Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Bird's-eye view

In this dense and potent passage, Paul confronts the libertine spirit that had taken root in the Corinthian church. Having just dealt with lawsuits among believers, he now turns to an even more fundamental issue: the use and purpose of the body. The Corinthians, infected with a dualistic Greek mindset, were twisting the glorious liberty of the gospel into a license for sexual sin. Paul systematically dismantles their slogans and excuses by grounding Christian ethics in the highest doctrines of our faith: our union with Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the reality of the resurrection, and the fact of our redemption. He argues that the body is not an amoral playground, but rather a consecrated instrument for the glory of God. This is theology at its most practical, connecting the death and resurrection of Christ directly to what a young man does on a Saturday night.

Outline

Context In 1 Corinthians

This section is not an isolated tirade against sexual sin. It is strategically placed. Paul has just rebuked the Corinthians for taking one another to pagan courts (1 Cor 6:1-11), a failure to live out their new identity in Christ. He now pivots to another area where their new identity was being catastrophically ignored: sexual ethics. The Corinthians were apparently sophisticated thinkers, proud of their knowledge and freedom, but this sophistication had curdled into a justification for base immorality. This passage is a direct assault on the gnostic tendency to separate the "spiritual" from the "physical," a heresy that is alive and well in our own day. What follows in chapter 7, a detailed discussion of marriage, celibacy, and divorce, makes perfect sense only after Paul has established these foundational truths about the body.

Key Issues

1 Corinthians 6:12

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.

Paul begins by quoting a popular slogan in the Corinthian church: "All things are lawful for me." This was likely a truth that Paul himself had taught them, a glorious truth about our freedom from the Mosaic ceremonial law. But the Corinthians, in their cleverness, had twisted it into a justification for sin. Paul takes their slogan and immediately qualifies it twice. First, he introduces the test of profitability. Is this action beneficial? Does it build up? Does it edify? A Christian is not to ask merely, "Is this permitted?" but rather, "Is this wise?" Second, he introduces the test of mastery. Christian liberty is the freedom to serve God, not the freedom to become a slave to something else. The man who says he is free to indulge his appetites is in reality the very slave of his appetites. True freedom is not the power to do whatever you want, but the power to do what you ought. So the question is not "Can I do this?" but rather "Will this thing bring me into bondage?"

1 Corinthians 6:13

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 sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

Here Paul quotes another Corinthian slogan: "Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food." This is a basic biological observation. The Corinthians were then making a fallacious leap: "Sex is for the body and the body is for sex." Paul agrees with the premise about food and even adds that this entire digestive system is temporary: "God will do away with both of them." But then he draws a sharp, absolute line of distinction. He creates a powerful antithesis. The body is not analogous to the stomach. Its purpose is not found in the satisfaction of appetites. The body is for the Lord. This is its teleology, its created purpose. And in a staggering turn, Paul adds the reciprocal: and the Lord is for the body. Christ is not just the Lord of our souls; He is the Lord of our bodies. He has a vested, proprietary interest in our physical selves.

1 Corinthians 6:14

Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.

This is the theological anchor for the previous statement. Why is the Lord "for the body"? Because He intends to resurrect it. The Corinthians' slogan about food and the stomach being done away with is true, but it is a half-truth that they were using to tell a whole lie about the body. Our bodies are not disposable containers for our souls. They are destined for glorification. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the guarantee and the pattern for our own resurrection. God the Father raised the Lord Jesus bodily, and He will do the same for us. This doctrine demolishes any gnostic or dualistic worldview that treats the body as irrelevant or evil. Our bodies matter for eternity.

1 Corinthians 6:15

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!

Paul now brings in the first of three rhetorical questions designed to shock the Corinthians back to their senses. "Do you not know?" he asks. This is basic Christian doctrine. Through faith and baptism, we are united to Christ in such a profound way that our very bodies are considered His members, like hands and feet belonging to a head. The question that follows is therefore grotesque. Shall a man take his hand, which is a member of Christ's own body, and join it to a prostitute? The thought is a sacrilegious horror. It is a spiritual monstrosity, an act of treason against our Head. Paul's response is the strongest possible negative in the Greek: Me genoito! May it never be! God forbid! Let it not be so!

1 Corinthians 6:16

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.”

The second "Do you not know?" drives the point home by appealing to the created order. Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, the foundational text for marriage. The sexual act creates a "one-flesh" union. This is not a metaphor. It is a reality. The Corinthians were trying to treat sex as a meaningless physical transaction, like scratching an itch or eating a meal. Paul says this is impossible. The act itself forges a bond, a union. And because it is a created reality, it happens whether you are married in a church or fornicating in a brothel. To have intercourse with a prostitute is to become one body with her. And if your body is a member of Christ (v. 15), you are therefore dragging Christ Himself into this profane union. This is high treason.

1 Corinthians 6:17

But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

Here is the glorious contrast. Union with a prostitute makes you one body with her. But the believer's foundational reality is his union with the Lord. The one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. This is the wellspring of our identity. The spiritual union we have with Christ is to govern and define every other union we might contemplate. To step into a "one-flesh" union that is contrary to our "one-spirit" union with the Lord is to live a lie. It is to act against our truest self, which is our self "in Christ."

1 Corinthians 6:18

Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.

After laying the deep theological foundation, Paul issues the sharp, practical command: Flee. He does not say, "Manage your lust," or "Negotiate with temptation." He says to run. Like Joseph from Potiphar's wife, the only wise response to this kind of temptation is radical flight. He then gives a reason that has been much debated. He says that sexual sin is unique in that it is a sin against his own body. Other sins, like theft or slander, are "outside the body." This does not mean other sins don't involve the body. Gluttony certainly does. What Paul seems to be getting at is that sexual sin is a fundamental violation of the very structure of our embodied self. It is a perversion of the "one-flesh" principle that is integral to our created identity as male and female. It is a sin against the image of God as it is expressed in our physical being. It is a kind of spiritual self-harm, a deep violation of one's own personal integrity.

1 Corinthians 6:19

Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

This is the third and climactic "Do you not know?". If the previous arguments were not enough, this one should settle the matter. Your body is not a cheap motel for transient lusts; it is a naos, a temple, a sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. And the one who dwells there is God Himself, the Holy Spirit. To bring a prostitute into the sanctuary of God is an act of unimaginable desecration. This truth leads directly to the next: "you are not your own." The modern mantra of "my body, my choice" is the very essence of paganism. For the Christian, it is "His body, His choice." We have no autonomous rights over our bodies. We are stewards of a property that belongs to another.

1 Corinthians 6:20

For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

And why are we not our own? Because we were slaves to sin, and we have been purchased. "You were bought with a price." This is the language of the slave market. The price was not silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ. We have been redeemed, bought out of bondage, and we now belong entirely to our new Master. The logical conclusion, the great "therefore," is the central purpose of the Christian life. We are to "glorify God." And Paul is careful to specify the location of this worship: "in your body." Not in some disembodied soul, not in some ethereal spiritual realm, but right here, in the flesh. Our bodies, with all their desires and functions, are to be instruments of worship, dedicated to displaying the glory of the God who made them, bought them, and is going to resurrect them.