Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 is that sexual immorality is inconsistent with God’s design for the body. Our bodies belong to the Lord, therefore what we do with our bodies matters. In part 1 we saw the first two reasons for why sexual sin is inconsistent with God’s design: the body is destined for resurrection and designed for union with Christ (12-17). In verses 18-20 we see two more reasons: the body is defiled by sexual immorality and is also a dwelling for the Holy Spirit.
Your Body Is Defiled by Sexual Immorality
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Just like Joseph fled from Potiphar’s wife, Paul here gives a simple, straightforward command, “Flee from sexual immorality.” Whatever the cost, we flee. And notice, this is not just about going to prostitutes, but all sexual immorality. There is no room for caveats or loopholes. In the second half of verse 18 Paul carries on his argument, saying that sexual immorality is a sin against one’s own body. Again, there are two ways to understand this: as a saying of Paul or a Corinthian slogan.
If this is Pauline teaching, then the point is that sexual immorality is somehow a more serious sin than others because it is a sin against one’s own body (cf. 15-16). The word “other” is supplied to help make the exception (cf. Matt 12:31). Yes, there are other sins against our bodies (gluttony, drunkenness, self-harm). But those require other “tools” to sin, whereas sex involves your whole body—mind, soul, emotions. On the other hand, if this is a Corinthian slogan, this would match their previous slogans that indicate they believe the body didn’t matter and had nothing to do with sin, because Christianity was a private and inner experience. They would be saying, “All sin is committed apart from the body, and has nothing to do with the body.” And Paul replies, “but the sexual immoral person sins against his own body” (literally, “within his own body”).
Either way, the point still stands. Sexual immorality involves the body in a mysterious and unique way and is especially egregious because of what sex is for, and how it involves the whole person. In other words, no other sin involves or is directed toward the body like sexual sin. Uniting a body, which is owned by the Lord and united to Christ’s body, with a foreign body outside of a husband-wife union, “corrupts the integrity of both the individual member and the corporate body of Christ.“1Alan F. Johnson, 1 Corinthians, vol. 7, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), 102.
Your Body Is a Dwelling For the Holy Spirit
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Paul reinforces his argument with another question. In 1 Cor. 3:16-17, Paul says that the church corporately is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Here, it is singular. Those who belong to the church are not just living stones in the temple but are mini temples themselves, since the Holy Spirit indwells each believer. Paul not only uses powerful imagery to help shape our imaginations but his argument also is Trinitarian. Our body was given to us by God, it belongs to and is united to the risen Lord Jesus, it will be raised by God, and is now the temple dwelling of the Spirit. The Corinthians seemed to think that they were “spiritual” and that the body did not matter. Paul says that it’s precisely because the Spirit is within them that the body actually matters. Their bodies, like the temple, must not be desecrated.
The theological reality that we are God’s temple, both corporately and individually, serves several purposes. First, it emphasizes our need for unity. God has one temple, and we all belong to it. One temple, one priesthood. Second, it emphasizes our need for purity. Just as the physical temple needed to be pure, holy, and consecrated, so now believers, who have God’s Spirit, must be pure as well. Third, it emphasizes our need for witness. The original temple was the sign of God’s dwelling on earth. So now, the church is the sign of God’s presence and kingdom on earth.
Conclusion: You Are Not Your Own
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
As Paul concludes, the imagery switches from architecture to the slave market. Why are we not our own? Why are our bodies not our own? Because we have been bought with a price. This is a reference to the work of redemption God worked for us in Christ Jesus. We have been redeemed, body and soul, for God. Not only were we washed, sanctified, and justified (1 Cor. 6:11), but we were redeemed and bought with a price (Rev. 5:9; 1 Pet. 1:19). In chapter 3 Paul reminded the church that they belong to God, which was the antidote for their divisions. This is antidote for their immorality.
In other passages, we have been redeemed and “set free” from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13). Here, however, is the paradox that we were redeemed from one master to be slaves to God. It is in light of this reality—that we are not our own because we have been bought with a price—that we have the second command: therefore, glorify God with your body (cf. Rom. 12:1), which is the counterpart to “flee sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18; cf. Rom. 6:12-14).
This reality runs completely counter to our culture believes. According to Alan Noble, in You Are Not Your Own, creed of our culture is “I am my own and belong to myself.” This is the “lie of self-belonging,” that we are responsible for your existence. However,
The freedom of sovereign individualism comes at a great price. Once I am liberated from all social, moral, natural, and religious values, I become responsible for the meaning of my own life. With no God to judge or justify me, I have to be my own judge and redeemer. This burden manifests as a desperate need to justify our lives through identity crafting and expression (4).
We need self-affirmation, we have to justify our own existence, we need endless validation. But the gospel is that Jesus Christ provides the comfort the “self-belonging” fails to give. Our identity is given to us by God and secured in Christ. And because of this good news, we have true meaning and purpose in life, and our need for endless validation, affirmation, and self-actualization can come to an end.
Mitch Bedzyk serves as a pastor Emmanuel Community Church, overseeing music and Sunday Classes. He received his Master of Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and works in IT for the NY Office of Mental Health. He and his wife, Sarah, have five children: Kya, Khalli, Oliver, Amelia, and Micah. In his spare time he enjoys reading, coffee, guitar, being an MLS fanatic and playing fantasy soccer.
