» 1COR 6:12-13
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

The Corinthian letters are nestled between Romans and Galatians like books bookends. That is interesting if we contrast their messages:

• Romans and Galatians deal with out of control legalism. Members of those churches had an unhealthy view of righteousness. Because of that, they suppressed the grace and freedom we have in Christ. Paul helped them understand their freedom.
• 1 and 2 Corinthian deal with out of control grace. Members of that church had an unhealthy view of freedom. Because of that, they overlooked the responsibility that goes along with freedom.

So Paul is helping these Corinthians understand the nature of their freedom in Christ. 1 Corinthians 5-6 seems to me to be a single unit about a single situation. A man in the assembly was having sex with his father’s wife (5:1-2). Instead of dealing with it within the church (5:3-11), they took the offender before a secular court of law (5:12-6:11). But there was nothing illegal about such incest in Corinth (6:12). Corinth was a sexually permissive city with things like temple prostitutes embedded in its culture.

But Paul says it doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or not. We are members of Christ’s body, and we need to live like members of Christ’s body (6:13-20).

Not only does Paul not argue about the secular legality of sexual looseness; he doesn’t even argue about its spiritual legality.

He could’ve responded with “Your courts may say it’s ok, but Thou Shalt Not...” Instead, he challenges them to examine their freedom in Christ. Our freedom should be used to accomplish God’s purposes, not to fulfill our fleshly desires.

I was only 18 years old. Footlocker had moved me from my small West Virginia hometown to the beautiful beaches of Charleston, SC and made me the manager of a store. They gave me the key, gave me the cash register, gave me employees, and said “go make us some money.” They gave me freedoms that the other employees didn’t have – access to everything, including all the cash in the drawer at the end of the day. Now, I hadn’t lived my teenage years honestly, and this was a serious temptation to me. I could do what I chose with the cash. I could do what I chose with the employees, too. I could be lazy and order people around. I could be a cool boss, have a great time with everyone, but not get any work done.

I could definitely abuse the freedom the company had given me, but they gave it to me for a specific purpose – to make money for the company. “Not everything is beneficial,” as Paul said. Fortunately, that freedom and responsibility spurred me to grow up, to do the right thing, and I didn’t abuse it. But I could have.

The point is that freedom doesn’t exclude you from responsibility. In fact, it increases the responsibility.

If nothing else sticks with you from this passage, let this stick: The freedom our Master has given us can itself become our master.

Mastery by freedom is the source of sin in Christians. Paul described this in v.12: “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” When we use our freedom to do anything but God’s will, we show that freedom has become our master. Our responsibility in freedom is to use it toward the things that are beneficial – to accomplish God’s purpose in our lives and in our world.

In v. 13 Paul used an illustration to show how absurd the Corinthians’ reasoning was. Think about food, he said. It’s good for the stomach, right? But is food always beneficial to the stomach? Although Paul didn’t develop the thought further, it’s easy to see the implied answer. Food isn’t always good for the stomach. Rotten meat is really, really bad for the stomach. So are canned beets (at least for my stomach!).

Besides, he says, God will ultimately destroy both food and stomach. He’s in charge of it all. Submit your freedom to the One in charge.

» 1COR 6:14-20
14 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Can you imagine Jesus having sex with a prostitute?

That is a disturbing question. I didn’t like typing it. But that’s what Paul wants us to think about in vv. 14-20. He reminds us that we are each members of Christ – members of His body.

So when you or I engage in sin, part of Christ’s body engages in sin. “Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?”

That’s how serious it is!

You’ll sort of recognize the Greek word translated “prostitute”: Porne. We get our word “pornography” from it. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon says it refers to “any woman indulging in unlawful sexual intercourse, whether for gain or for lust.” So it doesn’t just mean “prostitute.” It’s closer to the modern meaning of “whore.”

I believe Paul is specifically referring to the wife of the man’s father, whom a man from the church was having sex with (1Cor 5:1ff). This man was a brother because he was a believer. That meant he was a member of Christ’s body. But he was also uniting himself with a whore. Because “the two shall become one flesh,” this man was now simultaneously a member of Christ and a member of the whore. So now Christ was united to a whore! That is how serious that sin, and any sin, is in a Christian. When we do it part of Christ does it!

You and I may not be involved in such grotesque sin as this man. But the same reasoning applies to any sin our lives – when you or I do it, part of Christ is doing it too.