Lesson 6: The Church’s Problems—Immorality

On my first reading of this passage to prepare the lesson, it seemed that Paul was returning to the issue of chapter 5. Then I realized that although both sections deal with sexual sin,⁴⁸ the former (chapter 5) involves only one congregant whereas the latter (chapter 6) seems to involve several congregants. What Paul is addressing is not the disciplining of one member but the lack of discipline among several members.

D. Immorality 6:12-20

1 Cor 6:12 "Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

1. Symptom

• Visiting prostitutes (v. 15)

2. Cause

• Pride (vv. 12, 19b)?

Comment: About “Everything is permissible for me” (v. 12)

These are not Paul’s words. Rather, he is repeating the justification these individuals offer to other believers for their actions. (Hence, the NIV helpfully adds quotation marks.)

Apparently some men within the Christian community are going to [temple?] prostitutes and are arguing for the right to do so. Being people of the Spirit, they imply, has moved them to a higher plane, the realm of spirit, where they are unaffected by behavior that has merely to do with the body (Fee 1987:250-251).

Does this argument sound familiar? …Paul counters each of their generalizations with a contrasting argument.

—Immorality

• V. 12a Claim: Everything is permissible for me.

Counterclaim: But not everything is beneficial.

• According to Paul: “Truly Christian conduct is not predicated on whether I have the right to do something, but [on] whether my conduct is helpful to those around me” (Fee 1987:252).

• V. 12b Claim: Everything is permissible for me.

Counterclaim: But I will not be mastered by anything.

• Gaining the freedom to act as one pleases, without restraint, “is not freedom at all, but a form of bondage worse than before” (Fee 1987:252).⁴⁹

• V. 13a Claim: Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both the one (stomach) and the other (food).⁵⁰

• This is a non-transferable concept that the Corinthians are attempting to transfer: “…since food is for the stomach and the stomach for food (after all, God will destroy them both in the end), and since all bodily appetites are pretty much alike, that means that the body is for sex and sex for the body” (Fee 1987:255). It sounds like: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”⁵¹

Counterclaim: But the body is meant for the Lord (not for immorality) and, rather than destroying it, God will raise it (as He raised Jesus).

3. Solution

a. Understand that the body is meant for the Lord, not for sexual immorality (v. 13).⁵²

b. Understand that the Lord will raise the body, not abandon it (v.

14).

c. Understand that you must “honor God with your body,” not sin

against it (v. 20).

Comment: About “Do you not know…” (vv. 15-20)

As with the last issue (lawsuits), Paul develops his argument with a series of “Do you not know” rhetorical questions.

• V. 15—Do you not know that your body is united with Christ?

• Therefore, you should not unite it with a prostitute.

Conflict Management: Cultivating Concord in the Church at Corinth

The relationship is not immediately clear because the analogy is not quite parallel, but that is part of Paul’s point…

• V. 16—Do you not know that the one involves a physical union and the other a spiritual union?

• Therefore, you shouldn’t threaten the one with another. That is, you can have only one kind of union—moral or immoral—so don’t allow a fleeting encounter to disrupt your relationship with God: “Flee from sexual immorality” (v. 18a). If you don’t, you’re only hurting yourself. (v. 18b; cf. 6:8).

• V. 19—Do you not know that your body belongs to God?

• Therefore, you shouldn’t think that you can do whatever you want with it: “[H]onor God with your body” (v. 20; cf. Rom 6:1-8:17).

Query: Is Paul against marriage?

• How does the physical union between a man and his wife not violate Paul’s prohibition against joining with another person?

• There is no immorality involved, no violation of God’s holiness.

• What does this passage say about other practices that harm the body (e.g., drunkenness, gluttony, smoking)?⁵³

• Nothing, because none of these involve union with another person. Hence, they come under the category of “sins[?] a man commits…outside his body” (v. 18). That is, “no other sin is directed specifically toward one’s own body in the way that sexual immorality is…[because the violation] against one’s own body [is] viewed in terms of its place in redemptive history” (Fee 1987:262-263). This is Paul’s eschatological perspective: We are not at liberty to do as we please with our bodies. They belong to God, and He is not finished with them yet because in the end He is going to resurrect them.

• What two ways have we seen then, according to Paul, that believers constitute the temple of the Holy Spirit?

• In 3:16, the Holy Spirit’s temple is the corporate body of the believers, whose union with each other is threatened by rival factions.

• In 6:19, the Holy Spirit’s temple is the physical body of the believer, whose union with Christ is threatened by rival liaisons.

—Immorality

Paul hears there is immorality in the Corinthian church, because some members have adopted a Gnostic dualism that viewed the body as something one discards at death in order that the soul might be free. They thought the presence of God’s Spirit meant the negation of the body, which meant they could do whatever they wanted with it because God would destroy it in the end. Paul corrects their error by stating that God will raise the body in the end, as He did with Jesus’ body. This is an important distinction: The focus of Christianity is not on the immortality of the soul but on the resurrection of the body.

Furthermore, one of the implications of redemption is that one’s body belongs to God (being part of the purchase price) and must, therefore, be used to honor Him. Sexual immorality not only fails in this respect (to honor God), but actually damages one’s relationship with God, because it introduces a rival into that union. “The body is included in the redemptive work of God and therefore may not be involved in sexual immorality” (Fee 1987:265-266).

In the first part of his letter, Paul deals with four problems in the Corinthian church that have come to his attention. The congregation did not officially ask for his advice on these matters, perhaps because in none of them do the Corinthians show themselves to be any better than their pagan neighbors.

• The faction problem exposes disunity instead of unity.

• The discipline problem exposes impurity instead of purity.

• The lawsuits problem exposes selfishness instead of selflessness.

• The sexual problem exposes immorality instead of morality.

This is not a particularly effective way of turning other people’s attention toward God.

From these problems, Paul speaks to issues that the church has specifically requested he address.