat meat from the idolaltar will make him bold to swallow down his scruples and violate conscience by sitting down to eat with you? Your greater strength of principle or greater knowledge will make him harden his conscience to do what he cannot yet see clearly right, and what also exposes him to the temptations of his old life, perhaps leading him into greater sin than before? Then walk in love, abstain. It is no longer indifferent, or expedient for you. I.e. If associations or real danger make these things matters of danger to a weaker Christian, they may so become matters of conscience to the stronger also.
1. Can hardly determine by general rule how far such association with weaker ones is to be regarded as extending. Older Christian and newly converted friend; Sunday-school teacher and class; father and childrenis that all? Or (as, e.g., total abstainer in England or America thinks) when the brotherhood is that of the same nationality or social system, or wide as manhood.
2. Nothing intrinsically wrong in the dramatic way of telling a story, or in setting horses to race against each other. But such an accretion of vice and villainy gather around the theatre and the turf, that for sake of others (if not for his own sake) a Christian gives up any participation in them. He can stop at any point on the inclined plane, can walk on very verge of danger. If weaker ones follow him, they cannot. He is then in part responsible for their ruin. Bondage to weakness! No; but to Christlike love for souls. We shall do anything, abstain from anything, rather than by going the full length of the tether of our own liberty, even contribute to ruin one soul for whom Christ died.
IV. (1Co. 10:25 sqq.) Feast going on. Strong brother eating quietly whatever set before him, asking no questions for conscience sake, but thanking the bountiful God for His good gifts (1Co. 10:30). To see what he will say or do, a weaker Christian, or a heathen guest, says: That offered to an idol. In a moment it acquires new character. If it is to cause difficulty to the conscience of the Christian guest (1Co. 10:29), or the heathen makes it a test of his Christianity, then let him put that dish aside. I.e. If a thing has become a test as between religion and the world, and will be so regarded by servants, children, neighbours, then it is no longer lawful, or at least no longer expedient. May be unreasonably so regarded, but cannot afford to dispute. World will have rough-and-ready tests. Its instinct as to what is worldly is as a rule very true. Many Christians will abstain altogether for this reason (or for others) from cards or ballroom, who will still play at billiards. Or they distinguish between billiards and bagatelle, or between playing where all are Christians in a private house, and before a mixed company in public. One all-embracing rule: Do all to the glory of God (1Co. 10:31).
V. Circumcision. (See Critical Notes, and Homily on 1Co. 7:19.)Jewish controversialists gave a revived, accidental importance to circumcision, which made it still not even lawful to Paul (Gal. 6:14 sqq.). Modern parallelism in Ritualism. In itself matters nothing, except to taste and cost and convenience, what architecture or music shall be associated with Christian worship. Vestments mere matter of interesting archology. Might smile at the fancy for wearing or using a Roman gallows, and the instrument of sore pain to our Redeemer. But when all these things are made to mean doctrine, then, to those whom the doctrine is not true, and even seems to dishonour the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, these things become not expedient, or even not lawful.H. J. F., Wesleyan Magazine, 1878 (abridged).
1Co. 6:12. Worldly Expediency. (To Young Men.)
1. Days of expediency rather than of principle; in politics, in business; even in Church, the question mooted: How much of new teaching is it expedient to give as yet to the popular ear? Need not exaggerate danger, as if of these times only. Expediency always gains strength as God is less completely or vividly realised. [Cf. Heb. 11:27, Endured, as seeing Him who is invisible. So did not I, because of fear of God (Neh. 5:15). Set, Lord, always before me not be moved (Psa. 16:8).]
2. Expediency may never be a rule of Christian action in case of intrinsic, absolute right or wrong; and in cases of relative, accidental wrong or right will always operate in direction of narrowing area of right, and adding to area of wrong. Of things lawful, some, to Christians, not expedient; never true that, of things not lawful, some are expedient. Matthew Henry suggests (commenting on Daniel 3) several expediency pleas often addressed to young men. World tempts, asks, would compel, to fall down to its fashions and ways of thinking and practice; gives reasons:
I. Do not ask you to renounce your own God; only ask a recognition of that of Nebuchadnezzar also. Do not be narrow; think and let think. All truth is relative. Be charitable, tolerant, broad. Perhaps idolatry is not after all merely the crude worship of the thing seen; originally, and was to nobler minds, only the use of this to assist to realise the unseen behind, or within it. Some truth in all religions, you know; even in all Christian heresies. Christianity is intolerant; truth is intolerant of error; such love for Christ as Pauls (1Co. 16:22), or Johns (2Jn. 1:10), is intolerant of doctrine, or practice, or persons, that deny Him. The Samaritans feared the Lord, and served their own gods (2Ki. 17:33). Alexander Severus proposed to put statue of Jesus Christ in his private Pantheon, amongst the other greatest and wisest of the race. Christian heart will have no such compromise. World really intolerant. Think yourselves right; but must not condemn us as wrong. Tolerate us; we cannot tolerate that you should not see it right to tolerate us.
II. Only this once; just the one prostration. Young Christian girl, or wife, will comply this once, to win her husband by her outstanding fidelity afterwards. Young Christian man of business in tight place; just for this time tempted to do the doubtful (but not obviously wrong) thing; and then no more tight places, all plain, sure, right doing and easy, afterwards. But the once gives up the principle. No reason for doing once which will not sanction doing habitually. Do it once, and then how the very world that tempted triumphs! Did you not see Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, bow down?
III. Absolute power of king would excuse them. They really only his subjects. Besides, what a benefactor he had been to them! Very hard when sense of obligation seems to plead against duty. Surely you will strain a point for So-and-sos sake. Remember your many obligations to him. Think how you will grieve him. Think how you will condemn him by your action. Very hard this last to a sensitive, diffident, modest spirit. Hard to seem to set up oneself as right, to the implied condemnation of older, wiser, and not less admirable people. Yet nobody can answer for another in matter of conscience. Every man his own burden (Gal. 6:5).
IV. At Rome do as Rome does. At Babylon, as Babylon. Ungentle-manly to be singular. Carry this far enough, and you will reach: Amongst devils do as devils do (Beecher).
V. Have not your forefathers, and the very priests, complied with idolatrous times and monarchs? Are you so much wiser than your fathers? Very forcible, to those not too confident in their own judgment.
VI. By one act you may save your lives and be of immense service to brethren and against idolatry in future. Did not Knox and others flee to Geneva until storm was over? He who fights and runs away, etc. Let God take care of the consequences: we must do right. Let Him see to His work and His people. If we perish in the flames, He can do without us. No man is indispensable to God. But we want such as you in the world; reasonable Christians, no fanatics. What good can you do if you make the world cut you, or drop you, from its acquaintance? Very beautiful ideal of yours, no doubt! B-u-t, you know No! Second Commandment forbids it. Not lawful; cannot be expedient.
[In matter of sensual sin, the only effectual barrier against the rush of the tide of passion is the command of God and its sanction hell-fire. No other motives are strong enough in the moment of the inrush of appetite. The animalism of it, the wrong done to the other party, the moral degradation and the physical consequences of excess and irregularitynone is strong enough to hold back. All are like Samsons bonds, when the spirit (in this case evil) enters in. (Or, better, like the chains and fetters snapped by the demoniac.) The moment the religious sanction is relaxed, the gate is open to all excess of riot. Expediency, reason, conventionalities of life, reputationall are too easily overborne. But the waves of passion beat vainly against the breakwater of Gods law and its utmost sanction. At least, if that do not resist, nothing will.]
1Co. 6:19. Temples of God.The Spirit is in the Church (1Co. 3:16-17). He is in the individual Christian too. All Christians together, with their Lord, form the true temple of our spiritual dispensation. But each Christian is a temple too. [Both combined in 1Pe. 2:5. Every stone is alive; the temple is a living temple too. That figure, however, cannot bear the weight of the truth; hardly a possible conceptiona living building, built of living stones; other figures must help it, e.g. in a body, every member, part, particle, is instinct with the life of the whole. In a vine every branch is (botanically) a complete little vine; less accurately we say that every member in the Body has a life complete in himself, lived by himself. Every stone of the Temple is a temple, with its Divine Tenant. True, Ye are the temple. True also, Your body is the temple.
I. Appreciate the assertion.
1. Whither go from Thy Spirit? If Divine, then omnipresent, and as really without as within the body; and conversely, however little we understand it, as perfectly within it as around it. But, for the sake of the worshipper, the temple localises the god. Aphrodite was everywhere, but a Corinthian sought her in her temple. Jehovah was everywhere, but the Shekinahcloud over the mercy-seat, for the sake of the worshipper localised, emphasised, His presence within that sacred enclosure. [All words on this topic halt sadly. But the wise man uses them as unhesitatingly as the humblest reader of the Book which teaches him to employ them: with this differencehe knows how imperfectly they exhibit the truth. Figurative language is not necessarily misleading. So] if the figure here be not wholly a falsehood, we are to think of a localised, emphasised, specialised manifestation of the presence of the Spirit within a Christian mans bodily frame. We do not know how. Nor do we know how or where our own spirit dwells within it. The mystery is not greater in the one case than in the other. Both full of mystery, but both may be, for all that, facts.
2. May illustrate this fact by another; men were once possessed by a demon, or even by seven; in one case a legion of such had taken up their abode within the man. [The facts of demoniacal possession never to be criticised as mere isolated phenomena. They give, and they get, probability if they are found to be part of a harmonious system of spiritual facts, and to have analogies and relations to others. An undesigned, piecemeal self-consistency gives argument for a system, and credibility to its several parts.] I.e. within the one human frame dwelt two or many spiritstwo or many personsthe man himself and the demon himself, side by side in mysterious joint occupancy. Jesus constantly distinguished between the spirit and the man: Come out of the man, thou spirit! The demon sat within, enthroned within the debased form, lording it over the manhood of his victim, leaving him a man no longer, stripped as he was of self-control and freedom of will. At the very centre and core of the mans being, the evil spirit had entrenched himself, thence directing the life, and controlling the very acts and speech. Indeed, more than once the man was so completely overborne that, though the mans organs of speech are employed, it is the demon who uses them to converse with Christ. [E.g. the Legion: We are many.] The man seems lost. Will, thought, bodyall are become scarcely more than the instruments of the evil spirit within. The possessed mans body is a temple in which the demon is the god. Putting good for evil, all this closely parallels the possession of believers bodies by the indwelling Spirit of God. The ordinary temptations of the Evil One come from without (so to speak). The Good Spirit also works upon the unsaved man from without (in the same sense). On the believeras in the analogous evil caseHe works from within.
3. Compare the asserted fact with another. Jesus spake of the temple of His body. But our Brother is not our brother in this. His frame had no special form or comeliness beyond that of many of those amongst whom He moved; yet God dwelt within it. But God dwells not in Christians as in Christ. Indwelling in them; Incarnation in Him. Within His body were two naturesthe human, the Divine; within the possessed man also were twothe human, the demoniacal; within usif the words here do not entirely misleadare the human, and the Divine also. But within us and within the possessed, are two persons. In the Saviour only the onethe God Man. He was the Son. The believer is a man, but possessed by the Spirit. [Imperfect, and of necessity inexact, language; readily obvious to criticism, but useful as marking distinctions, which have their basis in differences of fact.]
4. A blessed possession. Within the man is an inward man; yet more intimately within is the Spirit of God. At the root and source of thought and judgment, making them spiritual. At the fount and origin of will, at the very seat of government of manhood, site enthroned the directing Spirit. At the source of affection He has His seat, making every throb and vibration to have its centre and origin with Himself. Holy impulses and desires; holy love for God and for men; strength for good, power over evil; judgment illuminated and brought into agreement with the mind of God; conscience sensitive and voiceful, speaking the mind and verdict of God; will brought into ever more complete and glad submission to, and harmony with, the will of God,all because the Spirit of God has taken possession of the temple of the body in the name of the Three-One.
5. Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? cried Solomon, offering his superb Temple to be Gods palace in His capital, Jerusalem (2Co. 6:18). Here is an answer Solomon could not anticipate. With man? In man! Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Paul on Mars Hill, the Acropolis of Athens with its temples in near sight, cried, God dwelleth not in temples made with hands. True, but in temples made by His own hands, the wonderful human body He has builded and compacted together, He consents, delights, to dwell.
II. Three results from this.
1. This indwelling is the test of our being Christians.Examine yourselves (2Co. 13:5). Christ is in you except reprobates. [Reprobate is not, rejected without testing, but rejected after testing. Approbate metal will stand test, and gets hallmarked; reprobate metal will not. The hall-mark of approbate souls is Christ in you.] In the unity of the Undivided Trinity this practically is Holy Ghost dwells in me. Not an exceptionally strict test; Pauls ordinary one. [Perfectly general, Rom. 8:9.] If a man love Me abode with Him (Joh. 14:23). This indwelling in the temple is the life in the Vine. Christ liveth in me. Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed? By that test he learned the exact position of the little group of anomalous Ephesian disciples (Act. 19:1-7). Will a man know? When the Spirit of a Sonof His Sonfirst enters and tells him that he is now a son, who has believed in Christ (Gal. 4:6), will the entrance of God bring no self-evidence? Did the man know of the entering of the demon into his temple? God took possession of Solomons Temple in a cloud of blinding glory, before which even the priests had to retire. If God accept the temple of a mans heart and being and body, it may not always be with the same overwhelming glorythough it often has beenbut it will hardly be unknown and unknowable.
2. The honour of the body (as above).
3. Sin grows in gravity. Enter a temple. Divinity there high-throned; altar not without offerings; but spiders weave festoons of web from pillar to pillar; walls are hanging with thick mildew and mould; every corner holds accumulated dust and filth; rubbish heaps gather outside against the walls. A loaded altar does not atone for such dishonour to the god. So in the human temple, what dishonour is done by the woven web of worldliness, by thick fungoid growths of sloth everywhere, by envy, pride, uncleanness of imagination, accumulating undisturbed in many a dark corner! Happy if outside, in open day, there do not gather even Corinthian sins! Him that defileth temple of Godthe personal as the collectiveshall God defile. Dishonour the glorious Tenant; the tenement may be left to ruin and dishonour. How many things this principle makes unlawful to a Christian! Like the altars and saints in Romanist side-chapels, diverting from the Christ upon the highaltar, so do many things divide and divert from the supreme honour due to the Spirit of God.
1Co. 6:19-20. The Christians Obligation to a Holy Life.Three facts in context deserve attention:
1. Sinners of every class are excluded from heaven;
2. Sinners of every class have been changed;
3. Those changed are under immense obligations to a holy life. Text contains three facts:
I. Christians body the temple of God.Three ideas suggested:
1. Special connection with God. As with Temple of old, as with a good man (Thus saith high and lofty One, etc., Isa. 57:15).
2. Special consecration to God. Body dedicated to God, with all its powers and functions.
3. Special manifestation of God. In good mans body God specially displayed; more of God seen in good mans life than elsewhere throughout the world.
II. Christians being the property of God.Not your own. Does not mean
1. Your personality not your own. You will never be absorbed in God.
2. Your character not your own. Character the creation of moral being, an untransferable thing. It does mean our existence absolutely at His command. He has a sovereign right to do with us whatever is pleasing in His sight. Christ has laid on us the strongest conceivable obligation to a holy life (Rev. 14:5).
III. Christians duty to glorify God.
1. What is that? To make Him more glorious than He is, impossible. To fulfil the end of our being. A holy mind is glorified in realisation of its ideals. [Sir C. Wren is glorified in the realisation of his idea.] God glorified in man when man realises in his life Gods ideal of a man.
2. Will include two things(a) That the human body be under absolute government of soul. The crime and curse of humanity, that matter governs mind, body rules soul. (b) That the human soul be under the government of supreme love to God. Love
(1) always seeks to please the object;
(2) always reflects the object;
(3) always lives in the object.Homilist, New Series, iii. 370 (condensed). (See Appended Note also, following below.)
APPENDED NOTES
1Co. 6:17; 1Co. 6:19. Temple religion.Paul never forgets the ancient Temple. His words [viz. Rom. 1:1] give us a glimpse, and a most beautiful one, into the secret sanctuary of the Apostles devotion. He does not, indeed, say, in the temple of my spirit, but we may say it for him, and then appropriate it to ourselves. The regenerate soul is regenerate because inhabited by God, the Triune God, through the Holy Ghost. Where He dwells must be a temple; and all the glorious things spoken of the ancient dwelling-place of Jehovah may be transferred to the spirit of the regenerate believer in Christ. The Lord has entered, and with the peaceful majesty of His grace has said to the former usurper, Go out of him, and enter no more into him! Concerning all that pertained to the former unholy servicefor the heart was still a temple, even in its defilementhe cries, Take these things hence! But it is the spirit of the new worshipper himself that hears the command, who is both temple and priest; rather the Christian man, spirit and body, for our whole nature is the temple of the Holy Ghost. There is no more impressive view of personal religion than that contained in the injunction, Sanctify the Lordthe Lord Christin your hearts! It means that the great concern of our life must be to preserve our spirit inviolate for the Sacred Indweller, to suffer no abomination of desolation to enter the holy place; to take the Saviours whip of small cords from His hand, as it were, and use it effectually in cleansing for Him His temple. Nor is there any more terrible threatening than that which says, If any man shall defile the temple of Godthat is, by any impurity of thought or act pollute the body, which is the framework of the Divine sanctuary, or by any filthiness of spirit desecrate ithim shall God destroy. The Apostle lived in the flesh of his bodily life as in a temple; an earthly house, indeed, which should be dissolved, but then be built again. He lived in his spirit, however, as in a temple which should never be dissolved, and from which his God should never for a moment depart. And he lived in hope of a better day and a more glorious service, when spirit and body should be reunited and glorified as the eternal dwelling-place of God in Christ. Your body is part of that temple; let every act and office of your physical nature be offered in your priestly ministration. You shall become a man in God as well as a man of God; a man in Christ as well as a servant of Christ. Joined to Him you will be one Spirit with Him, and your advance to perfection will be rapid and sure.Dr. Pope, Sermons, pp. 181, 183.
1Co. 6:19. The Sacredness of the Body.About forty-five years ago, a funeral was passing through the streets of Carlisle, Penn. It was the burial procession of John Hall Mason, the son of the eminent Dr. Mason, President of Dickinson College, one of the most powerful and eloquent preachers in America. The son was distinguished for his piety and talents, and his death had cast a gloom over many hearts. Many gathered to the funeral, from far and near, and especially young men. After the services at the house had been performed, and the pall-bearers had taken up the bier, a great concourse obstructed the entrance, and great confusion and noise ensued. The bereaved Doctor, observing the difficulty, and following closely the pallbearers, exclaimed in solemn, sepulchral tones: Tread lightly, young men! tread lightly! You bear the temple of the Holy Ghost. These sentiments, as though indited by the Holy Spirit, acted like an electric shock: the crowd fell back and made the passageway clear. Through the influence of these words a most powerful revival of religion sprang up and swept through the college, and extended over the town.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Butlers Comments
SECTION 3
Defilers Are Not Brothers (1Co. 6:12-20)
12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. 13Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for foodand God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, The two shall become one flesh. 17But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1Co. 6:12-14 Perversion of Humanness: Brotherly love acknowledges there is a lawful purpose for all things which God has created, but using the body for immorality (including hatred, greed and unchristian lawsuits) is perverting and downgrading that which God made to be the residence of the Holy Spirit. The last section does connect to the beginning admonition concerning unchristian lawsuits. It teaches that Christians who become enslaved to their emotions and feelings and drag one another bodily before heathen tribunals for their ungodly purposes of greed and retaliation are prostituting themselves. When God created man and gave him a human body, it was intended that Gods Holy Spirit would dwell with each man in that body.
The apostolic principle, All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful . . . must be understood in its context. When a Christian brother defrauds you, it is lawful (you have the right) to sue him in a civil courtbut such action is not always helpful (or, edifying). Christians are to live above the plane of law in the kingdom of grace. Christians are not to seek their own good, but the good of their neighbors (1Co. 10:24); they are not to look only to their own interest, but also to the interests of others (Php. 2:4); they are to please their neighbors for their good, to edify them (Rom. 15:2). Therefore, the Christian has the responsibility of denying any right he has to build people up in Christ rather than perverting these things to destroy people.
Some ancient Greek philosophers (especially the Gnostics) held that mind and thought were spiritual and holy while material things, including the human body, were impersonal and thus amoral. These philosophers taught that the natural, physical and material processes of life had no moral significance. Suing one another in court over physical and material things would have no moral implications according to this philosophy. Apparently some of the wise Christians of Corinth had decided to practice the philosophy of the Gnostics.
Paul had twice listed ways in which material things, including the human body, might be perverted (1Co. 5:9-11; 1Co. 6:7-10) and which would cause the Christian to forfeit his spiritual inheritance. That would include greed and robbery and reviling a brother in the matter of civil law suits. And it would most definitely include sexual promiscuity, which is the first subject in the context of chapters five and six.
So, as Paul wrote about Christians suing one another in heathen courts and assuming, like the Gnostics, that they might do as they pleased with material things without sinning, his thoughts were directed back to the subject of sexual promiscuity. Sexual abandon and all forms of unnatural perversion were the norm for most of first century Greco-Roman society. This is evidenced in ancient art and literature. We quote here from William Barclay:
The Greeks always looked down on the body. . . . That produced one of two attitudes. Either it issued in the most rigorous aceticism in which everything was done to subject and humiliate the desires and instincts of the body. Orand in Corinth it was this second outlook which was prevalentit was taken to mean that, since the body was of no importance, you could do what you liked with it; you could let it sate its appetites. What complicated this was the doctrine of Christian freedom which Paul preached. If the Christian man is the freest of all men, then is he not free to do what he likes, especially with this completely unimportant body of his?
So, the Corinthians argued, in a way that they thought very enlightened, let the body have its way. But what is the bodys way? The stomach was made for food and food for the stomach, they went on. Food and the stomach naturally and inevitably go together. In precisely the same way the body is made for its instincts; it is made for the sexual act and the sexual act is made for it; therefore let the desires of the body have their way.
Another element in the heathen culture of Greco-Roman society Paul had to deal with was the matter of religion and human behavior. Heathen gods were what men made them. Naturally, when they disavowed the true Gods revelation of his infinitely holy character and exchanged that truth for a lie (Rom. 1:18 ff.) they supplied their own human characteristics to gods of their own making. Religion, to the heathen, was, and still is, a way to appease, cajole, and prevail against their gods until the gods are won over to the humans desire to do as he pleases. To the heathen, the human was relatively free to behave as he pleased so long as he did not anger the gods or the civil authorities. He could very easily appease the gods by making the right offerings and observing the superstitious rituals. So long as he paid his taxes, and did not participate in treason or revolution he could please the civil authorities. The Christian doctrine of freedom limited by morality and self-sacrifice was in absolute opposition to heathen selfishness. Thus, Paul sets out to clarify the doctrine of Christian freedom as opposed to the philosophy and practice of heathen permissiveness. It is the teaching of Christ and his apostles that everything God has created is good (Gen. 1:10; Gen. 1:18; Gen. 1:25; Gen. 1:31; Act. 10:15; 1Co. 10:26; 1Ti. 4:1-5) if used according to the precepts and principles revealed in Gods word. There is a created purpose for the human longing for justice so long as it is not allowed to degenerate into a spirit of exploitation, hatred and retaliation. There is a God-ordained purpose for the physical appetite for food so long as it is controlled and not allowed to degenerate into gluttony. There is a God-ordained purpose for the desire for sexual intercourse as long as the desire is not permitted to deteriorate into adultery, fornication and homosexuality. Sexual intercourse was created by God but he never intended it to be casual, amoral and promiscuous. The longings and desires of the human being created for this earthly life have their limitations. They are for the present world order. They are created by God in order to test, discipline and prepare men during this earthly probation for existence in the next life.
One of the principles under which these human longings are to be controlled is that while all things created by God are lawful, all things are not, in certain circumstances, helpful. Some things created by God, under some circumstances, are harmful. And, as Paul clearly says, whatever would enslave a person, under any circumstances, would be harmful. Food, drugs, sexuality, emotions, material possessionsall are lawful, good and helpful if controlled and limited by the revealed principles of Gods word. But even these good and helpful things become harmful if man allows himself to be enslaved, possessed and obsessed by them, or when he abuses them beyond the limitations of Gods directions. Paul uses the Greek word exousiasthesomai which is translated enslaved and means, more precisely, ruled over by. For the apostle it is Christ who rules over himnot his emotions, not food, not sexuality, and not material possessions. He is a slave to the will of Christ.
These Christians of Corinth, attempting to be sophisticated and follow popular Gnosticism, were apparently teaching that the appetite for sexual intercourse was merely a physical thing like the appetite for food. Paul makes it very clear that these two human functions do not belong in the same category. The statement, Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food is correct, so long as man is not enslaved by food and becomes a glutton. What a man eats, so long as he is not obsessed with food, has no spiritual significance. Jesus and his apostles made that clear: (a) food has no spiritual significance even if it has been sacrificed to an idol, because an idol is not god (see 1Co. 8:1-13; 1Co. 9:1-27; 1Co. 10:1-33); (b) food has no power in and of itself to make a man spiritually clean or uncleanit is the attitude of the heart that makes clean or unclean (cf. Mat. 15:1-20; Mar. 7:14-23); (c) human opinions as to which foods may be eaten and which may not is of no spiritual significance (Rom. 14:1-4; 1Ti. 4:1-4; Col. 2:20-23) until someone attempts to make abstinence or indulgence a test of Christian fellowship. It is clear a man cannot be spiritually defiled by what he eats or what he does not eat, so long as it does no physical harm to the human body. There may be one exception to this in the Christian dispensation (see Act. 15:19-20; Act. 21:25). The human function of eating and digesting food is purely a physical process and has no spiritual significance. It is for this life only. When this life is over neither food or the human stomach, as we know them now, will continue to exist. But the body is different!
It must be clear that Paul is using the word body (Gr. soma) in a sense intended to mean more than flesh and bone and blood. The Greek word in the New Testament which most often means flesh and bone is sarx. Vines Expository Dictionary says of the New Testament usage of the word soma, or body:
SOMA . . . is the body as a whole, the instrument of life, whether of man living, e.g., Mat. 6:22, or dead, Mat. 27:52; or in resurrection, 1Co. 15:44; or of beasts, Heb. 13:11; of grain, 1Co. 15:37-38; of the heavenly hosts, 1Co. 15:40. In Rev. 18:13 it is translated slaves. In its figurative uses the essential idea is preserved.
Sometimes the word stands, by synecdoche, for the complete man, Mat. 5:29; Mat. 6:22; Rom. 12:1; Jas. 3:6; Rev. 18:13. Sometimes the person is identified with his or her body, Act. 9:37; Act. 13:36, and this is so even of the Lord Jesus, Joh. 19:40 with Joh. 19:42. The body is not the man, for he himself can exist apart from his body, 2Co. 12:2-3. The body is an essential part of the man and therefore the redeemed are not perfected till the resurrection, Heb. 11:40; no man in his final state will be without his body, Joh. 5:28-29; Rev. 20:13.
Soma as Paul used it here means man in his total existence in this world. Man is more than body, but he is body. It is through the body that the personality, the spiritual man, functions and operates in relationship to God and his fellow man. It is difficult for people of western culture to think of the body as the person. We tend to think of the body as a group of fleshly organs that will die and decompose in the grave. It is true, Paul spoke this way of the stomach, but to the Oriental (eastern) mind (including the Hebrew) the term body most often was associated with the self. So, in this section, we might correctly paraphrase the apostle by using either the word self or man. Man is both body and soul (or spirit). In the New Testament soul describes man in his thinking, feeling, willing capacities; body describes man as an acting, functioning, personality living in this world in relationship to his Creator and other creatures. The body is the extension of and instrument through which the soul is expressed.
Man was not made for immorality. Man in his totality was made for the Lord. God made man to function and express self or soul in this existence through his body. Thus, the human body has, as it were, a spiritual purpose. In and through our bodies we are to serve and glorify Christ. Man, in his totalitybody and soulwas made to serve and exhibit truth, purity, holiness, and goodness (the character of God). Man was not made with a body to abuse it in selfish, hurtful, degrading and false practices. The stomach was made for good, but man in his totality was made for God. Paul is certainly aware that some men may make their bellies their gods (Rom. 16:18; Php. 3:19) so he is not saying in this text that there is no possibility of sinful abuse of the stomach and food. He is saying the Gnostic philosophy which says the sexual appetite is just like the appetite for food, a totally natural function, is false. He is saying man is not as free to satisfy the sexual desire as he is the desire for food.
The apostle had undoubtedly taught the Corinthians in his earlier visits that the Old Testament legislation about sinful foods had been fulfilled in the Gospel and they were free to eat anything that was not physically harmful. It is certain that he had previously taught them they were free in Christ from all opinions and superstitions of paganism. But now he sets out upon a five-chapter dissertation (ch. 610) concerning the limitations of Christian freedom. Clearly, the Corinthians had been twisting his earlier teaching about liberty to mean they were free to be totally abandoned to whatever fleshly appetite they might feel urged. Paul seeks to correct that by a concise and clear statement of the divine purpose for the human body.
1Co. 6:15-20 Purpose of Humanness: The stomach was meant for food, but not for complete dietary abandon. Eating must be controlled. Gluttony is a perversion of the body and a sin. But in eating there is no intimate spiritual involvement with another person. Human sexual organs were meant for sexual intercourse. But they were not made to be given over to complete sexual abandon. Sexuality must be controlled. Sexual promiscuity is a perversion of the body and a sin. But there is more than mere physical function involved in sexual intercourse. In sexual intercourse two beings are spiritually or psychologically joined or united in a mutual purpose.
Paul begins his explanation of the purpose of humanness by declaring that Christians are supposed to have given their bodies (selves, persons) to be united in mutuality with Christ. Christians are to be joined, spirit, soul and body (in totality) to Jesus Christ. They are married to him (Eph. 5:21-33). For the Christian to engage in sexual intercourse with someone to whom he or she is not married is not only unfaithfulness to the human spouse but is also unfaithfulness to Christ.
The person who joins with a prostitute (male or female) in sexual intercourse does more than perform a physical function. Two people who join in sexual intimacy undeniably unite psychologically or spiritually in a mutual purpose. Those who do so as married people are fulfilling a good spiritual purposethe will of God. Those who do so outside the marriage bonds are fulfilling a mutual, spiritual purpose of rebellion against the will of God. If we translate (or paraphrase) Pauls use of the word body by using the word person or self, he would be saying, Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one person with her? Sexual intercourse is the point in human relations at which two persons (not just fleshly bodies) are united in the ultimate human intimacy. There can be no other intimacy in human relations as deeply spiritual or as psychologically binding. Two thus joined become one! Legally, of course, there is more to marriage than the act of sexual intercourse. Spiritually and psychologically there is more to marriage than sexual intercourse. But both legally and spiritually, sexual intercourse is the act that consummates a marriage. A person who unites sexually with a prostitute (or in an act of adultery or fornication) is not legally married to the prostitute. Paul is not setting forth some technical law by which a person who joins in sexual intercourse to a harlot must forever after consider himself legally married to her. In fact, there are any number of persons, legally married having also consummated their marriage sexually, who are not one in other areas of marriage. Paul is saying here, with all the emphasis possible, that sexual intercourse is more than a physical function. Certain physical functions of the human body are instinctive and amoral. That is, when these functions operate they are neither good nor badman has no moral control over them one way or another. They operate whether he chooses for them to do so or not. Digestion is such an amoral physical function. With sexual intercourse that is not so. Man has been given moral choice and control over sexual intimacy. The Greek word de (translated but in 1Co. 6:17) is a conjunctive particle marking the super addition of a clause, whether in opposition or in continuation, to what has preceded, and it may be variously rendered but, on the other hand, and, also, now, etc. We think 1Co. 6:17 is a clause in continuation of what has preceded and not in opposition. Therefore, Paul is likening the intimateness of the Christians relationship to Christ to that of two persons engaged in sexual intercourse. The Christian joins himself intimately to Christ by choice. So the person who joins himself intimately (sexually) to another person does so morallyby choice. A Christian who joins intimately (sexually) with a prostitute has taken the body (person) purchased by the sinless blood of Christ, which has been intimately joined to Christ and made a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, and joined it in rebellion against the will of Christ and the desecration of his glory. God created man to glorify his Son. Man was not given a human body to use as an instrument of rebellion. So Paul exhorts these Christians to make deliberate choice and take deliberate action to keep from sinning with their bodies. Because of modern connotations, the RSV translation Shun for the Greek word pheugete in 1Co. 6:18 is not strong enough. The KJV and the ASV give it the more emphatic translation, Flee fornication. The Greek word porneia, translated fornication, may also be used generically for all immorality. No human being can begin to fulfill Gods purpose for having created him until he is willing to flee from all immorality.
The statement Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against his own body must be interpreted in this context. Paul is clearly teaching these Corinthians that sexual intercourse is more than a mere physical action. Divine revelation teaches that sexual intercourse is an intimate, spiritual and psychological union of personalities, much like the spiritual union of a Christian to Christ (it is, indeed, a marriage). He is not saying that other sins have no spiritual causes or consequences. He is simply saying that other sins do not unite one person with another in such a life-affecting way as fornication. The student should immediately read Pro. 5:8-11; Pro. 6:24-32; Pro. 7:24-27. The spiritual intimacy of the sexual relationship, when perverted contrary to the will of God, results in the destruction of the personality; especially is the person inhibited from the spiritual goals for which God created him. This may be documented today from the experiences and files of counseling psychiatrists and clergymen.
A physical function of the body is temporary. It is of the flesh and will perish with the flesh. The use of some physical functions, however, is a spiritual matter. The use of most physical functions is a matter of moral choice. To use any physical function contrary to the revealed will of its Creator is immoral. All sins abusing the physical organs are outside the most intimate part of our personality except sexual abuse. Sexual sin is against the deepest recesses of the person inside! This is a solemn warning to those sophisticates of the world today who would seduce mankind with the ancient Gnostic philosophy that sexual intercourse is merely a physical function and may be practiced without obedience to the word of God.
In some way, when a human being gives his body to sexual intimacy with another being, he gives it as a residence to the personality of that other person. When sexual intimacy is given contrary to the will of God the body becomes a residence of the spirit of harlotry and prostitution. God wants man to give his or her body for the residence of the Holy Spirit. This is what a person vows to do when becoming a Christian. The whole man (which is what Paul means in his use of the Greek word soma, or body) is not to perish like food and the human stomach. Sexual promiscuity treats the whole man as if it were to perish! Sexual promiscuity destroys that which is eternal in manlove, faithfulness, honesty, orderliness, and righteousness. It is no accident that God symbolizes idolatry and unbelief as harlotry in the Old Testament, Sexual promiscuity and prostitution are so irresponsible, so exploitative, so degrading and dehumanizing in attitude and action. They treat the human body as a thing. That is why Paul said every other sin which a man commits is outside the body but the sexually promiscuous person sins against his own body.
Pauls final explanation of and argument for the purpose of humanness concerns the human self or person (the whole man) as a potential residence of the Holy Spirit of God Almighty. Actually, it is presupposed by the apostle that Gods Spirit had already taken residence in the bodies of these Corinthian Christians. Just what does Paul mean by the question, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? What is the phenomenon known as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
Let us first consider what, according to other New Testament passages, it cannot mean; (a) it cannot mean the power to perform miracles; that is specified in the New Testament as the baptism of the Holy Spirit and was promised only to apostlespassed on by the apostles to selected Christians of the first century only by the laying on of the hands of the apostles; some (e.g. John the Baptist) who were said to be full of the Holy Spirit never worked a miracle so far as we know; (b) it cannot mean supernatural illumination that enables those who have it to understand the scriptures; all men are created with the capacity to read human language and understand without divine illumination; the apostles were given, supernaturally, a revelation of the New will of God, but they delivered it to the whole human race in human language (see our comments on 1Co. 2:1 ff.) and all sinners are expected to hear and read those apostolic words and believe before the Holy Spirit comes to abide with them; faith comes by hearing the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17); there would be no point in preaching, no point in sinners reading the Bible, no point even in printing Bibles if every non-Christian must wait until he is sure he has the Holy Spirit in him before he can understand the revealed will of God.
The coming of the Holy Spirit of God and Christ to take residence in the human being involves more than understanding, acknowledging and obeying the revealed will of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. Apparently, it is a supranatural action on the part of God but mystical to man (that is, a spiritual reality neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence). The difference between those who will not be raised to eternal life with Christ and those who will is the indwelling presence of Christs Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:1-11). The coming of Christs Spirit to reside in us is not something we earn or merit by our perfect obedience, but it is initiated by Gods Spirit because of his grace when we give him welcome by our love and faith.
Having said it is mystical to man, however, does not preclude the fact that we can understand, acknowledge in faith, and obey the directions revealed by the Holy Spirit providing the instrumentality through which God chooses to initiate his supranatural residence in people. Gods action may be mystical, but the directions through which he promises to act are not mystical. The Bible clearly teaches that faithful and loving response to the commandments of God, in any dispensation of time, will be acceptable as an invitation for the Holy Spirit to take up residence within a human being (cf. Psa. 51:10-12; Joh. 14:15-24; Joh. 15:1-11; Act. 2:38; Act. 5:32; Rom. 8:5; Eph. 3:17; 1Jn. 3:24; 1Jn. 4:12, etc.). So then, the way Gods Spirit dwells in a person is by a persons intelligent, willing, loving submission to what God says by the Holy Spirit in the revealed Word so that what he thinks, determines, and feels is under the direction of the Spirit through the Word. In other words, the instrument or vehicle or channel through which the Holy Spirit enters and resides in our bodies (or persons) is his revealed and written Word. Apart from that process he will not function residentially in usnot initially and not continually. Clearly, Paul has been teaching from the very first of this epistle that the apostolic gospel is the exclusive matrix within which these Corinthians must be living in order to be assured of the communion (residence) of Gods Spirit. Gods Spirit does not reside within a person outside the communion of his Word. Christ stands at the door and knockshe will not force his way in to sup (reside) with any who are not believing and repenting (cf. Rev. 3:19-20).
The apostle turns metaphorically to the well known practice of slavery to show the emphatic subservience of the purchased one to his purchaser. It would be a familiar experience in the first century. The slave in the Greco-Roman world was chattel, purely and simply. Slaves were bought and sold as property, and masters held total sovereignty over them. Slaves gave total allegiance and obedience to their masters lest they be punished or slain without any appeal to civil courts or magistrates. The only purpose for a slave was to serve his masters willtotally. For slaves who were purchased by good and beneficent masters, this could mean protection, security, dignity and even happiness (see the letter to Philemon). Paul preached and wrote a great deal about the good and beneficent Master, Jesus Christ. He always considered himself, and all other Christians, as having yielded both soul and body in slavery to Christ (cf. Rom. 6:15-23). Since Christ has purchased all men through his vicarious atonement (cf. Act. 20:28; Heb. 9:12; 1Pe. 1:18-19; Rev. 5:9), they are expected to yield, by faith, and be his slaves for righteousness. If Christ has paid our ransom, he owns us. He actually owns us twicefirst by right of having created us and second by right of having redeemed us.
The person who yields himself to become a slave of Christ has no rights of his own. He does not belong to himself but to Christ. The only rights a Christian has are those granted him in the revealed will of his Master, Jesus Christ (and that is in the Bible). Any attitude or action not found in Christs revealed will is not permissible for the Christian. See New Life Through Accepting Jesus Death in Learning From Jesus, by Seth Wilson, pgs. 495503, College Press.
We who have yielded to the redemption he obtained for us are his body here on earththe channels through which he works. We are instruments of his for accomplishing righteousness in the earth. Jesus, instead of being limited to one physical body as when he was here on earth, now acts through the bodies of his people in whom he lives. You will always find in the Bible that God works through a human body in this world. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Joh. 1:1-18). The Son came in a human body to offer himself as a perfect sacrifice (Heb. 10:5-10). It was in a body that man sinned; it is in a body that we sin. It was in a body that the Son of man came to earth; it was in a body that he conquered sin which had conquered us. It was in a body that he died and rose again, and now, by his Spirit, he comes to live within the body of his people. Satan always works in this world through a body also. The only way he can thwart Gods purposes is to get a body surrendered to his use, available for his diabolic power and ugly purposes. This is the question of choice in a Christians life: shall he take that which has been purchased by Christ and made an instrument of the body of Christ, and give it to some unworthy use?that body, the means through which Gods will is to be done, and yield it to the rebellious purposes of Satan? If he does, he becomes one with the devil. But if he is yielded to the Lords Spirit, he is one with the Spirit of Christ. The same Spirit which enabled Jesus Christ to live day by day in a human body and never deviate from the will of God, never yield to all the tremendous temptations of the devil, will live in us and through us as our Strengthener, too. Joined to Christ, we are able to glorify God in the body. Joined to the devil, we glorify sin in our bodies.
Thus, Paul closes his exhortation (temporarily) against the seductive Gnostic sophistry that since the body is merely physical and every physical hunger (including the sexual hunger) an amoral, uncontrollable animal instinct, there is no moral guilt in sexual promiscuity. The Gnostic sophistry tried to ignore the sins of fornication, adultery and homosexuality by calling them simply physical functions like eating food. Paul replies that the human body was created for the Lords purpose, its destiny is to be resurrected for the Lords purpose, therefore, human bodies are members of Gods personhood. To prostitute a human body for physical purposes only (especially in sexual promiscuity like animals) would be to take what belongs to God and use it for the devil. The bodies of Christian people belong to Christ even more surely by their having professed to accept Christs redemption. Christians have been sanctified, body and soul, to glorify Christ by yielding up their bodies (and souls) in service to righteousness.
It is a fundamental doctrine of the New Testament. We cannot go to heaven if we do not yield to it. The old Gnostic sophistry is flooding the earth again today and has even washed over the gunwales of the ship of Zioncarnality threatens to sink the church today. Christians must insist on the sacredness of the human body and its sanctification to the will of God, no matter how unpopular the doctrine may be.
Appleburys Comments
Sins Against the Body (1220)
Text
1Co. 6:12-20. All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body: 14 and God both raised the Lord, and will raise up us through his power. 15 Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. 16 Or know ye not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body? for, The twain, saith he, shall become one flesh. 17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19 Or know ye no that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; 20 for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.
Commentary
All things are lawful for me.All things must be understood in the light of the context in which it is used. It cannot be assumed that Paul is suggesting that there is a place for such a thing as fornication. This and all other sins are proscribed by divine edict. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Therefore, I assume that Paul means that there is a lawful purpose for all things which God created, and that purpose is not to be perverted through sin. Thats why Paul declares that he will not be brought under the authority of anything. For example, there is a purpose for the appetite for food, but that appetite is not to be allowed to degenerate into the sin of gluttony. There is a divine purpose in sex, but the desire related to it is not to be perverted into the sins of fornication and adultery. God intended man to follow His instruction as to the purpose and use of food, sex, and all other powers with which man is endowed. Clear and specific regulations on all these matters are given in the Word of God for mans own good.
God shall bring to naught both it and them.Some things have a time limit set for their usefulness. Food and the stomach have such a limit, that is, they are limited to this life. The body has an eternal purpose, however, for in it we are to serve and glorify the Lord in this life, and in the end He will raise up our mortal bodies which shall be changed into the likeness of the body of Christs glory (Php. 3:20-21). This subject is discussed at length in chapter fifteen.
not for fornication, but for the Lord.God intended that man should have a family and that children should be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But the sins of immorality defeat the purpose of the Lord. We can glorify God in the body here by acting as Christians, and, in the glorified body of the resurrection, we can serve Him eternally.
the Lord is for the body.The Lord provided for all the needs of man in the beginning. He provided food, work, mental and spiritual activity, and gave him woman as his counterpart in every regard. The Lord set wonderful powers in the body. He created it with remarkable recuperative powers when disease strikes, and many other things too numerous to mention. The Lord is also for the body so far as its eternal destiny is concerned. In the grace of God, there is provision to conquer death, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
your bodies are members of Christ.This is a spiritual relationship, for he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit (1Co. 6:17). By using the facts of the marriage relationship, the apostle is pointing out the nature of the sin of immorality. The twain shall become one flesh. The rule applied as well to immoral relationships of which some of them were guilty. Shall I take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? An utterly abhorrent thought. Yet this is exactly what some of them were doing. What an awful sin to so pervert the divine purpose of the body and destroy its relationship to the Lord. Therefore, Paul says, Flee fornication.
he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.There are two ways as indicated in this context in which this is done. The sin of fornication takes the body that belongs to Christ and makes it a member of the harlot. That is a sin against the body for, although it will raised from death, it will not be made to conform to the body of His glorya wonderful promise for saints only. Fornication is also a sin against the body because it is intended to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, this can not be while the body is given over to sin.
Paul is not discussing the fact that sin can bring disease and death to the body. Bad as this is, the greater sin against the body is severing it from its holy purpose in relation to Christ and the Holy Spirit. Other sinsfor example, idolatrycould destroy this relationship too, but they are outside of the body, that is, they do not affect the body in the same way.
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.The fact that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwells in the saints is clearly taught in the Bible. God is said to abide in them who keep His commandments. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (Joh. 14:23). No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit (1Jn. 4:12-13). We know that God is in us because of what He has revealed through His Spirit in the inspired Word.
Paul speaks of Christ living in him. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. 2:20). The Holy Spirit strengthens the inward man through equipping him with the whole armor of God so that Christ may dwell in the heart of the Christian through faith (Eph. 3:16-17).
A number of passages mention the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you (Rom. 8:11).
The real problem is to determine what is meant by the facts so clearly stated that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwell in the Christian. One needs to be on guard here, for many fantastic claims that cannot be substantiated by Scripture or practical reason have been made through the ages since the Bible was written. Whatever may be implied, it does not mean power to perform miracles, for this power was given to the apostles when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and to those upon whom they laid hands. It does not mean illumination that enables one to understand the Word, for God created man with the capacity to understand thought in speech and writing. God spoke through the apostles and caused them to write in a manner that can be understood without any further aid of divine illumination. By this understandable Word, of course, He sheds light on many things we need to know. But we must observe the correct rules of interpretation in order to benefit from the light of the Word (Psa. 119:105). It is clearly implied in every instance where it is mentioned that the one in whom the Spirit dwells is under obligation to live such a life of purity as to reflect glory on God. It implies the necessity of keeping Gods commands to love one another, to be crucified to the world, to overcome Satan by using the armor of God, and to flee from fornication which is a sin against the body. In other words, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit calls for a holy life before God.
The apostle is using metaphorical language when he says, Your body is a temple. A temple was a dwelling place for God. Pagans made a literal thing of this by making idols and setting them up in their temples. Gods presence in the midst of ancient Israel was represented by the cloud that covered the tent of meeting and filled the tabernacle (Exo. 40:34-35). Metaphorical language, it should be remembered, does not lessen the importance of the lesson that Christians are to conduct themselves in a manner that shows their awareness of the presence of God at all times. What a difference this would make in the life of the church today!
We may get some help in understanding indwelling by an interesting explanation Paul presents in Rom. 7:15-20. He describes himself before he became a Christian by saying that he found himself doing things that he despised. Many a sinner has done the same thing. What caused him to do it? He says it was sin that dwelleth in me. Sin became the tyrant that caused him to obey its will. He, of course, was responsible for letting sin have such control. But the point is, he was doing what Satan wanted him to do. That is what indwelling meant in that case.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then, may mean the intelligent, willing, loving submission to what God says by the Holy Spirit in the revealed Word so that what one thinks, determines, and feels is under the direction of the Spirit through the Word. That, of course, will require the Christian to read and search the Bible to know what it actually says and to conduct himself in accordance with the divine instruction. It is the Word that was revealed to the apostles through the Holy Spirit that is to direct the life of the follower of Christnothing mystical about this, but it is practical and understandable.
ye were bought with a price.That price is the blood of Christ (1Pe. 1:18-19; Eph. 1:6; Rom. 3:25). Then the Christian belongs to God and is under obligation to serve Him.
glorify God therefore in your body.Instead of serving sin and sinning against the body by robbing it of its rightful place in Gods plan for His creatures, you are to prove by your conduct that you belong to God and that His Spirit dwells in you.
Summary
The Corinthian church had failed to settle the problems between themselves; they were guilty of bringing their differences before non-Christian courts with the result that the church was brought into disrepute.
The apostles amazement at such conduct is expressed in his question, Dare any of you who has a case against another take it to court before the unjust instead of settling it before the saints? That they were qualified to settle matters that belong to this lifethat is, things that belong to the lowest courtsis indicated by the fact that the saints are destined to judge not only the world but also angels. Since this is so, why should they go before those who are not even a part of the church but are a part of the group to be judged by the church to have such completely discredited persons settle their differences? They should have been ashamed. Surely there was some wise person among them who was capable of deciding between brethren so that brethren wouldnt have to go to court before unbelievers.
This meant just one thing: The church was suffering defeat in its purpose and mission. It would have been better for them to suffer wrong or be defrauded. Actually they were being unjust and were defrauding their brethren. Paul reminds them that the unjustand it seems that this takes in both those in the church and those outside as wellshall not inherit the kingdom of God. In order that they might understand exactly what he meant, Paul presented a list of various types of sinners who will inherit the heavenly kingdom. Then he adds, Some of you used to be such sinners. As Christians, their conduct should be different. Therefore, he says, But you got yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. They had submitted to baptism and had gotten their sins washed away in the blood of Christ. As a result, the Lord had separated them from their sins and God, the Judge, had pardoned their guilt. The pardon was granted in the name of Christ within the limits set by the Spirit of God. Christ removes the guilt; the Holy Spirit, through the inspired apostles, reveals the terms of pardon.
Continuing the discussion of their failures in duty, Paul now considers the law of expediency in relation to the use of the body. Instead of glorifying God in the body, some were using the body as an instrument of sin. There is a limit placed on things that are called lawful. Gods lawful purpose of things He created and powers He gave man can be abused. Paul argues that there is a lawful purpose for food and leaves the reader to imply the very evident conclusion that gluttony and drunkenness are sinful since they bring one under the power of food and drink. Hastening to the real issue, he says that immorality is an abuse of the body which was made for the service of the Lord, Since your bodies are members of Christ, it is unthinkable that you should make them members of a harlot. The law that makes the two one flesh applies in such a case also, but the one who serves the Lord becomes one spirit in relation to Him.
The urgent command is given: Flee immorality. Always assume the attitude of one running away from this sin because fornication is a sin against the body which God intended to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Since Christians are bought with the price of the blood of Christ, they are to glorify God in the body. Indwelling of the Spirit in relation to the Christian implies the necessity of living a holy lifeone separated from sin.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(12) All things are lawful unto me.This was probably a statement which the Apostle had himself made; at all events, the freedom which it expresses was very dear to him, and it may have been misused by some as an argument for universal license. St. Paul, therefore, boldly repeats it, and proceeds to show that it is a maxim of Christian liberty, which does not refer to matters which are absolutely wrong, and that even in its application to indifferent matters it must be limited, and guarded by other Christian principles. The eating of things sacrificed to idols (see Note on 1Co. 8:4), and the committing fornication, were two subjects of discussion closely connected with heathen worship; and it may seem astonishing to us now that because St. Paul had maintained the right of individual liberty concerning the former, he should perhaps have been quoted as an authority for liberty regarding the latter, yet it is a matter of fact that such a mode of reasoning was not uncommon. They were both regarded as part and parcel of heathen worship, and therefore, as it were, to stand or fall together, as being matters vital or indifferent. (See Act. 15:29, and Rev. 11:14, as illustrations of the union of the two for purposes respectively of condemnation and of improper toleration.) We must not regard the use of the singular me as being in any sense a limitation of the principle to the Apostle personally. Paul often speaks in the first person singular, which has the force of a moral maxim, especially in this Epistle (1Co. 6:15; 1Co. 7:7; 1Co. 8:13; 1Co. 10:23; 1Co. 10:29-30; 1Co. 14:11) (Bengel). The words refer to all Christians.
All things are not expedient.Better, all things are not profitable. The word expedient in its highest sense is a proper translation of the Greeks, but in modern use it has a somewhat lower and depreciatory meaning generally attached to it.
All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.There is a verbal contrast in the Greek here which can scarcely be rendered fully in English. The Greek words for unlawful and be brought under the power of are cognate words. What the Apostle says is, All things are lawful for me, but I am not the one to allow them therefore to become a law over me. There is such a thing as becoming the very slave of liberty itself. If we sacrifice the power of choice which is implied in the thought of liberty, we cease to be free; we are brought under the power of that which should be in our power.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
c. Nor can sensualities be excused by the lawfulness of all natural gratification, 1Co 6:12-20 .
A doctrine by which the Corinthian Antinomians, whose views of Christian ethics were yet unshaped, were deceiving themselves, (1Co 6:9,) is now stated and explained. God has given internal appetites and external objects to gratify them. This is the divine constitution. He has given, for instance, the stomach and the food, (1Co 6:13😉 so he has given the sexual instincts and the sex; the desire for wealth and external property, etc. St. Paul replies, that all those external objects are truly lawful sources of gratification; yet the unrestrained gratification is limited by the law of the expedient, and that limits the right. The injurious is wrong, the truly beneficial alone is right. And so we are truly restricted not only to the right object, but also to that object in the right degree.
The interpretation given by the great body of commentators ”all indifferent things are lawful” seems not only itself an empty truism, but involves perplexity in carrying a consistent meaning through the paragraph. Our interpretation perhaps justifies itself by its clear results.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
12. All things All gratifying objects. We are endowed with natural appetites, desires, and preferences by our very constitution. Innumerable objects are, correspondently, endowed with the quality to gratify and satiate all those our internal appetences. The world is thus to us a storehouse of enjoyments. And this, being God’s own constitution, is lawful.
Unto me St. Paul, as a fellow-Christian with those using this reasoning, uses it as applicable to himself.
Not expedient However gratifying to our appetences many of these objects, yet most of them, unless rightly used, become injurious to body or mind. So that the universality becomes immensely reduced.
Under the power As we may sin, and ruin ourselves by selecting the wrong object, so we may do the same by accepting and using the right object in excess. And that excess often enslaves us to the power of the object. Food is lawful for the stomach, but gluttony is unlawful.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Paul Now Stresses that All Immorality Is To Be Avoided At All Costs (6:12-20).
‘All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.’
It is probable that Paul had had quoted at him, ‘all things are lawful to me.’ It may indeed have been his own phrase, but twisted to a new meaning. This may have resulted from his teaching that Christ had freed us from the curse of the law (Gal 3:13), that the law was a schoolmaster, but that now we are free from the schoolmaster (Gal 3:23-25), that we are no longer under the law but under grace (Rom 6:14). Thus the Law no longer condemning what we do because its penalty has been met at the cross, all things are lawful for us because, having become new men, we will choose what is lawful. But its perversion would come from people who had misinterpreted his words, either deliberately or accidentally. So he counters by saying, yes, but not all things are expedient, not all things are helpful. The Christian being in Christ (1Co 6:15) and being a Temple of the Holy Spirit (1Co 6:19) must seek to do what pleases Him. Thus what is contrary to Christ is excluded, it is not expedient, nor helpful.
Or it may be that his opponents made this their watchword, saying, ‘If we experience spiritual gifts and blessings our behaviour is unimportant. Because we are ‘spiritual’ all things become lawful to us. We can then do what we like. We rise above the flesh.’ Thus he is then seen as countering them by saying, ‘Yes, but all things are not helpful to those who would know God.’
Furthermore, he then adds, nor will I ‘be brought under the power of any.’ Freedom is freedom to be free, he says, not freedom to do what we like and become enslaved by it. Had not Jesus said, ‘everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin’ (Joh 8:34). But men do not go with a prostitute because it is a releasing experience (whatever they may claim), they do it because they are slaves to sexual desires. And no Christian should choose to come under the power of the flesh. So he is declaring that the Christian’s freedom from the law means being free from the slavery of sin and bad habits. It means being free to live for Christ. It means being free to turn our back on all that defiles. It means being free to walk as He walks. (See Romans 6-7). ‘If the Son shall make you free you will be free indeed’ (Joh 8:36).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Sin of Fornication In 1Co 6:12-20 elaborates on the sin of fornication and how it is different from other sins. We can imagine such a problem in the city of Corinth with its temple prostitutes and debauchery. In the previous passage Paul passed judgment in the church of Corinth over an issue of a member being involved in fornication (1Co 5:1-13). He then gave them their basis for judging among themselves (1Co 6:1-11). Now he explains why fornication must be judged (1Co 6:12-20).
The Contrast of Being Joined to the Body of Christ and of Being Joined to a Harlot – In 1Co 6:15-20 Paul makes a contrast being joined with the body of Christ to that of a harlot. Just as a man who joins himself to a harlot is joined spiritually, emotionally and physically to become “one body”, so do we join ourselves to the body of Christ in all three dimensions of our make-up.
1Co 6:12 Comments – Paul will make a similar statement again in 1Co 10:23.
1Co 10:23, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”
1Co 6:16 Comments – Sex is the primary method that God created in order to join a man and a woman in intimacy throughout the years of marriage. It is this degree of intimacy that unities a couple in every aspect, spiritually, mentally and physically. In Uganda the marriage laws allow a spouse to leave his or her mate if there has been no sexual intercourse during the first three months of marriage. If either one has refused to consummate this marriage in the bed, then the marriage can be declared null and void. This is because a marriage in not complete until the man and woman come together. This is why 1Co 6:16 says that “he which is joined to an harlot is one body.” There is the bonding of two people spiritually, emotionally and physically, thus the term “one body” and “one flesh,” which refers to one living unity.
1Co 6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
1Co 6:18
1Co 6:18 “Every sin that a man doeth is without the body” Comments – In other words, the sins of jealousy and hatred do not involve the physical body to operate; for they originate in the heart and mind. However, the sin of fornication is a sin that involves the physical body.
1Co 6:18 “but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body” – Comments – Note in 1Co 6:18 how the Scriptures make a clear distinction between the sin of fornication and all other sins. This sin causes more harm than any other sin a person commits. It causes physical, mental, spiritual, social, and economic harm to an individual and those around him.
Physical Harm – This sin is capable of bringing more harm to the man’s physical body that all other sins in the form of sexually transmitted diseases. However, physical harm is not the only consequence of sexual sins. There are other consequences to this sin. Mental Harm – No other sin causes more psychological damage in the areas of guilt and shame, remorse, low self-esteem, and even the inability to respond later to a spouse in the forms of being frigid and impotent. This is because once the mind is corrupted, the soul is in pain. Spiritual Harm – No other sin in the body of Christ brings such reproach and disgust upon a man and upon the body of Christ as the sin of fornication. In this sin, a man becomes one with a harlot, and cuts himself off from fellowship with Christ. Social Harm – No other sin does quicker harm to a marriage (Pro 6:32-33). No other sin does quicker harm to a pastor’s reputation, for it creates an image in the minds of his flock that will never go away. It can seriously harm and destroy a local congregation of believers. We see how this sin brought strife between Sarah and Hagar and their sons. We see how this sin led to strife, rape and murder among King David’s sons. Economic Harm Aids became such a problem in many countries of Africa that it has put economic stress upon these nations.
Pro 6:32-33, “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.”
1Co 6:19 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?
1Co 6:19
1Co 3:16-17, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
2Co 6:16, “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Eph 2:20-22, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
1Co 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
The Necessity of Keeping the Body Undefiled.
Christian expediency:
v. 12. 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.
v. 13. 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.
v. 14. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.
The apostle has repeatedly touched upon the fact that Christian liberty and license of the flesh are incompatible. The love of Christ is to regulate the use of Christian liberty according to the rule that all my deeds which I have the power to perform are to aid and benefit my neighbor; and on the other hand, Christian liberty will not suffer anything over which I have power to overpower me and to take me captive. The laxity of morals in the Corinthian congregation could not be excused by the motto: All things are in my power, chap. 3:22. The fact itself stands, but it must be balanced by the principle of expediency and by the distinction between liberty and license. A Christian may have power to do all things, but he will find that all things are not advantageous, are not good for his own welfare. And again: Certain things may be in the Christian’s power, but it would be foolish to use them to excess (temperance, continence), for in that event they are apt to get the mastery of him, and so by the abuse of his liberty he will forfeit the richest fruits of this liberty.
The apostle brings two examples to illustrate his meaning: foods for the stomach and the stomach for its foods. God has made the various kinds of foods for the purpose of being received and digested by the body in the stomach, and he has designed the stomach for the purpose of receiving the foods and taking part in their digestion. And God will finally abolish, destroy, both the stomach and the foods. So the process of eating is a thing morally indifferent in itself. But to become a slave of the stomach, to yield to intemperance, is obviously an abuse of the power given by God. The other case is more serious: The body not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. One cannot argue that the procreative ability and venereal desire will at any time justify a transgression of God’s holy rule about the sacredness of the marriage-tie. Fornication is a perversion of the legitimate uses of the body, which has relations more important, more vital, than those connected with this life on earth. The body belongs to the Lord, it is fashioned for the Lord’s use; it should be found employed in His service. And the Lord will, in turn, live in the body, He will Himself be its true food and sustenance, Joh 6:15. This fact is brought out all the more strongly, because the destination of the body is eternal life: But God has raised up both the Lord and will raise up us through His power. The raising of Christ out of the grave came first, but we, as His brethren and members, will follow our first-fruits in His resurrection, and our bodies will be fashioned like unto His immortal body. But these things being so, how can any Christian still yield his body as an instrument of immorality?
1Co 6:12. All things are lawful unto me Are all things lawful for me?However, all things are not expedient. Are all things lawful for me?However, I will not be a slave to any. Heylin.
1Co 6:12-14 . Connection and sequence of thought. In this new condition of life (1Co 6:11 ) all things are allowed to us, but they must be for our good, all things allowed, but we on our part must remain free (1Co 6:12 ). Among these allowed things is the use of food, as what is in accordance with nature and appointed by God merely for a time ( ., 1Co 6:13 ). Wholly otherwise is it with the use of the body for fornication; that is anti-Christian ( , 1Co 6:13 ), and contrary to the eternal destiny fixed by God for the body (1Co 6:14 ).
Not without reason did Paul, when reckoning up the different forms of in 1Co 6:9 , place first. Comp 1Co 5:1 ; 2Co 12:21 . But Corinthian Epicureanism, starting from the Hellenic mode of viewing this matter, which was altogether very lax (Herm. Privatalterth ., 29. 13 ff.), easily found for itself even a certain justification of fornication, namely, in the doctrine of Christian liberty in adiaphoris , the maxim of which is: . Now we may infer from the passage before us that this erroneous justification had actually been brought forward, that more than one voluptuary in the church had, as Paul was informed, actually declared that just as satisfying the desire for food was an adiaphoron , so also was satisfying the desire for sensual pleasure by fornication. Comp Baur in the theol. Jahrb. 1852, 1 and 3; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 420 f. Olshausen, indeed, thinks that Paul would have given an absolute command to exclude all such persons from the church, and that therefore it is only the possibility of so gross an abuse of Christian liberty that is implied here. But the former is an arbitrary assumption, [953] and the latter has these two considerations against it first, that in no other Epistle does Paul touch on this possibility, although the opinion that licentious intercourse was allowable was widely spread among the Greeks and Romans; and secondly, that the statement of the moral difference between the use of meats and whoredom is of too special a kind to be naturally accounted for in the absence of actual occasion. Neander, whose objections lose their force, if we only do not go the length of assuming that this adiaphoristic view of fornication had become universal in Corinth, or had been formally published and propagated there as a doctrinal tenet, is of opinion that Paul meant to begin here upon the theme of meat offered to idols (comp 1Co 10:23 ), but was led on after the first half of 1Co 6:13 to draw a contrast (perhaps in order to guard against a misunderstanding of his words, perhaps also in opposition to those who denied the resurrection) which conducted him so far away from his theme, that it was only in chap. 8 that he made his way back to it again from another point. But how arbitrary this is! And how entirely unexampled a thing, that the apostle should so far forget himself, and write in a manner so irregular and open to misconception! Chap. 1Co 10:23 lends no support to this exposition, for it is obvious that the same maxim could be made to apply in very many different directions. Rckert’s exegesis is only a little less violent; he supposes that, in the question addressed to the apostle about the sacrificial meat, the party eating it had adduced the in their favour, and that Paul had only transferred it here in order to guard against the abuse of it respecting fornication (in substance, therefore, coinciding with Olshausen). To the ordinary interpretation Rckert objects, that the Corinthians in their letter would certainly not have described the as prevailing among them, nor would they have undertaken the defence of it to the apostle whom they knew so well. But this objection is unfounded; for from 1Co 5:1 we must assume that Paul had come to know of the state of morals at Corinth through oral reports, and consequently had not learned the abuse there made of the through expressions in the Corinthian letter (this against Hofmann also). According to Ewald, there had been doubts and debates concerning the obligation of the Jewish laws about food and marriage ; Paul therefore lays down in 1Co 6:12 the principle which should decide all such cases, and then at once, in 1Co 6:13 , disposes shortly of the first point in dispute, in order, at a later stage (chap. 8 10), to speak of it more at length, and hastens on in 1Co 6:13 ff. to the second point. Against this we may urge, first, that the first point was surely too important to be disposed of by so brief a hint as that in 1Co 6:13 ; secondly, that the two halves of 1Co 6:13 stand in an antithetic relation to each other, which gives the first half merely the position of an auxiliary clause; thirdly, that chap. 8 10 do not deal with the question of food in general, but with that of eating sacrificial flesh in particular; and lastly, that 1Co 6:13 ff. have likewise quite as their special subject that of fornication .
] might be regarded as the objection of an opponent (so Pott and Flatt, with older expositors); hence also it is understood by Theodoret as a question. But this is unnecessary (for surely it is, in point of fact, a Christian, and indeed a specially Pauline principle), and arbitrary besides, since there is here no formula of objection (such as , or the like). Comp on 1Co 6:13 .
It would be self-evident to the reader that meant all that was in itself indifferent (whatever was not anti-Christian).
] spoken in the character of a Christian in general . Comp 1Co 6:15 . Bengel says well: “Saepe Paulus prim person singul. eloquitur, quae vim habent gnomes .” Comp Gal 2:18 .
] is profitable . This must not be arbitrarily restricted, either in the way of taking it as equivalent to (Calvin, al [958] , also Billroth after 1Co 10:23 ), or by confining it to one’s own advantage (Grotius, Heumann, Schulz, Olshausen). What is meant is moral profitableness generally in every respect, as conditioned by the special circumstances of each case as it arises. So, too, in 1Co 10:23 . Theodore of Mopsuestia, it may be added, says rightly: , , .
] not I for my part . The subjection will not be on my side, but the things allowed will be what is brought into subjection. This tacit contrast is indicated both by the position of and by . The common interpretation: “ ego sub nullius redigar potestatem” (Vulgate), does not correspond to the order of the words.
.] purely future in force: shall be ruled by anything whate1Co 6:This result, that on my part moral freedom should be lost through anything, will not ensue! Otherwise the thing would plainly be not allowed. I shall preserve the power of moral self-determination, so as to do or leave undone, just according to the moral relations constituted by the circumstances of the case, what in itself would be allowed to me. Comp the great thought in 1Co 3:22 , and Paul’s own example in Phi 4:11-12 . Were masculine (Ambrosiaster, Erasmus, Vatablus, Ewald, al [960] ), the meaning would then be, that in things indifferent a man should not yield himself to be tutored and dictated to by others (Ewald). But, in point of fact, it is neuter , being in contrast to the thrice repeated and emphatic .
The paronomasia in and . was remarked by expositors as early as Chrysostom and Theophylact. All is in my power, yet it is not I who will be overpowered by anything . Regarding (which is not used in this sense by Greek writers), comp Ecc 7:19 ; Ecc 8:8 ; Ecc 10:4 f.
[953] Olshausen reasons thus: Since in 1Co 6:9 unnatural vices are named with the rest, we should have to conclude that the was applied to these also in Corinth; now Paul would surely never have suffered persons guilty of such abominations to remain in the church. But in vv. 13 ff. the apostle is speaking quite distinctly and constantly of the alone, not of unnatural sins.
[958] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[960] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
1Co 6:12-20 . Correction of the misunderstanding of Christian liberty, as though fornication, equally with the use of meats, came under the head of things allowable (1Co 6:12-17 ). Admonitions against fornication (1Co 6:18-20 ).
XII.AN EXHORTION TO CHRISTIAN CONTINENCE, AND A PROHIBITION OF ALL HEATHENISH LICENTIOUSNESS. THE RELATION WHICH THE BODY SUSTAINS TO CHRIST; ITS CHARACTER AS THE DWELLING-PLACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE GREAT PRICE PAID FOR ITS RANSOM, DO NOT ALLOW OF OUR REGARDING SUCH A GRATIFICATION OF CARNAL APPETITE MORALLY INDIFFERENT, LIKE THE ENJOYMENT OF FOOD
12All things are lawful unto me, [are in my power], but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me [are in my power], but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now [But] the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 14And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise13 up us14by his own power. 15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take [away ()] the members of Christ, and make them the members 16of a harlot? God forbid. What! [omit what, and read, Or15] know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for, two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19What! [omit what, and read, Or] know ye not that your body16 is the temple of theHoly Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, [omit all that follows17], and in your spirit, which are Gods.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Co 6:12. [After speaking of the sin of covetousness, which had produced litigiousness,and having reminded the Corinthians of what privileges they had received, and what sins renounced,he now proceeds to examine and confute an argument raised by some of the Gentile Christians at Corinth, who in the presumptuous spirit of Greek Philosophy, pleaded, in behalf of fornication and of eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, that man is the measure of all things ( ),a principle in which both the greatest schools of Greek Philosophy, with which St. Paul had disputed at Athens, agreed, though they applied it in different ways; and that all the creatures were his, and that all things were lawful to hima tenet which they imagined had received some countenance from the Gospel itself, which promised to them universal liberty, and even universal dominion in Christ, a doctrine which, when properly stated, and understood, with due conditions, is productive of that genuine independence which is the best security for self-control, and had therefore been placed in its proper light by St. Paul in the earlier part of his Epistle (1Co 3:21-23). This principle he here adopts with true oratorical skill, and proceeds to examine it, showing at once its truth and the falseness of its application by them. After Words.].
All things are in my power.Paul here has in view that easy, tolerant view of fornication which was so common among the heathen, and to which he has already repeatedly alluded (1Co 5:1; 1Co 6:9). This view was still further vindicated on the grounds of that Christian liberty which was supposed to countenance this gratification of a natural appetite as no less proper in itself than the eating of food was to satiate hunger. But the words with which the discussion begins are not to be regarded as the objection of an opposer, here cited for the purpose of refutation [Calvin and Barnes]. Had this been so, the fact would have been indicated by some formula like : but you say. They are rather the statement of a fundamental principle of Christianity, resting upon its own grounds, yet with a suitable limitation of its application to the actual life of a Christian (, i.e., for me, as a Christian).18 Accordingly we are not to interpret these, 1Co 6:12-13, as giving us a sort of dialogue maintained between some imaginary opponent and the Apostle (Pott). The context indeed shows that the fundamental principle here laid down was actually adduced in support of fornication; but there is no ground for supposing that the Corinthian converts generally advocated this practice on such a basis, or that they so argued in their letter to him. It were better to assume this only of a few individuals, and that the Apostle had been privily informed of the fact, as intimated in the case mentioned in 1Co 5:1. Some suppose the maxim here to have a close reference to what just precedes in 1Co 6:11, q. d., I being now in a state of grace, and free from all Jewish restrictions, and all outward ordinances, and being no longer in bondage to an accusing conscience and to fear of sin, have right to the largest liberty. But such a connection is by no means probable, since the verbs introduced by but are chiefly designed to warn his readers against relapsing into their earlier immoralities. It were better to connect with 1Co 6:9, and to suppose that out of the catalogue of sins there mentioned, he selected the first, and referred to the efforts made for justifying it. Besser regards the phrase as one of Pauls proverbs, [and Bengel says: Paul often uses the first person to express those thoughts which have the force of maxims, especially in this Epistle, 1Co 6:15; 1Co 7:7; 1Co 8:13; 1Co 10:23; 1Co 10:29-30; 1Co 14:11]. The term all things must of course be limited to such as were indifferent (), i.e., to such acts as were not in themselves wrong, but only under certain circumstances and connections seemed to conflict with Chiristian morality. All things are lawful for me which may be lawful Bengel. [So also Hodge; but Words., well styles this explanation weak and tautological, and hardly justified by the original, and prefers Theodorets view: all things are in my power, by reason of my free will; but it is not expedient in all things to use this freedom, for in doing that which is sinful thou losest thy freedom. But is it not plain, after all, that Paul here has in view not actions, but external objects, the things in the world which were all given for mans use, and over which he held dominion, and which, under the Christian dispensation, were all restored to him unrestricted by carnal ordinances? (The Syriac version evidently so takes it; Tyndale, on the contrary, renders I maye do all thinges: but I will be brought under no mans power. So Cranmer and the Geneva Bible). In this sense it may be said with the broadest scope all things are in my power (Psa 8:6; Heb 2:6-11). And to this the antinomian would add and I have the right to use them as I please, according to the cravings of my nature, and according as they contribute to my enjoyment. And it is upon this lawless inference that the Apostle proceeds to put limitations]. The abrupt commencement of 1Co 6:12 is perhaps to be accounted for on the supposition that it alludes to a passage in their Epistle to him, and the words before us might have been used there even in reference to things indifferent; but without the proper limitations which the Apostle here supplies. Neander.
The first of these isbut all things are not expedient.By this he means as in 1Co 10:23, not materially advantageous, but morally fitting and useful, especially, perhaps, in its bearing upon others. [It were better, however, to take the verb in its broadest acceptation and bearingsconduce to profit, whether to the person who uses them, or to others with whom he is connected, and whose welfare he is bound to consult. Every finite good has a special end, and must be wisely used with reference to that end, and not being absolute, is dependent on times and circumstances for the benefit it is to confer]. The second limitation isbut not will I be brought under bondage by any thing. and are kindred words (the former being formed from , which is derived from ), and they involve a paranomasia, which serves to bring out the contradiction, caused by the misuse of liberty, in a more forcible light. [We give the play on the words in English thus: All things are in my power, but I will not come under power to any thing]. Not I is emphatic. It exhibits the moral self of the individual (not simply that of Paul, but of Christians generally), in sharp contrast with everything, which, if yielded to passionately, or enjoyed with an accusing conscience, or fondly clung to as indispensable, acquires a despotic control over us. [The lord must preserve his lordship, and take heed that he become not the slave of any thing which is properly subject to him. Freedom must not commit suicide. The body was designed to be the organ of the Spirit for ruling over nature, not the organ of nature for ruling over the Spirit] to be master of and it is here put in the future to express the firm inward resolve not to be mastered by any thing. is neuter corresponding to .
1Co 6:13-14. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats, etc.Here we have a contrast drawn between what is in itself indifferent, and the view which cannot be brought under this category.19 From the fact that a mutual relation has been established between meats and the belly by an ordinance of the Creator, the former being made to be received and digested by the latter, and the latter being formed to receive the former, and from the fact that both are alike transient, being designed only for this present life, it followed, as a matter of course, that eating was a thing morally indifferent, and was allowable, in so far as it neither proved inconvenient, or brought a person under bondage. Very different, however, was it with the act of fornication, since the body, standing as it did in direct relations with the Lord, and having been received by Him into the fellowship of an immortal life, does not in such practices fulfil any Divine destination, [but is rather alienated from its proper functions, and degraded by them]. After the nominatives, is to be supplied. It is altogether needless to suppose that the meats here spoken of had any special connection with the altar-feasts that were so closely associated with licentious practices.20 By such a supposition the force of the argument is rather hindered than helped.And God shall destroy both it and them.Paul refers here to that great change which is to take place in the condition of mankind at the coming of Christa transformation which will preclude alt need of physical nourishment, and dispense with the organs for its reception. Comp. 1Co 15:44; 1Co 15:51; and Mat 22:30. In the words, and them, we have the hint of a time that reaches far beyond the death of the individuala time when the world and all things therein shall be burned up. [Comp. 2Pe 3:11.]
In contrast with the foregoing, there is presented to us, first, that truth in a negative form, the analogy of which to the eating of food it is the aim of the Apostle to dispute.But the body is not for fornication.That is, fornication is not the natural function of a perishable organ, but it is the perversion to illegitimate uses of the entire bodythat body which belongs to the Lord, and is with him, destined to an imperishable life. And in this also there are two elements involved; 1, a connection with the Lord;but for the Lord.And this relation is a mutual one, since the body is destined for the Lord, to be one of His members, and His exclusive possession; and on the other handthe Lord is for the body,to rule it, and to use it; yea, to appropriate and assimilate it to Himself; and, as others add, to nourish it with his life. (Comp. Joh 6:33; Joh 6:53, and also 1Co 6:15, ). 2. The destination of the body to an immortal life, grounded on its connection with the Lorda destination that stands in striking contrast with the destruction above alluded to, which awaits the purely material world.And God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us also by His strength.This resurrection is an introduction into a life that is no more subject to death. Comp. Rom 6:9 ff. The , bothand, binds the two clauses together. In the second clause, however, the reading is contested, and Meyer (ed. 2d) considers has raised, as the only right reading, although not so well attested. Paul, he says, never asserts the and that is, a restoration to life after death, of himself and of his cotemporaries (2Co 4:14 is to be understood spiritually); rather, in anticipation of the speedy advent of Christ, he was looking to be changed without dying (1Co 15:51 f.; 1Th 4:16 f.); so that if he had been speaking of the future, he would have been more likely to have used the word shall make alive, than , shall raise up. (Comp. 1Co 15:22; Rom 8:11). He interprets the word, however, not of the spiritual resurrection, that is, the new birth, but as in Eph 2:6; Col 2:12 f., where Christs resurrection is spoken of as the fact in which that of the believer is already involved, although the connection first becomes realized at the second advent, through the actual resurrection of the dead, and the transformation of the living. But if, according to this interpretation, both these ideas can be considered as included in the verb in its past tense (), why not assume the same in its future form? In so doing, we should abide by the reading best attesteda reading which puts the verb in the same tense with shall destroyand would construe the verb in its more comprehensive signification, as denoting the change which is to take place in the living, as well as in the dead. 2Co 4:14 might also be interpreted in the same manner. The distinctive changes awaiting the quick and the dead, although elsewhere made prominent, did not require to be alluded to here. (With this Meyer in his 3d ed. also agrees). It is hardly allowable to distinguish here between and (Bengel and Osiander), as though the former referred to the first fruits of the resurrection in Christ, and the latter to the work consummated at the end. The reason why he uses the word us, instead of our bodies, is that he had used the personal form just before, in the Lord. The context, in this case, allows of no misapprehension. The body, says Osiander, is the vessel of our personality. The clause, by his power, it were better to connect with the latter verb, if by his we understand, not Christs, but Gods, which is to be preferred, as God is the subject of shall raise. Comp. 1Co 15:38; Mat 22:29; Eph 1:19. here expresses the internal instrumentality.
1Co 6:15-17. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?Here he amplifies what is said in 1Co 6:13, and upon the ground there adduced of the immorality of fornication, he brings to their distinct consciousness the abominable character of the vice in question. So Meyer rebuts Baurs assertion, that Paul here makes a petitio principii. Elsewhere Christians themselves are called members of Christs bodythe Church in its totality, the head of which is Christ. (Comp. 1Co 12:27; Eph 5:30). But here their bodies are spoken of as essential parts (the vehicles) of his personality. And this, not so much on account of his incarnation, and of His so sharing with us our nature, as on account of the indwelling of His Spirit (1Co 6:19). Whether the Apostle had in mind the figure of the marital relationship (comp. 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:26 f.; Rom 7:4) is less certain. The incongruity of making Christ the antithesis to a harlot (Meyer), would not stand in the way of our supposing this, since it makes no difference whether the other party be male or female, for Paul is here speaking of the essential contradiction which exists between a persons belonging to Christ, and so holding vital fellowship with the Holy and Pure One, and his having intercourse with an individual who was addicted to impurity, such as a common prostitutean intercourse which involved the surrender of the entire person to her. It was only the impure conscience of a heathen that could be blind to the immorality of such fornication. But to the Christians conscience this should be evident at once, and we should denounce it as a crime perpetrated against Christas an abominable violation of his sacred rights. Hence the Apostle directly proceeds to askShall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? means not simply, to take, but, to take away, to alienate from the proper owner. then, or, therefore, introduces the inference: since this is so, I will not so far forget myself, as to, etc. may be either, Aorist subj., as in 1Co 11:22, meaning, should I; or, have I any right to make; or it may be future, shall I make? The sense will be about the same. [Jelf says that the second and third persons of the Future often express necessity or propriety, shall, must. Gr. Gram. 406 3]. This query he answers with an emphatic negative , let it never be,an expression by which in Rom 6:2, and elsewhere, he repels all unhallowed inferences and suggestions and declarations.
In order to prove that fornication involves all he has stated, he next goes on to show the nature of the connection it effects between the parties concerned, and sets over against this, the nature of the union believers have with Christ, so that the utter incompatibility of the two may be the more clearly feltOr know ye not;q. d., or if this at least, appear doubtful to you, then it must be because of your ignorance (Meyer). that he who is joined to the harlot is one body?, to be most intimately joined with. In this connection it denotes the sexual union, which involves the most intimate conjunction of the physical powers of life. The consequence of such a union is stated in a citation from Gen 2:24, found also in Matthew 19:51, and this he introduces as a Divine declaration.For he saithHe, i. e. God, since Scripture is the oracle of God, even though communicated through human organs (comp. 1Co 15:27; Eph 5:8; Heb 8:5). To suppose God to be the subject is better than to supply either the words Scripture or Spirit, though the meaning would still be the same. But most unsuitable of all would it be to construe it as impersonal: it is said.they two shall be into one flesh.This, which was originally affirmed of the marriage union, is here applied to illicit intercourse, it being the same thing, physically considered. Secundum speciem natur non differunt (Thom. a. q.). And by this application of the statement he shows that the act in question is not a mere momentary enjoyment with which the whole affair is concluded, but that it involves a real union of the natural powers of life in one complex personality. The term flesh here denotes simply mans physical nature, without the accessory idea of corruption. The words they two are not found in the Hebrew text. They occur in the LXX., and in all the quotations of this passage, even in those of the Rabbis. (Is this in the interest of monogamy?). Into, Hebr.
, even in classic Greek, implies a transition 1Co 6:18-20. The warning implied in what precedes is now expressly given, and, although clearly an inference, is introduced abruptly without any connecting particleFlee fornication., fleea striking expression. Anselm says, Alia vitia pugnando libido fugiendo-vincitur. Other vices are conquered by fighting, lust by flying. What follows substantiates this warning, by showing the characteristic peculiarity of that sin, which distinguishes it from every other. And this is exhibited antithetically. Every sin which a man might commit[ . The here belongs to the relative and not to the verb, and gives an indefiniteness to it, annexing the notion, whatsoever it may be. Jelf, Gr. Gram. 829, 1].is without the body.But how can he say this, when drunkenness and such like vices also involve an injury to the body, and indeed cannot be practised at all outside of the bodily sphere? There have been several modes of answering this question. We may either suppose that the word every () is to be taken in a popular sense for nearly all, which is arbitrary; or we may consider the whole clause hypothetical, q. d., Although all other sins were without the body, yet this, etc. (Flatt)which is inadmissible; others [Jerome, Origen, Aug., Bengel, Words.] take it to mean that fornication pollutes the whole body as no other vice does,but this is not stated in the words; and others still, that no vices sever the body of the Christian from that of Christ as this does (Fritzsche), a thought neither expressed in the text, nor consistent with the view of Paul in chap. 9 f.; Rom 8:9); others again take the idea to be, that no sin imparts to the flesh such tyranny over the spirit as fornication, an idea plainly foisted into the language of Paul; others suppose that drunkenness and gluttony are here included in with fornication [Macknight]a supposition not sufficiently established by the fact that these vices are frequently associated together. We would rather say, that all other sins affect and injure only the transient, perishable organs of the body, or that they require for their commission some means that are derived from without, and are foreign to the body.[Drunkenness and gluttony, e. g., are sins done in and by the body, and are sins by abuse of the body; but they are still introduced from without, sinful not in their act, but in their effect, which effect it is each mans duty to foresee and avoid. But fornication is alienating that body which is the Lords, and making it a harlots bodyit is a sin against a mans own body from its very nature, against the verity and nature of his body; not an effect on the body from participation of things without, out a contradiction of the truth of the body wrought within itself. Alford].but he that committeth fornication sins against his own body.The scope of the argument is this: On the one hand the Apostle brings to view the fact that the fornicator by his sin surrenders his body to the harlot, and commingles his life with hers in such a manner that he loses the power to dispose of his body as he will, as it were yielding to anothers nature the right he has to himself, and so coming in bondage to that (analogously to 1Co 7:4); and on the other hand, he considers how the body of the Christian (who is the only one here contemplated) is desecrated by fornication as it can be desecrated by no other sin. In both these respects this vice is a sin against ones own body in a prminent sense. The truth, that the sin of fornicating against ones own body, is chargeable upon Christians, the only persons with whom he has to do, he exhibits still more clearly by referring them to the well-known dignity which the body of the believer, as such, possessed.Or know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?As in 1Co 6:15 he ascribed to the bodies of believers what he elsewhere has predicated of believers themselves, so he does the same thing here in respect of their character as the temple of God. This designation, before applied to the Church as a whole (1Co 3:16; also 2Co 6:16), he here applies to the bodies of Christians. Primarily, the Holy Spirit dwells in the inward man, in the , or spirit; but the body is its vehicle, or tabernacle, and inseparable organ. If we adopt the reading to , then it would mean: the body of each one of you. The same sense is yielded by the other reading, , bodies. To this thought, but especially to the clausewhich ye have from God.(, the same as in Joh 15:26), showing how dependent they were on him, he adds this further truthand ye are not your own.From this it followed that they had no power over themselves, or over their own bodies, and therefore could not properly dispose of them to another, or use them for the gratification of unhallowed lusts, but were bound to employ them only in executing the holy will of God. And how they came not to be their own, he proves by referring to their redemptionfor ye were bought.viz: for God, to be His peculiar possession (comp. Act 5:9, and Act 20:28). The figure involved is that of a slave or body servant, over whom his master holds exclusive control. The purchase was from the servitude of sin, and from the curse of the law, and from the power of Satan (comp. Rom 6:17 ff.; Gal 3:13; Col 1:13; Act 26:18). And this purchase waswith a priceand this price was nothing less than Christ Himself, His soul, His blood (see Mat 20:28; 1Pe 1:18). Passing beyond the mere significance of the word, yet observing its import, we come to the important thought that it was a high price, and the purchase, dear. [To this Winer objects, LXIV. 5]. This expression occurs in 8:23, but where, as in Act 20:28; Tit 2:14, Christ is represented as the possessor. The practical inference from all this isNow then, glorify God in your body. here denotes the exhibition of the Divine holiness (or of Gods sacred presence, as in a temple) through a chaste, modest deportment. The praise is to be celebrated through deeds, as: do all to the glory of God, 1Co 10:31; comp. also Joh 21:19; Joh 12:28; Joh 13:31. Ev, in, to suit the figure of the temple, or, on, specifying that whereon the conduct which is to glorify God should exhibit itself. serves to make the exhortation more pressing. Act rightly, so that it shall be apparent to all that ye do it. See Passow 1. p. 612. [Obs.: It is very remarkable how these verses contain the germ of three weighty sections of the Epistle about to follow, and doubtless in the Apostles mind when he wrote them: 1, the relation between the sexes; 2, the question of meats offered to idols; 3, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Alford].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. [Christian liberty, its nature and limitations. 1. Its nature. Through the redemption effected by Christ, the believer is restored to that supremacy over the world, which Adam had forfeited, and has a free right and title to use it and all things in it according to his ability and pleasure. No longer is he fettered by the restrictions which the elder economy imposed. To him now every creature of God is good, and he is at liberty to make all things in their way tributary to his interests. In the person of his Lord they are all put under his feet, and with his emancipation from the bondage of sin, and the restoration of his inward freedom, his lordship over himself, he is at the same time restored to his proper sovereignty over the external world, and qualified to maintain it. But 2.] This liberty has its limitations, [first, by the law of expediency; secondly, by the law of self-preservation; and thirdly, by the law of duty. All things, e. g., though in our power, do not prove in their use alike, and at all times equally, beneficial, either to ourselves or to others. Again, the use of some things in certain ways and degrees, may destroy the liberty which claims the right to use them. And, finally, we must yield to God and man what properly belongs to each, robbing neither of their rights. The liberty of the Christian is therefore not an absolute, but a restricted liberty.] Fundamentally, however, this restriction is a self-imposed restraint, an act of perfect freedom, nothing but the fulfilling of our appointed course in love. Though the Christian is made free through faith, free from all which the law imposed from without, and enforced by penalties, yet it does not follow from this that he is at liberty to assert his own sinful self-will in opposition to the revealed will of God. Rather this very freedom becomes the means of entirely cutting off all arbitrariness of conduct. For that faith, through which the believer has been liberated, is in fact an entrance into the very life of Christ. It implies such an apprehension of Christ, that the believer can say: It is no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. But in taking Christ he takes into himself all that holy love of God which embraces both him and all his fellow-believers in one blessed union. Possessing this love, then, he comes to hate and shun everything which conflicts with the Divine will, everything which either tends to interrupt his fellowship with his Lord, or acts prejudicially upon his neighbors and associates in the churches; everything, also, which is calculated to weaken his power over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and bring him again under bondage. That alone he allows himself to use, in suitable modes and measures, which operates beneficially on himself and others, and advances the Gospel of Christ and promotes spiritual life, that alone which leaves his liberty perfect, and his mastery over self and the world undamaged. Thus does the truth and reality of our freedom rest in Christ, and prove to be nothing less than love freely and intelligently seeking its own proper ends.
[See this whole subject of mans freedom and dominion discussed in Wuttkes Handbuch der Christlichen Sittenlehre, I , p. 349, 403 f., 431 f.: Man may and can perfect his rule over nature only when he has fully subjected himself to be ruled by the holy author and Lord of nature.]
2. The power to purify the soul and keep ones self from all manner of fornication and uncleanness, is to be found in Christ alone. The simple sense of shame or of self-respect, or the mere dread of weakening or deranging our physical nature, is not sufficient of itself to counteract the strong temptation to this sin, and quell the might of this the strongest of our carnal passions. The enjoyment is instant and sensitive, the injury is remote, and perchance may never be felt; and so the weak will give way.But in our fellowship with Christ, in the clear living consciousness of His presence, we have the power to overcome the very strongest of our carnal impulses, and to resist the most seductive enticements. While He dwells in us with His holy love, He becomes the quickening power which animates and controls our whole constitution. Through this love, which consented to suffer the bitterest of deaths for our sins, sinful lust is essentially slain, and the Christian resolves that he, with his body and its members, shall belong to none other than his Lord. His body he henceforth regards as a member of Christ, an organ of His holy life. No more can he prostitute it to the control of another, or become bound in vital union to a harlot. The remembrance of Christs presence within him causes him to shrink with horror from everything which might defile that which has become a sanctuary consecrated to His glory. Mindful of his being purchased to God at the cost of the precious blood of His Son, he feels the weight of the mighty obligation, and is neither able nor willing to use that body, which is now Gods property, for any other purpose than for his service and glory. Being now joined to Christ in one spirit, he resolves never more to hold carnal intercourse with any, apart from the Divine ordinance of marriage (which is to be consummated in the Lord, and for the Lord), or to be guilty of aught whereby the body, which is destined to partake of the imperishable life of Christ, shall be unfitted for the heavenly communion. [4. The Church is Gods purchased possession. He has redeemed it unto Himself by giving His own Son as a ransom for it, thereby delivering it from the tyranny of Satan and from the merited penalties of the law, to be His in love and devotion for evermore. Not that His hold upon the persons thus ransomed had ever been lost by their sin. Gods property in man is absolute and inalienable, and His title to dispose of him according to His own pleasure and unto His glory remains unaffected, let man do what he may. But, if we may so speak, His right to love and favor them, and to treat them as His children, had been destroyed by the forfeit of sin, and instead thereof there rested on God the obligation to wrath and punishment. And this was the right which had been recovered by the purchase effected by the blood of Christ. Thus a new ground of dominion and rule has been laid, superadded to the former one, and with this a new mode of government devised, and new obligations imposed on the parties redeemed. God as Father holds the Church not only by the right of creation, but also by the right of redemption. He enforces His claims to obedience by pointing to the blood of His Son, which was shed for us: and the strongest incentive to devotion and praise on the part of the believer, both here and in eternity, isFor Thou hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[1. In the exercise of his power and liberty a Christian is bound to consult not simply the scope of his own rights and privileges, but also, 1, the bearing of his conduct upon, a. his own best interests, and b. the interests of others, 1Co 6:12; 1 Corinthians 2, its effect upon his own spiritual freedom, 1Co 6:12; 1 Corinthians 3, the intrinsic fitness of things for their special ends, 1Co 6:13; 1 Corinthians 4, the worth of objects as determined by their durability, 1Co 6:13; 1 Corinthians 5, the rights and claims of others, both God and man, 1Co 6:13; 1 Corinthians 5, the particular honor which God hath put upon the objects under our control, being careful not to desecrate what he hath taken into fellowship with Himself, 1Co 6:14-17].
[2. The sin of fornication consists, 1, in its being a violation of the Divine interest of the body, 1Co 6:13; 1 Corinthians 2, in that it is an alienation from Christ of what belongs to Him, and an appropriation of it to another, 1Co 6:15-17; 1 Corinthians 3, in that it is an abridgement of our own liberty, 1Co 6:17; 1 Corinthians 4, in that it brings a person into intimate connection and union with the vilest of characters; 6, in that it is preminently a sin against the body, being committed in and through it, in the perverted use of the highest functions of physical life, which were designed for the purpose of raising up a holy seed that should serve God; 6, in that it is sacrilege, 1Co 6:19-20].
Luther:
1Co 6:19. A Christian may be compared with the tripartite temple of Solomon. His spirit is the Holy of holies, Gods dwelling amid the darkness of faith (he believes what he neither sees, nor feels, nor grasps); his soul is the Holy place, where are the seven lights of the golden candlesticks; his body is the forecourt, exposed to the general view, where every one can observe how he lives, and what he does. Deep within the heart is the consecration made which unites him to the Church; in the secret recesses within does the Holy Ghost affiance itself to the believing soul; but the nuptial song rings throughout the entire man, and he becomes a spiritual temple of the Lord; and in the forecourt stands the altar of burnt offerings, whereon we are to lay our bodies as living sacrifices unto God (Rom 12:1).
Starke:
1Co 6:14. Our resurrection is founded upon the resurrection of Christ; and the thought of it should restrain us from all impurity; for although the impure also will rise again at the resurrection, yet it will not be to the glorification of their bodies.
1Co 6:17. Christ and believers are united together in one mystical person; but from such union lawful marriage does not hinder believers, [for if he marries aright, he marries in the Lord]. Marriage is, in fact, a type of the heavenly wedlock (Hos 2:19; Ecc 4:9; Eph 5:30). 1Co 6:18. Hedinger:Fornication is the only sin which involves the whole body in disgrace, and so defiles it more than all other sins. Drunkenness and gluttony do not affect all the members of the body; neither are the meats and drinks, wherewith a person offends, members of the body. Other sins are committed against a neighbors body (murder), his goods (stealing), his honor (bearing false witness), but fornication is a sin against ourselves, with our own bodies. 1Co 6:19. The inward glory of believers consists in this, that God Himself dwells in them and walks in them (Psa 132:14). 1Co 6:20 The precious and imperishable ransom paid by Christ for the human race, deserves entire consecration of body and soul to His holy service.
Berlinburger Bible:
1Co 6:12. People are apt to inquire only whether a thing is allowable, but not whether it is fitting or obligatory. Christians are allowed greater privileges than many think, but they always take themselves into consideration. Christians are not blind; they see, indeed, that in Christ they are exalted above all things, but they bear in mind also how they are to use all things, and in their dove-like simplicity are as cunning as serpents. Freedom is a Divine endowment, but it cannot be preserved without Divine art. We have power over creatures only in God, and Christians are the only kings. If thou art in bondage to nothing, then hast thou all power. Freedom is a Divine jewel, but it must remain freedom, and keep clear of all snares and entanglements. Man boasts, saying: I am lord of the creation. Yes, but let it only be so in fact, and become not a slave over it. We may, indeed, assert of any thing that it is good; but how art thou? May it not be holding thee in bondage?
1Co 6:13. In this statement, The Lord is for the body, we have a noble proof that Christ has verily given Himself to us. He, therefore, who now rightly honors his own body, is joined by the Lord unto Himself. He who sunders the bonds of the Divine order, abuses his own body. Originally the body was not intended for impurity, but now, and as it is now, it beguiles. It does not, however, follow that I, like an ox, must yield to that which impels me.
1Co 6:14. Can he who expects in faith this glorification of his body at the resurrection, endanger his hope by impure lusts?
1Co 6:15. Believers themselves are Christs members; therefore every thing which is theirs also belongs to Him. Universally is it true that if a Christian surrenders himself to the world and to the creature, he withdraws himself from his Lord Jesus. He who sins takes that power which God has given him and offers it up to another.
1Co 6:17. One Spirit. To will what God wills, this is to be a partaker of the Divine Nature. With God, being and willing are one and the same thing (St. Bernard). This union to Christ is learned and attained in the inmost depths of the soul alone. If we delight to be with Christ, let us then cleave to the Lord and not to a harlot. Let us walk with God and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Let us abide in God, so that heart, disposition, sense, and all our powers, shall enter into God and come out of their selfish isolation and false freedom, and be Gods possession. In this way doth God recover the man who has forsaken Him, and dwells in him as in His own temple
1Co 6:18. This passage instructs us also how we may deliver ourselves. It is by avoiding opportunities; by not running into danger, and thinking ourselves strong; tearing ourselves loose and fleeing as Joseph did.
1Co 6:19. A believer is not his own, but is the servant of God, who looks at and executes his Lords behests. Where can a greater happiness be enjoyed in this life, than in the feeling that we are entirely and altogether Gods? God, as it were, is under obligation to care for, and to protect those who belong to Him and are no more their own. Be then in no respect your own, in order that God may be entirely yours.
1Co 6:20. Christ has purchased the whole man. Through His spotless offering we are enabled to sanctify the body. Originally man was the dwelling-place and peculiar possession of the Godhead, and after his fall he was purchased anew for the same purpose by the redemption of Christ so precious; therefore ought men to consecrate themselves to God; and to this end should we purify ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit. 2Co 7:1.
Rieger:
1Co 6:12 : By our misuse of freedom we are, for the most part, brought into bondage. Freedom is a condition wherein I am able both to use and also to misuse objects with ease.
1Co 6:13. He who with every morsel he eats takes into himself something of that condemnation of death under which all things lie, will deem the pleasure to be enjoyed in eating as the least possible, and will be as little inclined to boast therein as a criminal would boast over his parting meal. Through the sense of shame imprinted by the finger of God upon the human heart, and by our longing after our primeval innocence, we are powerfully admonished to employ the power furnished by Christs grace, for the proper preservation of the body and its members, and to bring them by means of it to the service of righteousness and fruits of sanctification; and for this reason also to rejoice that the Lord also belongs to the body, that the protection, love, and grace of God in Jesus Christ extends also over this, and works out its sanctification through His Spirit; yea, also its glorification at the resurrection.
1Co 6:14. The liberty of giving ones body to fornication, and the hope of resurrection to life eternal, cannot co-exist in the heart. Those thorns choke this seed, and by the gross abuse of the body do we forfeit the enjoyment of the hidden manna, which is intended also for the nourishment of the bodies of the saints in eternal life.
1Co 6:15-16. Our bodies are Christs members, since from Christ, the Head, there flows down upon them also both life and pleasure, and power to serve God and His righteousness, and also the control of His Spirit, together with the hope and desire of making manifest the mind of Christ also in our daily walk and conversation. But when a person withdraws his members from their proper Lord and Head, and in this way interrupts that enjoyment which flows from such communion, and destroys his peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; and besides this becomes joined to a harlot or a debauchee; then does such conduct bring with it such servitude of the whole man as compels a participation of all the other members likewise, or at least infects them with its own impurities, as if these were their own. What ought to happen according to Gods ordinance only in lawful marriage, this happens also through commerce with a harlot; but it happens in such a way as to leave traces in the body and its members, which shall follow the guilty one even unto the resurrection of damnation.
1Co 6:17. By idolizing the creature and by the pleasure sought therein, man becomes carnal; by cleaving to the Creator he becomes spiritual.
1Co 6:18. The deeper the fire of lust lies in any individual, and the more the example of others and the hope that it will remain concealed and unpunished and the excuses furnished for it by mans wit, blow upon it to inflame it, the more need have we of the faithful watchmans alarm: Flee fornication.
Ver.19. A temple is consecrated to God and to His service; it is also decorated by God with many tokens of His grace. What a comfort then is it believingly to regard our body as built and furnished by Gods hand, bought by Christs blood, and consecrated in baptism to be a possession of God in Christ! Assaulted, indeed, and alas! too often overcome through the jealousy of the Devil, by all manner of alien powers, yet rescued again by the might of grace, and made meet to be the dwelling-place of Gods Spirit! Ah, what a glorious thing it will be to carry a celestial body in which evil lusts no more dwell!
Heubner:
1Co 6:12. The doctrine of Christian freedom cannot be more basely perverted than when employed to the gratification of fleshly lusts. The rule of its use is a consistent regard for self and for neighbor. The Christian should allow himself to be fettered by nothing. True freedom is to be bound by no lusts.
1Co 6:13. God has given us the body for holy purposes, its members and powers are, as it were, an image of the Divine Creative Power. Everything in us should be consecrated to the service of God. The Lord has become also the Saviour of the body, in that He has freed it from eternal death, and has earned for it its resurrection.
1Co 6:14. The resurrection of the body should awaken in us a certain respect for our body, constraining us to use it in a worthy manner.
1Co 6:15. Every Christian is a member of Christ. This holy union strengthens the sense of shame at all impurity.
1Co 6:16. Fornication is union with a harlot, with something impure, therefore separation from Christ. The man becomes that wherewith he unites, by assimilation.
1Co 6:18. Fornication is a direct sin against ourselves, for we desecrate our personality by it.
1Co 6:19. The body inhabited by the Spirit of God should be used in a holy manner. Christianity sanctifies even our physical life.
1Co 6:20. God has given His own Son as a ransom for us. Meditation upon the greatness of His sufferings should fill us with gratitude. Earnestness in the work of sanctification flows from a living faith in the work of redemption, alike in its precious foundation and in its importance to us.
Besser:
1Co 6:12. There is something great in the power of a Christian freeman, which Paul has so celebrated in word and deed; but no where does the devil build his little chapels more cunningly than right by the side of the temple of Christian liberty.
Because Christians are in some respects yet carnal, and are in danger of being biased by the flesh (1Co 3:3), they always need the rule of the Holy Spirit to enable them to distinguish between what is spiritual and what is carnal.
Paul himself is an illustrious example of a noble independence of all external things. He knows how to abound and to suffer need, being careful for nothing and in everything giving thanks.
1Co 6:20. He who depends on the Lord knows the meaning of that declaration (Psa 84:2), My flesh and my heart crieth out for the living God.
Footnotes:
[13][1Co 6:14.The verb appears in different codices under three formspresent, future and aorist. Tischendorf prefers the future, after C. D.3 L. Cod. Sin. Syr. Copt. Meyer prefers the aorist, which is the most feebly supported, found in B. 672. (See Exegetical and Critical). Lachmann reads from A. D1. It is best to take it as future.]
[14]1Co 6:14.The Rec. has , which is feebly attested, and Meyer thinks an error from Rom 8:11.
[15]1Co 6:16.The Rec. and Lachmann [with all the critical editions] read according to A. B. C. F. Cod. Sin.]
[16]1Co 6:19.The Rec. and Lach. following good authorities [nearly all: A. B. C. D. F. K. Cod. Sin.] read [and go also Alt, Stanley, Hodge.] But this is perhaps a correction occasioned by the singular predicate .
[17]The clause , etc., is an addition apparently with a view to make the exhortation complete. The most important MSS. and other old and good authorities omit it [and so do Alf., Stanley, Words.]
[18][It can hardly be supposed that Paul meant to lay any such stress on the word me, as though he meant to assert a distinction between believers and unbelievers in this respect, claiming a liberty for the former which did not belong to the latter. This would lead to some pretty dangerous inferences.]
[19][But have we not here the evidence that in the all things Paul had reference not to actions, but, to external objects? Out of these he selects one class, and shows what they were designed for, and how far they are good or expedient. But the like adaptation and utility and propriety he denies to exist in the indiscriminate use of woman, since the body of both was destined for higher uses, in the sexual relation, than mere enjoyment; and the purposes of God in reference to it, were violated by that use. The logic of the Apostle is obscured, if we consider him as having the action primarily in view. It proceeds wholly upon the rule of adaptation of things to ends].
[20][This is Neanders view. He supposes that Paul at first meant to speak only of partaking of meats offered to idols, and then was prompted to leave the topic and speak against those excesses at Corinth of which he had not thought at first. The topic thus left, he supposes to be resumed again at the beginning of chap 8, but approached from a different point; and after several digressions and expositions of it, to be taken up in the same form as here in 1Co 10:23. This view, though at first seeming to involve the course of thought in needless intricacy, grows more plausible the more we meditate upon the logic of the whole section; and it is not surprising that Neander says that neither Billroths arguments, nor de Wettes have sufficed to convince him of its erroneousness. The case had better he left without arguing to each persons reflectiontaking into account all the while the fact that here among the Corinthians there was probably the same connection between the eating of things offered to idols, and the sin of fornication that we find afterwards spoken of in the heresy of the Nicolaitans, Rev 2:14-15, and that consequently the two stood very closely associated in the Apostles mind.]
(12) 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. (13) 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. (14) And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.
There is some difficulty in apprehending the Apostle’s immediate design in the former part of these verses. Probably it might refer to somewhat personal, respecting the Corinthians. But there is no difficulty to understand the Apostle’s beautiful allusion to Christ, and his mystical body, when he saith, the body of a believer is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Christ’s mystical body, which is the whole body of the Church, was given him by the Father before all worlds. Jesus delights to speak of this body upon every occasion; highly prizing it on his Father’s account, as well as his own, and to whom he promised the Holy Ghost, Joh 17:6-10 ; Psa 21:2 ; Son 7:10 ; Joh 14:17-18 . And it is by virtue of this union, and oneness, between Christ and his people, that the bodies of the redeemed will be raised up at the last day. They will not arise as the unredeemed will, brought forth by the naked power of God, but from an union with Christ. So Paul speaks. If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you, Rom 8:11 . Even in the grave, and dust of death, there is an union of the bodies of Christ’s redeemed, to the Lord their Head, by virtue of which, at the great day they will arise; and as the Lord Jesus said because I live, ye shall live also, Joh 14:19 .
12 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.
Ver. 12. All things are lawful ] viz. All indifferent things, among which the Corinthians reckoned not only meats and drinks, but also fornication (their national sin). The devil perhaps had persuaded them, as he hath done the Turks to this day, that God did not give men such appetites to have them frustrate, but enjoyed, as made for the gust (appetite) of man, not for his torment, wherein his Creator delights not. Now the apostle grants, that for meats all things are lawful (yet in case of offence or intemperance, they may become inexpedient, and so unlawful). But for fornication, it was utterly unlawful, as he proves by many powerful arguments.
But I would not be brought ] As those swinish surfeiters, that wearing their brains in their bellies (with the ass fish), their guts in their heads, do dig their graves with their own teeth; being like the mule, which cannot travel, they say, without a bottle of hay hanging at his nose.
12 20 .] CORRECTION OF AN ABUSE OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM WHICH SOME AMONG THEM HAD MADE, THAT, AS MEATS WERE INDIFFERENT, SO WAS FORNICATION ( 1Co 6:12-17 ). STRONG PROHIBITION OF, AND DISSUASIVE FROM THIS SIN ( 1Co 6:18-20 ).
12. ] Statement of the true doctrine of Christian freedom . are the bona fide words of the Apostle himself , not, as some have understood them, the saying of an opponent cited by him. For (1) the sentiment is a true Christian axiom: being of course understood, as it evidently was even by the abusers of the doctrine, of things (supposed by them) . (2) It is not introduced by any clause indicative of its being the saying of another, which is Paul’s habit in such cases, see Rom 11:19 . (3) The Apostle does not either deny or qualify the , but takes up the matter from another point of view, viz. the . The is spoken in the person of Christians generally. “Spe Paulus prima persona singulari eloquitur qu vim habent gnomes: in hac prsertim epistola, 1Co 6:15 , ch. 1Co 7:7 , 1Co 8:13 , 1Co 10:23 ; 1Co 10:29-30 , 1Co 14:11 .” Bengel.
are advantageous in the most general sense: distinguished from , ch. 1Co 10:23 , where the words again occur. Meyer cites from Theodor. Mops [13] , , , .
[13] Theodore, Bp. of Mopsuestia, 399 428
. ] Meyer thinks that the here has an emphasis, as meaning the real I , my moral personality. But this can hardly be so: the real emphasis is on , and corresponds to , expressed more to bring out the first person as the sample of Christians in general , than for any such formal distinction.
] I will not be deprived of my freedom by any practice ; i.e. indulge in any practice which shall mar this liberty and render it no real freedom, making me to be one under , instead of one exercising it. The play on and cannot be given in English.
1Co 6:12-20 . 19. THE SANCTITY OF THE BODY, The laxity of morals distinguishing the Cor [964] Church was in some instances defended, or half-excused, by appealing to the principle of Christian liberty , which P. had himself enunciated in asserting the freedom of Gentile Christians from the Mosaic ceremonial restrictions. From his lips the libertarians took their motto, . The Ap. does not retract this sentence, but he guards it from abuse: (1) by setting over against it the balancing principle of expediency , ; (2) by defining, in the twofold example of 1Co 6:13 , the sphere within which it applies, distinguishing liberty from licence . This leads up to a reiterated prohibition of fornication, grounded on its nature as a sin against the body itself, and an act which flagrantly contradicts the sanctity of its limbs, as they belong to Christ, being purchased by Him for the service of God (1Co 6:15-20 ).
[964] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
1Co 6:12 . stands twice here, and twice in 1Co 10:23 ; P. harps on the saying in a way to indicate that it was a watchword with some Cor [965] party perhaps amongst both Paulinists and Apollonians; his endorses the declaration ( cf. 1Co 8:8 f., 1Co 10:23 ff., Rom 14:14 ; Rom 14:20 ). Very likely it had been quoted in the Church Letter. This sentence, like those of 1Co 2:14 , 1Co 3:21 , 1Co 4:1 (see notes), recalls the attributes of the Stoic ideal , to whom it belongs (Arr.-Epict., II., i., 21 28; see Hn [966] ad loc [967] ). : “Yes, but not all things are advantageous”. ( conducunt ) signifies contributing to some one’s benefit here one’s own , in 1Co 10:24 one’s neighbour’s . Parl. to the former , is . . .: “All things are in my domain; yes, but I will not be dominated by anything”. That is “unprofitable” to a man which “gets the mastery” over him. “Such and such a thing is in my power; I will take care that it does not get me into its power. I will never by abuse of my liberty forfeit that liberty in its noblest part.” This gives the self-regarding , as 1Co 10:23 f. the other-regarding rule of Christian temperance in the use of things lawful. Cf. the instructive chapter in Arr.-Epict., IV., i., For the play on , cf. 1Co 2:15 . The emphatic is the jealous self-assertion of the spiritual freeman, fearful of falling again under the dominion of the flesh: cf. 1Co 9:26 f., Gal 5:13 ; Gal 5:16 .
[965] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[966] C. F. G. Heinrici’s Erklrung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer’s krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).
[967] ad locum , on this passage.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Co 6:12-20
12All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 13Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
1Co 6:12
NASB, NKJV
NRSV”All things are lawful for me”
TEV”Someone will say, ‘I am allowed to do anything'”
NJB”For me everything is permissible”
This may refer to something Paul had said on an earlier occasion (cf. 1Co 10:23; Rom 14:2; Rom 14:14; Rom 14:20) but it had been taken out of context by (1) the legalism of the Jewish believers or (2) the libertine false teachers who were using Christian freedom as a license to sin (cf. Gal 5:13; 1Pe 2:16). Paul is trying to walk a fine line between the two extremes and yet speak to both.
This may be the first of Paul’s quoting of the slogans of the false teachers or the false teachers taking something out of context he had preached and extending his sayings into other areas (cf. 1Co 6:12-13; 1Co 7:1; 1Co 8:1; 1Co 8:4; 1Co 10:23, see (1) The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, p. 244, and (2) Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, pp. 362-363). It is not that what they said was not true, but they took the truth beyond legitimate bounds. It is hard to know when Paul is using this technique. Possibly the following criteria may be helpful.
1. It is something Paul has himself said in other writings (cf. 1Co 10:23; Rom 14:2; Rom 14:14; Rom 14:20).
2. It is a brief general statement of truth (like a proverb).
3. All biblical metaphors are true, but have limits as to their relevant application. No example or metaphor can be pushed at every level. They usually have one major application.
Paul attempts to restate the intended truth and limit the inappropriate extensions. This is the issue of hermeneutics in every age!
“but not all things are profitable” This verse speaks to the proper use of Christian freedom which must be exercised in self-limiting love (cf. 1Co 10:23; 1Co 14:26; Rom 14:19; Rom 15:2). The building up of the body of Christ is more important than personal rights and freedoms.
“profitable” This is a compound Greek term which means “to bring together for one’s benefit” (cf. 1Co 6:12; 1Co 7:35; 1Co 10:23; 1Co 12:7; 2Co 8:10, the negative in 1Co 12:1). This parallels Paul’s statements in Rom 14:19; Rom 15:2; 1Co 10:23; 1Co 14:26; 2Co 12:19; Eph 4:12; Eph 4:29. Just because a believer is free in Christ does not mean that every thing edifies other believers. We limit our freedom in love for the Lord and His church. We always seek and promote the health and vitality of the whole body of Christ (cf. 1Co 12:7).
NASB”but I will not be mastered by anything”
NKJV”but I will not be brought under the power of any”
NRSV”but I will not be dominated by anything”
TEV”I am not going to let anything make me its slave”
NJB”but I am determined not to be dominated by anything”
This is a future passive indicative of the Greek term exousia. This term had a wide array of usages
1. authority
2. jurisdiction
3. control
4. power
5. supernatural power
Paul may have had several of these connotations in mind in this setting. There is an obvious word play between “lawful” (exestin) and “mastered” (exousiasthsomai). He did not feel that
1. any human being had the right to judge him (cf. 1Co 2:14-15; 1Co 3:4-5)
2. no supernatural being had authority over him (cf. 1Co 12:2, unbelievers are led astray by the demonic)
3. no personal freedom or personal preference or personal temptation (i.e., tinos, an indefinite pronominal adjective singular in contrast to the double use of panta in this verse)
Paul’s authority was from Christ. It was Christ and His Spirit who controlled and empowered him. Self-control is surely one of the fruits of the Spirit (cf. Gal 5:23; Act 24:25; 2Pe 1:6). Paul controls his freedom so that the gospel may prosper and so should we!
Paul is asserting that Christian freedom should not be an opportunity for personal license. Many things that are good can become improper motives, attitudes, or situations (cf. Rom 14:23). This issue of Christian freedom and Christian responsibility is the critical issue of the Corinthian letters. This issue is also dealt with in Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:13. I would like to quote my opening remarks on this subject from the Roman commentary.
CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS FROM Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:13
A. This chapter tries to balance the paradox of Christian freedom and responsibility. The literary unit runs through 1Co 15:13.
B. The problem which precipitated this chapter was possibly the tension between Gentile and Jewish believers in the church of Rome. Before conversion the Jews tended to be legalistic and the pagans tended to be immoral. Remember, this chapter is addressed to sincere followers of Jesus. This chapter does not address carnal believers (cf. 1Co 3:1). The highest motive is ascribed to both groups. There is danger in the extremes on both sides. This discussion is not a license for nit-picking legalism or flaunting liberality.
C. Believers must be careful not to make their theology or ethics the standard for all other believers (cf. 2Co 10:12). Believers must walk in the light they have, but understand that their theology is not automatically God’s theology. Believers are still affected by sin. We must encourage, exhort, and teach one another from the Scriptures, reason, and experience, but always in love. The more one knows the more one knows he does not know (cf. 1Co 13:12)!
D. One’s attitude and motives before God are the real keys in evaluating his actions. Christians will stand before Christ to be judged on how they treated one another (cf. 1Co 6:10; 1Co 6:12 and 2Co 5:10).
E. Martin Luther said, “A Christian man is a most free Lord of all, subject to none; the Christian man is a most dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” Biblical truth is often presented in a tension-filled paradox.
F. This difficult but crucial subject is dealt with in the entire literary unit of Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:13 and also in 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Col 2:8-23.
G. However, it needs to be stated that pluralism among sincere believers is not a bad thing. Each believer has strengths and weaknesses. Each must walk in the light he/she has, always open to the Spirit and the Bible for more light. In this period of seeing through a glass darkly (1Co 13:8-13) one must walk in love (1Co 6:15), and peace (1Co 6:17; 1Co 6:19) for mutual edification.
H. The titles, “stronger” and “weaker,” which Paul gives to these groups, prejudices them to us. This was certainly not Paul’s intent. Both groups were sincere believers. We are not to attempt to mold other Christians into ourselves! We accept one another in Christ!
CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS TO Rom 15:1-13
A. The discussion about Christian freedom and responsibility is continuing from chapter 14.
B. The entire argument could be outlined as
1. accept one another because God accepts us in Christ (cf. 1Co 14:1; 1Co 14:3; 1Co 15:7);
2. do not judge one another because Christ is our only Master and Judge (cf. 1Co 14:3-12);
3. love is more important than personal freedom (cf. 1Co 14:13-23);
4. follow Christ’s example and lay down your rights for others’ edification and good (cf. 1Co 15:1-13).
C. Rom 15:5-6 reflects the threefold purpose of the entire context of 1Co 14:1 to 1Co 15:13
1. live in harmony with one another;
2. live in accordance with Christ’s example;
3. with unified hearts and lips offer united praise to God.
D. This same tension between personal freedom and corporate responsibility is dealt with in 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Col 2:8-23.
1Co 6:13
NASB”Food is for the stomach”
NKJV”Foods for the stomach and stomach for foods”
NRSV”Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”
TEV”Someone else will say, ‘Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food'”
NJB”Foods are for the stomach, and the stomach is for foods”
This may be another slogan. It seems to refer to an improper, hermeneutical extension by the libertine false teachers. Paul asserts there is an element of truth in what they say (cf. Mar 7:19). Paul is either
1. using a literary technique called diatribe, where he is using supposed objectors to make his theological points
2. quoting the slogans of the false teachers, some part of which may have come from Jesus’ teachings or Paul’s teachings
“but God will do away with both of them” This is an allusion to the consummated Kingdom. Food is only a part of time, not eternity. Jesus did eat fish after His resurrection (i.e., John 21), but that was an opportunity to visit with His fearful disciples, not a physical necessity for Him. Jesus also talked about a Messianic banquet (i.e., Luk 22:30), but this, too, is a metaphor of fellowship, not a physical necessity to be repeated.
The phrase “do away with” (cf. NASB) or “destroy” (cf. NKJV) is katarge. Paul used this word twenty-seven times, but in different senses. See Special Topic: Katarge at 1Co 1:28.
“Yet the body is not for immorality” This clearly shows the false extension. Humans are wonderfully created for life and its development on this planet. However, there are some God-given boundaries to insure a long, happy, fruitful existence. Since the fall (cf. Genesis 3), humanity tends to grab the immediate, the self-satisfying, the personal gratification at any cost!
“the body. . .for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body” These phrases are in a parallel relationship. The thrust seems to be that believers belong to the Lord (cf. 1Co 6:20; 1Co 7:23; Act 20:28). He wants to use their bodies for His service, His purposes. This may be a word play on the human body and Christ’s church as a body.
1Co 6:14 The definitive chapter in the New Testament on the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers is 1 Corinthians 15.
In light of Greek thought (i.e., the physical body is evil) it needs to be emphasized that biblical thought does not depreciate the body. In this very context the body is
1. made “for the Lord” (cf. 1Co 6:13)
2. “members of Christ” (cf. 1Co 6:15)
3. a temple indwelt by the Spirit (cf. 1Co 6:19)
4. to glorify Christ (cf. 1Co 6:20)
The body is not evil. It will be resurrected and will be part of the eternal kingdom. However, it is also the realm of temptation and the moral battleground of sin. Jesus gave Himself physically for the church. Believers must follow the example (cf. 1Jn 3:16).
“God has not only raised the Lord” In A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament Bruce M. Metzger delineates the Greek manuscript variants connected to the verb tense:
“1. AORIST in MSS P46, C2, B
2. PRESENT in MSS P11, P46, A, D*
3. FUTURE in MSS P46, C1, , C, D3
The FUTURE tense fits the context and the parallel in 2Co 4:14″ (p. 552; UBS4 rates it “B” [almost certain]).
This phrase is an excellent opportunity to show that the NT often attributes the works of redemption to all three Persons of the Godhead.
1. God the Father raised Jesus (cf. Act 2:24; Act 3:15; Act 4:10; Act 5:30; Act 10:40; Act 13:30; Act 13:33-34; Act 13:37; Act 17:31; Rom 6:4; Rom 6:9; Rom 10:9; 1Co 6:14; 2Co 4:14; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:20; Col 2:12; 1Th 1:10)
2. God the Son raised Himself (cf. Joh 2:19-22; Joh 10:17-18)
3. God the Spirit raised Jesus (cf. Rom 8:11)
“but will also raise us up” Paul rejoiced in his current personal relationship with Christ (cf. 1Co 6:17). This is Paul’s realized eschatology (cf. C. H. Dodd). In a real sense heaven had come to Paul in this life and would only be supplemented in a future life.
Paul also believed that Jesus was returning very soon. In some texts Paul asserted that he would be alive at Christ’s return (cf. 1Th 4:17; 1Co 15:51-52; Php 3:20). However, in other texts he links himself with those who are raised from the dead (cf. 1Co 6:14; 2Co 4:14). The whole book of 2 Thessalonians expects a delayed Parousia, as do parts of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
The Second Coming is the hope of every Christian generation, but the reality of only one generation. However, the resurrection with its new body and intimate fellowship is a reality for all believers!
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE ANY-MOMENT RETURN OF JESUS VERSUS THE NOT YET
1Co 6:15 “Do you not know” See note at 1Co 5:6.
“your bodies are members of Christ” Paul uses an analogy from Gen 2:24 as a basis for a warning about believers’ oneness in sexual immorality of any kind. Believers are one with Christ (cf. 1Co 12:20; 1Co 12:27; Rom 12:5; Eph 4:12; Eph 4:16; Eph 4:25).
“prostitute” This is the Greek term porn, which comes from the verb “to sell” (i.e., pernmi, cf. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6, p. 580). In Corinth (and the Ancient Near East) there were two kinds of prostitutes, one cultic (i.e., pagan worship) and slaves (i.e., for profit). Paul repeatedly discussed porneia (cf. 1Co 5:1 [twice]; 9,10,11; 1Co 6:9; 1Co 6:13; 1Co 6:15-16; 1Co 6:18; 1Co 7:2; 1Co 10:8; 2Co 11:21). Pagan fertility worship was expressed in sexual acts. Paul’s hearers had grown up and participated in these rituals and rites, but they are now Christians!
NASB”May it never be”
NKJV”Certainly not”
NRSV”Never”
TEV”Impossible”
NJB”Out of the question”
This exclamatory phrase (a rare optative mood expressing a strong wish, desire, or prayer) is used often by Paul to express his horror at how some respond (i.e., diatribe) to his statements or rhetorical questions (cf. Rom. 3:4; 6:31; Rom 6:2; Rom 6:15; Rom 7:7; Rom 7:13; Rom 9:14; Rom 11:1; Rom 11:11; 1Co 6:15; Gal 2:17; Gal 3:21; Gal 6:14).
1Co 6:16 “The two shall become one flesh” This is a quote from Gen 2:24. In marriage two persons voluntarily become one flesh. Physical intimacy is a strong bonding experience. It has an appropriate, God-ordained place in life. Like all of God’s gifts, it can be abused and taken beyond God-given bounds.
1Co 6:17 This is a spiritual analogy drawn from Gen 2:24. As a man and wife become one flesh physically, the believer and his Lord become one spiritual entity (cf. Joh 17:11; Joh 17:23; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:21-33). A good example of this theological concept is Rom 6:1-11. Believers die with Christ, are buried (in baptism) with Christ, and are raised with Christ.
NASB”the one who joins himself”
NKJV”he who is joined”
NRSV”anyone united”
TEV”he who joins himself”
NJB”anyone who attaches himself”
This is exactly parallel to 1Co 6:16. The grammatical construction is
1. a present passive participle as in 1Co 6:16 (cf. Zerwick and Grosvenor, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, p. 508)
2. a present middle participle (cf. Harold K. Moulton, The analytical Greek Lexicon Revised, p. 236)
The dynamic equivalent translations (i.e., TEV, NJB), as well as NASB, translate it as a middle voice. It is obvious that the context is focusing on the volition of the parties involved.
1Co 6:18 “Flee immorality” This is a present active imperative without a grammatical connection to what goes before or after (i.e., asyndeton), which for a Koine Greek reader was a way of emphasis, causing the phrase to stand out.
Human sexuality is a gift from a gracious God, but there are appropriate and inappropriate aspects related to how one exercises God’s gift. Paul affirms marriage by his quote of Gen 2:24, but firmly set the limits on premarital or extramarital promiscuity.
Believers must be constantly diligent in this area, especially when the culture is promiscuous. Sex sins are major problems to the life of faith. Believers must live sexually appropriate transformed lives (cf. 2Co 12:21; Eph 5:3; Col 3:5).
“Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body” This is a strange comment. I wish I understood it better. It may reflect
1. the pagan culture of Corinth
2. a teaching emphasis of the false teachers
3. a preaching emphasis of Paul (cf. 1Co 6:12-13)
Humans do not have a soul, they are a soul (cf. Gen 2:7). Related to this is Paul’s understanding that believers do not have a body, they are a body. This is possibly a theological development from Genesis and against Greek thought that depreciated the physical body as evil. The OT and the NT affirm a physical resurrection which is a way of affirming the goodness and eternality of human corporal existence. Later Gnostic libertine or antinomian teachers would separate the physical aspects from the mental aspects, thereby affirming salvation as knowledge instead of godliness or righteousness. Paul affirms that the gospel is
1. a person to welcome
2. a truth about that person to believe
3. a life of that person to emulate
These cannot be separated! Humans are a unity! Salvation is comprehensive. The kingdom has arrived. There is an unbreakable bond between faith and obedience. Initial sanctification must lead to progressive sanctification. Righteousness is both a gift (indicative) and a command (imperative).
My colleague at East Texas Baptist University, Dr. Bruce Tankersley, reminded me that in cultic prostitution the prostitute is a surrogate for the deity. Therefore, sexual relations were not only immoral, but idolatrous.
1Co 6:19 “do you not know” See note at 1Co 5:6.
“your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” Christianity replaces the physical temple of the Jews with the spiritual temple of Christ’s physical body (cf. Joh 2:21) as His corporate body, the church (cf. 1Co 10:16-17; 1Co 11:29; 1Co 12:12-27). This concept of temple is used in two senses in 1 Corinthians.
1. in 1Co 3:16-17 it is used of the entire local church
2. here it is used of the individual believer
This expresses the fluid relationship between the corporate and individual aspects.
Paul’s major point in this context is a call to holiness. Believers are to be radically different from the surrounding culture. This has two purposes.
1. it accomplishes the goal of Christlikeness
2. it attracts people to faith in Christ, which are the twin foci of the Great Commission (cf. Mat 28:19-20)
“the Holy Spirit who is in you” This is an emphasis on the indwelling Holy Spirit. The power for the Christian life is a gift of God, just like salvation. We must yield ourselves to the Spirit’s work. All three persons of the Trinity indwell the believer.
1. the Spirit (cf. Joh 14:16-17; Rom 8:9; Rom 8:11; 1Co 3:16; 1Co 6:19; 2Ti 1:14)
2. the Son (cf. Mat 28:20; Joh 14:20; Joh 14:23; Joh 15:4-5; Rom 8:10; 2Co 13:5; Gal 2:20; Eph 3:17; Col 1:27)
3. the Father (cf. Joh 14:23; 2Co 6:16)
Believers are God-possessed people. This is volitionally different from demon possession in that the volitional cooperation of the believer is crucial at every stage and level. The demonic destroys the individual’s will, but the sovereign God has chosen to honor the freedom of His human creation. Only in Christian maturity (i.e., Christlikeness) does God’s will become the dominate guiding force!
1Co 6:20 “you have been bought with a price” This is an aorist passive indicative. This metaphor comes from the slave market (cf. 1Co 7:22-23; Rom 3:24; Gal 3:13; Gal 4:5). In the OT this was known as the go’el, which was a near relative who bought one back from slavery (cf. Lev 25:25). This is a reference to Christ’s substitutionary, vicarious atonement (cf. Isaiah 53; Mar 10:45; 2Co 5:21). When one accepts Christ he/she relinquishes personal rights to his/her body and takes on the responsibility for the corporate health and vitality of the whole temple, the whole body (cf. 1Co 12:7).
“glorify God in your body” This is an aorist active imperative, an urgent command, not an option. How believers live is crucial for assurance, for peace, for witness! See SPECIAL TOPIC: GLORY (DOXA) at 1Co 2:7.
There are two extremes to avoid in the Christian life: (1) everything is improper; (2) everything is proper. Our bodies are for God, not for self; they are for service, not for sin (cf. Romans 6). This view of the body is very different from the Greek view of the body as the prison house of the soul. The body is not evil, but it is the battleground of the spiritual life (cf. Eph 6:10-20).
There is an additional phrase in NKJV, “and in your spirit, which are God’s,” which is in a few late uncials and in many later minuscule Greek manuscripts. However, the older texts do not have it. It is not in P46, , A, B, C*, D*, F, or G. The UBS4 gives the shorter text an “A” rating (certain).
unto = to.
all things, &c. = not all things are profitable (Greek. sumphero. Compare Joh 11:50; Joh 16:7. Act 20:20).
for = to.
brought under, &c. Greek. pass, of exousiazo, to have authority over. Elsewhere 1Co 7:4. Luk 22:25.
of = by. App-104.
12-20.] CORRECTION OF AN ABUSE OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM WHICH SOME AMONG THEM HAD MADE, THAT, AS MEATS WERE INDIFFERENT, SO WAS FORNICATION (1Co 6:12-17). STRONG PROHIBITION OF, AND DISSUASIVE FROM THIS SIN (1Co 6:18-20).
1Co 6:12. , all things) The apostle takes care that no one should abuse those remarks of his, which he was soon about to make concerning meats and the belly; comp. 1Co 10:23. The expression, all things, is to be referred to what follows; not to fornication, although this is the principal subject of his argument; but to a subject accessory and incidental, in regard to the eating of meats, on which he treats also below, 1Co 10:29. On that same point it is repeated, that all things are lawful to me, which can be lawful at all.-, to me) Paul often speaks in the first person singular, which has the force of a gnome [or moral maxim], especially in this epistle, 1Co 6:15; 1Co 7:7; 1Co 8:13; 1Co 10:23; 1Co 10:29-30; 1Co 14:11. To me, i.e., the Corinthians ought to think as I do.-, are expedient) We must above all consider, what may be expedient.–) Conjugate words. He, who does not freely use his legitimate power and liberty, steps aside from his own power, and passes into the power of another, for example, into that of a harlot, 1Co 6:15; comp. 1Co 7:4. He would be a stupid traveller, who, though his road lay in the middle of the plain, would always walk on the bank of the river and at the very edge of the stream. And yet many so live, who pass even for godly men. The Power ought to be in the hands of the believer, not in the things, which he uses. [Liberty good in itself is destroyed by its abuse, Gal 5:13; 1Pe 2:16.-V. g.] The very expression I will not [ , not I] has power, with application to the individual himself. Not I! another may venture it, so far as I am concerned. The believer establishes this principle in respect of himself: he says in respect of his neighbour, all things do not edify, 1Co 10:23.-) any thing Neuter, the same as .
1Co 6:12
1Co 6:12
All things are lawful for me;-All things have a lawful use. [It is probable that Paul used these words of himself. Starting from the doctrine taught by Jesus Christ (Joh 8:32; Joh 8:36), and proclaimed by the mouth of the apostles (Act 15:10; Jas 2:12; 1Pe 2:16), he declared that the Christian was bound to a service of perfect freedom (Rom 8:2). But this principle needed very careful statement, if the Greeks were not to abuse it. No actions in themselves were unlawful provided (1) that they were in accordance with Gods design in creation; (2) that they were calculated to promote the general welfare of all; and (3) that we were the masters of our own actions, not they of us.]
but not all things are expedient.-It is not always expedient to use them. [The word expedient signifies originally the condition of one who has his feet free; and hence that which frees from entanglements, helps on, and expedites. Its opposite, that which entangles, is similarly called an impediment. The sense, serving to promote a desired end of interest, for the sake of personal advantage, as opposed to what is based on principle, in the modern sense of the word. Hence the meaning here is profitable for others as well as for ourselves. The derivative of the word here used is translated profit in the following passages: 1Co 7:35; Heb 12:10; and profitable in Mat 5:29; Mat 18:6; Act 20:20.]
All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any.-There is a lawful use of all appetites, desires, and lusts; but none of them must obtain the mastery over us. All appetites, passions and lusts are for our good, if properly used and restrained. If they enslave us, they degrade and destroy us. An improper use or direction of the appetites and desires brings evil, not good. [If we sacrifice the power of choice which is implied in the thought of liberty, we cease to be free; we are brought under the power of that which should be in our power.]
Keeping the Body Holy
1Co 6:12-20
It is interesting to compare 1Co 6:12 with 1Co 10:23. There are four clauses in each verse, three of which are similar, but the last ones differ. The two laws that should govern our life in doubtful things, are first, the arresting of oneself in the doing of anything which threatens to become our master; and second, the abstaining from anything which threatens to be a stumbling-block in anothers Christian life.
It is not enough to watch against temptation; we should be so filled with the Spirit of the risen Savior that the desires of the flesh shall have no fascination. The power that raised the body of Jesus from the grave is surely strong enough to raise our bodies from the bondage of corruption and to translate them to the resurrection plane. Let us keep joined to the Lord by one Spirit, that He may pour His own living energy into our nature. When He redeemed us, He undertook to save us wholly and entirely-spirit, soul, and body, 1Th 5:23. Hand the keeping of your body over to Him. Consider that it is the forecourt of a temple, in the inner shrine of which the Holy Spirit lives; and as of old the glory of the Lord filled the whole structure, so trust the Spirit of Holiness to make and keep you whole.
Lecture 14
The Believers Body: The Temple Of The Holy Sprit
1Co 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 Gods. (vv. 12-20)
Following what we have seen in the early part of this chapter as to the believers cleansing, sanctification, and justification in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, we are now asked to consider some of the practical results of all this. If we have been redeemed to God by the precious blood of His beloved Son, if we have been regenerated by the Word and the Holy Spirit, then we are no longer to live to please ourselves but the One who has made us His own at such a cost. And so the apostle stresses particularly the importance of recognizing our bodies as belonging to our risen Lord.
The honor of the body was never really revealed until our Lord Jesus Christ came. If you are at all familiar with the different heathen philosophies and pagan religions, you know that men as a rule distinguish between the inner man and his relation to God and the body and its relation to earth. A great many of these philosophers and teachers said, It does not make any difference to what use you put the body. It is merely physical, and when you die it is gone. Even though your soul may persist after death the body will never rise again, and it is impossible to defile the soul by anything you may do with the body. That was the very essence of the philosophy that was taught in Corinth where the apostle had been used of God for the calling out of this company of redeemed ones whom he addresses as the church of God, and therefore, there was very grave danger that they might bring over to the new Christian position some of the old pagan conceptions, and in that way fail to appreciate the holiness, the purity, that should be connected with the physical life of the believer as well as with his spiritual life.
The apostle shows that the believer has not come into any legal relationship with God. He is not under law; he has marvelous liberty, but not liberty to do wrong. He must distinguish between license and liberty. An instructed believer will never say, I am in Christ, and it does not make much difference what I do. A man who talks like that shows that he has never apprehended the reality of what in Christ means. The very fact that I am in Christ means that God has claims upon me that He did not assert when I belonged to the world. Then I was allowed to take my own way, but now that I am in Christ I am called upon to present my body, not merely my spirit, as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Rom 12:1). And so He tells us here, All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient, or befitting. If it is just a question of law, I am not under law but under grace. But on the other hand, there are many things that are utterly unsuited to a Christian; things that would bring my testimony into disrepute. There are a great many things about which there is no direct instruction in the Word of God, and because of this some think of them as things indifferent. But the question is, What effect would it have on other people if I as a Christian were to indulge in them? I belong to Christ, and men will judge of Christ as they look upon me, and my behavior therefore must be such as will commend Christ. And then again, All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. It is an answer to those who say, Well, why should not a Christian feel perfectly free to indulge himself if he wants to? And so they excuse the use of intoxicants and tobacco. It is a bad thing to create habits that are not easily broken, and the apostle says, I will not be brought under the power of any. I will not allow myself to be a slave to appetite. There are things with which one cannot tamper without being brought under their power. Your liberty is gone when you say, I have liberty to form habits like this, for you become a slave.
You can apply this in a great many different ways. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. I am the Lords free man, and I am going to preserve my liberty in Christ. I am free to please Him, not free to please myself. And then if it is a question of food, we read: The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty (Pro 23:21). Notice, it is not only the drunkard but also the glutton. In their heathen festivals the people gorged themselves in the most disgusting way in honor of their heathen gods, and we as Christians need to be careful as to overeating. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats. The two are suited the one to the other. Food is suited to the digestive tract and the digestive tract is suited to food, but you are not to live for these things, you are not to live to feed the belly. But God shall destroy both it and them. Do not live therefore as though your great business in life was the gratifying of your appetite. Let there be something higher before you. As Christians your business is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he speaks of the sex instinct, for there were those who said, God has implanted certain appetites in the very bodies of men and women, therefore it does not make any difference how people indulge these appetites in or out of the marriage relationship. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. It is not to be used for vile gratification, that is contrary to the holiness of God, but it is to be kept for the Lord, and as it is kept for the Lord, the Lord is for the body. What a wonderful relationship we have been brought into. It is the resurrection of the body of the Lord Jesus that has put dignity upon all our bodies. If I am going to have my body in resurrection, then I must remember it is not to be used for any degrading purpose here on earth.
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? You know that your spirit is a member of Christ, you know your soul belongs to Christ, but do you think as often as you should of the fact that your body is a member of Christ? We read of the church as the body of Christ. It is not merely as an aggregation of redeemed souls that the church is the body of Christ, but as men and women having physical constitutions we belong to Christ, and my body is to manifest the holiness of Christ, my body is to be used in devotion to Him. I am to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto the Lord, as already intimated.
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Very well, shall I take the members of Christ, this body of mine, and defile it, put it to an unholy purpose? How can I do that, I who profess to have been bought with the blood of Gods dear Son? 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. What a mystic union this is into which we have been brought! The same Holy Spirit who dwells without measure in the Head now dwells in every member of Christs body here on earth. Then, the body is for the Lord. How this will solve every problem in regard to sensual pleasure and worldly folly. You are invited out somewhere where you are not quite sure you can glorify God, and you stop a moment and say, My body is a member of Christ; is it consistent for me, as a member of Christ, to go where He will be dishonored? You must not go where you cannot glorify Christ. That is the Christian standard.
He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Then I must flee everything that is of a carnal, corrupt nature. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body. Other sins do not affect the body, but this one sin is ruinous to body and soul alike, and so, Paul says, Flee fornication, run from anything that would tend to stir the body to unholy lust. In his Confessions, St. Augustine tells how in his unconverted days he had allowed himself to become the willing victim of vile and fleshly lusts. He lived his careless life as the pagans of that day, and associated with the corrupt and wicked members of society. When he got converted, the great question upon his mind was this, Will I ever be able to live according to the Christian standard of holiness, will I ever be able to keep myself from the vile, sensuous life in which I have lived so long? When he first yielded himself to Christ, he took as his life-text Rom 13:13-14, where the apostle exhorts the believer to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. For long after his conversion he did not dare even to go near that part of the city where his godless companions of former days lived. But one day a matter of business called him there, and as he was walking along the street he suddenly saw one of the beautiful yet wicked companions of his folly. The moment her eyes lit upon him her face was illuminated with delight, and she came running with outstretched arms and said, Austin! where have you been for so long? We have missed you so, and he turned and gathered up his long philosophers gown and started to run. It was not a very dignified proceeding for a doctor, a professor of rhetoric, to run up the street with a godless girl running after him. She called to him, Austin, Austin, why do you run? It is only I! He looked back and exclaimed, I run because it is not I. And he was off again. The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20). That is our standard, and so in all our behavior in the use of the body we are thus to glorify Him.
Now he comes to the crux of the whole matter. What? know ye not that your body is the temple [the sanctuary] of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? See how the Holy Spirit links us again with Christ. When He was here on earth, He said to the Jews of His day, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (Joh 2:19), and they, misunderstanding, looked at the great temple on Mount Moriah and said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But we are told, He spake of the temple of his body. He, the Holy One, had a real human body, and that body was the sanctuary of deity. Now He has gone back to heaven, He has saved our souls, and He claims our bodies and has sent His Holy Spirit down to dwell in the body of the believer. He says, Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Do we think as much of this as we should? Would you allow many things about which you are careless if that were constantly before your mind? You think of a church building as a sanctuary set apart for the work of the Lord. You step in from the outside, and immediately your hat comes off, for you realize that you are in the sanctuary. We teach our boys and girls not to be boisterous or frivolous in the church building for it is the house where we meet with God, and we realize that reverent behavior should characterize us. But think of this, your body is the sanctuary, it is the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. How careful you and I ought to be that we grieve not that blessed One who dwells within, that we do not bring dishonor upon the name of the Savior who has sent His Spirit to live in our body. Say the words over and over again to yourself until they get such a grip on you that you will never forget them: My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. God dwells in me. It will give you to realize the dignity of the body and the responsibility that attaches to it.
Ye are not your own? Does your heart respond to that? Ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. And what price? The precious blood of Gods dear Son. Yonder at Calvary He purchased us to be His own. An old Puritan writer said, Calvary was the marketplace where the Savior bought us with His blood, but He never got His moneys worth. We have been such poor servants, we have responded so poorly to His love. We used to sing years ago:
Not my own, but saved by Jesus,
Who redeemed me by His blood,
Gladly I accept the message,
I belong to Christ the Lord.
Not my own, to Christ my Saviour
I believing trust my soul,
Everything to Him committed,
While eternal ages roll.
Not my own, my time, my talents,
Freely all to Christ I bring,
To be used in joyful service
For the glory of my King.
Not my own, the Lord accepts me,
One among the ransomed throng
Who in heaven shall see His glory,
And to Jesus Christ belong.
It will be wonderful to be His own up there. I would not want to miss it then, but it is a greater privilege to be His own as we walk the streets of this world than it will be when we walk the streets of gold, for this is the world in which we have the privilege of glorifying Him in our bodies. And so he says, Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. If you have the Revised Version, you will see that the text really stops here. In our King James Version it adds the words: And in your spirit, which are Gods. I think somebody making a copy of this in the old Greek text got down this far and had not got the thought at all, but felt that there was something left out and so added these words in the margin. That is the very thing the apostle is not saying. What he is saying is, Keep to this thought; your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; if you glorify Him in your body, you will in your spirit. Glorify God in your body and the spiritual side will take care of itself.
things are lawful: 1Co 10:23, Rom 14:14
are not: 1Co 8:4, 1Co 8:7-13, 1Co 9:12, 1Co 10:24-33, Rom 14:15-23, 2Th 3:9
but I: 1Co 9:27, Rom 7:14, Heb 12:15, Heb 12:16, Jud 1:12
Reciprocal: Gen 27:3 – take me Lev 15:18 – unclean Deu 14:26 – thy soul 2Ki 5:16 – I will receive Rom 14:20 – For 1Co 8:13 – if meat 2Co 5:10 – in 2Co 8:10 – expedient 2Co 12:1 – expedient Tit 1:15 – the pure
1Co 6:12. The original word for expedient is defined “profitable” in Thayer’s lexicon. A thing could not be profitable that was not lawful, but it might be lawful and not profitable. This verse has special reference to foods of all kinds. (See next verse.) There is no direct legislation against any kind of food (Rom 14:1-3; 1Ti 4:4), but it would not be profitable for a Christian to become a slave to his appetite, and Paul says he will not be brought under it.
1Co 6:12. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient. In things indifferent, such as the eating of meats forbidden under the ceremonial law, the Gospel has made all things clean, and I can use my liberty without scruple; but there are some of tender conscience who are still afraid to meddle with such things. For their sake, therefore, I must consider whether that which in itself is perfectly lawful is at the same time expedient.
all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anyof anything (not any person), to become its slave.
Our apostle still proceeds in the reprehensory part of his epistle, and begins here to reprove the growing heresy of the Gnostics and Nicolaitans among them, who allowed the eating of things sacrificed to idols, and fornication, as things indifferent.
The apostle grants, that all indifferent things are lawful, and may be used, first, when they are expedient, that is, when they may be used without hurting ourselves and others: and, secondly, when they do not get such a dominion over us, as to enslave us to an intemperate and immoderate use of them; he instances particularly in meats, and grants that it is lawful to use any kind of meat, because God hath ordained it for the good of man’s nature: meats are ordained for the belly also, as to the use it now hath; for in the resurrection men shall neither hunger nor thirst any more.
Learn hence, That Christianity doth not barely restrain us from the doing of what is unlawful, but from doing of what is inexpedient also: an action in itself lawful may by circumstances become sinful, and it is both wise and safe to forbear the use of our Christian liberty, when it becomes an occasion of offence unto our neighbour.
Christians Are A Part of Christ’s Body
Christians are free to do anything that is not sinful. The Corinthians had misapplied their freedom to sinful activities. As God’s inspired spokesman, Paul said even some things which were lawful were not to be done because they would not profit others. Lipscomb says, “There is a lawful use of all appetites, desires, and lusts” but none of them must obtain the mastery over us” ( 1Co 6:12 ).
Apparently some compared man’s appetite for food to his appetite for sex, reasoning that if one is right, so is the other. Food and stomach serve only a temporary purpose; to maintain the body. Fornication serves to tear down the body, which is meant for the Lord’s service. The Lord dwells in and cares for the body. While the stomach serves a temporary purpose, the body will be raised by God for an eternal heaven, if properly used ( 1Co 6:13-14 ).
Christians are parts of Christ’s body ( 1Co 12:27 ; Eph 5:30 ). Paul could not even imagine a part of the body of Christ being joined to a harlot. After all, sexual intercourse causes a man and woman to become one flesh ( Gen 2:24 ; Mat 19:5 ; Eph 5:31 ). So, the fornicator, who is a Christian and “one spirit” with the Lord, makes Christ one with a harlot. Therefore, Paul urged the brethren to flee sexual immorality, even as Joseph literally did ( Gen 39:12 ). While other sins may attack members of the body, the body is not the instrument of sin. It is thus given over in its totality to sin, both outwardly and inwardly ( 2Co 6:15-18 ).
1Co 6:12-14. All things That are indifferent in their own nature, and neither commanded nor forbidden; are lawful unto me Or, as some paraphrase the clause, All things which are lawful for you are lawful for me. Since the apostle could not say, in any sense, that absolutely all things were lawful for him, the sentence must be considered as elliptical, and what is wanting to complete it must be supplied, according to the apostles manner, from the subsequent verse. But all things are not expedient Proper to be used, in regard of circumstances; as when they would offend our weak brethren, or when they would enslave our own souls. Although all things Of the above description; are lawful for me, yet I will not be brought under the power of any So enslaved to any thing, as to be uneasy when I abstain from it, for in that case I should be under the power of it. Meats for the belly, &c. As if he had said, I speak this chiefly with regard to meats; particularly with regard to those offered to idols, and those forbidden in the Mosaic law. These, I grant, are all indifferent, and have their use, but it is only for a time, for soon, meats, and the organs which receive them, will together moulder into dust. For God will destroy both it and them Namely, when the earth, and the things which it contains, are burned. From this it is evident, that at the resurrection, the parts of the body which minister to its nutrition are not to be restored; or, if they are to be restored, that their use will be abolished. Now Or rather but; the body is not for fornication As if he had said, The case is quite otherwise with fornication; this is not a thing indifferent, but at all times evil; for the body is for the Lord Designed only for his service: and the Lord In an important sense; is for the body Being the Saviour of this as well as of the soul, and consequently must rule and employ it. And as a further proof that the body was made for glorifying the Lord, God hath both raised up the body of the Lord, and will also raise up our bodies, and render them immortal like his.
IV. Impurity. 6:12-20.
It has sometimes been imagined that the apostle was here resuming the subject of chap. 5, from which he had allowed himself to be diverted by the question of lawsuits. But we have seen that the subject of chap. 5 was not impurity at all, but discipline, treated in connection with a case of impurity. Lawsuits followed, by a transition which we have explained (1Co 6:1). And now Paul continues to treat of the moral disorders which he knows to exist in the Church. If the manner in which he enters on the subject in 1Co 6:12 has been thought somewhat abrupt, it is because account has not been taken of the connection between the maxim: All things are lawful to me, and the warning of 1Co 6:9 : Be not deceived. It is perfectly obvious that some at Corinth were indulging in strange illusions as to the consequences of salvation by grace, and even went the length of putting the practice of vice under the patronage of the principle of Christian liberty.
Neander has thought that in beginning as he does in 1Co 6:12, the apostle proposed immediately to treat the subject of meats consecrated to idols, a subject in connection with which he repeats (1Co 10:23) the same maxim, and that he was led away from the second part of 1Co 6:13 to deal with impurity, to resume the subject of offered meats later (chaps. 8-10). The truth involved in this view is, that from this point the idea of Christian liberty is that which prevails to the close of chap. 10; comp. Holsten, Ev. des Paulus, p. 293. But the order in which the subjects are linked to one another in this Epistle is the fruit of too serious reflection to allow us to hold such an interruption. And the relation which we have just pointed out between 1Co 6:12 and 1Co 6:9-10, where impurity holds the first rank in the enumeration of the vices mentioned, shows clearly that the apostle knew the goal at which he was aiming.
All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient. [The abruptness here suggests that, in palliation of their undue laxity and toleration, they had in their letter (1Co 7:1) urged this rule; which they had doubtless learned from Paul (1Co 10:23; Gal 5:23). Hence Paul takes up the rule to show that it does not avoid the disinheriting of which he has just spoken.] All things are lawful [literally, within my power] for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any. [They had erred in taking the rule as to things indifferent, such as natural appetites, and so applying it as to make it cover not only sinful things, but even those grossly so, such as sensuous lusts (comp. 1Pe 2:16). The rule is properly applied by the apostle at 1Co 8:8-10 . He here refutes their ideas as to the rule by showing that their application of it would gender bondage, as excess of freedom invariably does.]
12. All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable; all things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any one. Here he makes an allusion to his privileges as an apostle, to exercise authority on lines purely optionary and where it is his privilege to decline; e. g., temporal support was his right and privilege, yet he did not claim it lest the enemies of the cause should make capital of it. And in availing himself of that, as well as other privileges, he might embargo his glorious and perfect spiritual liberty. If the preachers were as independent as Paul, they would soon bring in the Millennium. How few can say, I will not be brought under the power of any person or thing. I am Gods redeemed child, free as Gabriel! God help the preachers! They are afraid of one another, afraid of their members, afraid of the members of other churches, afraid of the world, afraid of their reputation, afraid of the Holiness people, afraid of the evangelists, afraid of poverty, et cetera.
1Co 6:12-20. Impurity is no True Expression of Christian Freedom, but Incompatible with the Believers Union with Christ.The special case of incest and the warnings against impurity in the last section (1Co 6:9 f.) have prepared the way for this explicit and reasoned denunciation. Impurity was defended on the principle that all things were lawful, possibly a maxim in which Paul had expressed his own doctrine of Christian freedom. If so, here, as elsewhere, illegitimate inferences were drawn from his antinomianism, here to defend licence, elsewhere to discredit his doctrine of freedom by exhibiting its moral dangers. More probably the maxim was coined by those who defended licentiousness; Paul opposes to it the counter-maxim, All things are not expedient, i.e. there are things which involve moral and spiritual loss. All are lawful, he repeats, retorting: Yes, but if they are at my disposal, they shall not dispose of me; no habit shall make me its slave; slavery is what your boasted freedom really means. Next he quotes an analogy by which impurity was defended, the organs involved are, in fact, fulfilling their natural function, just as properly as the belly in receiving food. He replies that the belly is but a temporary organ fitted to this sphere of existence not to the Kingdom of God (1Co 15:50); it will disappear as completely as the meats it consumes and digests (Col 2:21 f.). The retort might be made that the sexual organs belonged similarly just to this lower order (Mar 12:25), their gratification therefore was as legitimate as the gratification of the appetite for food. Paul does not state this, nor as yet explicitly meet it. He proceeds to speak of the body; the relationship of the body to the Lord is as completely reciprocal as that of meats for the belly. But in the one case the end is destruction, in the other permanence. The perishable has no such moral significance as the abiding; the immortality of the Lord (Rom 6:9) involves the immortality of the body. The body, therefore, as belonging to Christ and destined for immortality, must be used in harmony with its lofty destiny; impurity and Christ are utterly incompatible, the body cannot be dedicated to both. Speaking more concretely he now refers (1Co 6:15-17) to the partner of the sin rather than to the sin itself. The primal law of marriage (Gen 2:24) affirms that husband and wife are one flesh. And this is true of illicit unions, the man and his paramour become in the act one flesh, his members become hers. But in the case of Christians their bodies are the Lords members; what impious desecration to make them members of a harlot! He who is joined to the Lord in mystical union (in this context and in this sentence the union must obviously be mystical not merely ethical), coalesces into a single spirit with Him. Paul now touches the principle which justified him in speaking of the body rather than the specific organs in reply to the analogy from the belly. Fornication involves the body itself in a sense in which no other sin does, not even if it be a physical sin like gluttony or drunkenness. It is sacrilege against the temple of the Holy Ghost, and implies a claim to dispose of himself which no Christian can make. He does not belong to himself, he has been bought with a price. We have Pagan inscriptions from Delphi in which the manumission of a slave is represented as his purchase by the god with a view to his freedom (Gal 5:1). The price here is no doubt the death of Christ (1Pe 1:18 f.), but the metaphor of ransom must not be pressed, else the question arises, as in patristic theology, To whom was the ransom paid? It is most unlikely that Paul thought of the answer, for many centuries so popular, that since the devil was mans master the price must have been paid to him. The stress lies on the fact that they have been set free from the old bondage. But Christian freedom is bondage to Christ, whose slave Paul delights to call himself.
SECTION 10 ALL LICENTIOUSNESS IS CONTRARY TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE CH. 6:12-20
All things to me are allowable: but not all things are profitable. All things to me are allowable: but not I will be mastered by any. The food-stuffs are for the belly, and the belly for the food-stuffs: but God will bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise up us through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of the body of Christ? Shall I then, having taken away the members of the body of Christ, make them members of a harlot’s body? Far from it. Or, do you not know that he who joins himself to the harlot is one body? For, says he, The two will become one flesh. (Gen 2:24.) But he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit. Fly from fornication. Every act of sin, whatever a man may commit, is outside the body. But he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Or, do you know not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God; and you do not belong to yourselves? For, you were bought with a price. Then glorify God in your body.
After various matters of detail, viz. the incestuous church-member, intercourse with such men, and lawsuits, Paul asserted in 1Co 6:9-11 a negative and a positive truth condemning all kinds of sin. He now takes up one sin, which, because of its prevalence at Corinth even (2Co 12:21) in the church, he has already placed first in the dark catalogue of 1Co 6:9-10; and brings to bear against it, in addition to the general truths of 1Co 6:10-11, special and weighty arguments.
1Co 6:12. The subject is introduced by a startling assertion, which is immediately repeated, All things to me are allowable. The repetition of these words, and their occurrence, similarly repeated, in 1Co 10:23, suggest that they had been spoken before, by Paul or others. But whatever be their origin Paul makes them his own, thus admitting their correctness; and guards them from abuse. That in both places they are spoken in connection with food, and the abrupt and transitory mention of food in 1Co 6:13, suggest that this was their original reference, and that they are equivalent to Paul’s own words in Rom 14:20, All things are clean. If so, they may have come originally from his lips, touching food offered to idols or forbidden in the Mosaic Law. Cp. 1Ti 4:3. We notice that these words are here carefully guarded against abuse, and that the broad difference between food and the intercourse of the sexes is argued at length. This suggests that, though true and important within their own limits, these words had been perverted into an excuse for inchastity; and that some professed to infer from them that all restrictions on the intercourse of the sexes, as on food, had been set aside by the Gospel. This misuse of words which he does not hesitate to reassert, Paul meets at once by showing in 1Co 6:12 that they contain in themselves a limit to their practical application, and (1Co 6:13-14) that the cases of food and of intercourse of the sexes are so altogether different that we cannot argue from the one to the other.
To me: who have been set free by Christ from the Mosaic Law. Cp. Rom 14:14.
Profitable: helpful to ourselves or others. In all matters, and especially about food, we ask not only whether it is lawful but whether it will do us good or harm.
Be mastered by anything: be put under its rule; one case in which an action may be allowable but not profitable. Some actions (e.g. the use of stimulants) tend to create in some persons an irresistible habit. Now whatever deprives us of self-control does us harm; and must therefore be avoided, even though in itself lawful. In this case, in order to preserve our liberty we put a limit to its exercise. Paul says, All things are in my power: but over me nothing shall have power. He leaves his readers to apply these principles to the matter of fornication; to determine whether it is profitable to them, or whether it brings them into humiliating bondage.
This verse is a good guide of conduct in matters not expressly forbidden. By experience and observation, guided by the Spirit of wisdom and love, we must discover the effect of various actions upon our own inner life and through us on those influenced by our example, and act accordingly. For no intelligent man will do a thing, without considering its results, merely because it is lawful. A beautiful development of this principle is found in 1Co 10:23-33; 1Co 8:9-13; Rom 14:13-21.
6:12 {9} {g} 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 {h} power of any.
(9) Secondly, he shows that the Corinthians offend in small matters. First, because they abused them. Next, because they used indifferent things, without any discretion, seeing the use of them ought to be brought to the rule of charity. And that he does not use them correctly, who immoderately abuses them, and so becomes a slave to them.
(g) Whatever: but this general word must be restrained to things that are indifferent.
(h) He is in subjection to things that are indifferent, whoever he is that thinks he may not be without them. And this is a flattering type of slavery under a pretence of liberty, which seizes upon such men.
3. Prostitution in the church 6:12-20
The apostle proceeded to point out the sanctity of the believer’s body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to help his readers realize the seriousness of the sins that marked them to some extent as a church.
"The Greeks always looked down on the body. There was a proverbial saying, ’The body is a tomb.’ Epictetus said, ’I am a poor soul shackled to a corpse.’" [Note: Barclay, The Letters . . ., p. 62.]
"The question is: If there are no restrictions in food, one appetite of the body, why must there be in sexual things, another physical desire?" [Note: Johnson, p. 1238.]
"Apparently some men within the Christian community are going to prostitutes and are arguing for the right to do so. Being people of the Spirit, they imply, has moved them to a higher plane, the realm of the spirit, where they are unaffected by behavior that has merely to do with the body. So Paul proceeds from the affirmation of 1Co 6:11 to an attack on this theological justification.
"As before, the gospel itself is at stake, not simply the resolution of an ethical question. The Corinthian pneumatics’ understanding of spirituality has allowed them both a false view of freedom (’everything is permissible’) and of the body (’God will destroy it’), from which basis they have argued that going to prostitutes is permissible because the body doesn’t matter." [Note: Fee, The First . . ., pp. 250-51.]
This is one of the more important passages in the New Testament on the human body.
Refutation of the Corinthians’ false premises 6:12-14
Paul began by arguing against his recipients’ distortion of Christian freedom and their misunderstanding of the nature of the body. The influence of Greek dualism on the Corinthians continues to be obvious. He presented his teaching in the form of a dialogue with his readers, the diatribe style, which was familiar to them.
Paul was and is famous as the apostle of Christian liberty. He saw early in his Christian life and clearly that the Christian is not under the Mosaic Law. His Epistle to the Galatians is an exposition of this theme. He preached this freedom wherever he went. Unfortunately he was always subject to misinterpretation. Some of his hearers concluded that he advocated no restraints whatsoever in Christian living.
Similarly the Protestant reformers fell under the same criticism by their Roman Catholic opponents. The Catholics said that the reformers were teaching that since Christians are saved by grace they could live sinful lives. Unfortunately John Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza (1519-1605), overreacted and argued that a true Christian cannot commit gross sin. This assertion led to the conclusion that the basis of assurance of salvation is the presence of fruit in the life rather than the promise of God (e.g., Joh 6:47; et al.). This view, that a true Christian will not commit gross sin, has become popular in reformed theology, but it goes further than Scripture does. Scripture never makes this claim but constantly warns Christians against abusing their liberty in Christ and turning it into a license to sin. [Note: See Dillow, pp. 245-69.]
Perhaps those in Corinth who were practicing sexual immorality and suing their brethren in pagan courts appealed to Paul to support their actions, though they took liberty farther than Paul did. [Note: See Robert N. Wilkin, "Are All Things Lawful for Believers?" Grace Evangelical Society Newsletter 4:7 (July 1989):2.]
"’Everything is permissible for me’ is almost certainly a Corinthian theological slogan." [Note: Fee, The First . . ., p. 251. Cf. 10:23.]
"It could have been argued in Corinth . . . that the right course was for a husband to keep his wife ’pure’, and, if necessary, find occasional sexual satisfaction in a harlot." [Note: Barrett, p. 145.]
In this verse the apostle restated his general maxim but qualified it (cf. 1Co 10:23). Legality is not the only test the Christian should apply to his or her behavior. Is the practice also profitable (helpful, admirable, beneficial, expedient, good)? Furthermore even though I have authority over some practice, might it gain control over me? The Christian should always be able to submit to the Lord’s control. We should give the Lord, not anyone or anything else, primary control of our bodies.
"Freedom is not to be for self but for others. The real question is not whether an action is ’lawful’ or ’right’ or even ’all right,’ but whether it is good, whether it benefits. . . . Truly Christian conduct is not predicated on whether I have the right to do something, but whether my conduct is helpful to those about me." [Note: Fee, The First . . ., p. 252.]
"We have no longer any right to do what in itself is innocent, when our doing it will have a bad effect on others. . . . We have no longer any right to do what in itself is innocent, when experience has proved that our doing it has a bad effect on ourselves." [Note: Robertson and Plummer, p. 122.]
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
into a particular state [Jelf, Gr. Gram., 625, Obs. 4].But he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.Here we have the contrast: , a phrase which occurs also in Deu 10:20; 2Ki 18:6. As the result we have, not one body, but one spirit, denoting the element wherein this union takes place. But this unity is not a merely idea one. It is one in essential reality, the indwelling of Christ in the believer, so that His Spirit and our spirit become one. Comp. 1Co 14:23. This clause stands independently.
[3. The true position and dignity of the body. In its doctrine concerning the body, Christianity avoids two opposite extremes. It neither disparages it as worthless and contemptible, after the fashion of some ancient philosophers, and the Manicheans; nor does idolize it into an object of supreme regard and care, as the Epicureans, ancient and modern, do. Regarding it as essential to the perfection of our humanity, and as a needful organ of the Spirit, Christianity gives, the body likewise a share in Christs redemption, and unites it to Him for sanctification here and for glorification hereafter. It thus makes it a member of Christs mystical body, to be controlled and regulated by His Spirit. At the same time it imparts to it the character of a Divine temple, and requires that we keep it from all defilement, and preserve it in a condition suited for the service and worship of God. So far, therefore, from being at liberty to despise or abuse the body, or to set up its welfare and claims in antagonism with those of the Spirit, or to make our care for it a distinct, though even a subordinate interest, our obligations to Christ demand that we unite it with the soul in one general system of spiritual edification and culture, yield its members as instruments of righteousness, and glorify God in it no less than in the spirit].
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)