1 Corinthians 6:12

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful unto 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... Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:12-20)

When the Corinthians turned liberty into license, Paul reminded them that their bodies belong to Christ.

A Teaching the Corinthians Misapplied

"All things are lawful unto me," says Paul. This phrase was something Paul had taught the Corinthians while he was present with them. He uses almost the exact phrase again in 1 Corinthians 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."

As we saw in chapter 5, the Corinthians had already misapplied Paul's teaching. He had told them to be separate from those practicing idolatry and immorality, so they withdrew from the culture of Corinth—yet allowed such sinful behavior to remain within the church. Paul had to clarify that he meant they were not to tolerate these things in the church, not that they were to avoid all contact with sinners in the world. Here in chapter 6, Paul again shows they had taken his teaching of liberty and applied it in ways he never intended.

The Glorious Liberty of Christ

Nearly every other religion is built on the premise that you can attain righteousness or enlightenment by adhering to a prescribed list of rules. Every religion has different rules, but Christianity says such efforts are vain. Apart from the divine intervention of God's redemptive power, there is no way to attain any form of righteousness.

This is one of the glorious realities of salvation: our righteousness comes by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus and the work He did on our behalf. Once redeemed, we experience a liberty unknowable to the unsaved. We delight in absolute certainty that we have a right standing with God right now—not because of our works, but because of what God did for us. No other religion offers that, nor the confident assurance of future glorification, that we will be with the Lord one day.

All of this comes by grace, apart from our work to obtain or maintain that position. There is no sacrifice we are bound to offer, no day we are compelled to observe, no dietary restriction we must heed. This was Paul's clear teaching to the Galatians. We studied Galatians about a year ago and saw a church that had received the gracious gift of salvation but, after Paul left, got bound up in ritualistic legalism—saying they had to keep certain laws and days to maintain their position.

Two Opposite Errors: Legalism and License

When Paul came to Corinth and established the church there, he taught a message of liberty that became a ruling motto. In the Greek it was just two words, pas existi—"all lawful." Everything is lawful. We could boil it down to one word: liberty.

The Galatians had shackled themselves to rules; Paul exhorted them in Galatians 5:1 (Phillips): "Plant your feet firmly, therefore, within the freedom that Christ has won for us... and do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery." The Corinthians had the opposite problem. They took Paul's teaching about liberty and misapplied it to every virtue and vice. Sexual immorality was rampant in Corinth, and they justified it: "Paul said everything is lawful. We're free in Christ."

Both churches ultimately had the same problem—extremism. When believers hear about grace and liberty, they often take one of two positions. The legalist says, "God's grace is great, but here's a list of rules so people don't abuse it." The liberalist says, "Don't you dare restrict my liberty," and uses grace as a license for sin.

What Liberty Does and Does Not Mean

So what does Christian liberty mean? It means the Christian is free to worship God on any or every day, in any place, at any time. We may eat with thanksgiving whatever is set before us. We are loosed from daily offering sacrifices to maintain our standing. We may come before God directly, without the service of a priest. We have no need for circumcision or any external rite for the privilege of fellowship.

But it does not mean anything is fair game. The Corinthians thought, "I can do anything because Christ has made me free." As Paul reveals here, Christian liberty does not mean we may exercise our passions to satisfy our appetites however we desire. We already read in 6:9-11 a whole list of things incompatible with Christianity—adulterers, fornicators, drunkards, extortioners, and the like will not inherit the kingdom of God. If that is true, then we clearly do not have liberty to walk that way without consequence. To say "I have liberty in Christ" does not mean we can mix sin with Christianity.

The Symphony of Liberty

The Greek word translated "expedient" shares the root from which we get our English word symphony. Imagine going to the symphony and the orchestra starts playing different pieces at different tempos—one at 180 beats per minute, another at 60, one in the key of G, another in F. It would be absolute discord. No conductor would want their name attached to it. Perhaps only the postmodern lost artist would say, "Man, that was existential."

The Corinthian church was not all playing the same tune. Because of sin, people were doing their own thing and trying to represent Christ to the world—and it simply was not working. To say "I have liberty, therefore it's fine to have sex outside marriage or get drunk now and then" is folly. Proverbs 23:21 says, "The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." Galatians 6:7 says, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked... he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption."

Not Brought Under the Power of Any

Paul also says, "I will not be brought under the power of any." Mixing sin with Christianity and justifying it under the guise of liberty is not only foolish, it is dangerous. In Romans 6, Paul makes clear that doing so enslaves you once again to sin and death. Before we were redeemed, we were slaves to sin and death. Christ set us free. God forbid that we should use that liberty to become bonded to sin once again.

Romans 6:15-17: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey... But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which has delivered you." We have been set free. Prior to salvation we could not not sin, because we were slaves of sin. But we have been delivered.

"Sin No More": The Lame Man at Bethesda

I love the story in John 5 of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, just north of the Temple Mount, surrounded by five porticos filled with sick and diseased people. They watched the water intently because of a fable that an angel would stir it and the first one in would be healed. There is comedy there, but also a devastatingly sad scene.

Jesus finds a man lame for 38 years—longer than Jesus had been alive—and heals him. Later He meets him in the temple and says, "Behold, you are made whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you" (John 5:14). For 38 years the man had been in bondage to his infirmity. Jesus had given him a liberty he had never known, and he could now use it to go and sin—to become a drunkard or to live in immorality. Jesus essentially says: do not use your liberty as an opportunity to sin, or something far worse will come.

I am thankful the man was found in the temple. When he was set free, he went to worship God, to use his liberty to glorify God. That is what we must do. So we have to ask: what are we doing with our liberty? Are we mastered by Christ or mastered by sin? You will serve one or the other.

Their Faulty Logic: "Meats for the Belly"

In verses 13-14, Paul questions their logic. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed man was a dichotomy—body and soul, completely separate—so that whatever was done with the body would not taint the soul. Most held an Epicurean worldview: if the body hungers for something, it would be unhealthy to deny that desire. They were good at this with food. In their arenas they even had a place called the Vomitory, where after indulging you would evacuate and go do it again. Gluttony abounded.

This thinking shaped their maxim in verse 13: "Meats for the belly and the belly for meats." Food is made for the belly, the belly for food—life is good, eat it up. But the implication went further: the body was made for sex and sex for the body—live it up. This thinking came into the church, where men were partaking in Corinth's rampant prostitution and justifying it with Paul's teaching.

The Body Is Not for Fornication

To correct their illogical thinking, Paul says, "the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." Yes, we have hunger pains satisfied by food, and if we are to live we ought to eat—but we ought not live to eat. The body and foods will one day be destroyed by the Lord. In the resurrection it seems we will not need to eat to live.

We do have a sexual appetite, and God created it; it is not bad in itself. He gave us the appetite, the body, and the means to gratify it. But just because we have an appetite, a tool, and a way to satisfy it does not mean we were created to do that. We were created to glorify God, not gratify ourselves. The appetites make sense: for the body to live, God made eating pleasurable so we would survive; for our race to survive, God gave us sex and made it pleasurable for procreation. Yet we are not created simply to eat and have sex, even though fallen man would like it that way.

The Phillips translation of verse 13 reads, "Our body was made for God, and God is the answer to our deepest longings." Those who have sought satisfaction in the things of this world found it does not work—it is an insatiable appetite. Our true longings are met only when we glorify God by enjoying Him forever. And verse 14 reminds us God raised the Lord and will raise us by His own power; our ultimate purpose is to glorify God as the bride of Christ forever.

The Lesson: Members of Christ

In verse 15 Paul gives a lesson, asking for the fourth time in this chapter, "Know ye not?" The implication is that you should know this, and when you do, it ought to change your behavior. Your body, my body, our bodies are the Lord's; we are part of Christ. That is why the church is called the body of Christ. If the world is going to see Christ, they will see Him in us.

Since we are members of Christ, whatever we do, we engage Him in that activity. Therefore, if we engage in immoral fornication, we mix Christ into it. Paul's reaction is "God forbid"—a simple, categorical "May it never be."

Two Become One

Verse 16: "Know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh." When you engage in sexual activity you become one with the person you engage with. This is how God designed it. In the beginning He made man in His image, then made woman from man—two from one—so that in marriage they would come together and become one again. Through that union God is honored, and man sees an illustration of the oneness relationship God desires to have with us.

Can you not see why the enemy is so intent on destroying marriage? It is the most perfect illustration of the relationship God desires with His creation. So there is no such thing as a casual sexual encounter, because in it two become one, and that is reserved only for marriage. As has been said, fire in the fireplace is wonderful; fire in the living room is bad. Sex within marriage is glorious as God intended; outside of marriage it has devastating effects.

Flee Fornication

Verse 18: "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." Paul's exhortation is clear. Do not try to be brave and stand against it. Do not try to determine with your immeasurable wisdom where the line is so you can get as close as possible. Do not think you are so spiritual you can handle the temptation. The spiritual thing is to run the other way. The word "flee" means seeking safety by flight—just get out, leave, do not mess with it.

The most beautiful illustration is Joseph in Genesis 39. Overseeing Potiphar's household, Joseph had authority over everything except Potiphar's wife, who had eyes for him and kept enticing him, "Come, lie with me." He said, "How could I sin against the Lord and do this wickedness?" He recognized it was a sin against God. Paul reveals it is also a sin against one's own body.

A Sin Against Your Own Body

Some throughout church history have misapplied this verse to say Christians must flee sex in general. That is not what it says. God gave sex as a precious gift to bond husband and wife in a true one-flesh relationship and to illustrate His desired relationship with man. He says flee sexual immorality, because it is a sin against one's own body.

Other sins against the body come from outside and are sinful in their excess—alcohol or gluttony. Ephesians 5 says, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess," implying you may partake without sin if you do not get drunk. Food is needful, but in excess becomes gluttony. Sexual immorality is different—it does not merely have to be done in excess to be sin. The Greek word porneia means not only physical immoral acts but acts done with the mind or eyes, including pornography.

The Greeks believed man was a dichotomy, but God created us as a trichotomy—body, soul, and spirit. Sexual immorality sins at all three levels and affects the soul. Every sin separates us spiritually from God until made right through confession, repentance, and forgiveness, but sexual immorality reaches the psyche and remains with the individual. Perhaps no single sin has done so much to produce painful diseases and shorten lives.

Imagine that five years ago, in a moment of weakness after church, you indulged in gluttony at a buffet, confessed it, and were forgiven; it will not nag you the rest of your life. But if ten years ago you engaged in sexual immorality, even after confessing and being forgiven, it is still there as a wound—because two became one and were torn apart, contrary to God's design for marriage.

Fighting the Wrong Battle

A few weeks ago at the Bible college I asked my students what a national revival in America today would look like. The first answer was, "We would do away with abortion," and the rest followed: "We'd do away with this, do away with that." That first answer struck me, because if there were a national revival, we would not need abortion clinics. Sexual immorality would be dealt with, and abortion is ultimately the symptom of that problem.

Since Roe v. Wade in 1973 the church has focused so much on the symptom and not the originating problem. The problem is immorality, fornication. Deal with that, and the abortion clinics are gone. We have been fighting the wrong battle in prayer and effort; the focus needs to be on immorality. Our culture is so saturated with sex you cannot watch TV for five minutes without seeing commercials for the blue pill. Clearly our attention is misfocused.

In the 1820s a movement arose called the Free Love Movement, reaching its height in the late 1960s. Its foundation was that love and sex had to be unshackled from the bondage of marriage, religion, and the state. After nearly 200 years, what have we learned? It is not free, it is not freeing, and it cannot be called love.

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

Verse 19, Paul's sixth rhetorical question: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you... and you are not your own?" In chapter 3:16 he asked nearly the same question, but there the context was the body of Christ as a whole. Here in chapter 6 it is aimed at the individual: you, Christian, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and you are not your own.

Those five words—"you are not your own"—are a great stumbling block to our culture. If we are stumbled by that, it is another litmus test of whether we are more influenced by our culture than by the Bible. Why such aversion as Americans? Perhaps it relates to our history with slavery; we want nothing to do with belonging to someone else. This is one reason the Free Love Movement wanted to abolish marriage—they saw it as a kind of slavery.

Bought With a Price

In the Roman Empire, 60 percent of the population—millions—were slaves, so Paul's reasoning in verses 19-20 hit home. You are not your own because you have been purchased with a price. Buying and selling people as property is dreadful and wrong; the Bible does not endorse it, only records that it existed, and every abolitionist movement has started with the Bible. But those readers understood the idea.

Who did we belong to before? Romans 6 says we were slaves to sin and death. Jesus came and died to redeem us—not with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with His precious blood, as of a lamb without spot or blemish (Peter). We were bought with a price.

Here is the paradox in verse 20. To a slavery mindset, being bought means you have no choice about serving your master. But God says, "I have redeemed you, and now I am asking you to use your will and make a decision to glorify Me in your body and your spirit." He has redeemed us and given us free moral agency to choose to honor Him—or to dishonor Him and ourselves. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, we can renounce the former things and walk in what honors our Master, who does not treat us like a slave but like a son.

Can you imagine the evangelistic potential of the entire body of Christ living this way—recognizing that we are God's property and living to glorify Him? What would that mean to our culture? That we would lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of us. That is my prayer for my own life and for this church—that we would live in a way that glorifies the Lord, and that our world would see it.

Closing Prayer

Father, we recognize that we were created for a far higher purpose than the beasts of the field—not just to eat and procreate, but to bring glory to You, the King of kings and Lord of lords. I ask that You would move in our hearts to do just that, that we would offer ourselves as living sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to You. It is the only reasonable service, that we would demonstrate to this world what is perfect and good and right about Your will and Your way—that our culture would see Your life and Your grace demonstrated in us, because we belong to You. Men will judge You as they look upon us, so I pray that we represent You well, and that on the day of Christ Jesus we hear You say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.