“All 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. Food 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. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will
also raise us up through His power. 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 never be! Or 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.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with
Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body,
but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or 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? For you have been bought with a price: therefore
glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:12–20, NASB95)
Apparently, there were some in the church at Corinth who
thought or at least chose to live as if their being forgiven of their sins
meant that they were then free to live in those sins and indulge their fleshly
desires. In these verses Paul confronts that idea head on. He did so by first
returning to a foundational principle of freedom properly applied. This is not
a declaration that he was not responsible to live according to the laws set in
place by those in authority over him, nor was it a declaration that he was free
to ignore the statutes and ordinances of God. Rather, it was a clear
declaration that neither obeying nor disobeying was going to save him but
having been saved he was now called to live according to his new identity and
not the things that may have marked him in the past.
In addressing this, he spoke to the issues of food and sex
which are both good things. They were both designed by God and given to man for
a good purpose. But man has abused that purpose and severely distorted what God
intended for good. God made His good intent clear from the very beginning of
the Bible, as we see in Genesis chapter 1: “God blessed them; and God said to
them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living
thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every
plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree
which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of
the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the
earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening
and there was morning, the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:28–31, NASB95)
There it is. The two subjects that Paul went to in this
response to the Corinthian church abuse are found in God’s summary statement of
creation on day six that He declared was “very good.” But of course, we know
that Adam and Eve sinned and were removed from the garden and subsequently
everything was then stained indelibly with sin. But let us not lose sight that
food and sex were given to us by God and in their best form were included in
His “very good.” Yet, man has turned what was meant for good and has become a
slave to it for destruction. It was to this slavery that Paul said, “All 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.” He wrote to them of a standard
that went beyond legitimacy and desire to that of what was right and in its
proper place. He recognized his freedom in Christ, but he also knew that this
freedom could easily become slavery if not properly controlled. He was
committed to not letting even these most basic things have mastery over his
life, and this was his charge to a people who had fallen into that trap.
First, he went to food as out most obvious necessity. After
all, if we don’t eat we starve and we die. But on the other hand, if we abuse
that eating we also die. In the culture of the day and consistent with the
cults that were present, food and sex orgies often went hand in hand. These
were times of totally letting go of morality and pursuing whatever pleasure was
present before them with the preference being all of the above. This is the
background of these believers and this is surely some of what influenced their
interactions even in the church.
When it comes to food there are many things that I could
easily binge on and go after. However, in 2005 I was told by my doctor that I
have diabetes. What followed was a process of retraining myself not only in
eating but how I thought about eating. My body was at war with my habits, and I
had to get serious about which one I wanted to protect. I have come a long way
and there are days that the candy and the chips are more prevalent, but overall
a process of taking control rather than letting my diet control has proven to
be a very good move. It is amazing how strong cravings can be, and sometimes we
need to stay completely away. Other times we are enabled to moderate them
knowing that properly controlled we wind up having a much greater freedom than
when we were slaves to the demands of our minds and our bodies.
One day our bodies will be stuck in the ground (if Christ
doesn’t return first), and food will no longer be needed. It is a temporary
good given us by God to not only sustain our bodies but to also enjoy the
flavor along the way. God will do away with stomachs and it seems that he will
also do away with food. I don’t pretend to know what this looks like in
eternity, but I do know that when I leave this body the tie that this body has
with food will once and for all be broken, and I will be set free to enjoy
God’s perfect plan in His presence.
Next Paul went after sex. With food it doesn’t seem like
eating or not eating and even how we eat is really in its essence a morality
issue, but sex is. In Genesis 1:27 and 28 we read, “God created man in His own
image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God
blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the
earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”” (Genesis
1:27–28, NASB95) Then in Genesis 2:18; 21-25 He added, “Then the LORD God said,
“It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for
him.”” (Genesis 2:18, NASB95) … “So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the
flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had
taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was
taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his
wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:21–25, NASB95)
God made man. Male and female He made them. He also made
them to come together as one man and one woman in the lifetime oneness
relationship of marriage with the purpose in part of being fruitful and
multiplying. And this part does not come without sex or as Paul said “join[ing]
together. Though sex is a significant part of marriage, it is and always has
been about more than sex. It is a oneness relationship where the husband and wife
are made to be suitable for each other to walk side by side with each other
through life. And, not getting into the fact that some don’t marry and some who
do never have children either by choice, infertility or some other reason, this
was and remains God’s design for man and woman as male and female, husband and
wife.
I know that our culture is fighting this and that laws are
even being changed in some places where you cannot speak or write openly a
different opinion than that of the culture. This issue has even surfaced in the
church where people have stepped away from the authority of God’s Word. But,
this is God’s design declared by Him in His Word. It was established at
creation and reaffirmed by Christ. It is not something that God intended to
morph or change. It is the same from beginning to end, and its instruction is wide
swept throughout Scripture. And, I choose to accept His Word to be fully
inspired by Him as truthful, accurate, and dependable. Peter spoke very
strongly to this issue. “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of
Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever
made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”
(2 Peter 1:20–21, NASB95)
From that position, Paul declared that anyone who goes
against this and specifically here joins himself (speaking to men) to a
prostitute violates the relationship that we also have of being united in
Christ. Being united as a husband or wife properly in the marriage relationship
and simultaneously with Christ are not incompatible. This is God’s design. But
bringing anyone else into that relationship not only violates the human plain
of relationship but it also violates the vertical with our Lord. We in essence
take these bodies which are temples of His Spirit and we join them with the
spirit of one who is not properly ours. To this Paul wrote that everything else
we do we commit outside the body, but when we engage in sex in conflict with
God’s design we bring a oneness with that outsider into the same body as our
oneness with Christ. And to this Paul says, “May it never be!”
When we trusted Christ for our salvation we became new
creations in Him. His Spirit became a permanent resident in us, and we are to
live according to what is right before Him. Knowing this, we do sin and we do
have forgiveness. These passages are not given to beat us up, but to bring us
to a point of thinking soberly about how we might be living and to turn from
those things toward living right with our Lord who purchased us with His body. “Or 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? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
body.”
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