Flee fornication. Every sin which a man may practise is without the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.
Paul has just told the Corinthians that their bodies are members of Christ, and now he gives the shortest possible instruction on impurity: run. That command raises two questions. Why run instead of fight? And how does this sin reach the body as no other sin does?
The verb itself carries the strategy. One writer says the answer is not to hold any ground at all:
"Flee fornication." In this one is not told to fight, but to keep far from it, as Joseph fled from the wife of Potiphar. Other sins may not involve the body in this way, but this is sin against one's own body.
This is not cowardice. Another writer draws out the same rule, and adds that the man who ran was no weakling:
Also, His way for us always makes us feel our own weakness. Our prayer can never be, "Lead us into temptation," so we must never act as if it were. Whenever we can escape without being disloyal, we are to run rather than face it. "Flee also youthful lusts." "Abstain from the passions of the flesh." Run, as Joseph ran; and there was probably no braver man.
Paul does not say other sins are small. He says they are outside the body, while this one turns inward:
He wanted them to avoid sexual sin with everything in them, because this sin is unlike any other. It is against the body itself, while other sins stay outside it. How dreadful then to think not merely of the body so misused, but the Christian's body, temple of the Holy Spirit as it is!
Another writer says this sin robs the body of its own dignity, and compares it to two things:
We must not treat this sin as harmless, or even as a small offence. We should dread it and avoid it like a disease, because it stains both soul and body. Other sins stain us only in part. This one stains us fully, because it takes what God has claimed for Himself and puts it to a use He condemns. So it wrongs the body itself. It strips the body of its true honour as an instrument of worship, and drags it down again into the service of sin. It is, therefore, morally, what idolatry is spiritually.
Earlier in the chapter Paul contrasts food and the stomach — both passing — with the body, which is for the Lord. That contrast lifts the body far above what human thinking had given it:
If the stomach is put in its true and passing place, the body is lifted to a height that human philosophy never knew. God did not form it for impure or careless indulgence. It is for the Lord, and the Lord is for it.
God claims the body rather than throwing it away, so the body also has a future. That future changes how we live now:
Paul calls our bodies, not our souls, members of Christ. People who talk only about the soul may claim to be on a higher level. But it is never really so in practice or in theory. In fact, the immortality of the soul is easy to twist into human pride. The resurrection is not. It lifts God up and humbles man, and where faith holds it, it frees us from soft living and self-indulgence.
Just before this command, Paul says that the one joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. That union is what makes impurity so out of place:
Another truth linked to this matters greatly. If two people become one body by a bodily union, then the person joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. The Spirit whose fullness is in Christ is the same Spirit who dwells in me and unites me to Him. Our bodies are His temples. What a mighty truth when we think of it!
The body is God's temple and something He bought. One writer says two duties follow:
What God lives in is His, not ours. He does not rob us of the ownership that is naturally ours, but that ownership is swallowed up in the higher honour of our calling. Our bodies are His temple — ours, therefore, only as ourselves are His... So the Christian has a double duty toward his own body. He is to manage and rule it with watchfulness and godly firmness, as he would a restless and stubborn animal. And he is to hold it in honour.
One writer notes that freedom stops the moment an appetite starts to rule:
The moment it rules him, it has power over him — even if it is only eating something nice.
- Flee. Where escape is possible without disloyalty, retreat is the command — Joseph ran, and he was not a timid man.
- Because it strikes inward. Other sins stay outside the body. This one takes what God claimed for Himself and puts it to a use He condemns.
- Because God claims you. The body is not for impurity but for the Lord, and the Lord for it — a dignity human philosophy never reached.
- Because you are joined. The same Spirit whose fullness is in Christ dwells in you and unites you to Him.
- Because you are owned. The body is God's temple and God's purchase, so it must be both firmly governed and held in honour.
Do ye not know that your body is [the] temple of the Holy Spirit which [is] in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own?
Paul is writing to believers in Corinth about sexual immorality, and he argues not from rules but from a fact they already had: the Spirit of God lives in their bodies. This raises two questions — who owns the body, and what follows from God living in it.
The verse does not open with new information. It opens with a rebuke shaped like a question, and it is not the only one in the chapter.
This verse is another precious display of grace. The words "Do you not know?" repeated six times in this chapter, were meant as reminders of the great things the Corinthians had been taught, but which they were letting slip. A terrible danger for us also!
Knowing a truth and being governed by it are not the same thing.
And further than this, they were proclaiming their own ignorance. Verse 2 begins with "Do you not know?" We meet that same question five more times before the chapter ends. Like many other worldly believers, the Corinthians did not know as much as they thought they did. If truth governs us, we really know it. Mere intellectual knowledge does not count.
Paul could have said the soul or the spirit. He named the body — and that choice controls how far the claim reaches.
The Spirit of God lives in our body so that His character shows in the way we live. Notice that He does not call our spirits or souls His temple, but our bodies. So "You are not your own" is not only about our spiritual life. It covers our bodies too.
The Spirit lives in each believer, and He also lives among believers gathered together. These two are not the same thing.
The Spirit of God makes a clear difference between His living in one person and His living among believers together... Without the blood of Christ that has cleansed us, we would call it a shameful idea for the Holy Spirit to live in our poor bodies as His temple. But His testimony is to the value of that blood.
The Spirit's presence in a human body is not something God had always done. It waited for a finished work.
God did not live with Adam in the Garden of Eden, even before he sinned. God did not dwell with Abraham, though He visited him, and Abraham was called "the friend of God"... Now that redemption is finished, He comes to live in each believer. He also lives among His people, gathered together by the Holy Spirit. His presence in us is more than conversion. Those washed in the blood of Jesus become the dwelling place of God.
Ownership sounds like a loss of freedom. Read the other way, it is the only freedom there is.
Moreover, we are not our own, but were bought with a price — the blood of Christ offered for us... Our true liberty is to belong to God. Everything we do for ourselves is stolen from the One who bought us for Himself. Everything a slave was, or earned, belonged to his master; he did not own himself. So it is with the Christian. Outside of that, he is the wretched slave of sin and of Satan.
Paul is confronting a sin that strikes the body itself — the very thing God has claimed.
He would have them avoid sexual sin above all, because it is unlike every other sin. It is a sin against the body itself, while other sins are outside the body. How dreadful, then, to think of any body used that way — and worse, the Christian's body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit! It is His temple not because we dedicated it to Him, but because He Himself lives in us. God gave Him to us, because Christ bought us with His blood.
Taking the fact seriously changes behaviour without anyone needing to police it.
Let me take hold of this truth with power, and I will shrink from sin of every kind. I will hold on to the holiness that fits a Guest like this. I will seek not to grieve Him, but to encourage Him. I am not my own.
- Reminded — "Do you not know?" runs six times through this chapter. Paul is not teaching new truth. He is recovering forgotten truth, and truth only counts when it rules your life.
- Purchased — the price paid was the blood of Christ, and it bought the body, not just the soul. Living for yourself is theft from the One who owns you.
- Indwelt — God never lived in Adam or Abraham. He lives in believers now only because redemption is finished and the blood has washed them clean.
- Bodily — the temple is the body. So the claim covers every physical act, not just the spiritual side of life.
- Guarded — sexual sin gets special mention because it strikes the body itself, the very place God has claimed. Grasp who lives there, and you shrink from sin of every kind.
for ye have been bought with a price glorify now then God in your body.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.