Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 6:15
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.
15. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? ] This solemn truth, that by our calling as Christians we are so closely united to Christ as to be ‘members of His Body, of His Flesh and of His Bones’ (Eph 5:30) is employed here to remind us of the restrictions placed upon our Christian liberty. Our body is Christ’s, nay it is, in a sense, a part of Christ Himself. It may not be used in violation of the laws imposed upon it from the beginning by God. Nor may it be used to the detriment of others, who equally, with ourselves, belong to Christ. And the sin here reproved leads to all kinds of misery and wretchedness, and that because (1Co 6:18) it is a violation of the eternal law of God impressed upon the human body.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Know ye not … – This is the third argument against licentiousness. It is, that we as Christians are united to Christ (compare the notes at Joh 15:1 ff); and that it is abominable to take the members of Christ and subject them to pollution and sin. Christ was pure – wholly pure. We are professedly united to him. We are bound therefore to be pure, as he was. Shall that which is a part, as it were, of the pure and holy Saviour, be prostituted to impure and unholy embraces?
God forbid! – See the note at Rom 3:4. This expresses the deep abhorrence of the apostle at the thought. It needed not argument to show it. The whole world revolted at the idea; and language could scarcely express the abomination of the very thought.
Know ye not … – This is designed to confirm and strengthen what he had just said.
He which is joined – Who is attached to; or who is connected with.
Is one body – That is, is to he regarded as one; is closely and intimately united. Similar expressions occur in Classic writers. See Grotius and Bloomfield.
For two, saith he … – This Paul illustrates by a reference to the formation of the marriage connection in Ger. Rom 2:14. He cannot be understood as affirming that that passage had original reference to illicit connections; but be uses it for purposes of illustration. God had declared that the man and his wife became one; in a similar sense in unlawful connections the parties became one.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 15. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?] Because he has taken your nature upon him, and thus, as believers in him, ye are the members of Christ.
Shall I then take, &c.] Shall we, who profess to be members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones, connect ourselves with harlots, and thus dishonour and pollute the bodies which are members of Christ? God forbid! These passages admit of a more literal interpretation. This, if given at all, I must give in a strange language.
Membra humana, ad generationem pertinentia, vocantur Membra Christi, quia mysterium conjunctionis Christi et Ecclesiae per conjunctionem maris et faeminae indigitatur, Eph 5:32. In Vet. Test. idem valebat de membro masculino, guippe quod circumcisione, tanquam signo faederis, honoratum est. Vide Schoettgen, Hor. Hebr.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Christ is united to the person of the believer, and he is the Head of the church, which is his mystical body; so that the bodies of believers are in a sense the members of Christ, and should be used by us as the members of Christ, which we should not rend from him: but he that doth commit fornication, rends his body from Christ, and maketh it
the member of an harlot; for as the man and wife are one flesh by Divine ordination, Gen 2:24, so the fornicater and the harlot are one flesh by an impure conjunction.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. Resuming the thought in 1Co6:13, “the body is for the Lord” (1Co 12:27;Eph 4:12; Eph 4:15;Eph 4:16; Eph 5:30).
shall I thensuch beingthe case.
takespontaneouslyalienating them from Christ. For they cannot be at the same time “themembers of an harlot,” and “of Christ” [BENGEL].It is a fact no less certain than mysterious, that moral andspiritual ruin is caused by such sins; which human wisdom (whenuntaught by revelation) held to be actions as blameless as eating anddrinking [CONYBEARE andHOWSON].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Know ye not that your bodies are the members, of Christ,…. The whole persons of God’s elect were chosen in Christ, and given to him, and made one with him, their bodies as well as their souls; and both are redeemed by him, and, in union with him, are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones:
shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Signifying, that it is a most absurd, indecent, abominable, and detestable thing, that the bodies of the saints, which are the members of Christ, should be joined in carnal copulation with an harlot.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Members of Christ ( ). Old word for limbs, members. Even the Stoics held the body to be common with the animals (Epictetus, Diss. l. iii. 1) and only the reason like the gods. Without doubt some forms of modern evolution have contributed to the licentious views of animalistic sex indulgence, though the best teachers of biology show that in the higher animals monogamy is the rule. The body is not only adapted for Christ (verse 13), but it is a part of Christ, in vital union with him. Paul will make much use of this figure further on (1Cor 12:12-31; Eph 4:11-16; Eph 5:30).
Shall I then take away? ( ;). First aorist active participle of , old verb to snatch, carry off like Latin rapio (our rape).
Make (). Can be either future active indicative or first aorist active subjunctive (deliberative). Either makes good sense. The horror of deliberately taking “members of Christ” and making them “members of a harlot” in an actual union staggers Paul and should stagger us.
God forbid ( ). Optative second aorist in a negative wish for the future.
May it not happen! The word “God” is not here. The idiom is common in Epictetus though rare in the LXX. Paul has it thirteen times and Luke once (Lu 20:16).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Members of Christ. The body is not only for the Lord (ver. 13), adapted for Him : it is also united with Him. See Eph 4:16.
Members of a harlot. The union of man and woman, whether lawful or unlawful, confers a double personality. Fornication effects this result in an immoral way.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? (ouk oidate hoti ta somata humon mele Christou estin) Dont you recognize or comprehend that the members of your physical body belong to Christ, if you do? Paul rhetorically asked.
2) Shall I then take the members of Christ? Do I then have a valid or righteous right to take the members of my body, hands, tongue, feet, ears, etc….
3) And make them the members of an harlot? And use or utilize them in a perverted way, adverse, to the will of my Christ, to make them members of fornication or harlotry, in conflict with my confession to follow Jesus in all things?
4) God forbid. (Greek me genoito) God forbid or may it never become so. Gal 5:13. Let those who are Christs free servants never use their freedom to serve self, but Christ, in love.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
15. Know ye not that our bodies are the members, etc. Here we have an explanation, or, if you prefer it, an amplification of the foregoing statement. For that expression, the body is for the Lord, might, owing to its brevity, be somewhat obscure. Hence he says, as if with the view of explaining it, that Christ is joined with us and we with him in such a way, that we become one body with him. Accordingly, if I have connection with an harlot, I tear Christ in pieces, so far as it is in my power to do so; for it is impossible for me to draw Him into fellowship with such pollution. (354) Now as that must be held in abhorrence, (355) he makes use of the expression which he is accustomed to employ in reference to things that are absurd — God forbid (356) Observe, that the spiritual connection which we have with Christ belongs not merely to the soul, but also to the body, so that we are flesh of his flesh, etc (Eph 5:30.) Otherwise the hope of a resurrection were weak, if our connection were not of that nature — full and complete.
(354) “ Vne pollution si fade et infame;” — “A pollution so filthy and infamous.”
(355) “ Pour ce que ceci est vne chose abominable, et que nous deuons auoir en horreur;” — “As that is an abominable thing, and we must hold it in abhorrence.”
(356) The original expression, Μή γέοιτο ! Away with it ! corresponds to the Hebrew term חללה, far be it ! Thus in Gen 18:25, חללה לך משת כדברהזה, Far be it from thee to act in this manner ! Homer makes use of a similar expression — μὴ τοῦτο θεος τελεσειεν, forbid that heaven should accomplish that ! (Od. 20. 234.) — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15) Shall I then . . .?Having shown the great dignity which attaches to our bodies as immortal members of Christ, the Apostle asks with indignant emphasis, Shall I take them out from that high and holy membership, and make them members of an harlot? The double act of taking them away from their glorious union with Christ, and joining them to a base body, is implied in the Greek.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. The nature of this last blessed correlation he will now declare.
Know ye not As you seem, by your easy dealing with the fornicator, not to know. Members of the mystical body of Christ A oneness foreshadowed in the Church below, but to be gloriously disclosed in the Church of the resurrection.
Members of a harlot Under this awful conception (explained in next verse) St. Paul opens to his Corinthians the intense opposition of Christianity to the characteristic vice of their city.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Do 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 not be. Or do you not know that he who is joined in close union to a prostitute is one body, for “The two, says he, will become one flesh”. But he who is joined in close union to the Lord is one spirit.’
The fact that our bodies are members of Christ is stressed. And these arguments bring out that in sexual relations there is a metaphysical aspect which is not present in eating. Such relations not only result in physical unity but in a kind of metaphysical unity. This is why they were provided and are so tightly regulated, and abuse of them so decried and so serious in God’s eyes. Sex binds men and women in a unique way which goes beyond just a physical experience.
As members of His body we have been made one with Him in His body. That too is a spiritual experience which goes beyond the physical. We have been united with Him in spiritual unity. But to have sexual relations with a prostitute is to prostitute that unity, it is to destroy that unity and produce rather a fleshly ‘spiritual’ unity with the prostitute which is totally degrading, as well as being both temporary and meaningless, and it is especially harmful because it is metaphysical and mars our spiritual union with Christ. Indeed this is one reason why all sexual misbehaviour is harmful for it has the same result. Sex affects us in our deepest beings. In it we give of ourselves. We must choose between the prostitute or Christ. We cannot have both.
The union between Christ and His people is wonderfully expressed here. By ‘eating of Him’ by coming to Him and believing in Him (Joh 6:35) we have been made one with Him and are united with His body, something which we express every time we take the bread and wine (1Co 10:17). It is because of this spiritual union that we will be raised with Him, and have been raised with Him (Eph 1:19 to Eph 2:6). Thus we are ‘members’ of His body.
So we are to see that in a unique way our body is the Lord’s and sacred to Him. That is why to engage in illicit sex is to insult Him, misuse His body, and cause a break in our spiritual union with Him. How can we make His sacred body one with a prostitute, especially a godless or idolatrous prostitute? (The quotation comes from Gen 2:24).
What a contradiction is this, a body which is a member of the body of Christ, crucified for us, and our spirit made one with the Lord, and then to make our body, which was to be presented as a chaste virgin to Christ (2Co 11:2), one flesh with a prostitute. This cannot be. It is only to say it to realise how inconsistent, indeed how horrific, it is, and even more so when the prostitute is probably a sacred prostitute seen as united to a ‘god’ and to devils (1Co 10:20). We can only turn away in horror from the very idea.
The argument also brings out the glory of true sex. Between a man and a woman who are united in marriage it is a holy thing. Two persons who are both members of Christ’s body, are themselves by it united as one within that body. That is one reason why we should not be ‘unequally yoked with unbelievers’ (2Co 6:14). We then unite outside the body. Although God then graciously ‘sanctifies’ those in the home (puts them under His protection from evil) as in the case described the marriage took place before the person became a Christian (1Co 7:14).
‘But he who is joined in close union to the Lord is one spirit.’ This contrasts with becoming one body with the prostitute, for Paul has to guard against any suggestion that uniting with Christ in one body has anything to do with physical alliance. The union with Christ is a spiritual union through the Spirit.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
An earnest warning against immorality:
v. 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 an harlot? God forbid!
v. 16. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For two, saith He, shall be one flesh.
v. 17. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
v. 18. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
v. 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?
v. 20. For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. The apostle speaks in holy zeal, with righteous indignation, without reservation, bringing the truth in its hideous nakedness. His aim is to bring to the distinct consciousness of his readers the abominable character of the vice which flaunted its banners so shamelessly in their city; he unfolds it in all its repulsiveness, by vivid concrete presentment: Do you not know that our bodies are members of Christ? Should I, then, take away the members of Christ and make them a harlot’s members? By no means. Christ is the Head of the Church, and every believer by faith becomes a member of this one Head; he is one of the organs of that great body and is intended to function only in the interest of the Lord. Should, then, any one so far forget the dignity which is due to Christ and to His service as to make his body a harlot’s member and thus become unfaithful to his calling and unfaithful to his Lord? The very suggestion fills the apostle with horror; for how could one choose a harlot in preference to Christ? How could one alienate his affections from their proper owner and center them in such an unhallowed connection?
For fear that the Corinthians may not yet have understood him or might deliberately misconstrue his words, St. Paul amplifies still more: Or do you not know that he who joins himself to the harlot is one body with her? For, says God, the two will be one flesh, Gen 2:24. This blessing of God was intended to sanctify the legitimate intercourse of marriage. But he that breaks the ordinance of God and seeks the gratification of mere lust outside of the marriage-bond, becomes one body with one that is not his wife. But the word of the Lord stands: Carnal intercourse means unity of the bodies. Sexual union constitutes a permanent bond between the guilty parties, for the word of the Lord holds of every such union, whether lawful or unlawful, honorably true or shamefully. No presentation could portray the sin of fornication more exactly in its hideous repulsiveness than that which is here used by the apostle.
Once more he emphasizes the contrast: But he that cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him. A wonderful, real, lasting, and blessed union is that which the believer enters into in and by regeneration. For the act of faith establishes a bond of intimate communion with Christ, it makes the believer one in spirit with his Savior in love, not only on account of the gracious imputation of His righteousness, but also by the indwelling of His Spirit in the heart, Joh 14:20; Joh 15:4; Joh 17:23; Eph 3:17. No wonder this fact urges the apostle to repeat his urgent admonition: Flee fornication. In the case of this sin it would be foolish to stand and attempt to give battle, for here “the strongest oath is straw against the fire in the blood. ” As in the case of Joseph, courageous flight is the only solution of the difficulty, Pro 6:28. And let no one deceive himself with the excuse that he is harming no one by his indulgence in this sin: Every sin which a person commits is outside of the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body. The sins against all the other commandments of the Decalogue have their aim outside of the body; if they involve the organs of the body, as in the case of intemperance, they affect and injure only the transient, perishable organs of the body, and require for their commission some means that are taken from without and are in themselves foreign to the body. But the sins against the Sixth Commandment involve violation of self, of the inmost mental desires and physical abilities; the entire body is contaminated and dishonored, not only in one sex, but in both, for the Christian religion knows no double standard.
To make the Corinthian Christians feel the weight of his argument, the apostle refers them to the well-known dignity which the bodies of the believers as such possess: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, your own masters? “What are all the other gifts altogether,” says Luther, “besides this gift, that the Spirit of God Himself, the eternal God, comes down into our hearts, yea, into our bodies, and lives in us, governs, leads, and conducts us!” Although Paul is addressing the entire congregation, he yet speaks of the body in the singular, in order to bring out once more the fact that they are all one in Christ Jesus. Each one for himself and all of them together are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who has deigned to make them His abode, to take up His dwelling-place in their hearts and in their bodies. And therefore they are no longer masters of their own bodies, to perform their own lusts and desires. According to the heathen idea, prostitution was a consecration of the body; according to the Christian idea, it is the filthiest desecration of the body. The Christians may no longer use their bodies for the gratification of their sinful passions, but are bound to employ them in doing the holy will of God. And to this end St. Paul concludes with a powerful appeal: For bought you were at a price; then glorify God in your body! We Christians were bought, delivered, redeemed, from the power of sin and the devil, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold. The price of our redemption rather was of a nature to make us stand in adoring astonishment and praise in all eternity: with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, 1Pe 1:18-19. Through this redemption we have become Christ’s very own and are to serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. That is the inference of the apostle: Glorify God in your body; let all the acts of all your organs and members be undertaken with the object of increasing His honor and glory, let your body be a temple wherein each man serves as a priest to the most high God in all chastity and decency.
Summary. The apostle rebukes the Corinthian Christians for going to law with their brethren before the Gentile courts; he warns them against various sins, but especially against fornication, since their bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
1Co 6:15-17 . That fornication is not an indifferent thing like the use of meats, but anti-Christian, Paul has already proved in 1Co 6:13-14 , namely, from this, that the body belongs to Christ and is destined by God to be raised up again. How deserving of abhorrence fornication is on that account, he now brings home to the mind of his readers in a striking and concrete way. The immorality of fornication is certainly taken for granted in 1Co 6:15 f., yet not in such a manner as to make Paul guilty of a petitio principii (Baur in the theol. Jahrb. 1852, p. 538 f.), but on the ground of the proof of this immorality already given in 1Co 6:13-14 In 1Co 6:15 f. the apostle does not seek to prove it over again, but to teach the Corinthians to abhor the sin.
. . [982] ] He here takes up once more, and exhibits with greater fulness, the thought in 1Co 6:13 , , as the basis for the following warning: . . [983]
] Inasmuch, that is to say, as Christ, as the Head of the Christian world, stands to it in the closest and most inward fellowship of organic life (see especially Eph 4:16 ), and forms, as it were, one moral Person with it; the bodies of the individual believers, who in fact belong to the Lord, and He to them for this world and that which is to come (1Co 6:13 f.), may be conceived as Christ’s members , just as from the same point of view the whole church of Christ is His collective organ, His body (Rom 12:5 ; Eph 1:23 ; Col 1:18 ; Col 2:19 ; 1Co 12:13 , al [984] ).
] Shall I then take away , take off, the members of Christ, and , etc. Billroth sees in simply minuteness of description, indicative of deliberation, as in . But this is to confound it with . The Vulgate renders rightly: tollens ; Luk 6:29 ; Luk 11:22 ; Joh 11:48 ; Plato, Pol. ix. p. 578 E, Tim. p. 76 B; Sophocles, Trach. 796; 1Ma 8:18 . What is depicted is daring misappropriation . The plural denotes the category, for the matter “non quanta sit numero, sed qualis genere sit, spectatur,” Reisig, Conjec. in Aristoph. p. 58. Since the Christian’s body is among the members of Christ, the is a deed whereby a man takes away the members of Christ from Him whose property they are, and makes them a harlot’s members.
] future: Shall this case occur with me ? shall I degrade myself to this? so far forget myself? Rckert and Osiander hold that it is the aorist subjunctive: should I , etc. (see Herm. a [985] Viger. p. 742). It is impossible to decide the point.
[982] . . . .
[983] . . . .
[984] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[985] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
(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.
Numberless very blessed things, are contained within the compass of these verses. I beg the Reader’s attention to them in order. First. The Apostle reminds the Church of a precious truth; which is so plainly taught in the Gospel, and supposed to be so perfectly known and understood by every regenerated child of God, that he takes it for granted, they all knew it, and were daily living in the enjoyment of it; namely, their union, and oneness, with Christ. Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ. The sacred holy body of Christ which the Son of God took into union with him is Personal. But Christ’s mystical body is the whole Church. Now, it is highly important, that this should be thoroughly understood, and, apprehended, by every member of Christ’s mystical body. The whole person of a child of God, he whom the Father hath given to his dear Son, and whom God the Son hath betrothed to himself, and redeemed by his blood and righteousness from this time-state of sin and corruption; is truly, and virtually united to Christ, in body, soul, and spirit. For though the body is not renewed at regeneration, and it is the spirit only that is quickened, which before this gracious act of God the Spirit was dead, by reason of the Adam-fall, in trespasses and sins; yet the whole man is united to Christ, and as a member of Christ’s body of his flesh, and of his bones, is part of Christ. And in proof of it, whenever a child of God’s, his spirit joins the society of the spirits of just men made perfect; and though the body returns to the dust, yet, in consequence of an union with Christ, as his glorious Head; he will arise from the dust of the earth at the last day. This proves that the whole person of a child of God is united to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Secondly. The Apostle takes it equally granted, the Church knew, that, by virtue of this union with Christ, one and the same Spirit lived, and acted, in both. He that is joined unto the Lord is One Spirit. This glorious and momentous truth became too important, in Paul’s view, to be lost sight of by the Church. For what could be equally interesting? The same Almighty God the Spirit which anointed, filled, and made blessed the human nature of Christ; anointed, filled, and made blessed all his members. In Christ indeed, as in a fountain. In them as in a vessel. But still One, and the same. The Lord giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Christ. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Joh 3:34 ; Col 2:9 . But unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, Eph 4:7 .
Thirdly. When God the Holy Ghost quickens the soul of a child of God by regeneration, he becomes a life-giving, soul-renewing source, in the spiritual part of the person; and makes the body his temple, according to his original and eternal promise, Eze 36:25-28 ; Lev 26:11-12 . So that, by virtue of this, the Holy Ghost becomes a quickening Spirit, to give a vital union between Christ and his members, and to keep alive the principles of grace he hath planted, and maintain that life in the soul, as a branch in the vine. And, while influencing the spirit of the believer, in opening Continual communications from Christ, as the Head to his members; the redeemed are enabled to mortify the deeds of the body, by His indwelling presence, Rom 8:13 .
And, lastly, to mention no more: what endears the whole to every child of God is, that this personal union, by which the believer is united to Christ, as God-Man, in body, soul, and spirit; is an everlasting, indissoluble union, which nothing can separate or destroy. Because I live, saith Jesus, ye shall live also, Joh 14:19 . Hence, the Apostle was taught by the Holy Ghost to comfort the Church, both with the secrecy, and the safety, of all the people of God. Your life, said he, is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life, shall appear, then ye shall also appear with him in glory, Col 3:3-4 .
From all these considerations, and more than these, which are included in the Apostle’s observations; he argues, both the shame, and sin, of joining, the members of Christ’s body, with the members of an harlot. And he shews, as plain as words can make it, that as the whole Church, and every individual of the Church, is chosen by God, bought with the price of Christ’s blood, and renewed by the Holy Ghost; they are no longer their own property, but Christ’s, by every tie which can make them so, both by creation, and redemption; and therefore are called upon, to glorify Him, whose right they are, in body, and in spirit, which are God’s. I beg the Redder to observe, that it is Christ, who is here spoken of as God, whose right the Church is, by having bought it with a price. And this by the way becomes a very plain, full, and decisive testimony to the Godhead of Christ. And very blessed it is, when a child of God, gives the glory to Christ as such, both in body, and in spirit, which are his.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
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 an harlot? God forbid.
Ver. 15. Shall I then take ] Scipio, when a harlot was offered him, said, Vellem, si non essem imperator, I would, if I were not a general. Say thou, if I were not a Christian.
And make them the members of a harlot ] A saint cannot indeed be made the member of a harlot (saith a reverend man), because not , glued or knit to any sin. Though a member of Christ and sin may fall one upon another, and touch each other; yet they are of a mouldering nature, and will not cleave together. Water and oil violently shaken together may seem to mingle, but will not continue so long; there is no coalition, because they are of diverse natures; the one remaineth water still, and the other oil.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
15 .] Resumption of . . The two are so intimately connected, that the Lord is a mystical Body, of which our bodies , parts of ourselves in our perfect organization, are members . This Christian axiom is introduced as before (reff.) by .
Having then ( , ‘concesso,’ that my body is a member = my members are members of Christ) alienated ([or, taken away ] is not merely pleonastic, ‘ Shall I take and make them .’ as E. V. This is shewn by its position first in the sentence) the members of Christ (i.e. my own members) shall I make them an harlot’s members ? The expression is put as coarsely and startlingly as possible, with the emphasis on .
may also be the aor. subj., ‘ must I, have I any right to, make them ?’ But answers better to the future.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 6:15-17 unfold in its repulsiveness, by vivid concrete presentment, the opposition between the two claimants for bodily service already contrasted: the rival of Christ is ! “Or (if what I have said is not sufficient) do you not know that your bodies are Christ’s limbs? Should I then take away the limbs of Christ and make them a harlot’s limbs? Far be it!” is to remove, carry off , as in 1Co 5:2 (see parls.), Vg [974] tollens , implying “a voluntary and determined act” (Ed [975] ); for the introductory aor [976] ptp [977] , see Bn [978] , 132, 138. , either (deliberative) aor [979] sbj [980] or fut [981] ind [982] “Am I to make, etc.?” or, “Am I going to make?” The former idiom suits an act of choice ; this question the tempted Cor [983] Christian must put to himself: cf. the interrog. form of Rom 6:1 ; Rom 6:15 (- ).
[974] Latin Vulgate Translation.
[975] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians . 2
[976] aorist tense.
[977] participle
[978] E. Burton’s Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in the N.T. (1894).
[979] aorist tense.
[980] subjunctive mood.
[981] future tense.
[982] indicative mood.
[983] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
What is true of Christian men individually, that they are and parts of the , is true specifically of the physical frame of each; similarly in 1Co 6:19 f. Paul applies to the Christian man’s body the glorious truth stated respecting the Christian society in 1Co 3:16 f. In the Hellenic view, the body was the perishing envelope of the man; in the Scriptural view, it is the abiding vehicle of his spirit. To devote the body to a harlot, one must first withdraw it from Christ’s possession: to do that , and for such a purpose the bare statement shows the infamy of the proposal. The Biblical formula of deprecation, , is frequent also in Epictetus; cf. Odyssey , vii., 316, .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Christ. App-98.
God forbid. Greek. me genoito. The eleventh occurance of this expression in Paul’s epistles. See Rom 3:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
15.] Resumption of . . The two are so intimately connected, that the Lord is a mystical Body, of which our bodies, parts of ourselves in our perfect organization, are members. This Christian axiom is introduced as before (reff.) by .
Having then (, concesso, that my body is a member = my members are members of Christ) alienated ([or, taken away] is not merely pleonastic, Shall I take and make them. as E. V. This is shewn by its position first in the sentence) the members of Christ (i.e. my own members) shall I make them an harlots members? The expression is put as coarsely and startlingly as possible, with the emphasis on .
may also be the aor. subj., must I, have I any right to, make them? But answers better to the future.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 6:15. , bodies) whether regard is had to the whole or the parts.- 😉 Some copies have for ;[52] Paul often says , but in such places where the conclusion is subjoined, after a somewhat long discourse. is more suitable to this place, and they have it, whose testimony is of highest value, among whom is Irenu[53]: and there is the utmost , graphic power, in this participle, depicting as it were the baseness of the thing: taking away, spontaneously alienating the members of Christ, shall I make them the members of a harlot? So the participle is often redundant, of which I have spoken, on Chrysost. de Sacerdot. p. 394, at the passage, , he took and threw himself down.-, shall I make?) For they cannot be at the same time the members of a harlot and of Christ.
[52] So ABCD (), Orig. 1, 520c: tollens in f. Vulg. Iren. Lucif.: auferens in Cypr.: an tollens in g. is read by G.-ED.
[53] renus (of Lyons, in Gaul: born about 130 A.D., and died about the end of the second century). The Editio Renati Massueti, Parisin, a. 1710.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 6:15
1Co 6:15
Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?- Their bodies, with the Spirit of God dwelling in them, are the members of the body of Christ. (1Co 12:27). [This solemn truth, that there is a real community of spiritual life between Christ and the true believer, is employed here to remind them of the restrictions placed upon their liberty. The body of the Christian is Christs, nay in a sense, it is a part of himself (Eph 5:30), so that the same Spirit which possessed Christ is the same which possesses the Christian. It is in Christ that he seeks to live, and it is the consuming desire of his heart that Christ would use his body to the accomplishment of his purposes even as he used his own body while on earth.]
shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot?-Sexual intercourse is the act that the Bible recognizes as making man and woman one. When a man who is a member of the body of Christ is guilty of fornication he [forms this union in an unlawful way and] makes the member of Christ one with a harlot.
God forbid.-[If the Christian is as truly a member of Christs body as were the hands and feet and eyes he wore on earth, the mind shrinks, as from blasphemy, from the very thought of being joined to a harlot as is done by one guilty of fornication.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
shall I
Paul does not invoke the authority of the seventh commandment, but appeals to the believer’s sacredness as a member of Christ.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
your: 1Co 6:19, 1Co 11:3, 1Co 12:27, Rom 12:5, Eph 1:22, Eph 1:23, Eph 4:12, Eph 4:15, Eph 4:16, Eph 5:23, Eph 5:30, Col 2:19
God: Gen 44:17, Luk 20:16, Rom 3:3, Rom 3:4, Rom 3:6, Rom 3:31, Rom 6:2, Rom 6:15, Rom 7:7, Rom 7:13, Gal 2:17, Gal 3:21, Gal 6:14
Reciprocal: Lev 19:29 – to cause Jdg 16:5 – Entice 1Ki 21:3 – The Lord Rom 6:3 – Know Rom 6:13 – Neither 1Co 6:9 – Know 1Co 6:13 – but for 1Co 7:14 – the unbelieving husband 2Co 11:29 – and I burn 2Co 12:21 – uncleanness 2Co 13:5 – Know 1Th 4:4 – should Heb 12:16 – any fornicator
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 6:15. The value of a man’s body is still in the apostle’s mind, and he declares it is a member of Christ; not literally, of course, but a part of that great body of which Christ is a member. In view of such a sacred relation, Paul deplores the sin of using the body to unite with an immoral woman, again referring to the loose morals being practiced by so many in Corinth.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 6:15. Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? He expects this to be recognised as a first principle (see Eph 5:30).
shall I then take away[1] the members of Christ?alienate them from their proper use.and make them, etc.
[1]
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
A third argument here follows: “Our bodies are the members of Christ, as well as our souls; that is, the union is made between Christ and us, consisting of soul and body both.
Now, shall we dispose of our bodies, the members of Christ, to so base an use? Shall our bodies, which are joined to Christ, ever condescend to so base a conjunction, as that of being joined to an harlot? God forbid that such an indignity be done by us.”
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
1Co 6:15-18. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ Mystically united to him, as well as your souls, if you are his true disciples, as you profess to be. Shall I then take the members of Christ My body, which is united to him, with its members; and make them the members of a harlot United to her, and used to gratify her sinful inclinations? Know ye not Need I inform you; that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? But he that is joined unto the Lord By faith and love; is one spirit with him. And shall he make himself one flesh with a harlot? Flee fornication All unlawful commerce with women, with speed, with abhorrence, with all your might. Every sin that a man doeth Every other sin, except gluttony and drunkenness, or every other sin that a man commits against his neighbour; is without the body Terminates in an object out of himself, and does not so immediately pollute his body, though it does his soul. But he that committeth fornication Or any kind of lewdness; sinneth against his own body Pollutes, dishonours, and degrades it to a level with brute beasts; and perhaps infects and enfeebles, wastes and consumes it, which these vices have a manifest tendency to do. Inasmuch as the person who is addicted to gluttony and drunkenness sins against his own body, as well as a fornicator, and debilitates it by introducing into it many painful and deadly diseases: in this prohibition of fornication, those vices likewise are comprehended, being indeed the ordinary concomitants of it. And the way to flee whoredom, is to banish out of the mind all lascivious imaginations, and to avoid carefully the objects and occasions of committing that vice, and to maintain habitual temperance in the use of meat and drink.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 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 an harlot? Let it not be so!
Paul had just said that the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. In the first proposition of this verse he justifies the for the Lord, to deduce from it as a conclusion in the second the not for fornication. Baur and Scherer see here a petitio principii, inasmuch as the term harlot already implies the guiltiness of fornication, which is precisely the point to be proved. But the apostle is not treating the question from the standpoint of rational morality; he starts from Christian premises: Know ye not…? Now the relation between Christ and the believer, implied in faith, gives him logically the right to reason as he does.
As the Church in its totality is the body of Christ, that is to say, the organism which He animates with His Spirit, and by which He carries out His wishes on the earth, so every Christian is a member of this body, and consequently an organ of Christ Himself. By means of the Spirit of Christ which dwells in his spirit, and by means of his spirit which directs his soul and thereby his body, this body becomes as it were the body of Christ, the executor of His thought; hence the practical conclusion: This organ of Christ must not be taken from Him to be given to a harlot. Therein is a double crime: on the one hand, a revolt, an odious abduction (); on the other, an act of ignoble self-debasement and the acceptance of a shameful dependence. And hence the apostle’s cry of indignation: Let it not be so!
, perhaps the deliberative subjunctive aorist: Shall I choose to make…? or simply the future indicative: Shall I make? The second meaning is better: one does not deliberate in regard to such an act. But do not the expressions, members of Christ and members of an harlot, contain something of exaggeration? This is what the light – minded Corinthians might ask, and it is to this objection that 1Co 6:16-17 give answer.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? [parts of his body (1Co 12:27; Eph 5:30); branches of the Vine– Joh 15:5] shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. [Literally, let it never be; a phrase often used by Paul when indignantly rejecting a false conclusion.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
1Co 6:15-17. develop and support for the Lord. 1Co 6:13; in order to strengthen the instinctive feeling, already evoked by the contrast between food and intercourse of the sexes, that fornication is utterly opposed to the purpose for which our body was created.
Members of the body of Christ: see under 1Co 12:12; 1Co 12:27; Rom 12:4. The bodies of believers stand in a relation to Christ similar to that of the various members of a man’s own body to the spirit within. For they are the visible and material and variously endowed organs through which He shows Himself to, and acts upon, the world. So that, as far as God’s purpose is now attained in us, the presence of our bodies in a place is the presence of Christ there, who smiles through our face, speaks His own words of wisdom and love and life through our lips, and through our hands perform His works of mercy. In this sense the body exists for the Lord.
Shall I then etc.: intense reality of Paul’s thought. Cp. Rom 3:7. If to do this is right, it is right for Paul to do it. But how inconceivable!
Having taken away etc.; shows what the foregoing question practically involves. To be unchaste is to rob Christ of the members of His own body, to deprive Him of the use of them as organs of His self-manifestation to the world.
A harlot: whom Paul assumes, and no one will deny, to be absolutely opposed to Christ.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
6:15 {11} 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.
(11) A declaration of the former argument by opposites, and the application of it.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Arguments against participating in prostitution 6:15-17
Building on the preceding theological base, Paul argued against participating in fornication with prostitutes. The Corinthians had not correctly understood the nature of sexual intercourse or the nature of Christian conversion.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Another rhetorical question affirmed the truth. As we are members of Christ’s body, so our bodies are members of Him. This is not just clever wordplay. Our physical bodies are just as much a part of Christ-united with Him in a genuine spiritual union-as we are part of the mystical body of Christ, the church. However, Paul was not speaking here of the believer’s union with Christ by becoming a member of His mystical body, the church (1Co 12:12-26). He was metaphorically speaking of our individual union with Christ’s physical body.
When a Christian has sexual relations with a prostitute, he or she takes what belongs to God and gives it to someone else. This is stealing from God. When a Christian marries, this does not happen because God has ordained and approves of marriage (cf. 1Co 7:14). He permits us to share our bodies with our lawful mates. Taking a member of Christ and uniting it to a harlot also involves the Lord in that immoral act. Paul’s revulsion at the thought of this comes through graphically in his characteristic me genoito (lit. "May it not happen!").
"Sex outside of marriage is like a man robbing a bank: he gets something, but it is not his and he will one day pay for it. Sex within marriage can be like a person putting money into a bank: there is safety, security, and he will collect dividends. Sex within marriage can build a relationship that brings joys in the future; but sex apart from marriage has a way of weakening future relationships, as every Christian marriage counselor will tell you." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:589.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 10
FORNICATION
IN remonstrating with the Corinthians for their litigiousness, Paul was forcibly reminded how imperfectly his converts understood the moral requirements of the kingdom of God. Apparently, too, he had reason to believe that they were not only content to remain on a low moral plane, but actually quoted some of his own favourite sayings in defence of immoral practices. After warning them, therefore, that only those who were sanctified could belong to the kingdom of God and specifying certain kinds of wrong-doing which must forever be excluded from that kingdom, he goes on to explain how they had misapprehended him if they thought that any principle of his could give colour to immorality. The Corinthians had apparently learned to argue that if, as Paul had so often and emphatically told them, all things were lawful to them, then this commonest of Greek indulgences was lawful; if abstaining from the meat which had been killed in a heathen temple was a matter of moral indifference which Christians might or might not practise, as they pleased, then this other common accompaniment of idolatry was also a matter of indifference and not in itself wrong.
To understand this Corinthian obliquity of moral vision it must be borne in mind that licentious rites were a common accompaniment of pagan worship, and especially in Corinth idolatry might have been briefly described as the performance of Balaams instructions to the Israelites: the eating of things sacrificed to idols and the committing of fornication. The temples were often scenes of revelry and debauchery such as happily have become incredible to a modern mind. But not at once could men emerging from a religion so slenderly connected with morality apprehend what Christianity required of them. When they abandoned the temple worship, were they also to abstain from eating the flesh offered for sale in the open market, and which had first been sacrificed to an idol? Might they not by partaking of such flesh become partakers in the sin of idolatry? To this Paul replied, Do not too scrupulously inquire into the previous history of your dinner; the meat has no moral taint; all things are lawful for you. This was reasonable; but then how about the other accompaniment of idolatry? Was it also a thing of indifference? Can we apply the same reasoning to it? It was this insinuation which called forth the emphatic condemnation which Paul utters in this paragraph.
The great principle of Christian liberty, “All things are lawful for me,” Paul now sees he must guard against abuse by adding, “But all things are not expedient.” The law and its modification are fully explained in a subsequent passage of the Epistle. {1Co 8:1-13, 1Co 10:23, etc.} Here it may be enough to say that Paul seeks to impress on his readers that the question of duty is not answered by simply ascertaining what is lawful; we must also ask whether the practice or act contemplated is expedient. Though it may be impossible to prove that this or that practice is wrong in every case, we have still to ask, Does it advance what is good in us; is its bearing on society good or evil; will it in present circumstances and in the instance we contemplate give rise to misunderstandings and evil thoughts? The Christian is a law to himself; he has an internal guide that sets him above external rules. Very true; but that guide leads all those who possess it to a higher life than the law leads to, and proves its presence by teaching a man to consider, not how much indulgence he may enjoy without transgressing the letter of the law, but how he can most advantageously use his time and best forward what is highest in himself and in others.
Again, “all things are lawful for me”; all things are in my power. Yes, but for that very reason “I will not be brought under the power of any.” “The reasonable use of nay liberty cannot go the length of involving my own loss of it.” I am free from the law; I will not on that account become the slave of indulgence. As Carlyle puts it, “enjoying things which are pleasant-that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is. Let a man assert withal that he is king over his habitudes; that he could and would shake them off on cause shown: this is an excellent law.” There are several practices and habits which no one would call immoral or sinful, but which enslave a man quite as much as worse habits. He is no longer a free man; he is uneasy and restless, and cannot settle to his work until he obeys the craving he has created. And it is the very lawfulness of these indulgences which has ensnared him. Had they been sinful, the Christian man would not have indulged in them; but being in his power, they have now assumed power over him. They have power to compel him to waste his time, his money, sometimes even his health. He alone attains the true dignity and freedom of the Christian man who can say, with Paul, “I know both how to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need; All things are in my power, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
Paul then proceeds more explicitly to apply these principles to the matter in hand. The Corinthians argued that if meats were morally indifferent, a man being morally neither the better nor the worse for eating food which had been offered in an idols temple, so also a man was neither better nor worse for fornication. To expose the error of this reasoning Paul draws a remarkable distinction between the digestive, nutritive organs of the body and the body as a whole. Paul believed that the body was an essential part of human nature, and that in the future life the natural body would give place to the spiritual body. He believed also that the spiritual body was connected with, and had its birthplace in, the natural body, so that the body we now wear is to be represented by that finer and more spiritual organism we are hereafter to be clothed in. The connection of that future body with the physical world and its dependence on material things we cannot understand; but in some way inconceivable by us it is to carry on the identity of our present body, and thereby it reflects a sacredness and significance on this body. The body of the full-grown man or of the white-bearded patriarch is very different from that of the babe in its mothers arms, but there is a continuity that links them together and gives them identity. So the future body may be very different from and yet the same as the present. At the same time, the organs which merely serve for the maintenance of our present natural body will be unnecessary and out of place in the future body, which is spiritual in its origin and in its maintenance. Paul therefore distinguishes between the organs of nutrition and that body which is part of our permanent individuality, and which by some unimaginable process is to flower into an everlasting body. The digestive organs of the body have their use and their destiny, and the body as a whole has its use and destiny. These two differ from one another; and if you are to argue from the one to the other, you must keep in view this distinction. “Meats for the belly and the belly for meats; and God shall destroy both it and them: but the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, and God shall raise up the one as He has raised up the other.” The organs of nutrition have a present use; they are made for meats, and have a natural correspondence with meats. Any meat which the digestive organs approve is allowable. The conscience has to do with meat only through these organs. It must listen to their representations; and if they approve of certain qualities and quantities of food, the conscience confirms this decision: approves when the man uses the food best for these organs; disapproves when he uses consciously and self-indulgently what is bad for them. “Meats for the belly and the belly for meats”-they claim each other as their mutual, God-appointed counterparts. By eating you are not perverting your bodily organs to a use not intended for them; you are putting them to the use God meant them to serve.
Besides, these organs form no part of the future spiritual body. They pass away with the meats for which they were made. God shall destroy both the meats that are requisite for life in this world, and the organs needful for deriving sustenance from them. They serve a temporary purpose, like the houses we live in and the clothes we wear; and as we are not morally better because we live in a stone house, and not in a brick one, or because we wear woollens, and not cotton-so long as we do what is best to keep us in life-so neither is there any moral difference in meats-a remarkable conclusion for a Jew to come to, whose religion had taught him to hold so many forms of food in abhorrence.
But the body as a whole-for what is it made? These organs of nutrition fulfil their function when they lead you to eat such meat as sustains you in life; when does the body fulfil its function? What is its object and end? For what purpose have we a body? Paul is never afraid to suggest the largest questions, neither is he afraid to give his answer. “The body,” he says, “is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” Here also there is a mutual correspondence and fitness.
“The body is for the Lord.” Paul was addressing Christians, and this no Christian would be disposed to deny. Every Christian is conscious that the body would not fulfil its end and purpose unless it were consecrated to the Lord and informed by His Spirit. The organism by which we come into contact with the world outside ourselves is not the unwieldy, hindering, irredeemable partner of the spirit, but is designed to be the vehicle of spiritual faculties and the efficient agent of our Lords purposes. It must not be looked upon with resentment, pity, or contempt, but rather as essential to our human nature and to the fulfilment of the Lords design as the Saviour of the world and the Head of humanity. It was through the body of the Lord that the great facts of our redemption were accomplished. It was the instrument of the incarnation and of the manifestation of God among men, of the death and the resurrection by which we are saved. And as in His own body Christ was incarnate among men, so now it is by means of the bodily existence and energies of His people on earth that He extends His influence.
The body then is for the Lord. He finds in it His needed instrument; without it He cannot accomplish His will. And the Lord is for the body. Without Him the body cannot develop into all it is intended to be. It has a great future as well as the soul. Our adoption as Gods children is, in Pauls view, incomplete until the body also is redeemed and has fought its way through sickness, base uses, death, and dissolution into likeness to the glorified body of Christ. This body which we now identify with ourselves, and apart from which it is difficult to conceive of ourselves, is not the mere temporary lodging of the soul, which in a few years must be abandoned; but it is destined to preserve its identity through all coming changes, so that it will be recognisable still as our body. But this cannot be believed, far less accomplished, save by faith in the fact that God has raised up the Lord Jesus and will with Him raise us also. Otherwise the future of the body seems brief and calamitous. Death seems plainly to say, There is an end of all that is physical. Yes, replies the resurrection of the Lord, in death there is an end of this natural body; but death disengages the spiritual body from the natural, and clothes the spirit in a more fitting garb. Understand this we cannot, any more than we understand why a large mass draws to itself smaller masses: but believe it we can in presence of Christs resurrection.
The Lord then is for the body, because in the Lord the body has a future opened to it and present connections and uses which prepare it for that future. It is the Spirit of Christ who is, within us, the earnest of that future, and who forms us for it, inclining us while in the body and by means of it to sow to the Spirit and thus to reap life everlasting. Without Christ we cannot have this Spirit, nor the spiritual body He forms. The only future of the body we dare to look at without a shudder is the future it has in the Lord. God has sent Christ to secure for the body redemption from the fate which naturally awaits it, and apart from Christ it has no outlook but the worst. The Lord is for the body, and as well might we try to sustain the body now without food as to have any endurable future for it without the Lord.
But if the body is thus closely united to Christ in its present use and in its destiny, if its proper function and fit development can only be realised by a true fellowship with Christ. then the inference is self-evident that it must be carefully guarded from such uses and impurities as involve rupture with Christ. “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.” The Christian is one spirit with Christ. There is a real community of spiritual life between them. It is the spirit which possessed Christ which now possesses the Christian. He has the same aims, the same motives, the same view of life, the same hope, as his Lord. It is in Christ he seeks to live, and he has no stronger desire than to be used for His purposes. That Christ would use him as He used the members of His own body while on earth, that there might be the same direct influence and moving power of the Lords Spirit, the same ready and instinctive response to the Lords will, the same solidarity between himself and the Lord as between Christs body and Christs Spirit-this is the Christians desire. To have his body a member of Christ-this is his happiness. To be one in will with Him who has brought by His own goodness the light of heaven into the darkness of earth, to learn to know Him and to love Him by serving Him and by measuring His love with all the needs of earth-this is his life. To be so united to Christ in all that is deepest in his nature that he knows he can never be separated from Him, but must go forward to the happy destiny which his Lord already enjoys-this is the Christians joy; and it is made possible to every man.
Possible to every man is this personal union to Christ, but to be united thus in one Spirit to Christ and at the same time to be united to impurity is forever impossible. To be one with Christ in spirit and at the same time to be one in body with what is spiritually defiled is impossible, and the very idea is monstrous. Devotedness to Christ is possible, but it is incompatible with any act which means that we become one in body with what is morally polluted. If the Christian is as truly a member of Christs body as were the hands and eyes of the body He wore on earth, then the mind shrinks, as from blasphemy, from following out the thought of Paul. And if any frivolous Corinthian still objected that such acts went no deeper than the eating of food ceremonially unclean, that they belonged to the body that was to be destroyed, Paul says, It is not so; these acts are full of the deepest moral significance: they were intended by God to be the expression of inward union, and they have that significance whether you shut your eyes to it or not.
And this is what Paul means when he goes on to say, “Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” He does not mean that this is the only sin committed by the body, for of many other sins the body is the agent, as in murder, lying, blasphemy, robbery, and thieving. Neither does he mean that this is the only sin to which bodily appetite instigates, for gluttony and drunkenness equally take their rise in bodily appetite. But he means that this is the only sin in which the present connection of the body with Christ and its future destiny in Him are directly sinned against. This is the only sin, he means, which by its very nature alienates the body from Christ, its proper Partner. Other sins indirectly involve separation from Christ; this explicitly and directly transfers allegiance and sunders our union with Him. By this sin a man detaches himself from Christ; he professes to be united to what is incompatible with Christ.
These weighty reasonings and warm admonitions, into which Paul throws his whole energy, are concluded by the statement of a twofold truth which is of much wider application than to the matter in hand: “Ye are bought with a price to be the temple of the Holy Ghost.” We are bought with a price, and are no longer our own. The realities underlying these words are gladly owned in every Christian consciousness. God has caused us to recognise how truly we are His by showing us that He has grudged nothing which can restore us fully to Him. He has bought us, not with any of those prices the wealthy can pay without sacrifice and without profound interest and feeling, but with that price which is coined and issued by love, which carries in it the token and pledge of love, and which therefore wins us wholly. In our relations with God we have never to do with any merely formal transaction performed for the sake of keeping up appearances, saving the proprieties, or satisfying the letter of law, but always with what is necessary in the nature of things, with what is real, with the very God of truth, the centre and source of all reality. God has made us His own, has won our hearts and wills to Himself, by manifesting His love in ways that touch and move us, and for purposes absolutely needful. God means that our attachment to Him should be real and permanent, and He has based it on the most reasonable grounds. He means that we should be His, not only because we are His creatures or because He has an indefeasible right to our service as the source of our life: but He means that our hearts should be His, and that we should be drawn to live and labour for His ends, convinced in our reason that this is our happiness and attracted by His love to serve Him. He means this; and accordingly He has bought us, has given us reason to become His, has made such advances as ought to win us, has not grudged to show His earnest desire for our love by Himself making sacrifices and declaring that He loves us. It is a thought the humble heart can scarcely endure that it is loved by God, that it has been counted so precious in Gods sight that Divine love and sacrifice should have been spent on its restoration. It is a thought that overwhelms the believing heart, but, believed in, it wins the soul eternally to God.
We are not our own; we belong to Him who has loved us most: and His love will be satisfied when we suffer Him to dwell in us, so that we shall be His temples, and shall glorify Him in body and in spirit. God claims our body as well as our spirit; He has a purpose for our body as well as for our spirit. Our body is to glorify Him in the future and now: in the future, by exhibiting how the Divine wisdom has triumphed over all that threatens the body, and has used all the present bodily experiences for preparing a permanent spiritual embodiment of all human faculties and joys; and now, by putting itself at the disposal of God for the accomplishment of His will. We glorify God by allowing Him to fulfil His purpose of love in creating us. What that purpose is we cannot wholly know; but trusting ourselves to His love, we can, by obeying Him, have it more and more accomplished in us. And it is the consciousness that we are Gods temples which constantly incites us to live worthily of Him. To say that we are temples of God is not to use a figure of speech. It is the temple of stone that is the figure; the true dwelling place of God is man. In nothing can God reveal Himself as He can in man. Through nothing else can He express so much of what is truly Divine. It is not a building of stone which forms a fit temple for God; it is not even the heaven of heavens. In material nature only a small part of God can be seen and known. It is in man, able to choose what is morally good, able to resist temptation, to make sacrifices for worthy ends, to determine his own character; it is in man, whose own will is his law, and who is not the mere mechanical agent of anothers will, that God finds a worthy temple for Himself. Through you God can express and reveal what is best in Himself. Your love is sustained by His, and reveals His. Your approval of what is pure and hatred of impurity have their source in His holiness, and by transforming you into His own image He discloses Himself as truly dwelling and living within you. Where is God to be found and to be known if not in men? Where can His presence and Divine goodness and reality be more distinctly manifest than in Christ and those who are in any degree like Him? It is in men that the unseen Divine Spirit manifests His nature and His work. But if so, what a profanation is it when we take this body, which is built to be His temple, and put it to uses which it were blasphemous to associate with God! Let us rather find our joy in realising the ideal set before us by Paul, in keeping ourselves pure as Gods temples and in glorifying Him in our body and in our spirit.