Your Body, Your Life, It All Belongs to God

Verses 12-13... Just because I am free to do this or that, doesn’t mean it will be good for me. Just because something isn’t against God’s law, doesn’t mean I should do it.

The Corinthians were all about their “freedoms” in Christ, much like the church today. Perhaps they were thinking, I am forgiven all my sins - past, present, future - so in a manner of speaking, there isn’t any reason not to sin, right? Wrong!

Sin always brings consequences, even deadening us so as to desensitize us to the Spirit’s warnings, or we may become oblivious to sin’s control in our life; for sin will make us more and more a slave of sin.

Paul is clearly not just talking about the freedom to eat different foods and their effect on our stomach. Look at the end of verse 13, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

Sexual sins control us like no other sins, because they engage us physically, emotionally, mentally, and even physiologically (STDs). A sexual relationship is the most intimate of human relationships, and therefore, if done in sin, it can bring great harm: immorality, fornication, adultery, pornography, homosexuality, pedophilia, incest.

Listen, food spoils and bodies die, but our priority in this world and the next is to bring honor and praise to the Lord, not to seek our own freedoms and liberties, so as to use our bodies however we want to use them.

Verse 14... We are going to get a glorified body from God because of our relationship with God’s Son. Our new bodies will never spoil or decay or die (1Peter 1:3-5). We will be changed forever (1Corinthians 15:35-49).

Verse 15... Our bodies not only belong to the Lord, but we are part of the body of Christ, His church, in which the Spirit of God [Christ, Truth, Holiness] lives.

For a Christian who belongs to and is in fact a part of Christ’s Body, the Church, any sexual activity besides that between a husband and his wife, is forbidden sexual sin; to engage in this is like forcing God into sexual sin spiritually, as with a prostitute. It should never happen!

Verses 16-17... Paul is saying, “How ignorant are you Corinthians? Don’t you realize that when you commit sexual sins, you are forcing God to spiritually engage in those same sins with you, through the Holy Spirit’s presence in you?” We are one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (John 14:18-21; 17:22-23).

The only sexual activity God condones is that between a husband and his wife (Genesis 2:24), “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (cf. Matthew 19:5). We are one with the Lord in Spirit, and we should live accordingly.

Any sexual relationship outside of marriage is clearly condemned by God; in fact, it is incomprehensible that a believer would engage in forbidden sexual activity, knowing God’s Spirit is in us; in doing this we profane and disgrace the very name of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

Because God lives in us through His Spirit, when we enter into sin we drag Him into our sin. Jesus lived His whole life on earth and did not sin. He went to the cross for our sin to take our punishment, so that we would not be guilty before God for our sin.

It is unthinkable that we would expose the Holy God and Savior to sin, especially sexual sins, through which we defile the very body in which God’s Spirit lives. Verses 18-19... Sexual sin with the mind or body is so offensive to God that we shouldn't entertain or engage in it; in fact, we ought to run from it!

Would you ever take your wife or husband with you while you engaged in sexual relationships with someone else? Or would you take your children to watch a pornographic movie? Of course not! And yet we dare to commit our bodies to such sin, when God’s Spirit is in us?

Verse 20... Jesus Christ bought us with His own blood (1Peter 1:17-21). As Christians, we belong to God through Christ, and God’s Spirit lives in us.

1Corinthians 12:12-13, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

Ephesians 1:13-14, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory.”

Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

We are not to dishonor God with our mind or our bodies; but instead we are to live to His glory and praise.

Ephesians 5:3-11, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”

Colossians 3:5-6, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.”

Colossians 3:9-10, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

Colossians 3:12-14, “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”