What Were Their Excuses For Their Sexual Exploits?
1. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
- v. 12 - “All things are lawful for me. . .”
- This is an abuse of the idea of Christian liberty. They took the genuine freedom that we have in Christ and used it as an avenue to pursue sin.
- As Paul points out, we do have freedom in Christ, but that doesn’t mean that everything is “helpful” or that some actions won’t leave me enslaved to sin (“brought under the power”).
- Paul speaks elsewhere in his letters of Christian liberty in terms of putting behind us the legalism of the Old Testament law and living instead in the freedom of following the Holy Spirit. The Corinthians have taken his words and misused them to suit their ends, which happens to be uninhibited sexual freedom.
- You’ll notice that the excuse used by the Corinthians so long ago is the same excuse being used today to justify our sexual experimentation. “I can do what I want - it’s my body!” A close cousin is the statement: “As long as no one else gets hurt, then there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing.”
2. “I’ve got to express what I feel.”
- v. 13.
- The saying of the Corinthians that “food is for the stomach and stomach for food” basically puts forward the idea of biological determinism. That is to say, if I feel an urge from my body, then naturally I am supposed to fulfill that urge. They’re saying: just like my stomach’s hunger is a sign of the right and good biological urge to eat, so sexual hungers are signs of right and good biological urges to have sex.
- This is one of the primary arguments made in the homosexuality debate that’s ongoing today. The presumption is that if they feel an attraction toward someone of the same sex, then that is naturally something that needs to be acted upon. (“It’s the way that God made me.”) Of course, it is never mentioned that, by that same standard, we should give assign no blame to a husband who commits adultery. After all, he just felt a biological urge to have sex when he saw his secretary in that outfit. If all sexual urges are to be fulfilled, then he was just acting on something that was good and right.
- All this, of course, is ridiculous. When this line of thinking is employed, what is being left out is the Fall of mankind. We cannot blindly pursue all of our biological urges because we are sinners and therefore many of our urges are bent toward what is wrong. Sex is a beautiful gift from God, but it has been tainted by the Fall, leaving us in a situation where must be careful with what we pursue, even if the urge emanates from within us.
Why Should Christians Run From Sexual Sin?
- Paul counters these two assertions by the Corinthians with a lengthy discourse about the importance of the body in Christian life. Although the immediate context of the situation is sexual sin, there is really quite a bit here that points to the high regard that we as Christians should hold the human body. We, like so many others, too often act as if the spirit is supremely valuable and the body is of no eternal significance. Here, Paul puts those ideas to rest.
- There are five points that I want to bring out about why Christians should run from sexual sin. Each of them has to do with Christ and His claims on our physical body.
- To try to simply a difficult passage, I am going to use a piece of paper as an example for each of these five. [Have ushers give each person a piece of expensive paper (the kind with a watermark on it). Each sheet should have the word “porneia” (the Greek word for “sexual immorality” (see v. 18)) prominently printed in the middle of the sheet.] The piece of paper will serve as our symbol for our physical body.
- I am going to begin at the end of the passage and work my way forward.
1. This is expensive paper.
- v. 20 - “you were bought with a price”
- The paper you hold in your hand is not cheap copier paper. It is not a sheet of recycled paper pulled out of the bin. This is high quality paper that cost a lot to purchase.
- You (including your body) were purchased at a high price. It cost God His only Son in order to secure your salvation. Knowing what a high price that Jesus paid, we are to be diligent in our faithfulness, both with our spirit and with our body. Our gratitude at having been given so expensive a gift should translate into a desire to live radically in obedience to Jesus.
- Taking such an expensive piece of paper and wastefully printing “porneia” on it is a shame. So is taking a body and spirit purchased by the blood of Christ and wastefully using it for sexual immorality.
2. This paper has a watermark.
- v. 19 - “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”
- The watermark, which is “in” the paper, is a reminder of the maker of the paper. The Holy Spirit is inside of us and a reminder of who made us and who redeemed us.
- It is an incredible thing that the Holy Spirit of God has taken up residence within the earthen vessels that are our bodies. We like to claim that truth when we’re thinking of walking through valleys of despair or times of hardship so that we can have the comfort of His presence. We like to claim that truth when we want the assurance of knowing that God will never leave us or forsake us. But we’re a little less interested in thinking about the Spirit’s presence within us when it comes to situations where we’re heading toward sin, especially sexual sin.
- The Spirit is in us and that should affect what we do with our “paper.”
3. The ink of the words “porneia” has stained the paper.
- v. 18 - “Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”
- Look at the ink and how it has stained the paper. As Paul states here, when we engage in sexual sin, it is not just a sin, but it is a sin against our body. There is something different about sexual sins and how they affect our soul. Talk to someone with lingering guilt over having given themselves to someone only to have the relationship break off soon thereafter. Talk to someone whose lengthy sexual history is affecting their marriage now. Talk to someone who has dealt with rape and see how they feel like something was stolen from deep within their soul.
- Michael Young uses the analogy of duct tape. Each time you use duct tape it gets a little less sticky. It’s still tape and it might still be of some use, but the bond is not what it originally was. That’s not dissimilar to what happens as we sleep around with different people. Each time a little less of the bond that we could have enjoyed with our spouse is left there.
- Compare sexual sin with greed. I place a $100 bill (which represents greed) on the paper (which represents my body). I can buy things that I don’t need. But notice that the bill slides off the paper. It leaves no residue. Yes, it was a sin to display greed in that way, but while I may have sinned with my body by using my hands to make the purchase, it was not a sin against my body, as Paul says sexual sin is.
- I want to say that I recognize the imperfection of this analogy. It falters in that I don’t want to sound like I’m saying that sexual sins leave stains that can’t be forgiven. I’m not saying that. God can forgive those sins. I am merely trying to give a picture of what Paul is getting at here when he says that this isn’t just a spiritual sin - it’s also a sin against our body. Since we so rarely think of that, we need to dwell on the physical repercussions for a while.
4. Our paper is part of a larger book of God.
- vv. 15-17 - “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?”
- It’s one thing for us to have “porneia” on our piece of paper and be off by ourselves as a bad witness to God, but we are part of the Body of Christ.
- Imagine a book - a “book of Christ” - thousands of pages in length. You flip through page after page that has written upon them words of faithfulness, love, and hope. Words of service and sacrifice. Each page is the story of a Christian who has lived for Jesus. Then you turn the page and come across a page that has “porneia” written in bold black letters. It sickens you: here within the “book of Christ” is such serious and unrepented sin. It doesn’t just taint that page - it diminishes the book by its presence.
- We need to remember that we are part of the Body of Christ and what we do impacts not just us but all those in the Body, as well as the name of Christ.
5. The paper is burned.
- v. 14 - “God. . . will. . . raise us up by His power.”
- [Actually burn the piece of paper and drop it in a metal trash can.]
- A final way that we treat sexual sins too casually has to do with the “limited shelf-life” of our body.
- “So what,” someone might argue, “if sexual sin is a sin against our body. Our body will end up as dust and ashes anyway. It’s not part of my eternity.”
- Well, actually, it is. We as Christians believe in a bodily resurrection. God intends to “raise us up” on that day. Even as now “the Lord is for the body” (v. 13), so too in eternity we will have the dust and ashes that we left behind made into a glorious resurrection body.
- The importance of this is that we should treat our bodies not as a “throw-away container” that has no lasting value, but as something that is going to be with us (albeit in a vastly enhanced form) for the long haul.
Conclusion:
- All told, the point Paul is trying to emphasize is not just to flee sexual immorality, but also more broadly to see our bodies as the important things that God sees them as.
[Note: The general outline of this message was inspired by Todd Riley’s exposition of this passage, although the "paper" analogy is original with me. His message is available on SermonCentral.]
