1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Called to Purity

Theological Proposition/Focus: The Call of a Christian is a call to sexual purity.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: Christians need to be committed to God's standard for sexual purity.

Introduction:

Setting the Stage:

In the first four chapters of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul dealt with the problem of disunity. Paul's focus in these chapters seems to be a contrast between the wisdom and ways of the world and the wisdom and ways of God. Paul's overall argument seems to be something like "Stop using the world's measures to form your own factions, commit yourself to simply following Christ and doing so in unity." In chapters 5 Paul switches gears slightly and begins addressing some specific problems that are occurring within the church. Paul doesn't hold and punches, he deals with incest, lawsuits and now sexual immorality. Remember, this is a church that taught itself wise. Paul demonstrates that the wisdom this church thought it possessed was a false wisdom, a wisdom of the world and that wisdom was leading them down a path of worldliness. for us today we can gain some immediate applications because we to live in a world that thinks itself wise. If you go around proclaiming God's standard for sexual purity you are going to be labeled at best unenlightened probably a lot worse. Just remember, this is not my knowledge it is not your knowledge, this is God's knowledge. Now let's read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.

Body

What I want you to see in verses 12-14 is that

The rights of a Christian must always be viewed through a theological lens (12-14)

In verses 12 through the first half of verse 13 we have several pithy statements.

Formally a pithy statement is defined as a brief statement that is full of substance and meaning. You can think of these as short proverbs. Statements that taken at face value seem short, memorable, and generally true. The problem is that

Pithy statements, while powerful, may only tell half the story (12-13a).

In the real world, there is almost always some nuance which makes a pithy statement generally true but specifically problematic. That is exactly what is going on here. Let's look at the first statement.

I have the right to do anything - grace is certainly efficacious for salvation and gives us the promise of forgiveness, but ...

For the Christian freedom is not for the self but for others, the question is not can I do something, the question is will it be beneficial?

Beyond the question of is it beneficial is the question, "does my freedom actually result in my enslavement?"

Don't be fooled into slavery to something that is masquerading as a freedom!

If I asked you to clear all the alcohol out of your house for a month could you do it? If I asked you to take a month off from Social Media could you do it? If I asked you to eliminate nudity or sexual content from your viewing could you do it? Maybe it is worth testing yourself and seeing if you are enslaved to something that is not beneficial!

You say food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both. - yes, God created with purpose but don't over generalize.

Let me make it applicable to us, "since God made me to feel this way it must be okay right? Wrong! don't be stupid, don't over generalize.

What we need to realize is that

God, as creator and redeemer, has first right of claim over our bodies (13b).

The generalization that the Corinthians were making was that in eternity the body is irrelevant. However, this is not the case!

Paul argues that in eternity the body is relevant, it will be God's. Now you are going to get a resurrected body, but I think it is naive to think that this resurrected body has nothing to do with your current body. Your resurrected body will be redeemed, but remember, the nail prints were still present in Christ's resurrected body. What you do on earth does matter!

Moreover, stop thinking of your body as your body, you were created and redeemed

It is not your body it is the property of the Lord. In fact,

We must recognize the eternality of people (14).

God created the physical universe and called it good! God raised Christ with a physical body! The physical body is not the problem, our sin nature is.

This is really important for us theologically. We need to be careful that as we look forward to eternity we never make it sound as if our problem is the physical world! We were created to inhabit the physical world. God is going to give us a new body.

MTR: Never exercise your rights without first looking at them through the lens of theology.

The problem Paul is dealing with in this section is sexual immorality but the over-all principles can be stated as

The actions of a Christian must be considered through a theological lens (15-17)

The first theological principle that Paul addresses is the fact that when an individual accepts Christ as their personal Savior they become part of the Body. This means that

As a Christian, you bring Christ with you in everything you do (15)!

Paul is working on a syllogism, a logical argument, his first proposition is that we have been united with Christ

One's identity is as a Christian, don't cheapen that identity by putting any modifiers in front of it. Especially modifiers that are at odds with the Christian identity.

Going further in Paul's argument we need to dive into the theology of sex. Theology of sex you might ask what does sex have to do with theology. Again, we could spend a lot of time on this but for now it is sufficient to simply say that

As a Christian, your foundation is your union with Christ (17)!

Ephesians 5:30-32, after speaking of the marriage relationship, states that marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church.

for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Image: WWJD only scratches the surface.

There was a trend a while back of asking the question What Would Jesus Do? The question is a good question but it only scratches the surface because for the Christian it is more than just WWJD but how does my action make Jesus feel? What does my action do to my relationship with Jesus given that he and I are united in Spirit?

MTR: Develop a habit of asking not just "What would Jesus do?" but "How does Jesus feel?"

Ultimately, what Paul wants to show the Corinthians is that

The purity of a Christian must be made a priority (18-20).

Let me first say that we can apply this idea generally. We need to be set apart, we need to be holy. Here, in context there is no question, Paul is talking about sexual purity! And Paul's command is pretty simple. Flee! You see

Sexual sin is particularly destructive and the appropriate response is to flee (18).

We see this model in Joseph's handling the situation with Potipher's wife in Genesis 39.

Recall that Joseph is approached by Potipher's wife in an attempt to seduce him. Joseph resits but when he realizes that the temptation will not end he simply flees. There are times when we are told to resist the Devil

=James 4:7 states Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

But in the case of sexual temptation the answer is to flee. Get out of there, remove apps from your phone. Give you phone to your spouse, parent, someone you trust. The key here, in my opinion is that when it comes to sexual temptation resisting temptation is not an act of defiantly holding your ground, you turn tail and run. Why? Because the sin is so destructive

Sexual immorality is a sin against the created purpose of the body's sexual organs which were created to picture the union representative of god's covenant love.

In fact

The body of a Christian has been set-apart for a special purpose as the temple (19).

Recall that Paul had spoken of the church as the temple in 1 Cor. 3:16 now he goes down a level, not jus the church, but your individual bodies.

In 1 Cor. 3:16 you (plural) were the temple and the spirit dwells in you (plural). In 1 Cor. 6:19 your (plural) body (singular) [is] the temple (singular).

Note: This is what is knows as a distributive singular where