“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
Parallel Translations
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“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
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All thinges are lawfull vnto me: but all thinges are not proffitable. I maye do all thinges: but I will be brought vnder no mans power.
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All thinges are lawfull vnto mee, but all thinges are not profitable. I may doe all things, but I will not be brought vnder the power of any thing.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 6:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are profitable. “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own, but each one his neighbor’s good. Whatever is sold in the butcher shop, eat, asking no question for the sake of conscience, for “the earth is the Lord’s, and its fullness.” But if one of those who don’t believe invites you to a meal, and you are inclined to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no questions for the sake of conscience. But if anyone says to you, “This was offered to idols,” don’t eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, with all its fullness.” Conscience, I say, not your own, but the other’s conscience. For why is my liberty judged by another conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced for something I give thanks for? Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no occasion for stumbling, whether to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the assembly of God; even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved.
- 1 Corinthians 9:27 but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
- Hebrews 12:15-16 looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it, lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.
- Romans 14:14-23 I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Then don’t let your good be slandered, for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, let’s follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up. Don’t overthrow God’s work for food’s sake. All things indeed are clean, however it is evil for that man who creates a stumbling block by eating. It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who doesn’t judge himself in that which he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it isn’t of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.
- 1 Corinthians 8:7-13 However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of the idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don’t eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better. But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died. Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:9 not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us.
- Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
- 1 Corinthians 8:4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
- 1 Corinthians 9:12 If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more? Nevertheless we didn’t use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.
- Jude 1:12 These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 12. All things are lawful for me. Interpreters labor…
12. All things are lawful for me. Interpreters labor hard to make out the connection of these things, as they appear to be somewhat foreign to the Apostle’s design. For my own part, without mentioning the different interpretations, I shall state what, in my opinion, is the most satisfactory. It is probable, that the Corinthians even up to that time retained much of their former licentiousness, and had still a savor of the morals of their city. Now when vices stalk abroad with impunity, custom is regarded as law, and then afterwards vain pretexts are sought for by way of excuse; an instance of which we have in their resorting to the pretext of Christian liberty, so as to make almost everything allowable for themselves to do. They reveled in excess of luxury. With this there was, as usual, much pride mixed up. As it was an outward thing, they did not think that there was any sin involved in it: nay more, it appears from Paul’s words that they abused liberty so much as to extend it even to fornication. Now therefore, most appropriately, after having spoken of their vices, he discusses those base pretexts by which they flattered themselves in outward sins.
It is, indeed, certain, that he treats here of outward things, which God has left to the free choice of believers, but by making use of a term expressive of universality, he either indirectly reproves their unbridled licentiousness, or extols God’s boundless liberality, which is the best directress to us of moderation. For it is a token of excessive licentiousness, when persons do not, of their own accord, restrict themselves, and set bounds to themselves, amidst such manifold abundance. And in the first place, he limits liberty by two exceptions; and secondly, he warns them, that it does not by any means extend to fornication. These words, All things are lawful for me, must be understood as spoken in name of the Corinthians, κατ ᾿ ἀνθυποφορὰν, (by anticipation,) as though he had said, I am aware of the reply which you are accustomed to make, when desirous to avoid reproof for outward vices. You pretend that all things are lawful for you, without any reserve or limitation.
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But all things are not expedient Here we have the first exception, by which he restricts the use of liberty — that they must not abandon themselves to licentiousness, because respect must be had to edification. The meaning is, “It is not enough that this or that is allowed us, to be made use of indiscriminately; for we must consider what is profitable to our brethren, whose edification it becomes us to study. For as he will afterwards point out at greater length, (1 Corinthians 10:23, 24,) and as he has already shown in Romans 14:13, etc., every one has liberty inwardly in the sight of God on this condition, that all must restrict the use of their liberty with a view to mutual edification.
I will not be brought under the power of anything Here we have a second restriction — that we are constituted lords of all things, in such a way, that we ought not to bring ourselves under bondage to anything; as those do who cannot control their appetites. For I understand the word τινος (any) to be in the neuter gender, and I take it as referring, not to persons, but to things, so that the meaning is this: “We are lords of all things; only we must not abuse that lordship in such a way as to drag out a most miserable bondage, being, through intemperance and inordinate lusts, under subjection to outward things, which ought to be under subjection to us.” And certainly, the excessive moroseness of those who grudge to yield up anything for the sake of their brethren, has this effect, that they unadvisedly put halters of necessity around their own necks.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He is in subjection to things that are indifferent,…
He is in subjection to things that are indifferent, whatsoever he be that thinketh he may not be without them, which is a flattering kind of slavery under a color of liberty, which sealeth upon such men.
Secondly, he showeth that the Corinthians do simply offend in matters indifferent. First, because they abused them: next, because they used indifferent things, without any discretion, seeing the use of them ought to be brought to the rule of charity: and that he doth not use them aright, which immoderately abuseth them, and so becometh a slave unto them.
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Whatever: but this general word must be restrained to things that are indifferent.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 12 All things are lawful unto me, but all…
12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
Ver. 12. All things are lawful] viz. All indifferent things, among which the Corinthians reckoned not only meats and drinks, but also fornication (their national sin). The devil perhaps had persuaded them, as he hath done the Turks to this day, that God did not give men such appetites to have them frustrate, but enjoyed, as made for the gust (appetite) of man, not for his torment, wherein his Creator delights not. Now the apostle grants, that for meats all things are lawful (yet in case of offence or intemperance, they may become inexpedient, and so unlawful). But for fornication, it was utterly unlawful, as he proves by many powerful arguments.
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But I would not be brought] As those swinish surfeiters, that wearing their brains in their bellies (with the ass fish), their guts in their heads, do dig their graves with their own teeth; being like the mule, which cannot travel, they say, without a bottle of hay hanging at his nose.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The words of this text are not so difficult…
The words of this text are not so difficult in themselves, as it is to make out the connection they have with, and the dependence they have upon, what went before and what followeth after. Some, thinking that they refer unto what the apostle had said before about their going to law before infidels in the first seven verses, lest any should say: Is it not then lawful for men to sue at law for their just dues and rights? The apostle answers: Admit it be, yet Christians ought not only to consider what is strictly lawful and just, but they ought to consider circumstances; for: Quicquid non expedit, in quantum non expedit non licet, is an old and good rule; An action that is in itself lawful, may be by circumstances made sinful and unlawful; and that was the case as to the Christians going to law before infidels. But others, and those the most, think that the apostle here begins a new head of discourse to dissuade from the sin of fornication, and from an intemperate use of meat and drink, as being provocative of lust, and disposing them to that sin. Now, lest they should say, Is it not lawful then to eat and drink liberally, must we eat and drink for bare necessity? He answereth:
All things are lawful for me; that is, all things which are not forbidden by the law of God may be used, may be done, under fair circumstances; but circumstances may alter the case,
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all things may not be expedient to be used or done by all persons, or at all times. The Corinthians might possibly conclude too much from what he had told them, that they were washed, justified, and sanctified, viz. that now all things were lawful to them, at least all things not simply and absolutely condemned in the word of God: the apostle correcteth their mistake, by telling them they were to have a regard to expedience, and the profit of others, the neglect of which might make things that were in themselves lawful to become unlawful. Besides that, they must take heed that they did not make such a use, even of lawful things, as to
be brought under the power of them; which men are, when they become potent temptations to them to sin against God any way.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our apostle still proceeds in the reprehensory part of…
Our apostle still proceeds in the reprehensory part of his epistle, and begins here to reprove the growing heresy of the Gnostics and Nicolaitans among them, who allowed the eating of things sacrificed to idols, and fornication, as things indifferent.
The apostle grants, that all indifferent things are lawful, and may be used, first, when they are expedient, that is, when they may be used without hurting ourselves and others: and, secondly, when they do not get such a dominion over us, as to enslave us to an intemperate and immoderate use of them; he instances particularly in meats, and grants that it is lawful to use any kind of meat, because God hath ordained it for the good of man’s nature: meats are ordained for the belly also, as to the use it now hath; for in the resurrection men shall neither hunger nor thirst any more.
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Learn hence, That Christianity doth not barely restrain us from the doing of what is unlawful, but from doing of what is inexpedient also: an action in itself lawful may by circumstances become sinful, and it is both wise and safe to forbear the use of our Christian liberty, when it becomes an occasion of offence unto our neighbour.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The twelfth verse and former part of the thirteenth…
The twelfth verse and former part of the thirteenth seem to relate to that early dispute among Christians about the distinction of meats, and yet to be prefatory to the caution that follows against fornication. The connection seems plain enough if we attend to the famous determination of the apostles, Acts 15, where the prohibition of certain foods was joined with that of fornication. Now some among the Corinthians seem to have imagined that they were as much at liberty in the point of fornication as of meats, especially because it was not a sin condemned by the laws of their country. They were ready to say, even in the case of fornication, All things are lawful for me. This pernicious conceit Paul here sets himself to oppose: he tells them that many things lawful in themselves were not expedient at certain times, and under particular circumstances; and Christians should not barely consider what is in itself lawful to be done, but what is fit for them to do, considering their profession, character, relations, and hopes: they should be very careful that by carrying this maxim too far they be not brought into bondage, either to a crafty deceiver or a carnal inclination. All things are lawful for me, says he, but I will not be brought under the power of any, Co1 6:12. Even in lawful things, he would not be subject to the impositions of a usurped authority: so far was he from apprehending that in the things of God it was lawful for any power on earth to impose its own sentiments. Note, There is a liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, in which we must stand fast. But surely he would never carry this liberty so far as to put himself into the power of any bodily appetite. Though all meats were supposed lawful, he would not become a glutton nor a drunkard. And much less would he abuse the maxim of lawful liberty to countenance the sin of fornication, which, though it might be allowed by the Corinthian laws, was a trespass upon the law of nature, and utterly unbecoming a Christian. He would not abuse this maxim about eating and drinking to encourage any intemperance, nor indulge a carnal appetite: "Though meats are for the belly and the belly for meats (Co1 6:13), though the belly was made to receive food, and food was originally ordained to fill the belly, yet if it be not convenient for me, and much more if it be inconvenient, and likely to enslave me, if I am in danger of being subjected to my belly and appetite, I will abstain. But God shall destroy both it and them, at least as to their mutual relation. There is a time coming when the human body will need no further recruits of food." Some of the ancients suppose that this is to be understood of abolishing the belly as well as the food; and that though the same body will be raised at the great day, yet not with all the same members, some being utterly unnecessary in a future state, as the belly for instance, when the man is never to hunger, nor thirst, nor eat, nor drink more. But, whether this be true or no, there is a time coming when the need and use of food shall be abolished. Note, The expectation we have of being without bodily appetites in a future life is a very good argument against being under their power in the present life. This seems to me the sense of the apostle's argument; and that this passage is plainly to be connected with his caution against fornication, though some make it a part of the former argument against litigious law-suits, especially before heathen magistrates and the enemies of true religion. These suppose that the apostle argues that though it may be lawful to claim our rights yet it is not always expedient, and it is utterly unfit for Christians to put themselves into the power of infidel judges, lawyers, and solicitors, on these accounts. But this connection seems not so natural. The transition to his arguments against fornication, as I have laid it, seems very natural: But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, Co1 6:13. Meats and the belly are for one another; not so fornication and the body.
I. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. This is the first argument he uses against this sin, for which the heathen inhabitants of Corinth were infamous, and the converts to Christianity retained too favourable an opinion of it. It is making things to cross their intention and use. The body is not for fornication; it was never formed for any such purpose, but for the Lord, for the service and honour of God. It is to be an instrument of righteousness to holiness (Rom 6:19), and therefore is never to be made an instrument of uncleanness. It is to be a member of Christ, and therefore must not be made the member of a harlot, Co1 6:15. And the Lord is for the body, that is, as some think, Christ is to be Lord of the body, to have property in it and dominion over it, having assumed a body and been made to partake of our nature, that he might be head of his church, and head over all things, Heb 2:5, Heb 2:18. Note, We must take care that we do not use what belongs to Christ as if it were our own, and much less to his dishonour.
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II. Some understand this last passage, The Lord is for the body, thus: He is for its resurrection and glorification, according to what follows, Co1 6:14, which is a second argument against this sin, the honour intended to be put on our bodies: God hath both raised up our Lord, and will raise us up by his power (Co1 6:14), by the power of him who shall change our vile body, and make it like to his glorious body by that power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself, Phi 3:21. It is an honour done to the body that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead: and it will be an honour to our bodies that they will be raised. Let us not abuse those bodies by sin, and make them vile, which, if they be kept pure, shall, notwithstanding their present vileness, be made like to Christ's glorious body. Note, The hopes of a resurrection to glory should restrain Christians from dishonouring their bodies by fleshly lusts.
III. A third argument is the honour already put on them: Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Co1 6:15. If the soul be united to Christ by faith, the whole man is become a member of his mystical body. The body is in union with Christ as well as the soul. How honourable is this to the Christian! His very flesh is a part of the mystical body of Christ. Note, It is good to know in what honourable relations we stand, that we may endeavour to become them. But now, says the apostle, shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Or, take away the members of Christ? Would not this be a gross abuse, and the most notorious injury? Would it not be dishonouring Christ, and dishonouring ourselves to the very last degree? What, make a Christ's members the members of a harlot, prostitute them to so vile a purpose! The thought is to be abhorred. God forbid. Know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with hers? For two, says he, shall be one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, Co1 6:16, Co1 6:17. Nothing can stand in greater opposition to the honourable relations and alliances of a Christian man than this sin. He is joined to the Lord in union with Christ, and made partaker by faith of his Spirit. One spirit lives and breathes and moves in the head and members. Christ and his faithful disciples are one, Joh 17:21, Joh 17:22. But he that is joined to a harlot is one body, for two shall be one flesh, by carnal conjunction, which was ordained of God only to be in a married state. Now shall one in so close a union with Christ as to be one spirit with him yet be so united to a harlot as to become one flesh with her? Were not this a vile attempt to make a union between Christ and harlots? And can a greater indignity he offered to him or ourselves? Can any thing be more inconsistent with our profession or relation? Note, The sin of fornication is a great injury in a Christian to his head and lord, and a great reproach and blot on his profession. It is no wonder therefore that the apostle should say, "Flee fornication (Co1 6:18), avoid it, keep out of the reach of temptations to it, of provoking objects. Direct the eyes and mind to other things and thoughts." Alia vitia pugnando, sola libido fugiendo vincitur - Other vices may be conquered in fight, this only by flight; so speak many of the fathers.
IV. A fourth argument is that it is a sin against our own bodies. Every sin that a man does is without the body; he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body (Co1 6:18); every sin, that is, every other sin, every external act of sin besides, is without the body. It is not so much an abuse of the body as of somewhat else, as of wine by the drunkard, food by the glutton, etc. Nor does it give the power of the body to another person. Nor does it so much tend to the reproach of the body and render it vile. This sin is in a peculiar manner styled uncleanness, pollution, because no sin has so much external turpitude in it, especially in a Christian. He sins against his own body; he defiles it, he degrades it, making it one with the body of that vile creature with whom he sins. He casts vile reproach on what he Redeemer has dignifies to the last degree by taking it into union with himself. Note, We should not make our present vile bodies more vile by sinning against them.
V. The fifth argument against this sin is that the bodies of Christians are the temples of the Holy Ghost which is in them, and which they have of God, Co1 6:19. He that is joined to Christ is one spirit. He is yielded up to him, is consecrated thereby, and set apart for his use, and is hereupon possessed, and occupied, and inhabited, by his Holy Spirit. This is the proper notion of a temple - a place where God dwells, and sacred to his use, by his own claim and his creature's surrender. Such temples real Christians are of the Holy Ghost. Must he not therefore be God? But the inference is plain that hence we are not our own. We are yielded up to God, and possessed by and for God; nay, and this is virtue of a purchase made of us: You are bought with a price. In short, our bodies were made for God, they were purchased for him. If we are Christians indeed they are yielded to him, and he inhabits and occupies them by his Spirit: so that our bodies are not our own, but his. And shall we desecrate his temple, defile it, prostitute it, and offer it up to the use and service of a harlot? Horrid sacrilege! This is robbing God in the worst sense. Note, The temple of the Holy Ghost must be kept holy. Our bodies must be kept as his whose they are, and fit for his use and residence.
VI. The apostle argues from the obligation we are under to glorify God both with our body and spirit, which are his, Co1 6:20. He made both, he bought both, and therefore both belong to him and should be used and employed for him, and therefore should not be defiled, alienated from him, and prostituted by us. No, they must be kept as vessels fitted for our Master's use. We must look upon our whole selves as holy to the Lord, and must use our bodies as property which belongs to him and is sacred to his use and service. We are to honour him with our bodies and spirits, which are his; and therefore, surely, must abstain from fornication; and not only from the outward act, but from the adultery of the heart, as our Lord calls it, Mat 5:28. Body and spirit are to be kept clean, that God may be honoured by both. But God is dishonoured when either is defiled by so beastly a sin. Therefore flee fornication, nay, and every sin. Use your bodies for the glory and service of their Lord and Maker. Note, We are not proprietors of ourselves, nor have power over ourselves, and therefore should not use ourselves according to our own pleasure, but according to his will, and for his glory, whose we are, and whom we should serve, Act 27:23.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain All things are lawful unto me,.... That is, which…
All things are lawful unto me,.... That is, which are of an indifferent nature; otherwise everything is not lawful to be done:
but all things are not expedient; when the doing of them destroys the peace, comfort, and edification of others; when it stumbles and grieves weak minds, and causes offence to them; see Co1 10:23
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all things are lawful for me; which is repeated for the sake of saying the following words:
but I will not be brought under the power of any; which would be very inexpedient, should any by the use of liberty in things indifferent, on the one hand, offend his brethren, and, on the other, bring himself into bondage to those very things he has the free use of; and therefore the apostle determines, that these shall not have the mastery over him, that he will use them, or not use them, at his pleasure. It is somewhat difficult to know what in particular he has respect unto, whether to what he had been treating of before, concerning going to law before unbelievers; and his sense be, that however lawful this might be in itself, yet it was not expedient, since it was exposing of themselves to ungodly persons, and a putting themselves under their power to judge and determine as they pleased; or whether to the use of meats forbidden under the law, or offered to idols; which though in themselves lawful to be eaten, every creature of God being good, and not to be refused and accounted common and unclean; yet it was not expedient to use this liberty, if a weak brother should be grieved, or a man himself become a slave to his appetite.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain All things - Which are lawful for you. Are…
All things - Which are lawful for you. Are lawful for me, but all things are not always expedient - Particularly when anything would offend my weak brother; or when it would enslave my own soul. For though all things are lawful for me, yet I will not be brought under the power of any - So as to be uneasy when I abstain from it; for, if so, then I am under the power of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 12. All things are lawful unto me] It…
Verse 12. All things are lawful unto me] It is likely that some of the Corinthians had pleaded that the offence of the man who had his father's wife, as well as the eating the things offered to idols, was not contrary to the law, as it then stood. To this the apostle answers: Though such a thing be lawful, yet the case of fornication, mentioned 1Co 5:1, is not expedient, ου συμφερει-it is not agreeable to propriety, decency, order, and purity. It is contrary to the established usages of the best and most enlightened nations, and should not be tolerated in the Church of Christ.
They might also be led to argue in favour of their eating things offered to idols, and attending idol feasts, thus:-that an idol was nothing in the world; and as food was provided by the bounty of God, a man might partake of it any where without defiling his conscience, or committing sin against the Creator. This excuse also the apostle refers to. All these things are lawful, taken up merely in the light that none of your laws is against the first; and that, on the ground that an idol is nothing in the world, there can be no reason against the last;
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But I will not be brought under the power of any.] Allowing that they are all lawful, or at least that there is no law against them, yet they are not expedient; there is no necessity for them; and some of them are abominable, and forbidden by the law of God and nature, whether forbidden by yours or not; while others, such as eating meats offered to idols, will almost necessarily lead to bad moral consequences: and who, that is a Christian, would obey his appetite so far as to do these things for the sake of gratification? A man is brought under the power of any thing which he cannot give up. He is the slave of that thing, whatsoever it be, which he cannot relinquish; and then, to him, it is sin.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Co 6:12-14. All things — That are indifferent in…
1Co 6:12-14. All things — That are indifferent in their own nature, and neither commanded nor forbidden; are lawful unto me — Or, as some paraphrase the clause, All things which are lawful for you are lawful for me. Since the apostle could not say, in any sense, that absolutely all things were lawful for him, the sentence must be considered as elliptical, and what is wanting to complete it must be supplied, according to the apostle’s manner, from the subsequent verse. But all things are not expedient — Proper to be used, in regard of circumstances; as when they would offend our weak brethren, or when they would enslave our own souls. Although all things — Of the above description; are lawful for me, yet I will not be brought under the power of any — So enslaved to any thing, as to be uneasy when I abstain from it, for in that case I should be under the power of it. Meats for the belly, &c. — As if he had said, I speak this chiefly with regard to meats; particularly with regard to those offered to idols, and those forbidden in the Mosaic law. These, I grant, are all indifferent, and have their use, but it is only for a time, for soon, meats, and the organs which receive them, will together moulder into dust. For God will destroy both it and them — Namely, when the earth, and the things which it contains, are burned. From this it is evident, that at the resurrection, the parts of the body which minister to its nutrition are not to be restored; or, if they are to be restored, that their use will be abolished. Now — Or rather but; the body is not for fornication — As if he had said, The case is quite otherwise with fornication; this is not a thing indifferent, but at all times evil; for the body is for the Lord — Designed only for his service: and the Lord — In an important sense; is for the body — Being the Saviour of this as well as of the soul, and consequently must rule and employ it. And as a further proof that the body was made for glorifying the Lord, God hath both raised up the body of the Lord, and will also raise up our bodies, and render them immortal like his.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain All things are lawful unto me - The apostle…
All things are lawful unto me - The apostle here evidently makes a transition to another subject from that which he had been discussing - a consideration of the propriety of using certain things which had been esteemed lawful. The expression, “all things are lawful,” is to be understood as used by those who palliated certain indulgences, or who vindicated the vices here referred to, and Paul designs to reply to them. His reply follows. He had been reproving them for their vices, and had specified several. It is not to be supposed that they would indulge in them without some show of defense; and the declaration here has much the appearance of a proverb, or a common saying - that all things were lawful; that is, “God has formed all things for our use, and there can be no evil if we use them.” By the phrase “all things” here, perhaps, may be meant many things; or things in general; or there is nothing in itself unlawful.
That there were many vicious persons who held this sentiment there can be no doubt; and though it cannot be supposed that there were any in the Christian church who would openly advocate it, yet the design of Paul was to “cut up” the plea altogether “wherever it might be urged,” and to show that it was false and unfounded. The particular flyings which Paul here refers to, are those which have been called “adiaphoristic,” or indifferent; that is, pertaining to certain meats and drinks, etc. With this Paul connects also the subject of fornication - the subject particularly under discussion. This was defended as “lawful,” by many Greeks, and was practiced at Corinth; and was the vice to which the Corinthian Christians were particularly exposed. Paul designed to meet all that could be said on this subject; and to show them that these indulgences could not be proper for Christians, and could not in any way be defended - We are not to understand Paul as admitting that fornication is in any case lawful; but he designs to show that the practice cannot possibly be defended in any way, or by any of the arguments which had been or could be used. For this purpose, he observes:
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That admitting that all things were lawful, there were many things which ought not to be indulged; That admitting that they were lawful, yet a man ought not to be under the power of any improper indulgence, and should abandon any habit when it had the mastery.
(3)That fornication was positively wrong, and against the very nature and essence of Christianity, 1Co 6:13-20.
Are not expedient - This is the first answer to the objection. Even should we admit that the practices under discussion are lawful, yet there are many things which are not expedient; that is, which do not profit, for so the word συμφέρει sumpherei properly signifies; they are injurious and hurtful. They might injure the body; produce scandal; lead others to offend or to sin. Such was the case with regard to the use of certain meats, and even with regard to the use of wine. Paul’s rule on this subject is stated in 1Co 8:13. That if these things did injury to others, he would abandon them forever; even though they were in themselves lawful; see the 1 Cor. 8 note and Rom 14:14-23 notes. There are many customs which, perhaps, cannot be strictly proved to be unlawful or sinful, which yet do injury in some way if indulged in; and which as their indulgence can do no good, should be abandoned. Anything that does evil - however small - and no good, should be abandoned at once.
All things are lawful - Admitting this; or even on the supposition that all things are in themselves right.
But I will not be brought under the power - I will not be subdued by it; I will not become the “slave” of it.
Of any - Of any custom, or habit, no matter what it is. This was Paul’s rule; the rule of an independent mind. The principle was, that even admitting that certain things were in themselves right, yet his grand purpose was “not to be the slave of habit,” not to be subdued by any practice that might corrupt his mind, fetter his energies, or destroy his freedom as a man and as a Christian. We may observe:
(1) That this is a good rule to act on. It was Paul’s rule 1Co 9:27, and it will do as well for us as for him.
(2) It is the true rule of an independent and noble mind. It requires a high order of virtue; and is the only way in which a man may be useful and active.
(3) It may be applied to “many things” now. Many a Christian and Christian minister “is a slave;” and is completely under the power of some habit that destroys his usefulness and happiness. He is the slave of indolence, or carelessness, or of some vile habit - as the use of tobacco, or of wine. He has not independence enough to break the cords that bind him; and the consequence is, that life is passed in indolence, or in self-indulgence, and time, and strength, and property are wasted, and religion blighted, and souls ruined.
(4) The man that has not courage and firmness enough to act on this rule should doubt his piety. If he is a voluntary slave to some idle and mischievous habit, how can he be a Christian! If he does not love his Saviour and the souls of people enough to break off from such habits which he knows are doing injury, how is he fit to be a minister of the self-denying Redeemer?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain All things are lawful to me. We cannot take…
All things are lawful to me. We cannot take the words in the obvious sense, St. Paul having just before declared, that unjust dealers, fornicators, drunkards, shall not possess the kingdom of God. Some expound the words, as if he said, I have free-will and liberty to do what I will. Others think that the apostle speaks not of all things in general, but with this or the like limitation, all things that are indifferent of their own nature, or all things that are not forbidden by the law of God, and this seems agreeable enough to what he had said of going to judges that were infidels, which, though not a thing unlawful in itself, was not expedient. It may also be connected with what follows of meats, to signify that in the new law any meats may be eaten; (see chap. viii.) but it may be expedient to abstain, when it would be a scandal to the weak. --- But I will not be brought under the power of any. It does not appear by the Latin or Greek text, whether the construction be under the power of any person or of any thing. There are divers interpretations; the most probable seems to be, that these words are again to be taken as connected with what went before, and with what follows, to wit, that though it be not unlawful in itself to go before judges that are infidels, or to eat any kind of meats, yet I will not permit my love of money, nor my sensual appetite, to make me a slave to such passions, so as to do things that are not convenient, much less to do things unlawful. (Witham) --- All things are lawful, &c. That is, all indifferent things are indeed lawful, inasmuch as they are not prohibited; but oftentimes they are not expedient; as in the case of law-suits, &c. And much less would it be expedient to be enslaved by an irregular affection to any thing, how indifferent soever. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 12All things are lawful unto me, [are in my…
XII.—AN EXHORTION TO CHRISTIAN CONTINENCE, AND A PROHIBITION OF ALL HEATHENISH LICENTIOUSNESS. THE RELATION WHICH THE BODY SUSTAINS TO CHRIST; ITS CHARACTER AS THE DWELLING-PLACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE GREAT PRICE PAID FOR ITS RANSOM, DO NOT ALLOW OF OUR REGARDING SUCH A GRATIFICATION OF CARNAL APPETITE MORALLY INDIFFERENT, LIKE THE ENJOYMENT OF FOOD
12All things are lawful unto me, [are in my power], but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me [are in my power], but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now [But] the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 14And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise13 up us14by his own power. 15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take [away (ἄιρας)] the members of Christ, and make them the members 16of a harlot? God forbid. What! [omit what, and read, Or15] know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for, two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19What! [omit what, and read, Or] know ye not that your body16 is the temple of theHoly Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, [omit all that follows17], and in your spirit, which are God’s.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Co_6:12. [‘After speaking of the sin of covetousness, which had produced litigiousness,—and having reminded the Corinthians of what privileges they had received, and what sins renounced,—he now proceeds to examine and confute an argument raised by some of the Gentile Christians at Corinth, who in the presumptuous spirit of Greek Philosophy, pleaded, in behalf of fornication and of eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, that man is the measure of all things (πάντων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος),—a principle in which both the greatest schools of Greek Philosophy, with which St. Paul had disputed at Athens, agreed, though they applied it in different ways; and that all the creatures were his, and that all things were lawful to him—a tenet which they imagined had received some countenance from the Gospel itself, which promised to them universal liberty, and even universal dominion in Christ, a doctrine which, when properly stated, and understood, with due conditions, is productive of that genuine independence which is the best security for self-control, and had therefore been placed in its proper light by St. Paul in the earlier part of his Epistle (1Co_3:21-23). This principle he here adopts with true oratorical skill, and proceeds to examine it, showing at once its truth and the falseness of its application by them.’ After Words.].
All things are in my power.—Paul here has in view that easy, tolerant view of fornication which was so common among the heathen, and to which he has already repeatedly alluded (1Co_5:1; 1Co_6:9). This view was still further vindicated on the grounds of that Christian liberty which was supposed to countenance this gratification of a natural appetite as no less proper in itself than the eating of food was to satiate hunger. But the words with which the discussion begins are not to be regarded as the objection of an opposer, here cited for the purpose of refutation [Calvin and Barnes]. Had this been so, the fact would have been indicated by some formula like ἀλλ̓ ἐρεῖς: but you say. They are rather the statement of a fundamental principle of Christianity, resting upon its own grounds, yet with a suitable limitation of its application to the actual life of a Christian (μοι, i.e., for me, as a Christian).18 Accordingly we are not to interpret these, 1Co_6:12-13, as giving us a sort of dialogue maintained between some imaginary opponent and the Apostle (Pott). The context indeed shows that the fundamental principle here laid down was actually adduced in support of fornication; but there is no ground for supposing that the Corinthian converts generally advocated this practice on such a basis, or that they so argued in their letter to him. It were better to assume this only of a few individuals, and that the Apostle had been privily informed of the fact, as intimated in the case mentioned in 1Co_5:1. Some suppose the maxim here to have a close reference to what just precedes in 1Co_6:11, q. d., ‘I being now in a state of grace, and free from all Jewish restrictions, and all outward ordinances, and being no longer in bondage to an accusing conscience and to fear of sin, have right to the largest liberty.’ But such a connection is by no means probable, since the verbs introduced by ‘but’ are chiefly designed to warn his readers against relapsing into their earlier immoralities. It were better to connect with 1Co_6:9, and to suppose that out of the catalogue of sins there mentioned, he selected the first, and referred to the efforts made for justifying it. Besser regards the phrase as one of Paul’s proverbs, [and Bengel says: “Paul often uses the first person to express those thoughts which have the force of maxims, especially in this Epistle, 1Co_6:15; 1Co_7:7; 1Co_8:13; 1Co_10:23; 1Co_10:29-30; 1Co_14:11”]. The term “all things” must of course be limited to such as were indifferent (ἀδιάφορα), i.e., to such acts as were not in themselves wrong, but only under certain circumstances and connections seemed to conflict with Chiristian morality. “All things are lawful for me which may be lawful” Bengel. [So also Hodge; but Words., well styles this explanation weak and tautological, and hardly justified by the original, and prefers Theodoret’s view: “all things are in my power, by reason of my free will; but it is not expedient in all things to use this freedom, for in doing that which is sinful thou losest thy freedom.” But is it not plain, after all, that Paul here has in view not actions, but external objects, the things in the world which were all given for man’s use, and over which he held dominion, and which, under the Christian dispensation, were all restored to him unrestricted by carnal ordinances? (The Syriac version evidently so takes it; Tyndale, on the contrary, renders “I maye do all thinges: but I will be brought under no man’s power.” So Cranmer and the Geneva Bible). In this sense it may be said with the broadest scope “all things are in my power” (Psa_8:6; Heb_2:6-11). And to this the antinomian would add ‘and I have the right to use them as I please, according to the cravings of my nature, and according as they contribute to my enjoyment.’ And it is upon this lawless inference that the Apostle proceeds to put limitations]. “The abrupt commencement of 1Co_6:12 is perhaps to be accounted for on the supposition that it alludes to a passage in their Epistle to him, and the words before us might have been used there even in reference to things indifferent; but without the proper limitations which the Apostle here supplies.” Neander.
The first of these is—but all things are not expedient.—By this he means as in 1Co_10:23, not materially advantageous, but morally fitting and useful, especially, perhaps, in its bearing upon others. [It were better, however, to take the verb συμφέρει in its broadest acceptation and bearings—conduce to profit, whether to the person who uses them, or to others with whom he is connected, and whose welfare he is bound to consult. Every finite good has a special end, and must be wisely used with reference to that end, and not being absolute, is dependent on times and circumstances for the benefit it is to confer]. The second limitation is—but not will I be brought under bondage by any thing.—’Εξουσιασθήσομαι and ἔξεστι are kindred words (the former being formed from εξουσία, which is derived from ἔξεστι), and they involve a paranomasia, which serves to bring out the contradiction, caused by the misuse of liberty, in a more forcible light. [We give the play on the words in English thus: ‘All things are in my power, but I will not come under power to any thing’]. “Not I” is emphatic. It exhibits the moral self of the individual (not simply that of Paul, but of Christians generally), in sharp contrast with everything, which, if yielded to passionately, or enjoyed with an accusing conscience, or fondly clung to as indispensable, acquires a despotic control over us. [The lord must preserve his lordship, and take heed that he become not the slave of any thing which is properly subject to him. Freedom must not commit suicide. The body was designed to be the organ of the Spirit for ruling over nature, not the organ of nature for ruling over the Spirit] ’Εξουσιάζειν to be master of and it is here put in the future to express the firm inward resolve not to be mastered by any thing. Τινός is neuter corresponding to πάντα.
1Co_6:13-14. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats, etc.—Here we have a contrast drawn between what is in itself indifferent, and the view which cannot be brought under this category.19 From the fact that a mutual relation has been established between meats and the belly by an ordinance of the Creator, the former being made to be received and digested by the latter, and the latter being formed to receive the former, and from the fact that both are alike transient, being designed only for this present life, it followed, as a matter of course, that eating was a thing morally indifferent, and was allowable, in so far as it neither proved inconvenient, or brought a person under bondage. Very different, however, was it with the act of fornication, since the body, standing as it did in direct relations with the Lord, and having been received by Him into the fellowship of an immortal life, does not in such practices fulfil any Divine destination, [but is rather alienated from its proper functions, and degraded by them]. After the nominatives, ἐστίν is to be supplied. It is altogether needless to suppose that the meats here spoken of had any special connection with the altar-feasts that were so closely associated with licentious practices.20 By such a supposition the force of the argument is rather hindered than helped.—And God shall destroy both it and them.—Paul refers here to that great change which is to take place in the condition of mankind at the coming of Christ—a transformation which will preclude alt need of physical nourishment, and dispense with the organs for its reception. Comp. 1Co_15:44; 1Co_15:51; and Mat_22:30. In the words, “and them,” we have the hint of a time that reaches far beyond the death of the individual—a time when the world and all things therein shall be burned up. [Comp. 2Pe_3:11.]
In contrast with the foregoing, there is presented to us, first, that truth in a negative form, the analogy of which to the eating of food it is the aim of the Apostle to dispute.—But the body is not for fornication.—That is, fornication is not the natural function of a perishable organ, but it is the perversion to illegitimate uses of the entire body—that body which belongs to the Lord, and is with him, destined to an imperishable life. And in this also there are two elements involved; 1, a connection with the Lord;—but for the Lord.—And this relation is a mutual one, since the body is destined for the Lord, to be one of His members, and His exclusive possession; and on the other hand—the Lord is for the body,—to rule it, and to use it; yea, to appropriate and assimilate it to Himself; and, as others add, to nourish it with his life. (Comp. Joh_6:33; Joh_6:53, and also 1Co_6:15, μέλη). 2. The destination of the body to an immortal life, grounded on its connection with the Lord—a destination that stands in striking contrast with the destruction above alluded to, which awaits the purely material world.—And God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us also by His strength.—This resurrection is an introduction into a life that is no more subject to death. Comp. Rom_6:9 ff. The καί—καί, both—and, binds the two clauses together. In the second clause, however, the reading is contested, and Meyer (ed. 2d) considers ἐξήγειρε has raised, as the only right reading, although not so well attested. Paul, he says, never asserts the ἐγείρειν and ἐξεγεριν that is, a restoration to life after death, of himself and of his cotemporaries (2Co_4:14 is to be understood spiritually); rather, in anticipation of the speedy advent of Christ, he was looking to be changed without dying (1Co_15:51 f.; 1Th_4:16 f.); so that if he had been speaking of the future, he would have been more likely to have used the word ζωοποιήσει shall make alive, than ἐξεγειρεῖ, shall raise up. (Comp. 1Co_15:22; Rom_8:11). He interprets the word, however, not of the spiritual resurrection, that is, the new birth, but as in Eph_2:6; Col_2:12 f., where Christ’s resurrection is spoken of as the fact in which that of the believer is already involved, although the connection first becomes realized at the second advent, through the actual resurrection of the dead, and the transformation of the living. But if, according to this interpretation, both these ideas can be considered as included in the verb in its past tense (ἐξήγειρε), why not assume the same in its future form? In so doing, we should abide by the reading best attested—a reading which puts the verb in the same tense with καταργήσει shall destroy—and would construe the verb ἐξεγειρεῖ in its more comprehensive signification, as denoting the change which is to take place in the living, as well as in the dead. 2Co_4:14 might also be interpreted in the same manner. The distinctive changes awaiting the quick and the dead, although elsewhere made prominent, did not require to be alluded to here. (With this Meyer in his 3d ed. also agrees). It is hardly allowable to distinguish here between ἐγείρειν and ἐξεγείρειν (Bengel and Osiander), as though the former referred to the first fruits of the resurrection in Christ, and the latter to the work consummated at the end. The reason why he uses the word “us,” instead of ‘our bodies,’ is that he had used the personal form just before, ‘in the Lord.’ The context, in this case, allows of no misapprehension. “The body,” says Osiander, “is the vessel of our personality.” The clause, ‘by his power,’ it were better to connect with the latter verb, if by ‘his’ we understand, not Christ’s, but God’s, which is to be preferred, as God is the subject of ‘shall raise.’ Comp. 1Co_15:38; Mat_22:29; Eph_1:19. Διά here expresses the internal instrumentality.
1Co_6:15-17. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?—Here he amplifies what is said in 1Co_6:13, and “upon the ground there adduced of the immorality of fornication, he brings to their distinct consciousness the abominable character of the vice in question.” So Meyer rebuts Baur’s assertion, that Paul here makes a petitio principii. Elsewhere Christians themselves are called members of Christ’s body—the Church in its totality, the head of which is Christ. (Comp. 1Co_12:27; Eph_5:30). But here their bodies are spoken of as essential parts (the vehicles) of his personality. And this, not so much on account of his incarnation, and of His so sharing with us our nature, as on account of the indwelling of His Spirit (1Co_6:19). Whether the Apostle had in mind the figure of the marital relationship (comp. 2Co_11:2; Eph_5:26 f.; Rom_7:4) is less certain. The incongruity of making Christ the antithesis to a harlot (Meyer), would not stand in the way of our supposing this, since it makes no difference whether the other party be male or female, for Paul is here speaking of the essential contradiction which exists between a person’s belonging to Christ, and so holding vital fellowship with the Holy and Pure One, and his having intercourse with an individual who was addicted to impurity, such as a common prostitute—an intercourse which involved the surrender of the entire person to her. It was only the impure conscience of a heathen that could be blind to the immorality of such fornication. But to the Christian’s conscience this should be evident at once, and we should denounce it as a crime perpetrated against Christ—as an abominable violation of his sacred rights. Hence the Apostle directly proceeds to ask—Shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot?—Αἵρειν means not simply, to take, but, to take away, to alienate from the proper owner. Οὖν then, or, therefore, introduces the inference: “since this is so, I will not so far forget myself, as to,’ etc. ΙΙοιήσω may be either, Aorist subj., as in 1Co_11:22, meaning, should I; or, have I any right to make; or it may be future, shall I make? The sense will be about the same. [Jelf says that “the second and third persons of the Future often express necessity or propriety, shall, must.” Gr. Gram. § 406 3]. This query he answers with an emphatic negative—μὴ γένοιτο, let it never be,—an expression by which in Rom_6:2, and elsewhere, he repels all unhallowed inferences and suggestions and declarations.
In order to prove that fornication involves all he has stated, he next goes on to show the nature of the connection it effects between the parties concerned, and sets over against this, the nature of the union believers have with Christ, so that the utter incompatibility of the two may be the more clearly felt—Or know ye not;—q. d., ‘or if this at least, appear doubtful to you, then it must be because of your ignorance’ (Meyer). that he who is joined to the harlot is one body?—Κολλᾶθαι, to be most intimately joined with. In this connection it denotes the sexual union, which involves the most intimate conjunction of the physical powers of life. The consequence of such a union is stated in a citation from Gen_2:24, found also in Matthew 19:51, and this he introduces as a Divine declaration.—For he saith—‘He,’ i. e. God, since Scripture is the oracle of God, even though communicated through human organs (comp. 1Co_15:27; Eph_5:8; Heb_8:5). To suppose God to be the subject is better than to supply either the words ‘Scripture’ or ‘Spirit,’ though the meaning would still be the same. But most unsuitable of all would it be to construe it as impersonal: it is said.—they two shall be into one flesh.—This, which was originally affirmed of the marriage union, is here applied to illicit intercourse, it being the same thing, physically considered. Secundum speciem naturæ non differunt (Thom. a. q.). And by this application of the statement he shows that the act in question is not a mere momentary enjoyment with which the whole affair is concluded, but that it involves a real union of the natural powers of life in one complex personality. The term “flesh” here denotes simply man’s physical nature, without the accessory idea of corruption. The words “they two” are not found in the Hebrew text. They occur in the LXX., and in all the quotations of this passage, even in those of the Rabbis. (Is this in the interest of monogamy?). “Into,” εἰς Hebr.
, even in classic Greek, implies a transition
into a particular state [Jelf, Gr. Gram., § 625, Obs. 4].—But he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.—Here we have the contrast: κολλᾶθαι τῷ κυρίῳ, a phrase which occurs also in Deu_10:20; 2Ki_18:6. As the result we have, not ‘one body,’ but ‘one spirit,’ denoting the element wherein this union takes place. But this unity is not a merely idea one. It is one in essential reality, the indwelling of Christ in the believer, so that His Spirit and our spirit become one. Comp. 1Co_14:23. This clause stands independently.
1Co_6:18-20. The warning implied in what precedes is now expressly given, and, although clearly an inference, is introduced abruptly without any connecting particle—Flee fornication.—Φεύγετε, flee—a striking expression. Anselm says, Alia vitia pugnando libido fugiendo-vincitur. “Other vices are conquered by fighting, lust by flying.” What follows substantiates this warning, by showing the characteristic peculiarity of that sin, which distinguishes it from every other. And this is exhibited antithetically. —Every sin which a man might commit—[ὅ ἐὰν ποιήση ἂνθρωπος. The ἄν here belongs to the relative and not to the verb, and gives an indefiniteness to it, annexing the notion, ‘whatsoever it may be.’ Jelf, Gr. Gram. § 829, 1].—is without the body.—But how can he say this, when drunkenness and such like vices also involve an injury to the body, and indeed cannot be practised at all outside of the bodily sphere? There have been several modes of answering this question. We may either suppose that the word “every” (πᾶν) is to be taken in a popular sense for ‘nearly all,’ which is arbitrary; or we may consider the whole clause hypothetical, q. d., ‘Although all other sins were without the body, yet this,’ etc. (Flatt)—which is inadmissible; others [Jerome, Origen, Aug., Bengel, Words.] take it to mean that fornication pollutes the whole body as no other vice does,—but this is not stated in the words; and others still, that no vices sever the body of the Christian from that of Christ as this does (Fritzsche), a thought neither expressed in the text, nor consistent with the view of Paul in chap. 9 f.; Rom_8:9); others again take the idea to be, that no sin imparts to the flesh such tyranny over the spirit as fornication, an idea plainly foisted into the language of Paul; others suppose that drunkenness and gluttony are here included in with fornication [Macknight]—a supposition not sufficiently established by the fact that these vices are frequently associated together. We would rather say, that all other sins affect and injure only the transient, perishable organs of the body, or that they require for their commission some means that are derived from without, and are foreign to the body.[“Drunkenness and gluttony, e. g., are sins done in and by the body, and are sins by abuse of the body; but they are still introduced from without, sinful not in their act, but in their effect, which effect it is each man’s duty to foresee and avoid. But fornication is alienating that body which is the Lord’s, and making it a harlot’s body—it is a sin against a man’s own body from its very nature, against the verity and nature of his body; not an effect on the body from participation of things without, out a contradiction of the truth of the body wrought within itself.” Alford].—but he that committeth fornication sins against his own body.—The scope of the argument is this: On the one hand the Apostle brings to view the fact that the fornicator by his sin surrenders his body to the harlot, and commingles his life with hers in such a manner that he loses the power to dispose of his body as he will, as it were yielding to another’s nature the right he has to himself, and so coming in bondage to that (analogously to 1Co_7:4); and on the other hand, he considers how the body of the Christian (who is the only one here contemplated) is desecrated by fornication as it can be desecrated by no other sin. In both these respects this vice is a sin against one’s own body in a prëminent sense. The truth, that the sin of πορνεύων εἰς τὸ ἲδιον σῶμα fornicating against one’s own body, is chargeable upon Christians, the only persons with whom he has to do, he exhibits still more clearly by referring them to the well-known dignity which the body of the believer, as such, possessed.—Or know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?—As in 1Co_6:15 he ascribed to the bodies of believers what he elsewhere has predicated of believers themselves, so he does the same thing here in respect of their character as “the temple of God.” This designation, before applied to the Church as a whole (1Co_3:16; also 2Co_6:16), he here applies to the bodies of Christians. Primarily, the Holy Spirit dwells in the “inward man,” in the πνεῦμα, or spirit; but the body is its vehicle, or tabernacle, and inseparable organ. If we adopt the reading to τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν, then it would mean: the body of each one of you. The same sense is yielded by the other reading, σώματα, bodies. To this thought, but especially to the clause—which ye have from God.—(ἀπό, the same as in Joh_15:26), showing how dependent they were on him, he adds this further truth—and ye are not your own.—From this it followed that they had no power over themselves, or over their own bodies, and therefore could not properly dispose of them to another, or use them for the gratification of unhallowed lusts, but were bound to employ them only in executing the holy will of God. And how they came not to be their own, he proves by referring to their redemption—for ye were bought.—viz: for God, to be His peculiar possession (comp. Act_5:9, and περιποιεῖσθαι Act_20:28). The figure involved is that of a slave or body servant, over whom his master holds exclusive control. The purchase was from the servitude of sin, and from the curse of the law, and from the power of Satan (comp. Rom_6:17 ff.; Gal_3:13; Col_1:13; Act_26:18). And this purchase was—with a price—and this price was nothing less than Christ Himself, His “soul,” His “blood” (see Mat_20:28; 1Pe_1:18). Passing beyond the mere significance of the word, yet observing its import, we come to the important thought that it was a high price, and the purchase, dear. [To this Winer objects, LXIV. 5]. This expression occurs in 8:23, but where, as in Act_20:28; Tit_2:14, Christ is represented as the possessor. The practical inference from all this is—Now then, glorify God in your body.—Δοξάζειν here denotes the exhibition of the Divine holiness (or of God’s sacred presence, as in a temple) through a chaste, modest deportment. The praise is to be celebrated through deeds, as: ‘do all to the glory of God,’ 1Co_10:31; comp. also Joh_21:19; Joh_12:28; Joh_13:31. ‘Ev, in, to suit the figure of the temple, or, on, specifying that whereon the conduct which is to glorify God should exhibit itself. Δὴ serves to make the exhortation more pressing. ‘Act rightly, so that it shall be apparent to all that ye do it.’ See Passow 1. p. 612. [Obs.: “It is very remarkable how these verses contain the germ of three weighty sections of the Epistle about to follow, and doubtless in the Apostle’s mind when he wrote them: 1, the relation between the sexes; 2, the question of meats offered to idols; 3, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.” Alford].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. [Christian liberty, its nature and limitations. 1. Its nature. Through the redemption effected by Christ, the believer is restored to that supremacy over the world, which Adam had forfeited, and has a free right and title to use it and all things in it according to his ability and pleasure. No longer is he fettered by the restrictions which the elder economy imposed. To him now “every creature of God is good,” and he is at liberty to make all things in their way tributary to his interests. In the person of his Lord they are all “put under his feet,” and with his emancipation from the bondage of sin, and the restoration of his inward freedom, his lordship over himself, he is at the same time restored to his proper sovereignty over the external world, and qualified to maintain it. But 2.] This liberty has its limitations, [first, by the law of expediency; secondly, by the law of self-preservation; and thirdly, by the law of duty. All things, e. g., though in our power, do not prove in their use alike, and at all times equally, beneficial, either to ourselves or to others. Again, the use of some things in certain ways and degrees, may destroy the liberty which claims the right to use them. And, finally, we must yield to God and man what properly belongs to each, robbing neither of their rights. The liberty of the Christian is therefore not an absolute, but a restricted liberty.] Fundamentally, however, this restriction is a self-imposed restraint, an act of perfect freedom, nothing but the fulfilling of our appointed course in love. Though the Christian is made free through faith, free from all which the law imposed from without, and enforced by penalties, yet it does not follow from this that he is at liberty to assert his own sinful self-will in opposition to the revealed will of God. Rather this very freedom becomes the means of entirely cutting off all arbitrariness of conduct. For that faith, through which the believer has been liberated, is in fact an entrance into the very life of Christ. It implies such an apprehension of Christ, that the believer can say: ‘It is no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.’ But in taking Christ he takes into himself all that holy love of God which embraces both him and all his fellow-believers in one blessed union. Possessing this love, then, he comes to hate and shun everything which conflicts with the Divine will, everything which either tends to interrupt his fellowship with his Lord, or acts prejudicially upon his neighbors and associates in the churches; everything, also, which is calculated to weaken his power over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and bring him again under bondage. That alone he allows himself to use, in suitable modes and measures, which operates beneficially on himself and others, and advances the Gospel of Christ and promotes spiritual life, that alone which leaves his liberty perfect, and his mastery over self and the world undamaged. Thus does the truth and reality of our freedom rest in Christ, and prove to be nothing less than love freely and intelligently seeking its own proper ends.
[See this whole subject of man’s freedom and dominion discussed in Wuttke’s Handbuch der Christlichen Sittenlehre, I , p. 349, 403 f., 431 f.: “Man may and can perfect his rule over nature only when he has fully subjected himself to be ruled by the holy author and Lord of nature.”]
2. The power to purify the soul and keep one’s self from all manner of fornication and uncleanness, is to be found in Christ alone. The simple sense of shame or of self-respect, or the mere dread of weakening or deranging our physical nature, is not sufficient of itself to counteract the strong temptation to this sin, and quell the might of this the strongest of our carnal passions. The enjoyment is instant and sensitive, the injury is remote, and perchance may never be felt; and so the weak will give way.—But in our fellowship with Christ, in the clear living consciousness of His presence, we have the power to overcome the very strongest of our carnal impulses, and to resist the most seductive enticements. While He dwells in us with His holy love, He becomes the quickening power which animates and controls our whole constitution. Through this love, which consented to suffer the bitterest of deaths for our sins, sinful lust is essentially slain, and the Christian resolves that he, with his body and its members, shall belong to none other than his Lord. His body he henceforth regards as a member of Christ, an organ of His holy life. No more can he prostitute it to the control of another, or become bound in vital union to a harlot. The remembrance of Christ’s presence within him causes him to shrink with horror from everything which might defile that which has become a sanctuary consecrated to His glory. Mindful of his being purchased to God at the cost of the precious blood of His Son, he feels the weight of the mighty obligation, and is neither able nor willing to use that body, which is now God’s property, for any other purpose than for his service and glory. Being now joined to Christ in one spirit, he resolves never more to hold carnal intercourse with any, apart from the Divine ordinance of marriage (which is to be consummated in the Lord, and for the Lord), or to be guilty of aught whereby the body, which is destined to partake of the imperishable life of Christ, shall be unfitted for the heavenly communion.
[3. The true position and dignity of the body. In its doctrine concerning the body, Christianity avoids two opposite extremes. It neither disparages it as worthless and contemptible, after the fashion of some ancient philosophers, and the Manicheans; nor does idolize it into an object of supreme regard and care, as the Epicureans, ancient and modern, do. Regarding it as essential to the perfection of our humanity, and as a needful organ of the Spirit, Christianity gives, the body likewise a share in Christ’s redemption, and unites it to Him for sanctification here and for glorification hereafter. It thus makes it a member of Christ’s mystical body, to be controlled and regulated by His Spirit. At the same time it imparts to it the character of a Divine temple, and requires that we keep it from all defilement, and preserve it in a condition suited for the service and worship of God. So far, therefore, from being at liberty to despise or abuse the body, or to set up its welfare and claims in antagonism with those of the Spirit, or to make our care for it a distinct, though even a subordinate interest, our obligations to Christ demand that we unite it with the soul in one general system of spiritual edification and culture, yield its members as instruments of righteousness, and glorify God in it no less than in the spirit].
[4. The Church is God’s purchased possession. He has redeemed it unto Himself by giving His own Son as a ransom for it, thereby delivering it from the tyranny of Satan and from the merited penalties of the law, to be His in love and devotion for evermore. Not that His hold upon the persons thus ransomed had ever been lost by their sin. God’s property in man is absolute and inalienable, and His title to dispose of him according to His own pleasure and unto His glory remains unaffected, let man do what he may. But, if we may so speak, His right to love and favor them, and to treat them as His children, had been destroyed by the forfeit of sin, and instead thereof there rested on God the obligation to wrath and punishment. And this was the right which had been recovered by the purchase effected by the blood of Christ. Thus a new ground of dominion and rule has been laid, superadded to the former one, and with this a new mode of government devised, and new obligations imposed on the parties redeemed. God as Father holds the Church not only by the right of creation, but also by the right of redemption. He enforces His claims to obedience by pointing to the blood of His Son, which was shed for us: and the strongest incentive to devotion and praise on the part of the believer, both here and in eternity, is—“For Thou hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood”].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[1. In the exercise of his power and liberty a Christian is bound to consult not simply the scope of his own rights and privileges, but also, 1, the bearing of his conduct upon, a. his own best interests, and b. the interests of others, 1Co_6:12; 1 Corinthians 2, its effect upon his own spiritual freedom, 1Co_6:12; 1 Corinthians 3, the intrinsic fitness of things for their special ends, 1Co_6:13; 1 Corinthians 4, the worth of objects as determined by their durability, 1Co_6:13; 1 Corinthians 5, the rights and claims of others, both God and man, 1Co_6:13; 1 Corinthians 5, the particular honor which God hath put upon the objects under our control, being careful not to desecrate what he hath taken into fellowship with Himself, 1Co_6:14-17].
[2. The sin of fornication consists, 1, in its being a violation of the Divine interest of the body, 1Co_6:13; 1 Corinthians 2, in that it is an alienation from Christ of what belongs to Him, and an appropriation of it to another, 1Co_6:15-17; 1 Corinthians 3, in that it is an abridgement of our own liberty, 1Co_6:17; 1 Corinthians 4, in that it brings a person into intimate connection and union with the vilest of characters; 6, in that it is preëminently a sin against the body, being committed in and through it, in the perverted use of the highest functions of physical life, which were designed for the purpose of raising up a holy seed that should serve God; 6, in that it is sacrilege, 1Co_6:19-20].
Luther:
1Co_6:19. A Christian may be compared with the tripartite temple of Solomon. His spirit is the Holy of holies, God’s dwelling amid the darkness of faith (he believes what he neither sees, nor feels, nor grasps); his soul is the Holy place, where are the seven lights of the golden candlesticks; his body is the forecourt, exposed to the general view, where every one can observe how he lives, and what he does. Deep within the heart is the consecration made which unites him to the Church; in the secret recesses within does the Holy Ghost affiance itself to the believing soul; but the nuptial song rings throughout the entire man, and he becomes a spiritual temple of the Lord; and in the forecourt stands the altar of burnt offerings, whereon we are to lay our bodies as living sacrifices unto God (Rom_12:1).
Starke:
1Co_6:14. Our resurrection is founded upon the resurrection of Christ; and the thought of it should restrain us from all impurity; for although the impure also will rise again at the resurrection, yet it will not be to the glorification of their bodies.
1Co_6:17. Christ and believers are united together in one mystical person; but from such union lawful marriage does not hinder believers, [for if he marries aright, he marries “in the Lord”]. Marriage is, in fact, a type of the heavenly wedlock (Hos_2:19; Ecc_4:9; Eph_5:30). 1Co_6:18. Hedinger:—Fornication is the only sin which involves the whole body in disgrace, and so defiles it more than all other sins. Drunkenness and gluttony do not affect all the members of the body; neither are the meats and drinks, wherewith a person offends, members of the body. Other sins are committed against a neighbor’s body (murder), his goods (stealing), his honor (bearing false witness), but fornication is a sin against ourselves, with our own bodies. 1Co_6:19. The inward glory of believers consists in this, that God Himself dwells in them and walks in them (Psa_132:14). 1Co_6:20 The precious and imperishable ransom paid by Christ for the human race, deserves entire consecration of body and soul to His holy service.
Berlinburger Bible:
1Co_6:12. People are apt to inquire only whether a thing is allowable, but not whether it is fitting or obligatory. Christians are allowed greater privileges than many think, but they always take themselves into consideration. Christians are not blind; they see, indeed, that in Christ they are exalted above all things, but they bear in mind also how they are to use all things, and in their dove-like simplicity are as cunning as serpents. Freedom is a Divine endowment, but it cannot be preserved without Divine art. We have power over creatures only in God, and Christians are the only kings. If thou art in bondage to nothing, then hast thou all power. Freedom is a Divine jewel, but it must remain freedom, and keep clear of all snares and entanglements. Man boasts, saying: “I am lord of the creation.” Yes, but let it only be so in fact, and become not a slave over it. We may, indeed, assert of any thing that it is good; but how art thou? May it not be holding thee in bondage?
1Co_6:13. In this statement, ‘The Lord is for the body,’ we have a noble proof that Christ has verily given Himself to us. He, therefore, who now rightly honors his own body, is joined by the Lord unto Himself. He who sunders the bonds of the Divine order, abuses his own body. Originally the body was not intended for impurity, but now, and as it is now, it beguiles. It does not, however, follow that I, like an ox, must yield to that which impels me.
1Co_6:14. Can he who expects in faith this glorification of his body at the resurrection, endanger his hope by impure lusts?
1Co_6:15. Believers themselves are Christ’s members; therefore every thing which is theirs also belongs to Him. Universally is it true that if a Christian surrenders himself to the world and to the creature, he withdraws himself from his Lord Jesus. He who sins takes that power which God has given him and offers it up to another.
1Co_6:17. One Spirit. To will what God wills, this is to be a partaker of the Divine Nature. With God, being and willing are one and the same thing (St. Bernard). This union to Christ is learned and attained in the inmost depths of the soul alone. If we delight to be with Christ, let us then cleave to the Lord and not to a harlot. Let us walk with God and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Let us abide in God, so that heart, disposition, sense, and all our powers, shall enter into God and come out of their selfish isolation and false freedom, and be God’s possession. In this way doth God recover the man who has forsaken Him, and dwells in him as in His own temple
1Co_6:18. This passage instructs us also how we may deliver ourselves. It is by avoiding opportunities; by not running into danger, and thinking ourselves strong; tearing ourselves loose and fleeing as Joseph did.
1Co_6:19. A believer is not his own, but is the servant of God, who looks at and executes his Lord’s behests. Where can a greater happiness be enjoyed in this life, than in the feeling that we are entirely and altogether God’s? God, as it were, is under obligation to care for, and to protect those who belong to Him and are no more their own. Be then in no respect your own, in order that God may be entirely yours.
1Co_6:20. Christ has purchased the whole man. Through His spotless offering we are enabled to sanctify the body. Originally man was the dwelling-place and peculiar possession of the Godhead, and after his fall he was purchased anew for the same purpose by the redemption of Christ so precious; therefore ought men to consecrate themselves to God; and to this end should we purify ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit. 2Co_7:1.
Rieger:
1Co_6:12 : By our misuse of freedom we are, for the most part, brought into bondage. Freedom is a condition wherein I am able both to use and also to misuse objects with ease.
1Co_6:13. He who with every morsel he eats takes into himself something of that condemnation of death under which all things lie, will deem the pleasure to be enjoyed in eating as the least possible, and will be as little inclined to boast therein as a criminal would boast over his parting meal. Through the sense of shame imprinted by the finger of God upon the human heart, and by our longing after our primeval innocence, we are powerfully admonished to employ the power furnished by Christ’s grace, for the proper preservation of the body and its members, and to bring them by means of it to the service of righteousness and fruits of sanctification; and for this reason also to rejoice that the Lord also belongs to the body, that the protection, love, and grace of God in Jesus Christ extends also over this, and works out its sanctification through His Spirit; yea, also its glorification at the resurrection.
1Co_6:14. The liberty of giving one’s body to fornication, and the hope of resurrection to life eternal, cannot co-exist in the heart. Those thorns choke this seed, and by the gross abuse of the body do we forfeit the enjoyment of the hidden manna, which is intended also for the nourishment of the bodies of the saints in eternal life.
1Co_6:15-16. Our bodies are Christ’s members, since from Christ, the Head, there flows down upon them also both life and pleasure, and power to serve God and His righteousness, and also the control of His Spirit, together with the hope and desire of making manifest the mind of Christ also in our daily walk and conversation. But when a person withdraws his members from their proper Lord and Head, and in this way interrupts that enjoyment which flows from such communion, and destroys his peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; and besides this becomes joined to a harlot or a debauchee; then does such conduct bring with it such servitude of the whole man as compels a participation of all the other members likewise, or at least infects them with its own impurities, as if these were their own. What ought to happen according to God’s ordinance only in lawful marriage, this happens also through commerce with a harlot; but it happens in such a way as to leave traces in the body and its members, which shall follow the guilty one even unto the resurrection of damnation.
1Co_6:17. By idolizing the creature and by the pleasure sought therein, man becomes carnal; by cleaving to the Creator he becomes spiritual.
1Co_6:18. The deeper the fire of lust lies in any individual, and the more the example of others and the hope that it will remain concealed and unpunished and the excuses furnished for it by man’s wit, blow upon it to inflame it, the more need have we of the faithful watchman’s alarm: “Flee fornication.”
Ver.19. A temple is consecrated to God and to His service; it is also decorated by God with many tokens of His grace. What a comfort then is it believingly to regard our body as built and furnished by God’s hand, bought by Christ’s blood, and consecrated in baptism to be a possession of God in Christ! Assaulted, indeed, and alas! too often overcome through the jealousy of the Devil, by all manner of alien powers, yet rescued again by the might of grace, and made meet to be the dwelling-place of God’s Spirit! Ah, what a glorious thing it will be to carry a celestial body in which evil lusts no more dwell!
Heubner:
1Co_6:12. The doctrine of Christian freedom cannot be more basely perverted than when employed to the gratification of fleshly lusts. The rule of its use is a consistent regard for self and for neighbor. The Christian should allow himself to be fettered by nothing. True freedom is to be bound by no lusts.
1Co_6:13. God has given us the body for holy purposes, its members and powers are, as it were, an image of the Divine Creative Power. Everything in us should be consecrated to the service of God. The Lord has become also the Saviour of the body, in that He has freed it from eternal death, and has earned for it its resurrection.
1Co_6:14. The resurrection of the body should awaken in us a certain respect for our body, constraining us to use it in a worthy manner.
1Co_6:15. Every Christian is a member of Christ. This holy union strengthens the sense of shame at all impurity.
1Co_6:16. Fornication is union with a harlot, with something impure, therefore separation from Christ. The man becomes that wherewith he unites, by assimilation.
1Co_6:18. Fornication is a direct sin against ourselves, for we desecrate our personality by it.
1Co_6:19. The body inhabited by the Spirit of God should be used in a holy manner. Christianity sanctifies even our physical life.
1Co_6:20. God has given His own Son as a ransom for us. Meditation upon the greatness of His sufferings should fill us with gratitude. Earnestness in the work of sanctification flows from a living faith in the work of redemption, alike in its precious foundation and in its importance to us.
Besser:
1Co_6:12. There is something great in the power of a Christian freeman, which Paul has so celebrated in word and deed; but no where does the devil build his little chapels more cunningly than right by the side of the temple of Christian liberty.
Because Christians are in some respects yet carnal, and are in danger of being biased by the flesh (1Co_3:3), they always need the rule of the Holy Spirit to enable them to distinguish between what is spiritual and what is carnal.
Paul himself is an illustrious example of a noble independence of all external things. He knows how to abound and to suffer need, being careful for nothing and in everything giving thanks.
1Co_6:20. He who depends on the Lord knows the meaning of that declaration (Psa_84:2), My flesh and my heart crieth out for the living God.
Footnotes:
[13][1Co_6:14.—The verb ἐξεγεὶρειν appears in different codices under three forms—present, future and aorist. Tischendorf prefers the future, after C. D.3 L. Cod. Sin. Syr. Copt. Meyer prefers the aorist, which is the most feebly supported, found in B. 672. (See Exegetical and Critical). Lachmann reads ἐξεγείρει from A. D1. It is best to take it as future.]
[14]1Co_6:14.—The Rec. has ὑμᾶς, which is feebly attested, and Meyer thinks an error from Rom_8:11.
[15]1Co_6:16.—The Rec. and Lachmann [with all the critical editions] read ἢ οὐκ according to A. B. C. F. Cod. Sin.]
[16]1Co_6:19.—The Rec. and Lach. following good authorities [nearly all: A. B. C. D. F. K. Cod. Sin.] read τὸ σῶμα [and go also Alt, Stanley, Hodge.] But this is perhaps a correction occasioned by the singular predicate ναός.
[17]The clause καὶ ἐν τῷ, etc., is an addition apparently with a view to make the exhortation complete. The most important MSS. and other old and good authorities omit it [and so do Alf., Stanley, Words.]
[18][It can hardly be supposed that Paul meant to lay any such stress on the word ‘me,’ as though he meant to assert a distinction between believers and unbelievers in this respect, claiming a liberty for the former which did not belong to the latter. This would lead to some pretty dangerous inferences.]
[19][But have we not here the evidence that in the “all things” Paul had reference not to actions, but, to external objects? Out of these he selects one class, and shows what they were designed for, and how far they are good or expedient. But the like adaptation and utility and propriety he denies to exist in the indiscriminate use of woman, since the body of both was destined for higher uses, in the sexual relation, than mere enjoyment; and the purposes of God in reference to it, were violated by that use. The logic of the Apostle is obscured, if we consider him as having the action primarily in view. It proceeds wholly upon the rule of adaptation of things to ends].
[20][This is Neander’s view. He supposes that Paul “at first meant to speak only of partaking of meats offered to idols,” and “then was prompted to leave the topic and speak against those excesses at Corinth of which he had not thought at first.” The topic thus left, he supposes to be resumed again at the beginning of chap 8, but approached from a different point; and after several digressions and expositions of it, to be taken up in the same form as here in 1Co_10:23. This view, though at first seeming to involve the course of thought in needless intricacy, grows more plausible the more we meditate upon the logic of the whole section; and it is not surprising that Neander says that neither Billroth’s arguments, nor de Wette’s have sufficed to convince him of its erroneousness. The case had better he left without arguing to each person’s reflection—taking into account all the while the fact that here among the Corinthians there was probably the same connection between the eating of things offered to idols, and the sin of fornication that we find afterwards spoken of in the heresy of the Nicolaitans, Rev_2:14-15, and that consequently the two stood very closely associated in the Apostle’s mind.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain REFUTATION OF THE ANTINOMIAN DEFENSE OF FORNICATION AS IF…
REFUTATION OF THE ANTINOMIAN DEFENSE OF FORNICATION AS IF IT WAS LAWFUL BECAUSE MEATS ARE SO. (Co1 6:12-20)
All things are lawful unto me--These, which were Paul's own words on a former occasion (to the Corinthians, compare Co1 10:23, and Gal 5:23), were made a pretext for excusing the eating of meats offered to idols, and so of what was generally connected with idolatry (Act 15:29), "fornication" (perhaps in the letter of the Corinthians to Paul, Co1 7:1). Paul's remark had referred only to things indifferent: but they wished to treat fornication as such, on the ground that the existence of bodily appetites proved the lawfulness of their gratification.
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me--Paul giving himself as a sample of Christians in general.
but I--whatever others do, I will not, &c.
lawful . . . brought under the power--The Greek words are from the same root, whence there is a play on the words: All things are in my power, but I will not be brought under the power of any of them (the "all things"). He who commits "fornication," steps aside from his own legitimate power or liberty, and is "brought under the power" of an harlot (Co1 6:15; compare Co1 7:4). The "power" ought to be in the hands of the believer, not in the things which he uses [BENGEL]; else his liberty is forfeited; he ceases to be his own master (Joh 8:34-36; Gal 5:13; Pe1 2:16; Pe2 2:19). Unlawful things ruin thousands; "lawful" things (unlawfully used), ten thousands.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain c. Nor can sensualities be excused by the lawfulness…
c. Nor can sensualities be excused by the lawfulness of all natural gratification, 1Co_6:12-20.
A doctrine by which the Corinthian Antinomians, whose views of Christian ethics were yet unshaped, were deceiving themselves, (1Co_6:9,) is now stated and explained. God has given internal appetites and external objects to gratify them. This is the divine constitution. He has given, for instance, the stomach and the food, (1Co_6:13;) so he has given the sexual instincts and the sex; the desire for wealth and external property, etc. St. Paul replies, that all those external objects are truly lawful sources of gratification; yet the unrestrained gratification is limited by the law of the expedient, and that limits the right. The injurious is wrong, the truly beneficial alone is right. And so we are truly restricted not only to the right object, but also to that object in the right degree.
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The interpretation given by the great body of commentators—”all indifferent things are lawful”—seems not only itself an empty truism, but involves perplexity in carrying a consistent meaning through the paragraph. Our interpretation perhaps justifies itself by its clear results.
12. All things—All gratifying objects. We are endowed with natural appetites, desires, and preferences by our very constitution. Innumerable objects are, correspondently, endowed with the quality to gratify and satiate all those our internal appetences. The world is thus to us a storehouse of enjoyments. And this, being God’s own constitution, is lawful.
Unto me—St. Paul, as a fellow-Christian with those using this reasoning, uses it as applicable to himself.
Not expedient—However gratifying to our appetences many of these objects, yet most of them, unless rightly used, become injurious to body or mind. So that the universality becomes immensely reduced.
Under the power—As we may sin, and ruin ourselves by selecting the wrong object, so we may do the same by accepting and using the right object in excess. And that excess often enslaves us to the power of the object. Food is lawful for the stomach, but gluttony is unlawful.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 12–20. The guilt of the Fornicator
12–20. The guilt of the Fornicator
12. All things are lawful unto me] In this and the next two verses the main argument of the rest of the Epistle is sketched out, though not in the order afterwards followed by the Apostle. At present he takes them in the order of their importance. First he touches on the comparatively unimportant question of the distinction of meats, treated of at length in ch. 8, 10. Then he alludes to the relations of the sexes, the subject of ch. 1Co_6:12 to 1Co_7:40. And lastly he speaks of the great doctrine of the Resurrection, which stands in a close practical relation to the two former, and which is dealt with in ch. 15. The words in this verse appear to have become a watchword with some among the Corinthian Christians. Starting from the doctrine of Christian liberty taught by Christ (St Joh_8:32; Joh_8:36), and proclaimed with one mouth by His Apostles (Rom_8:2; Jas_2:12; 1Pe_2:16), they declared that the Christian was bound to a ‘service’ which was ‘perfect freedom.’ St Paul accepts the principle, but with limitations. No actions were in themselves unlawful, he was ready to admit, provided (1) that they were in accordance with God’s design in creation; (2) that they were calculated to promote the general welfare of mankind; and (3) that we were masters of our actions, not they of us. Bengel well remarks: “Sæpe Paulus prima persona eloquitur quæ vim habent gnomes in hac præsertim epistola. 1Co_6:15, 1Co_10:23; 1Co_10:29-30, 1Co_14:11,” and throughout Romans 7.
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but all things are not expedient] The word expedient (profitable, margin, spedeful, Wiclif) from ex and pes, signifies originally, the condition of one who has his feet free; and hence that which frees us from entanglements, helps us on, expedites us, as we are accustomed to say. Its opposite, that which entangles us, is similarly called an impediment, Cf. the word speed. The sense “that which is advisable for the sake of some personal advantage,” “expedient” as opposed to what is based on principle, is a more modern sense of the word. Hence the meaning here is profitable: i.e. for others as well as ourselves. Cf. ch. 1Co_7:35, 1Co_10:33, where the derivative of the verb here used is translated ‘profit.’ Robertson gives a valuable practical illustration of the principle here laid down. “In the North on Sunday, men will not sound an instrument of music, or take a walk except to a place of worship. Suppose that an English Christian found himself in some Highland village, what would be his duty? ‘All things are lawful’ for him. By the law of Christian liberty he is freed from bondage to meats and drinks, to holidays or Sabbath days; but if his use of this his Christian liberty should shock his brother Christians, or become an excuse for the less conscientious among them to follow his example, against the dictates of their own conscience, then it would be his Christian duty to abridge his own liberty, because the use of it would be inexpedient,” or rather, unprofitable. Cf. 1Co_14:26-32.
brought under the power of any] Compare the use of the same Greek word in St Luk_22:25, ‘exercise authority,’ and also in ch. 1Co_7:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (12) All things are lawful unto me.—This was probably…
(12) All things are lawful unto me.—This was probably a statement which the Apostle had himself made; at all events, the freedom which it expresses was very dear to him, and it may have been misused by some as an argument for universal license. St. Paul, therefore, boldly repeats it, and proceeds to show that it is a maxim of Christian liberty, which does not refer to matters which are absolutely wrong, and that even in its application to indifferent matters it must be limited, and guarded by other Christian principles. “The eating of things sacrificed to idols (see Note on 1Co_8:4), and the committing fornication,” were two subjects of discussion closely connected with heathen worship; and it may seem astonishing to us now that because St. Paul had maintained the right of individual liberty concerning the former, he should perhaps have been quoted as an authority for liberty regarding the latter, yet it is a matter of fact that such a mode of reasoning was not uncommon. They were both regarded as part and parcel of heathen worship, and therefore, as it were, to stand or fall together, as being matters vital or indifferent. (See Act_15:29, and Rev_11:14, as illustrations of the union of the two for purposes respectively of condemnation and of improper toleration.) We must not regard the use of the singular “me” as being in any sense a limitation of the principle to the Apostle personally. “Paul often speaks in the first person singular, which has the force of a moral maxim, especially in this Epistle (1Co_6:15; 1Co_7:7; 1Co_8:13; 1Co_10:23; 1Co_10:29-30; 1Co_14:11)” (Bengel). The words refer to all Christians.
All things are not expedient.—Better, all things are not profitable. The word “expedient” in its highest sense is a proper translation of the Greeks, but in modern use it has a somewhat lower and depreciatory meaning generally attached to it.
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All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.—There is a verbal contrast in the Greek here which can scarcely be rendered fully in English. The Greek words for “unlawful” and “be brought under the power of” are cognate words. What the Apostle says is, “All things are lawful for me, but I am not the one to allow them therefore to become a law over me.” There is such a thing as becoming the very slave of liberty itself. If we sacrifice the power of choice which is implied in the thought of liberty, we cease to be free; we are brought under the power of that which should be in our power.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 12-20. The inexcusable sin and shame of fornication.
Vers. 12-20. The inexcusable sin and shame of fornication.
All things are lawful unto me. The abruptness with which the phrase is introduced perhaps shows that, in the letter of the Corinthians to St. Paul, they had used some such expression by way of palliating their lax tolerance of violations of the law of purity. By "all things," of course, is only meant "all things which are indifferent in themselves." They erroneously applied this maxim of Christian liberty to that which was inherently sinful, and thus were tempted to "make their liberty a cloak of viciousness." St. Paul, as Bengel observes, often, and especially in this Epistle, uses the first person generally in gnomic or semi-proverbial sentences. (1Co_6:15 1Co_7:7 1Co_10:23, 1Co_10:29, 30 14:11) But. This is St. Paul"s correction of too broad a formula. Are not expedient. St. Paul illustrates this in 1Co_8:8-10. We have no right to do even that which is innocent, if it be disadvantageous to the highest interests of ourselves or others. "He alone," says St. Augustine, "does not fall into unlawful things who sometimes abstains by way of caution even from lawful ones." Will not be brought under the power. The play of words in the original might be imitated by saying, "All things are in my power, but I will not be brought under the power of any." In other words, "boundless intemperance" may become a tyranny. The pretence of moral freedom may end in a moral bondage.
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Obedience is better than freedom? What"s free? The vexed foam on the wave, the tossed straw on the sea; The ocean itself, as it rages and swells, In the bonds of a boundless obedience dwells.
I will be master even over my liberty by keeping it under the beneficent control of law and of charity.
Vers. 12-20.
Christianity in relation to the body.
things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient," etc. It would seem that there were those in the Church at Corinth who regarded Christianity as giving them a kind of liberty to do whatsoever they wished. Some of them having left Judaism with its various restraints, and others paganism, which also had restrictions, they were too ready to push the doctrine of religious liberty, as proclaimed by Paul, far beyond its limits. The apostle here states, perhaps in answer to a question on the subject, that there is a limitation to Christian liberty. He says, "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient." As the liberty which they seemed to covet was a liberty in relation to the gratifications of bodily appetites, he takes occasion to state certain things in relation to the body. His remarks suggest to us the relation of Christianity to the human body. We observe
I THAT IT RECOGNIZES ATTENTION TO THE NATURAL NEEDS OF THE BODY AS PROPER. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats." This means the body has appetites, and there are provisions intended and fitted to satisfy them. Christianity allows man to partake of those provisions in nature necessary to satisfy and strengthen his physical nature. To act thus is to act in harmony with the constitution of nature. All animal existences act in this way. Christianity, instead of requiring you to starve the body by lastings, and to exhaust its energies by painful pilgrimages and self mortifications, says, "Eat and be satisfied, eat and be strong, take care of your bodies. If you choose to eat the meat offered to idols to allay your appetites and to invigorate your frames, well, eat it." Feeding the body, however, Christianity regards, though proper as very temporary; both the food and the body must perish. They are not like spiritual existences and spiritual supplies, that have regard to an immeasureable hereafter. "All flesh is grass.
II THAT IT RECOGNIZES INDULGENCE IN THE GRATIFICATIONS OF THE BODY AS WRONG. "Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body." This is not a necessity of the body, like eating and drinking, but an immoral indulgence of its propensities. Man should attend to his bodily propensities as reliefs, not as gratifications. He who attends to his physical propensities in order to get pleasure out of them, sinks lower than a brute, violates the laws of his nature, degrades his being, and offends his God. Hence intemperance, whether in eating or drinking, is a moral outrage. The crime and curse of men in all ages have been seeking happiness out of the gastric, the sexual, and other propensities of their physical being.
III THAT IT RECOGNIZES THE PROPER TREATMENT OF THE BODY AS IDENTIFYING WITH CHRIST.
1. It is a property of Christ. It is "for the Lord; and the Lord for the body." It is not ours; we are its trustees, not its proprietors; we hold it "for the Lord," and we should use it according to his directions. It is his will that it should be used by the soul to convey from the external universe quickening and hallowing impressions of the Divine, and used to express and develop the holy thoughts and purposes which such impressions should produce. It is to let in God to the soul and to reveal God to our race.
2. It is a member of Christ. "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?" If we are genuine Christians, he regards even our bodies as having a vital connection with him. He had a human body, and that human body raised to heaven is the model into which our bodies shall be changed. This being so, the prostitution of the body to sensual indulgence of any kind is an incongruity and an outrage. "Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit," etc.
3. It is a temple of Christ. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?" Christ, by his Spirit, claims the body as a temple, in which he is to dwell, be revealed and worshipped. It is his property. "Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God"s." The language here is, of course, figurative. It does not mean that there was a strictly commercial transaction in the redemption of man, a literal quid pro quo, for the thing spoken of pertains to spiritual interests and relations, and not to commerce.
Vers. 12-20.
The human body and its relation to Christ.
Among the objects about him proper for use and enjoyment those objects which accorded with his nature and position as a redeemed man was there anything from which he was excluded? "All things are lawful unto me," and, in this sense, liberty and law are identical, the measure of the one being the measure of the other. If law is of God, so is freedom; if the former is the expression of the Divine will and character, so is the latter; and if man is the image of Christ in law, so is he in freedom. Observe, then, that it is not law and liberty as existing in a perfect world that the apostle is considering, but as found in this mixed and disordered world, in which probation is going on to its eternal issues. Ideally "all things are lawful," and yet, because life is a discipline, how could it be otherwise than that liberty should be abridged? One of the main purposes of probation is to discipline the will, to choose for itself among a multitude of objects addressing our sensibilities. Scores of things appeal daily to our senses, and, if all our sensations are converted into desires, thence into motives, thence accepted by volition, and made a part of ourselves, then certainly this is not freedom for the ends of moral discipline, but freedom for simple and universal gratification. Freedom in St. Paul"s view is not a final cause, it is a means; and he would have the Corinthian remember that one of their greatest obligations was to restrain this freedom. The freedom itself had a large range as to the objects allowed its use and enjoyment. Should it cover the whole area of activity? Nay, says the apostle, this would be bondage in another form. "I will not be brought under the power of any," for "all things are lawful unto me," which is to say, "all things are in my power," and I will exercise my power by imposing limitations on self indulgence. Of course, then, this restraint put on individual freedom is our own voluntary act. Such is the stress laid on personality that a man"s Christian virtue must be specifically his own, and recognized by infallible signs as his own. Development is a common duty, self development segregates a man from his fellows that he may grow in a given way. Self denial is a common duty, but under this law of individuality in using our freedom, self denial assumes a variety of shapes, and becomes wonderfully potential in human affairs by the diversity it presents. In this view the self denial of A is no guide for B. The special form of your self denial may not commend itself to me, nay, it may be hurtful to me; and, assuredly, it will lose its virtue if I adopt it merely because it is yours. And hence the value of example in this respect is not to create a slavish imitation on the part of others, but to set forth the worth inherent in the spirit of self denial. If this principle, so boldly urged by St. Paul, had been faithfully adhered to, it would have saved the Church from many inconsistencies. Private opinion, while it is content to be such, may be over stringent, and yet do no great harm. But in many cases it exceeds the limits of individuality and takes shape as the tyranny of public opinion. Morbidness is rarely satisfied till it acquires notoriety before the eyes of men, and so it comes to pass that we have ecclesiastical agitation and legislation about many things for instance, amusements concerning which no exact standard can be set up foreverybody. If we could have an exact standard, it would not compensate for the loss of personal freedom, since this is precisely one of those matters in which self denial owes all its excellence to the restrictions that it imposes upon itself. St. Paul"s emphatic "I" in this connection is the "I" of every redeemed man, and accordingly, as a universal prerogative, this exalted characteristic of individuality is most carefully guarded. And how is it guarded? To say nothing of what Christian freedom is in itself as delegated by God in Christ, and conditioned widely different from Adam"s sovereignty in Eden; to say nothing of its original limitations by the Divine Law, and the fixed barriers over which it may not pass, and, if true to itself, cannot pass; what is this liberty but a glorious privilege to be made still more glorious by our own self enacted laws of restraint? It is a new limitation peculiar to man. It is a limitation which each man under the grace of the Spirit originates and executes in attestation of his own endowments as God"s redeemed servant, It is sonship in its most beautiful and tender form the "Abba, Father," which is not heard in the responses of the Church, nor in hymns of social worship, but is an utterance that rises to God in those hours when loneliness is a supreme joy. I have the power; I will not use it; I will deny myself its exercise, and I will do it because "all things are not expedient." What other eye save his own could penetrate those mysteries, from which he draws reasons and motives for particular acts of self denial? Mysteries, we say; for many an advanced believer yields in this phase of experience to half awakened instincts and undefined impulses. How can ministers of the gospel, how can Churches in their official capacity, get at the knowledge of what is wisest and best in those matters that belong to the very highest attributes of personality as the ground of individuality? "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." "Fully persuaded" he can never be unless he use his liberty untrammelled. If you dogmatize and legislate, the full persuasion cannot be the outcome of his own mind. If God can trust him, why not you? The safeguard has been provided it is expediency. And this sense of expediency or of fitness and propriety is a conservative and prudential force, which operates to check all excesses, and binds about the man the golden cestus of moderation. Expediency is never self willed and arbitrary. It presides over tastes and the minor moralities no less than over the more prominent virtues; nor does it trifle with trifles nor disdain the helps of look and tone and manner, but is cardinal to whatsoever reflects the man upon his associates. Keenly alive to discriminations, it educates us to know the best from the merely good, and, by its fine tact and subtle sagacity, goes on swift wing to the noblest objects. It considers, as though it were a part of itself, the welfare of others, and thus becomes a guarantee that a man"s liberty shall not invade the rights of his fellow man. And remembering that "all things" are his only so far as he is Christ"s, he realizes that it is "no more I that live, but Christ liveth in me." Then St. Paul proceeds to dwell on the sanctity of the human body a favourite topic, on which he expends much thought. In the third chapter he had discussed it, and in subsequent passages, every one of them singularly clear and vivid, he recurs to this great topic. Here the leading idea is that our bodies "are the members" of Christ"s body. "The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." And hence St. Paul, in his concrete method of thinking, refuses to separate, even in thought, body and soul, as they are connected with redemption, Matter and mind are perfectly unlike; they are known to us only by their infinite contrariety; and yet matter and mind meet and unite as body and soul, and the union is human nature. These two substances grow each in its own way, the natural union at birth becoming closer and yet closer as years progress, and the body subordinating itself more and more to the mind"s service, in the mature man the mechanic, the accountant, the artist, the poet, the philosopher a vast advance has occurred in i he nearness and adaptability of the corporeity to the wants, demands, and aspirations of the spirit. If the providential idea in education and culture be fulfilled, the cooperative activity constantly increases, each forward step a step for both, and the law of development taking effect in mutuality of advantage. Still more fully is this fact brought out in Christian experience. St. Paul"s figures on this subject stand for facts. Bodily appetites cease to be mere animal instincts. They are elevated and purified. If Christ was raised from the dead, so too our bodies shall be raised, for the companionship of mind and matter as soul and body is not a transient but an eternal fact. One may speak of being "here in the body pent" and of the "body of humiliation" (vile body), but the idea of body as an investiture of spirit and an auxiliary to its functions is a part of the original scheme of humanity, and will have its complete development in the future life. Little do we realize that the resurrection man is now in a process of training as to his corporeal form. This training is double mental and material and hence, while it is true that certain physical functions will expire and be known no more, yet the effects of their experience will survive in the soul itself. "A spiritual body" is assured us by Christianity and confirmed to us by Christ"s resurrection; and, agreeably to this doctrine, the present growth of body into the mind"s service, the tuition of the senses, the reduction of the nerves to the will, the command which is acquired over the lower organs, all indicate that the resurrection man of body and spirit is now in process of formation. If this is true; if the resurrection is not only a prospective glory but a realization now going on by means of the present ennoblement and sanctification of the human body; and, furthermore, if Christ"s education of his own body to the offices he filled as Teacher, Miracle Worker, Philanthropist, Redeemer, etc., as to the spirit actuating him, an example to his followers; then surely we have the weightiest of reasons for regarding the body as the "temple of the Holy Ghost." Greek philosophy had abused the truth that all creatures are for man, and that he is the measure of all things. Professing Christians had followed a carnal philosophy in the application of this truth. And now that St. Paul has rescued it from its perversions and set it in its proper light, he may well urge the conclusion, "Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God"s." Could anything more timely, more momentous, more significant of the aim of Christianity as it respected the social regeneration of mankind, have been said by St. Paul? The sin of the body; that one sin which surrenders the body to another and degrades it as nothing else can degrade; that sin of sins, which debauches the body where it ought to be purest, and sinks lowest that which should be highest; could its wickedness be set forth in stronger language than when he speaks of the body as the tabernacle, in which not only the soul but the Holy Ghost dwells? "Which ye have of God," and therefore "not your own," but "bought with a price." And yet this redeemed possession, the purchase of Christ"s blood, a member of his mystical body, a tabernacle of the Spirit, alienated, abused, prostituted to the most shameful and the most fatal of all vices. Of nothing is it so true as of this vice, that we become like that with which we associate. Association is assimilation, and, in this case, assimilation is the most dreadful form of desecration. These verses (18-20) contain, as has been suggested (Alford), the germ of the three weighty sections of the Epistle about to follow. And we do well to enter into their meaning and implore the grace of God to assist us, lest we fail to receive the profound impression sought to be made. It is useless to blink the fact that among Christian nations and in the nineteenth century this colossal vice of a desecrated human body is the Satanic citadel of iniquity. Take all the vices and sins on earth, aggregate them in one huge bulk, and the misfortunes, evils, catastrophes, tragic disasters, put together, would not outweigh the consequences morally and socially viewed of this enormity. Half of the man goes straight and quick into the hands of the devil, and the other half, unless God interpose, follows on in a fascination of blindness exceptional among illusions. God help us! For verily "vain, in this instance, "is the help of man." We need a much larger and bolder discussion of the religion of the human body; and if writers and preachers would study the art of doing this work, the Church and the world would be vast gainers. Any way, this is open to us all, viz. to lay a much greater stress than is commonly done on the dignity, worth, and glory of the human body as seen in the light of Christ"s teaching. Full justice is not done this subject, not even approximative justice, and, therefore, no wonder the body is disparaged, vilified, tolerated by many as a nuisance, and immolated by thousands as a creature of appetite and lust. "Bought with a price," the blood of the Lord Jesus paid for it a glorious thing to be bought and not too precious a ransom paid, and now sprinkled by that blood and hallowed by the indwelling Spirit. Oh what intenseness of soul should go into the pleading, "Glorify God in your body"! L.
Vers. 12-16.
The sanctity of the body.
At Corinth idolatry assumed a most imposing, luxurious, and voluptuous form. It is quite in accordance with all we know of the opulent and pleasure loving inhabitants of and visitors to "the star of Hellas," that those controversies and scandals which are dealt with so fully in this chapter should arise in a Christian society planted by the apostle at Corinth. It should be more especially noticed that there is a sufficient reason for the remarkable fact that sexual matters should be treated more fully in this Epistle than in any other part of the New Testament. The apostle in this passage demolishes the sophistical arguments and excuses by which certain professed Christians at Corinth were disposed to defend the practice of fornication. It was said that matters relating to the bodily life were indifferent to the moral welfare of men, that as an enlightened man will eat this food or that, irrespectively of any superstitious prejudices, inasmuch as food and the digestive system are naturally in corelation with each other, so he will satisfy the sensual appetites of his body in whatever way may be convenient and agreeable to him. Against this doctrine of devils Paul here argues, not on grounds of asceticism, but on grounds which must be conceded as secure by the moral and especially by the Christian thinker.
I THE GROUNDS UPON WHICH CHRISTIANITY ESTABLISHES THE SANCTITY OF THE BODY. As here presented, they may appear to some readers to be mystical, but in fact they are in harmony both with the facts of human nature and with the great doctrines of the New Testament.
1. The Lord Christ and the body of man are "for" each other. In his incarnation Christ has assumed the human body, in his ministry he has honoured it, in his death he has redeemed it. Not the soul only, but the body, is God"s creation, and the object of Christ"s regard, and partaker of the benefits of his mediation. As the Lord is for the body, so is the body for the Lord.
2. More particularly, the bodies of Christians are members of Christ. The ransomed and renewed humanity is one glorious whole, one Divine organism, the Lord Jesus being himself the authoritative Head. If the Head, the informing Spirit, is holy, must not also the subordinate members be also pure and consecrated?
3. Christ having been raised from the dead, it is appointed that the body of every follower and friend of Christ shall share in this resuscitation and exaltation. In what way this shall take place is immaterial to the argument. The spiritual renewal is the earnest of the high and immortal resurrection of the whole man. These things being so, the body of the Christian standing in relation so intimate to the glorious and holy Mediator and Lord, is there any consistency between such a connection with the King of saints and a life of filthy sensuality? The incompatibility is apparent and undeniable.
II THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES WHICH FOLLOW UPON THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE BODY. These are broadly distinguished into two classes.
1. Food is a matter of indifference. Many weak Christians laid great stress upon clean and unclean food; some objected to eat what had been or might have been offered to idols. Now, the apostle claims all this as a province of Christian liberty. Diet was a matter "without" the body. All things were lawful. Those who ate and those who refrained from eating were forbidden to despise one another; for both alike were called upon to act in this matter "as unto the Lord.
2. Impurity is absolutely forbidden. There is a vital difference between the satisfaction of hunger and the gratification of the sexual appetite. This latter is only permissible within the boundaries of holy matrimony. Fornication is an abuse of the body, a defilement of Christ"s members, an insult to the Lord himself, whose property it not only takes by theft from him, but hands over to a harlot. This is very plain speaking on the part of the apostle. But it is just; and if it was necessary in those days, it is equally necessary now. Physiology is often invoked to sanction vice; but it is well to listen to the nobler and purer counsels of the apostles, which are not more in harmony with the loftiest ethics than they are with the soundest conclusions of physical and of social science. T.
The lawful and the expedient.
I IT IS IMPORTANT TO ASCERTAIN WHAT IS LAWFUL FOR US IN LIFE. All things indifferent (i.e. not evil in themselves) are lawful for the Christian. He has the widest liberty. He is not under the restriction of the older economy. To him "every creature of God is good", (1Ti_4:4) and to be received with thanksgiving. The Christian must abide within the limits of the lawful. Nothing that seems expedient outside of the lawful must be touched by him. He is under the rule of righteousness, and must not allow himself in aught that is unrighteous. Note: Nothing is really expedient outside of the limits of the lawful, but many things may appear to be so.
II BUT ANOTHER QUESTION HAS TO BE ANSWERED BEFORE CONDUCT CAN BE DETERMINED, VIZ. WHAT IS EXPEDIENT WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE LAWFUL? The Christian must not use his liberty indiscriminately; he must consider probable results. The end does not justify the means, but the end often determines whether means (justifiable in themselves) shall be used or not. Means, good enough in themselves, may under certain conditions lead to most undesirable ends; those ends foreseen determine for the believer that those means shall not be employed. The Christian has to select the truly expedient out of the truly lawful. It has been well said, "Unlawful things ruin thousands, lawful things (unlawfully used) ten thousands." And also, "Nowhere does the devil build his little chapels more cunningly than right by the side of the temple of Christian liberty." A Christian, before availing himself of his liberty, had need ask such questions as the following:
1. What will be the effect upon myself? Shall I be made less spiritual, less useful, less pleasing to God? All that we do we do more or less "unto ourselves." We mould ourselves very largely by what we allow to ourselves.
2. What will be the effect upon my liberty! Liberty may commit suicide. Undue indulgence of liberty results in slavery. Paul was intensely anxious "not to be brought under the power of any;" even lawful, thing. It is of the greatest importance to the moral health and needful freedom of the soul that it should not be in subjection to any appetite or desire, however innocent.
3. What will be the effect upon my fellows? Will it aid or hinder them? "No man liveth unto himself." Every man is "a man of influence." Innocent things to us may be by no means innocent things to others. By example we may lead men to destruction, whilst we withal escape. "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth". (1Co_8:13)
4. How will my conduct appear to God? Is this that I propose to do, not only good in itself, but the best thing for me to do at this time? Whatever the Christian does, he is to do to the glory of God, even in matters of eating and drinking. Can I do this to the glory of God? The familiar question, "Is it wrong to do this or to go thither?" is often both misleading and utterly irrelevant. The answer to the question may be "No." Then the fallacious reasoning follows, "If it is not wrong, I may do it without sin." Stop! that is unsound logic. The thing thoroughly right may be unutterably wrong! "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient," and the Christian is bound by every obligation to do that which is expedient within the realms of the lawful. He must do what is best; to do aught else is to sin. What he ought to do, and what he may do lawfully, are often two very different things. "Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price" (vers. 19, 20). H.
Vers. 12-20.
Abuse of Christian liberty.
It appears that the principle of Christian liberty, "All things are lawful for me," had been greatly abused by some in the Church at Corinth. It was cited in defence of fornication, as well as of eating all kinds of meats. They confounded it with the philosophical maxim that man is the measure for himself; from which they drew the conclusion that the sexual appetite may be gratified in the same indiscriminate way as that of hunger. This pernicious abuse the apostle corrects, first by setting the doctrine of Christian freedom in its true light, and then by presenting a variety of arguments against the sin of fornication.
I CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, ITS GROUNDS AND LIMITS, "All things are lawful for me." Under. the old dispensation there was curtailment of freedom in respect of meats and drinks and days; but this is now removed. In Jesus Christ the believer is restored to dominion over the creatures, all things being put under his feet. (Psa_8:6; Heb_2:7-9) "All things are yours". (1Co_3:22) The world and its contents exist for the sons of God, to subserve their welfare. But this large freedom has obvious limitations.
1. The limit of expediency. Many things in our power may not be for our good, either in themselves or because of special circumstances. This is true of foods, and of many forms of work and pleasure lawful in themselves. Here, too, the good of others comes into view as a limiting consideration. The exercise of my liberty must be tempered by a regard to the welfare of my brother. (1Co_8:13) Apply this to certain forms of amusement, the use of wine, etc.
2. The limit imposed by the duty of preserving our liberty. "I will not be brought under the power of any." "Every creature of God is good", (1Ti_4:4) but only when used as a servant. We must not suffer ourselves to be brought into bondage to anything. Music, e.g., is a legitimate and healthful enjoyment, but I must not become its slave.
II THE SIN OF FORNICATION.
1. Fornication is not warranted by the analogy of meats. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats." The one has been created for the other. The stomach demands food, and all kinds of food have been made for the stomach; hence it is lawful to eat whatever is good for us. But there is no similar adaptation between the body and sensuality. The one was not made for the other. Again, both the belly and its food belong to a transitory condition of things. Both shall be brought to nought when this present world age is completed, and the natural body becomes the spiritual body. But the body shall not thus perish; it has an eternal destiny. In both these respects, therefore, the analogy fails; and fornication cannot be defended as a case of nature.
2. It takes away from Christ that which belongs to him. The Christian"s body is the Lord"s.
(1) It exists for him, and he for it. The relation is mutual. Christ redeems, sustains, rules, and glorifies the body; the body is subject to him for his service.
(2) It is a "member of Christ" (ver. 15). Our bodies are essential parts of ourselves, and as such belong to Christ"s body. (Eph_5:30) The same Spirit dwells in him and in us (ver. 17); the life of the Head is the life of the body and its members. How awful the sin of prostituting that which is a member of Christ!
1. It is inconsistent with the eternal destiny of the body. The relation of the body to Christ is abiding. He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also quicken our mortal bodies, (Rom_8:11) raising them to a glorious life in him (comp. ch. 15.). The resurrection of the body tells us that it is not to be treated as a temporary thing, belonging only to this stage of existence. It is not to be destroyed like the belly and meats, but is united to Christ forever. Fornication, therefore, decades the body, inasmuch as it is thereby treated as the instrument of a perishable appetite.
2. It is in its own nature degrading. The act itself is a union with the vilest characters (ver. 16). Think of the dignity of the Christian"s person as a member of Christ, standing in everlasting union with him; and with what holy horror should we regard this sin!
3. It is peculiarly a sin against the body. (Ver. 18.) "Drunkenness and gluttony are sins done in and by the body, and are sins by abuse of the body; but they are still without the body introduced from without, sinful not in their act, but in their effect, which effect it is each man"s duty to foresee and avoid. But fornication is the alienating that body which is the Lord"s, and making it a harlot"s body; it is sin against a man"s own body, in its very nature against the verity and nature of his body; not an effect on the body from participation of things without, but a contradiction of the truth of the body, wrought within itself (Alford). The awful effects of this sin are frequently written in characters of fire in the physical system.
4. It is a profanation of the Divine temple. "I he body is "a temple of the Holy Ghost" (ver. 19). What was said before of the believer is here said of the body. (1Co_3:16, where see homily) The body is the outer court of the temple, but still a part of it, and therefore holy. Dare we admit unholy feet to tread this court? Dare we profane the sanctuary by devoting it to sacrilegious uses? Will the Spirit of God continue to dwell in a polluted temple?
5. It contradicts the Divine proprietorship of the body. Believers are not their own, but the purchased position of God, bought for himself with precious blood. (ver. 20; Act_20:28; 1Pe_1:18, 1Pe_1:19) Our bodies are not our own to do with them as we please. We are God"s bondservants, bought for the purpose of serving and glorifying him. (1Pe_2:9) How weighty an argument for entire devotion to (God"s service! Love to our redeeming God is the only sufficient motive for a holy life. "Glorify God therefore in your body.
LEARN:
1. The sacredness of the body.
2. The extent of sanctification it reaches to the utmost circumference of our being. (1Th_5:23)
3. Flee fornication. Victory here is to be won by flight, not by fight. (Gen_39:12)
4. Watch against everything that might lead to this sin. B.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Ver. 12.
Free, and yet not free.
The first step to a right understanding of this passage is to observe that the "all things" of which the apostle speaks are things in themselves indifferent (ajdiafora), not things in which any vital principle of morality or point of Christian doctrine is involved. Nothing could be "lawful" to him that was in its essential nature unlawful. There are matters in which the question of right and wrong is fixed, absolute, changeless; and there are others in which it is variable, conditional, determined by circumstances. It is of the latter that he speaks. He is consciously raised above the bondage of mere conventional or traditionary distinctions of clean and unclean, sacred and common, etc. A man is free from the restraint of external law when he has the spirit of it in his heart. All things are lawful to him when the governing principle of his life is that "love which is the fulfilling" of all holy law. The singularity of this declaration is that, while the apostle asserts his freedom, he at the same time surrenders it. He asserts it by voluntarily submitting to that which seems to be a denial of it. There is something paradoxical in this. But are we not familiar with many similar paradoxes? External nature is a marvellous combination of what seem to be conflicting elements laws that limit, forces that balance each other, processes that run in opposite directions. What a strange commingling is there in the world around us of beauty and deformity, economy and waste, order and disorder, life and death! Divine providence presents the same characteristics. The wheels of the great providential plan move in different, often contradictory, directions; but the sovereign Spirit that controls and guides them develops from them one grand result. What is every man"s daily history, in the common relationships of life, but a perpetual working and counterworking of what seem to be incongruous principles. He loses that he may win, serves that he may rule, stoops to conquer, sacrifices liberty in one direction that he may secure it in another, denies himself to please himself, suffers that he may enjoy, dies that he may live. No wonder there should be a similar balancing and limiting of seemingly discordant principles in the sphere of Christian doctrine and Christian life. Two views of personal freedom are here given.
I FREEDOM LIMITED BY THE THOUGHT OF MORAL ADVANTAGE. That is in the highest sense "expedient" which is morally right and good. A thing may be "lawful" and yet, considering all the conditions of the case, not desirable, because unprofitable. Legitimate enough in itself, it may have bearings and involve consequences that are neither right nor good. In such a case a man of fine Christian sensibility will feel that, while perfectly free in one sense, in another sense he is not free. His conscience and the sympathies and affections of his religions life will restrain his use of that freedom. There is something dearer to a noble soul than even liberty. The thought of the higher profitableness of a thing should be more to us than the thought of its abstract lawfulness. Freedom is not in itself an end, but the means to an end above and beyond itself. To seek after "whatsoever things are true, honest, just," etc., even though it may involve us in many penalties, is better than to be always jealously maintaining our exemption from the bonds of external restraint. One of the finest examples of this principle is supplied by our Lord"s payment of the temple tax (Mat_17:24-27) Though "the children were free," yet, lest there should be "offence, he will pay the claim and work a miracle to provide the means of payment. The Sonship that relaxed one law only made the other the more sacred and binding. The apostolic Epistles are full of illustrations of the same principle (1Co_9:14, 1Co_9:15, 1Co_9:19-22; Gal_5:13 1Pe_2:16) Never are we so loftily conscious of our Christian freedom, and never is that freedom so manifest, as when, for some high end, we choose to forego it.
A life of self renouncing love Is a life of liberty.
II FREEDOM CONTROLLED BY THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF MORAL POWER. "I will not," etc. This is self assertion of the right order; the manly use of the power by which it is given us to determine our own course, and not allow it to be left at the mercy of outward influences, or to be determined for us by the persuasive force that happens to be the strongest. As a mere act of self discipline, this is good; for the will, like any other faculty, grows by use, and self mastery by the power of a resolute will is the basis of all moral excellence. Think what differences there are among men in this respect. The secret of success or failure in the lower interests of human life lies mainly here. It depends far less on native talent, favourable circumstances, etc., than it does on the energy of a self regulating will. This power is necessary to give due effect to any other power. Many a man has noble qualities both of mind and heart quick intelligence, wise judgment, warm enthusiasm but lacks the steadfast will that would bind them all together, giving unity and strength to his character and effective force to his endeavour. According, however, to the greatness and strength of this faculty, so is the danger of its being misdirected like the forces of nature, water, steam, electricity, etc. Self will is blind, lawless, immoral, and therefore not really free. Moral freedom lies in the mastery of a will that determines for the right, chooses to move in harmony with the Divine will, the "will that is holy and just and good." Learn chiefly two grand lessons.
1. That things lawful and innocent in themselves may become evil by being allowed to gain an undue mastery over us.
2. That our only effectual preservative against this is the resistive energy of a will inspired by the Spirit of the well beloved Son. W.
The lawful and the expedient.
things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient." This is the statement of a general principle, which may be thus expressed: when a man is renewed in Christ Jesus, he becomes a law unto himself, his regenerate conscience sufficiently attests what is lawful and what is expedient. The apostle is applying the principle to two subjects of discussion which were closely connected with the heathen worship:
(1) whether it was lawful for Christians to eat food which had been offered in sacrifice to idols;
(2) whether it was permissible to overlook, in Christians, indulgence in the sin of fornication. It seems that, because St. Paul affirmed the right of Christian liberty in relation to the heathen food, his enemies declared that he also held loose notions concerning Christian immoralities. St. Paul, therefore, makes it quite clear that the liberty which he claims is a reasonable liberty, duly toned and tempered by a quickened and sensitive consciousness of what is becoming and what is right. "There is such a thing as becoming the very slave of liberty itself. If we sacrifice the power of choice which is implied in the thought of liberty, we cease to be free; we are brought under the power of that which should be in our power." "Starting from the doctrine of Christian liberty taught by Christ, (Joh_8:32, Joh_8:36) and proclaimed with one mouth by his apostles (Rom_8:2; Jam_2:12; 1Pe_2:16) they declared that the Christian was bound to a "service" which was "perfect freedom." St. Paul accepts the principle, but with limitations. No actions were in themselves unlawful, he was ready to admit, provided
(1) that they were in accordance with God"s design in creation;
(2) that they were calculated to promote the general welfare of mankind; and
(3) that we were masters of our actions, not they of us." We here consider the lawful and the expedient, and we observe that
I EVERY MAN MUST RECOGNIZE THIS DISTINCTION. In all the practical relations of life it comes up to view continually; in the home, in the business, and in society, a man has constantly to say, "I may, but I will not. I have an absolute right to do it, yet for others" sakes I must not do it." Observe that the expedient is not here the self serving or the time serving. A man"s limitations are not, first of all, his own personal interests, but
(1) the sense of the fitness of things; and
(2) the well being of others.
Illustrate the distinction as applied to such questions as the use of strong drinks; modes of keeping sabbath; limits of permissible amusements, etc.
II THE DISTINCTION NO MAN FINDS SO SEARCHING AS DOES THE CHRISTIAN, By reason of
(1) his sensitiveness to what is in harmony with the Christian profession; and
(2) his charitable consideration of even the weaknesses of others. He is most jealous of himself, lest he should cast a stumbling block in his brother"s way. The subject can be efficiently illustrated from the details of modern Christian life. And the following passages sufficiently suggest the practical application of the subject: are called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion unto the flesh, but by love serve one another;" "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Our Lord Jesus could demand absolute liberty; all things were lawful to him, because, his will being wholly right, his choices and preferences and decisions were fully according to God"s will. A man must be right before we can give him liberty. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain All things are lawful to me, but all things…
1Co_6:12-20
All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.
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The lawful and the expedient
I. What is lawful for us in life? All things indifferent, i.e., not evil in themselves. The Christian has the widest liberty. He is not under the restriction of the older economy. To him every creature of God is good (1Ti_4:4). He must abide within the limits of the lawful; nothing that seems expedient outside those limits must be touched by him.
II. What is expedient within the limits of the lawful.
1. The Christian must not use his liberty indiscriminately; he must consider probable results. The end does not justify the means, hut the end often determines whether means, justifiable in themselves, shall he used or not. Means good enough in themselves may under certain conditions lead to most undesirable ends. Those ends foreseen determine that those means should not be employed.
2. The Christian has to select the truly expedient out of the truly lawful. Unlawful means ruin thousands; lawful means, unlawfully used, tens of thousands. Nowhere does the devil build his chapels more cunningly than by the side of the temple of Christian liberty. A Christian, before availing himself of his liberty, had need ask what will be the effect--
(1) On myself. Shall I be made less spiritual and useful?
(2) On my liberty. Liberty may commit suicide. Undue indulgence of liberty results in slavery. Paul was anxious not to he brought under the power of any, even lawful things.
(3) On my fellows. Will it aid or hinder them? (1Co_8:13).
(4) On God. Will it glorify Him? (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)
The practical distinction between things lawful and expedient
The text leads us to the contemplation of two very important particulars, the latter illustrative of the former, and closely connected with it, yet demanding separate consideration. The first is the practical distinction between things lawful and expedient; the second, the universal inexpediency of all those things which, by bringing us under their power, I will just remark that while the former of these particulars leads us to guard against the evils arising from external events and influences, the latter points more immediately at such as exist within us: the former has most direct reference to the effect of our conduct generally, and perhaps, in a principal degree, to its effect on others; the latter has relation chiefly to its operation upon ourselves. We may be led by both to the avoidance of one and the same evil; but they will present it under different aspects: the first as manifestly irreconcilable with our integrity or our profession, or injurious because of its obstructing the great purposes of our life; the last as insidious, as tending to lower the standard of our views and feelings, abating the energy of our resolutions; enfeebling the operation of our loftiest motives; making us, in short, less holy, less spiritual. These remarks will be confirmed by a simple reference to the text, which, in the most forcible manner, places the two points unitedly in our view. Of lawful things there are some it describes as to be avoided by a Christian, because they are not expedient; others it warns us to shun, because they would bring us under their power. Rather, perhaps, we ought to say, it speaks of the same objects, and leads us to regard them as connected with a twofold evil; that they are unprofitable in their direct influence, and calculated, in their indirect, to impair our spiritual and mental freedom. We may apply the passage in either way, and in both with manifest advantage. In some cases these evils are separate, in others they coincide. There are some things that merely hinder and obstruct our usefulness, and are for that reason inexpedient; there are others that have a perpetual tendency to debase us, and to bring us into vassalage under their power; but the greater number of inconsistencies unite both these effects, and are therefore to be avoided not only as improper in themselves, but because they will make us feel enslaved by them for the future. Having thus glanced at the general bearings of the subject, we shall now confine ourselves to the former of these particulars. We proceed, therefore, to exhibit the practical distinction between things lawful and things expedient. Is it asked, then, what is the foundation and essential nature of virtue? what the ultimate standard of morality? The answers to this question are various, and each appears supported by an array of the most specious reasonings. All cannot be true. They may, and do in many points, coalesce; but as far as they differ, they afford a presumption that each of them is imperfect, if not erroneous. It is said the standard is expediency; the tendency of every action to promote or hinder the general good: that those actions are right which advance, those unlawful which impede, the happiness not of the individual only, but of the whole. Thus morality is made the same thing with expediency, and the only reason for which any particular conduct is right, is because it is calculated for the increase of the general good. Now, against this principle there are very strong objections, and some which involve the most extensive consequences. When, in reply to such inquiries as these, Why am I obliged to speak the truth? (proposed by Dr. Paley himself, the author of the system referred to); or, Why is falsehood to be accounted criminal? When this limited answer is given, Only because they are contrary to the general good, we apprehend there is involved a serious and fundamental error, the substitution of what is secondary and adventitious for what is primary and in its nature essential. Surely there is a distinction, prior to all considerations of utility, between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, probity and baseness, spotless chastity and brutal indulgence. Surely there is another and an earlier reason for which to condemn some of these things, and to approve the opposite. We apprehend, also, that even if the principle were true, it would be practically inapplicable and useless; for it could be known only to God what actions were really calculated to advance the happiness of the whole. The ultimate consequences of every action are obviously beyond our knowledge, demanding a comprehensiveness of thought not less than that of Omniscience itself. Again, it appears to us to imply what can never be admitted in practice: that such considerations should, in many cases, prevail as relate to the general and last consequences of our actions, in opposition to all those which connect themselves with the individual and his present circumstances; for certainly no man is bound to sacrifice his personal welfare, and all that is most dear and necessary to himself, from a vague regard to the increase of the general happiness, nor yet to suspend all reference to the present, whatever its character may most imperiously require, till he shall have traced out the issue of his determinations in a distant and unknown futurity. Yet this impracticable and visionary principle is truly involved in the question of ultimate expediency as the law of our conduct. We will add only once more that this standard cannot be applied to the actual and immediate determination of mens conduct, and hence is of no practical utility even if it were ever so well established by argument. Before we could act according to this rule we must first balance and examine all the results of our conduct, through the wide extent of all connected being, and the long series of all even collateral and accidental consequences. But this is impossible, and the system which requires it cannot, as we think, be true. It is worthy of observation, then, that in the text there is an evident distinction made between the expediency and the lawfulness of actions, for it affirms that those things may be lawful that are not expedient. May we venture to deduce the converse--that some things may be, or seem, expedient, which yet are not lawful? We are aware that the advocates of the system to which we now object would demur to this suggestion, and say that nothing can be truly expedient, that is, truly and in the largest sense useful, which is not in itself good; and we admit that the statement is well founded, but it will not prevent the most mischievous mistakes in practice. He that shall make expediency alone, whether political or religious, or of whatever kind, his guide in conduct, will be betrayed inevitably into the most dangerous errors. When what is useful is substituted for what is just, or made identical with it, and the standard of rectitude is abandoned for, that of utility, the door is opened to a thousand evils. There are not wanting those who will plead for the worst abuses, the greatest perversions of principle and practice, upon the pretence that they are productive of advantage more than sufficient to outweigh the evil of their own nature. What other plea is adduced by those who disguise or modify their own Christian profession, lest they should give offence to the unthinking and the profane, on whom they may choose to be dependent? Paul resolves not, I will perform those things that are expedient, though they be not lawful; but I will not venture even upon lawful actions, if they be not expedient. I fear there is but too little of this strictness of principle amongst us. Many, alas! are willing to make a sad commutation of the just, the honourable, and the lawful, for the convenient, the profitable, and the agreeable, both in religion and in common life. Suffer me now to call your attention to the import of that striking expression in the text employed to characterise the things that are thus to be avoided: they are not expedient; rather, they are not profitable. They will not coalesce with that great purpose of the Christian life which alone is worthy of our desire and our exertions: that we may advance the glory and the cause of God; that we may be useful to our fellow-creatures. To the generous mind of the apostle nothing else seemed honourable or happy. Like his blessed Lord he had made it his meat and his drink to do the will of God. You behold, then, illustrated in the personal history of the apostle, the extent of his own language, and you will need no further comment on the phraseology of our text. Do you for a moment ask what is it that he disavows as inexpedient? You are prepared yourselves to reply; all that is thus unprofitable; or, as he has varied the expression in another place, All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not (1Co_10:23). All things are inexpedient which are found to be unprofitable--not those alone which may issue in direct injury. Whatever hinders his preparation for the exercises of religion, for the duties of common life, for the endurance of the Cross, for the resistance of temptation, and for his entrance, even in its very performance or enjoyment, into the world above, is thus manifestly unprofitable and inexpedient. That, too, is inexpedient which would restrict the usefulness either of our direct exertions or our general example, impairing the uniformity, the completeness, and the accuracy of our representation in practice, of all that constitutes the Christian character. For the same reason we must avoid what would, in any measure, interfere with the fullest and most unembarrassed discharge of every obligation, whether official or personal. There ought to be no disguise, no mystery, nothing dark and unintelligible, in one who is not of the night but of the day. Many things which the men of the world allow in others, they deem unsuitable to the character of a Christian. We should respect their judgment. We should watch over our actions with a godly jealousy. There remains one other class of cautions more momentous than the whole, which we have not hitherto presented. We must abstain, then, from the things that we have specified, not merely as tending to diminish our personal happiness and piety, or to lessen the effects of our example in promoting that of others, but as operating in a pernicious manner upon the cause of God and the honour of the Redeemer. Little do we often think how much our conduct is identified with that of Christianity itself, in the estimation of the world around us. We shall suppose the principle, then, to be admitted. You readily subscribe to the sentiment that if any action be found to be unprofitable and inexpedient it must therefore be avoided, even though it be not absolutely unlawful; and now you have no other duty remaining but to propose to your own conscience, as in the sight of God, the following practical inquiries. Is the indulgence in question such as would, in any measure, oppress or agitate my feelings, and indispose me for the duties of the sanctuary, or the family, or the closet? Should I reflect on it with approbation, or with regret, upon the bed of sickness, or in the chamber of death? Would it tend to the diminution of my present usefulness, bringing a cloud to hide the lustre of my character in the sight of the world; and so presenting an imperfect and inadequate, not to say positively erroneous, view of the Christian life? (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
Liberty in the use of the lawful
Our aim, in the former discourse, was to excite you to Christian vigilance and to a high appreciation of the obligations and effect of Christian consistency. We now proceed to a somewhat different view of the same subject, founding our remarks not on the former but the latter clause: All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any; and our object is to show that there is a necessity of caution in the use of even lawful things from their probable effect upon ourselves; that many may be dangerous which are not originally criminal. We shall endeavour to convince you that there are many things which, in single instances and acts, may not be very censurable, which yet, when suffered to become habitual, would tend to diminish or to destroy the holiness and elevation of a Christian character. You will be reminded that all the powers of men are in a state of imperfection and disorder; that they naturally incline to the corruptions of that state through which we now are passing. We shall call on you to recollect how hard it is to retrace our steps--to regain the path from which we may have wandered. The design which we shall principally pursue is to warn you against yourselves--against the allowance of too great a latitude to your natural tastes and inclinations. There may be some to whom the exhortations of our former discourse might seem inapplicable. They may reason thus: It is true that such indulgences as I delight in, and think it no crime to enjoy, might be most unseemly for a man of piety; but I have made no such profession; I am not, and I wish not to appear, a pious man. Now, in such circumstances, our text is fitted to afford a most instructive lesson. You are in the greater danger, and require the more scrupulous caution. You are the more liable to fall beneath the power of those indulgences which you think not sinful. What if in such as you they be not unlawful, are they, therefore, expedient? Will they involve you in no exposure to evil? And is there no need of watchfulness in one, that, even according to his own confession, is without God in the world--a man left to himself? Are you safer, then, while you are destitute of the grace of God than such men are with it? But, you reply, it is not the danger to their principles that would render such things inexpedient, neither is that danger to be apprehended to your own; it is the incongruity of their performance with the name they bear, and the superior strictness they are pledged ever to maintain. Still, the sentiment of our text applies to you; for that sentiment supposes that there is danger even in lawful things, and that the form wherein it is most to be apprehended is that they bring us insensibly under their power. And, besides, the question solemnly recurs, Why are you not a follower of Christ? Is sin not sin, then? Are trifling and dissipation and folly free from the charge of evil? But I must recall your attention to the subject immediately before us. There may be some who reflect that the cautions we have already given are suited only to the circumstances of such as are advanced in life; that they apply, with the greatest force to those in public stations, and of a conspicuous character; but that they are exempt. Their state of life is humble and obscure, or their age excuses them from the burden of so great a responsibility. Their example will not be productive either of injury or good. Now, surely there is no man, whatever his age or station, that can plead exemption from the necessity of the caution we would thus enforce. It is often a happiness and a safeguard to feel that our circumstances call on us for vigilance. But, on the other hand, I scarcely know a more fatal mistake than, from undervaluing the effect of our example, to suppose ourselves at liberty to relax our watchfulness.
I. We will briefly glance at the first of these particulars. It may perhaps surprise some to hear that we regard the text as presenting an enlarged and noble view of Christian liberty. They may fear, from the comprehensiveness of the terms, lest we are about to loosen the obligations of all morality, and maintain the pernicious dogma that there is no sin to a believer in Christ; that his transgressions are so fully visited upon his Surety, in their guilt and punishment, that they no longer attach to himself. We go as far as any man in maintaining the extent and absoluteness of the imputation of our sins to the Redeemer. But far be from us the impiety of saying, that in their case morality and immorality cease to retain their opposite and immutable nature. All things are lawful to them. Surely not such as are in their own nature criminal; but all that are usually regarded as indifferent. To be a Christian is to be delivered from the obligation of all that is ritual and secular in the ordinances of religion, and to be brought into the enjoyment of a faith the most pure, simple, spiritual. Further, the impositions of all authority which is merely human are contrary to the genius and spirit of the gospel. Again, a Christian is not to be subject to the scruples and superstitious fears that so often perplex the mind, when it has conceived, in an inadequate manner, of the boundaries of its obligations and duty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, and the man who has that Spirit is to preserve himself from bondage, with relation to those groundless apprehensions that perpetually haunt the consciences of many among the disciples of Jesus. Niceties of phrase and of observance, of dress and manners and external circumstances, reaching not to the vitals of Christianity. Good men sometimes encumber themselves with an unnecessary yoke, by the excess of their suspicion as to the lawfulness of many things to which no law can apply, and which can, in the strict sense, constitute neither a fulfilment nor a violation of our duty. There is a sickly tenderness of conscience, an excessive and shrinking sensibility, which not only exposes us to a large amount of pain such as it was never the design of our Master that we should be called to endure, but which also incapacitates us for the vigorous and efficient discharge of our duty. We may go on, then, upon our way rejoicing; and let no unnecessary fears harass and distract us. There are many gratifications and indulgences which the law of Christ has not forbidden, and of them therefore His followers may freely and innocently partake. Yet they have been prohibited as sinful by the injudicious zeal and false prudence of some who call themselves His disciples. Christianity is not a system of restriction and oppression. There is nothing forbidden us but what is evil either in itself or in its influence.
II. We proceed, then, to the second of the particulars, in what manner that Christian liberty of which we have spoken is to be practically secured; it is, in one word, by the exercise of Christian moderation. We are to say, with reference to every enjoyment, It is not unlawful, but it is inexpedient, and I will not be brought beneath its power. Are you solicited by gratifications that would consume your invaluable time, perhaps not in a very extensive degree in their single instances, but in their almost inevitable repetition; in their preparation and their consequences? Then stop; consider; calculate the results; ask yourselves whether you will gain or ultimately lose by such indulgence. Say if you have arrived at the conclusion that they will be hurtful in the end. They are lawful; I forswear them not. I could mingle, like others, delightfully in all the raptures they are fitted to impart; but I am a dying man; I know not how soon the frail thread of life may be cut off for ever; I must work while it is called to-day. Is the character of the delights you are tempted to participate, such as to excite, to undue and dangerous activity, any of the passions of our nature? Then they are inexpedient and hurtful. Let a Christian learn, in such things, to restrain his freedom that he may be truly free. There are forms of pleasure which, though innocent in themselves, yet place our conduct, in their ulterior consequences, injuriously in the power of others. They cannot be enjoyed alone, and hence they bring us into associations, the effect of which, though not immediately apparent, is to abridge our personal freedom by placing us in contact with the opposite sentiments and practice of those whom it is not safe to follow, in matters that even remotely affect religion and the concerns of the soul. But for such enjoyments, we might have remained in a happy separation from the ungodly. The recurring sight of what is evil, or even the habit of associating, without visible discrimination, with those who practise it, will tend to abate our positive disgust at its commission. In such instances, again, we behold the necessity of acting upon the salutary maxim presented in our text. It must be familiar to every serious and reflecting mind that there are many pleasures which, if they were in all other respects free from reproach, yet are on this account to be suspected; that they have a secret tendency to indispose and unfit us for the regular fulfilment of our duty. They exhaust the feelings; they impair our spirituality; they generate other and uncongenial habits; they are unfavourable to retirement; they produce a vagrancy of thought. I think it will be readily conceded by the candid hearer that our judgment, relative to the lawfulness or impropriety of many of our pleasures, is affected in a degree it would be very difficult to estimate, by our natural and constitutional temperament; by our tastes and aptitudes to the several diversities of sensitive or intellectual enjoyment. And hence arises a twofold fallacy. There are not a few who too severely condemn those whose gratifications they are themselves unable to participate. There are others who will at all hazards excuse and justify their own. Men of the former class need to be reminded that moroseness is not principle, and that a defective or a failing sense is a far different thing from Christian self-denial. And those of the latter must be warned that they extenuate not, in their own favourite department, what they would denounce with unmeasured condemnation in every other, that they do not substitute the impulses of natural feeling, or the pleasures of physical excitement for the joys of piety and the dictates of religion. Let them suppose the gratification in question to be one of another class, adapted to the indulgence of a different sense or a faculty which they have not cultivated, and then judge of their own as they would of that which their fancy has thus placed in its stead. Let the lover of music, for example, the man who professes himself exalted to the third heavens, while he listens to the deep and solemn strains of the pealing organ or the majestic choir; let him then, I say, while he feels the thrilling luxury of magic sound, and calls it worship and religion, imagine only that the lover of statuary or painting should, under the influence of the like excitement, describe the ecstasy of his enjoyments by the same appellation, and plead for the indulgences from whence they arise with the same earnestness, and on the same pretext. And, if he should plead by arguments like these for the introduction of objects calculated to afford him such delight in the same circumstances and on the same occasions, let the supposed devotee of music decide the question whether his plea were legitimate and his principles well founded; then let him transfer this judgment to himself, and he will perhaps discover that it is not his conscience but his taste, that has hitherto determined him with reference to those pleasures that he has accounted sacred; and he may thus be guided to a more just decision; and so in every ease. We are not concerned, then, to maintain that no emotions of piety, no sense of sacredness and reverence, may be connected with such enjoyments as we should account unseemly for a Christian, and from which it would be our counsel that he should conscientiously abstain, lest they lead him into danger, or fetter him in mental vassalage. From the whole subject we would briefly deduce the following practical exhortations. Bear ever in mind the intimate connection between your general consistency and the satisfactory evidence of your Christian character. Forget not that such consistency has an equal and inseparable connection with your habitual preparation for heaven. Reflect seriously on the awful consequences of being involved, through our unwise and dangerous indulgences, in the ruin and final condemnation of our brethren. Does any man object that we make the way of piety gloomy and difficult? We reply, this is at least more desirable than to leave it insecure. (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)
The Christian rule in things indifferent
I. In the abstract all things are lawful. Because--
1. Every creature of God is good.
2. May be used with thanksgiving.
II. In practice all things are not expedient.
1. It may rob us of influence, &c.
2. It may become a stumbling-block to another.
III. In general all things must be under control.
1. Otherwise we become slaves.
2. Which is to degrade and imperil Christian character. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The limits of Christian rights
Men in the Corinthian Church, having heard the apostle teach the law of liberty, pushed that doctrine so far as to make it mean a right to do whatsoever a man wills to do. By these self-gratification was maintained on the ground of--
I. The rights of Christian liberty. Their watchword was, All things are lawful. It is easy to understand how this exaggeration came about. Men suddenly finding themselves freed from the restrictions of Jewish law naturally went very far in their Dew principles. St. Paul met this by declaring that Christian liberty is limited--
1. By Christian expediency. There are two kinds of best. It is absolutely best that war should cease. Relatively, it is best under present circumstances that a country should be ready to defend itself. A defensive fleet is expedient, and relatively best, but not the absolutely Christian best. Now that which limits this liberty is the profit of others.
2. By its own nature. I will not be brought under the power of any. It is that free self-determination which rules all things, which can enjoy or abstain at will. This liberty can manifest itself under outward restrictions. A Christian, as Christs freed man, had a right to be free; but if by circumstances he is obliged to remain a slave, he is not troubled. He can wear a chain or not with equal spiritual freedom. Now upon this the apostle makes this subtle and exquisitely fine remark:--To be forced to use liberty is actually a surrender of liberty. If I turn I may into I must, I am in bondage again. For observe, there are two kinds of bondage. I am not free if I am under sentence of exile, and must leave my country. But also I am not free if I am under arrest, and must not leave it. So too, if I think I must not touch meat on Friday, or that I must not read any but a religious book on a Sunday, I am in bondage. But again, if I am tormented with a scrupulous feeling that I did wrong in fasting, or if I feel that I must read secular books on Sunday to prove my freedom, then my liberty has become slavery again. It is a blessed liberation to know that natural inclinations are not necessarily sinful. But if I say all natural and innocent inclinations must be obeyed at all times, then I enter into bondage once more. He alone is free who can use outward things with conscientious freedom as circumstances vary; who can either do without a form or ritual, or can use it.
II. The rights of nature. There is some difficulty in the exposition of this chapter, because the apostle mixes together the pleas of his opponents with his own answers.
1. The first part of 1Co_6:13 contains two of these pleas.
(1) Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats--a natural correspondency. Nature, said they, herself says, Enjoy!
(2) The transitoriness of this enjoyment. God shall bring to an end both it and them. They do not belong to eternity, therefore indulgence is a matter of indifference. It is folly to think that these are sins, any more than the appetites of the brutes which perish.
2. To these two pleas St. Paul makes two answers.
(1) The body is not for self-indulgence, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, He tells of a more exact mutual correspondency. He reveals a true and higher nature. There is much confusion and dispute about this word nature. The nature of a watch is correspondence with the sun, perfect harmony of wheels and balance. But suppose that the regulator was removed, and the mainspring unchecked ran down, throwing all into confusion. Then two things might be said. One might say, It is the nature of that watch to err. But would it not be a higher truth to say, Its nature is to go rightly, and it is just because it has departed from its nature that it errs? So speaks the apostle. To be governed by the springs of impulse only--your appetites and passions--this is not your nature. For the nature is the whole man; the passions are but a part of the man. And therefore our redemption must consist in a reminder of what we are--what our true nature is.
(2) To the other plea he replies, The body will not perish. It is the outward form of the body alone which is transitory. Itself shall be renewed--a nobler, more glorious form, fitted for a higher and spiritual existence. Now here is the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and an awful argument against sin. Our bodies, which are members of Christ, to be ruled by His Spirit, become by sensuality unfit for immortality with Christ. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 12–17. All things are lawful for me, … but…
12–17. All things are lawful for me, … but not expedient. Paul had taught that a Christian could use liberty in regard to things indifferent. Some seem to have held that this justified indulgence, as was taught by the Epicureans. Paul says in substance, “Be it so; but all things are not expedient,” for the Christian, Christ's freeman, must not be brought under the power of any appetite. Whoever is thus subjected is not a freeman, but a servant, the servant of sin. Though all things are in our power, we must not be brought under their power.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain SECOND MAIN TOPIC.—1Co_6:12-20
CRITICAL NOTES
SECOND MAIN TOPIC.—1Co_6:12-20
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1Co_6:12. Lawful.—Here, and in 1Co_10:23. To be put in quotation marks, “All … lawful.” His own words, or something like them, quoted and misused by the Antinomian party. [Cf. the misuse of Christ’s actual words, Mar_14:58, from Joh_2:19.] Expedient.—Study Paul’s “expediency”; here, 1Co_10:23; 2Co_8:10; 2Co_12:1; Rom_14:13 sq, Compare “All things to all men, that I may … save,” 1Co_9:22. (See Appended Homilies, more fully.)
1Co_6:13.—Christ ate broiled fish and honeycomb (Luk_24:42) after His resurrection, but only to help affrighted, bewildered disciples to realise that He was not simply a phantasm, but a substantial reality.
1Co_6:15. Take.—“Take “away,” q.d. from Christ to whom they belong and are joined (Evans).
1Co_6:16. Saith he.—Adam; or “saith it,” viz. Genesis. In either case notice that the word is regarded as a fundamental, inspired word of God.
1Co_6:18. Flee.—“When a temptation of lust assaults thee, do not resist it by heaping up arguments against it and disputing with it, considering its offers and its danger; but fly from it, that is, think not at all of it; lay aside all consideration concerning it, and turn away from it by any severe and laudable thought of business. St. Hierome very wittily reproves the Gentile superstition, who pictured the Virgin Deities armed with a shield and lance, as if chastity could not be defended without war and direct contention. No; this enemy is to be treated otherwise. If you hear it speak, though but to dispute with it, it ruins you, and the very arguments you go about to answer leave a relish upon the tongue. A man may be burned if he goes near the fire, though but to quench his house; and by handling pitch, though but to draw it from your clothes, you defile your fingers” (Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, sect. iii.). He also quotes Augustine: “Contra libidinis impetum apprehende fugam, si vis obtinere victoriam.” Observe imperfect tense, q.d. “Flee, and flee” (Evans). Every sin.—Natural to supply, and read, “Every other sin.” But query? Does he rather put fornication into a category, a genus, with but one species, and that having but one, unique, abnormal, abhorrent example? “Sins” may sufficiently classify and condemn other evil acts. But this? We want another, blacker, more terrible name with which to head its category. Difficulty oftener with “every.” “Common view … that Apostle … speaking in general form, that exact words not to be pressed (‘tales sententiœ morales non morose urgendœ,’ Beng.), there being some sins, e.g. intemperance, which can hardly be said to be completely without the body. The true force of what … already said … thus seriously weakened: there is no sin which is within the body in the frightful form in which fornication is. By it the whole body, inwardly as well as outwardly, is made over to another, and is utterly separated from Christ.… Intemperance and self-murder involve acts injuriously affecting the body, yet done … from without; but the sin of the fornicator … is, so to say, within the body, and using it as a direct agent and implement.… Fornication is a sin against the personality, in a form and to an extent far beyond that of any other sin of sensuality” (slightly condensed from Ellicott). Without the body.—“They require some motive or weapon other than the body. But this sin stands alone in making the human body, the chosen medium of Christ’s self-manifestation to the world, to be itself a sufficient motive and instrument of sin” (Beet). Observe not “without … within,” but “without … against”; as if others missed, though aimed at; this hits, the body. (So Evans.)
1Co_6:19.—This more than “Ye are (collectively) the Temple” (1Co_3:16).
1Co_6:20.—It is an over-subtle, over-pressing, use of idea of ransom to endeavour to fix precisely to whom price paid. Analogy of ransom only fits serviceably the two ideas,—bought by the new owner, to deliver from an old, to keep for himself, whose new service is (practically) liberty, and is (absolutely) deliverance from old bondage. 1Pe_1:19, “Precious blood, (even the blood) of Christ.” Note particularly the true reading here. Last words to be omitted.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—1Co_6:12-20
[Direct, public, homiletic use of whole paragraph plainly possible only under exceptional circumstances and within narrow limits. Particular clauses very available and fruitful. May suggest:]
I. A great principle (1Co_6:12). Its limitations.
II. A great sin (1Co_6:18; 1Co_6:15).
III. A great honour (1Co_6:17; 1Co_6:13-15; 1Co_6:19), of even the body.
IV. A great ransom (1Co_6:20).
V. A great obligation (1Co_6:20).
I. A. Christianity is liberty.—
1. From old Jewish law, as such; from external law, as the prime principle of action or guide of life. Not a religion of restrictions, external prescriptions; its “law” is the love of the renewed heart. If this were perfect—in proportion as this love advances to being “made perfect” (1Jn_4:17-18)—so far, and then, obedience is perfect. “Love God with all the heart,” “love neighbour as oneself”—these mean, worked out in detail, all piety, all benevolence, taught by the instinct of a renewed heart, needing therefore no command (Rom_13:8; Rom_13:10). Hence Augustine’s bold word, “Dilige, et quod vis fac.”
2. In practice, even the growing love still needs the guidance of external command; to guard from mistakes arising from ignorance, and from the half-enlightened instinct; to defend itself against the blinding and bias of indolence, indifference, self-interest, pressure of example or fear. The Jewish law embodied, in temporary forms and in particular instances, principles, permanent and perfectly general, still binding upon Christians; “under (even that) law to Christ” (1Co_9:21). The “heart runs in the way of the commandment.” Law and liberty, love and life, coincide.
3. Paul had probably said this; but it had been repeated as, “Do what you like.” True, as a theory of life, but not as working basis of action. “What you like” will be God’s law—not less nor more—when perfect love and perfect judgment are found, and in a perfect world. But so long as, in this complex social order, light is scanty, judgment imperfectly cleared, love only variable or feeble, “what you like” is the true centre indeed from which to strike the circle of Christian liberty, but the radius varies in length from age to age, country to country, person to person, and may widen or narrow the sphere of Christian liberty.
B. Three limitations formulated by Paul.—
1. Not expedient; (a) because tending to mastery; (b) because unedifying.
2. Distinctly sinful. (See Separate Homily.) “Expediency,” on Paul’s lips, is a solemnly weighed rule of life, limiting his liberty in even things indifferent; the world’s “expediency” extends liberty, even to things doubtful or wrong, depending as it does upon no higher considerations than of prudence and interest, or even profit. A Christian is lord of this world and its life. His lordship is part of another Lordship, that of Christ (Heb_2:5-10; Mar_2:28). “All things are His” (1Co_3:21). But all do not, or do not equally, help his true, eternal life; many things tend to establish a sway over his will, fatal to his freedom to serve his Lord; these it is “expedient” for him to let alone. “Some actions (e.g. the use of stimulants) tend to create in some persons an irresistible habit. Now whatever deprives us of self-control does us harm, and must therefore be avoided, even though in itself lawful” (Beet). Master of all things, he must first, and at all costs, be master of himself. Otherwise in the individual is repeated that bondage of the designed Master and Lord to that Nature and that World which were designed to serve him; a bondage from which The Man, Jesus, has recovered Man; that He may then recover the individual man, and reinstate him with Himself in Man’s rightful dominion. (The far-reaching teaching of Hebrews, ubi supra.) The Christian must be a co-worker with his Liberator, Christ, in seeing that no new, needless bondage is imposed by his own inadvertence, or by his ill-judged use of an abstract liberty.
II. A. Fornication not a thing indifferent.—[Best classical, heathen ethics put it perfectly on a level with the desire for, and indulgence in, food and drink. Physical purity was a thing hardly known outside the Jewish and Christian pale. They hardly regarded the body as part of the true man. Its acts and appetites seemed, in a sense, external to the man himself, and therefore indifferent.]
1. In the animals the three bodily appetites do stand upon same level; in them each is quite neutral, non-moral; needful to sustain, or to hand on, animal life. In man they do not occupy same level. [Jeremy Taylor points out thus one plain distinction: “If a man be hungry he must eat, and if he be thirsty he must drink in some convenient time, or else he dies; but if the body be rebellious, so the mind be chaste, let it do its worst, if you resolve perfectly not to satisfy it, you can receive no great evil by it.”]
2. We cannot state an equality of ratios thus: As “Belly” to “Meats” so is “Body” to “Fornication.” [Probably, so baldly stated as that, not even a Corinthian Christian would have defended the principle which seemed to underlie the arguments (? and the practice) of the Antinomian party.] Not even in the case of the “Belly” was the physical pleasure the design of its creation and co-adaptation to “Meats.” Certainly, in the parallel case, the body was not created for the pleasure.
3. Belly and Food have a mutual adaptation for the sake of the body’s support; yet they have only in view the support of a life which must end at the same time as they are “destroyed” together. So far as the body, in its formation and endowment with the third appetite, has reference to man’s life, it is to that whole complete life which has a capacity for God and Eternity. Food and the food organs co-operate to keep the mere physical and dying part of the man in temporary repair. Man and woman are co-workers with God in reproducing or handing on manhood in its entirety, with a future, eternal, destiny for the body as well as for the soul and spirit. “Belly” has no higher end than “meats.” The body is “for the Lord.” “Belly” and “Meats” perish together when their work is done; “God will raise (not body, but) us.” That is the end and future of the body. The cases are quite distinct. Again,
4. Fornication is paralleled by no other physical sin in its relation to the body. Beyond any other, it finds within the body itself what it makes the means of pleasure. The man makes his very self the instrument of his sin.
B. Further reasons arise out of the fact that this sin runs most utterly counter to III. (See also under 1Co_6:1).
III. A great honour, and that for even the body of man.—A. A most intimate oneness with Christ. “One spirit.”—
1. Compare with this the closest friendship based upon similarity of tastes, pursuits, interests, long association from childhood; however closely these may approximate two hearts and lives, yet there are diversities, which may widen into divergencies and divisions. Change on either side—if even only as the result of individual growth, which cannot be enforced to a pattern, and made to proceed in duplicate—may make a very choice, close, intimate association “drop through.” Much more may a wrongly spoken or wrongly understood word, break it up.
2. Compare the bond set up by blood-relationship, as between sisters, or sisters and brothers in same family, with many sympathies in common, and all the bond of “clannishness” to hold them together, and even to make external attack draw the bond only tighter. Yet a brother may become a stranger; there are friends that “stick closer” than brethren. [Pro_18:24 is a general observation on human life; though fairly to be applied, as the highest exemplification, to Christ.] The bond between Christian and Christian is often stronger than between a man and his (non-Christian) kith-and-kin; the common understanding of each other’s aims and feelings and experiences is deeper and truer than that which natural kinship gives; Christian affinity is often more than brotherly, sisterly affinity.
3. Nearest to it approaches—and that for a very real and profound reason—the union between a Christian husband and wife, where to all the natural basis of an ideal marriage there is added the common sharing in the life of grace. (See chap. 7, passim.)
4. Yet in these there is association, approximation, assimilation, union, communion—no more. In this other there is unity. In those there is individual life, with its self-contained independence, its possibilities of divergence, its peril of developing antagonism. “The soul of Jonathan was knit to soul of David” (1Sa_18:1) comes very near. Yet each heart even then has its penetralia, its Holy of Holies, of privacy, into which no most trusted and beloved foot must intrude, or can be admitted.
5. Here is unity, almost identification. “I live no longer; Christ liveth in me.” As if in the believer the man came into contact and relation with an “extension” of his Lord. Not only two parallel lives, however perfectly conformed to each other, echoing, reflecting, each other—as in the ordinary human unions; but one life. Because of one life principle. [One βίος because of one ζωή.] [Dare we illustrate by seal and impression (Heb_1:3), resting on a deeper oneness—the unity of the Godhead? Distinction, with likeness and oneness. Note, “As the Father hath loved me, so (= thus, in that way), have I loved you” (Joh_15:9).] As if, in a body, intelligence and affection were distributed as life is, so that, e.g., the hand or foot could know each other, or either could know and understand the head, as the head knows and understands them. Not only a similar, or the same, kind of life, but one and the Same life, distributes itself throughout both and all. [Not be overpressed: these are all serviceable analogies, no more; to be criticised and checked each one by the others. No Mystic extreme of a literal merging of the believer and his life into Christ and His life till the man is lost. The individuality, the personality, the Ego, remains unimpaired. “I am I, and He is He; even when I become one spirit with Him.”]
6. To be remembered that the unity rests upon, and is effected and maintained by, the Work and Indwelling of the Holy Ghost (1Co_6:19, and Separate Homily). See how interchangeably—though not without a reason for, and a propriety in, each chosen expression—are employed the phrases, “The Spirit of God dwells in you,” and “Christ be in you” (Rom_8:9-10); the Spirit dwelling in a man, and yet so the Spirit of Christ, that He becomes the “common element” of life between the believer and his Lord.
7. And thus, further, the Unity was set up in the moment of our faith in (“into”) Christ, and is maintained so long, and only so long, as nothing impairs or hinders, or negatives and interrupts, a continuous believing.
8. What suggestions in all these, avowedly imperfect, and soon misleading, analogies! They help us to climb to a height from which we see rather than reach possibilities that stretch away in length, breadth, depth, height,—a Canaan of blessing spread out before our eyes in fair extent, and One by us—no tempter—saying, “All may be thine, soul!” They guide, not actually leading very far, but sufficiently far to show us the direction in which our thought and heart may prayerfully, hopefully, believingly, venture to go forward and explore. “Partakers of the Divine nature” (2Pe_1:4) opens a wonderful vista before the eyes.
9. What a profound understanding of Christ is suggested. “We have the mind of Christ” (1Co_2:16; where mind is not “characteristics,” or “the mind which was in Christ,” but a knowledge of His “mind”). Love is a good master-key, unlocking one mind to the entrance of another into its movements and workings. “He who loves me understands me.” (Conversely: “He will never understand or know me; he does not like me.”) But to be partaker of His life! Sharing, as well as understanding, His sympathies [e.g. how Paul “longs after” his people “in the bowels of Christ” (Php_1:8)]; making plans, and yet these not a man’s own, but Christ’s in him [Paul lays his plans “in Christ,” cf. 2Co_1:17]. [Paul “speaks in Christ” repeatedly, as if his were no independent voice.]
10. What a conformity of thought and will and practice to those of Christ Himself is suggested. [“Grow up into Him in all things” (Eph_4:15, etc.).] Beginning with inward likeness, the outward expression of my life and His will more and more coincide. The two wills both there [as against Mysticism], but the free-will of man using its freedom to choose to choose what He chooses, and working in coincident movement with His will.
B. In all this the body has its part.—The inner union carries the body with it.
1. It has now an object and a destiny; it is not a mere separable accident of the man. It belongs to Christ; it lives “for the Lord.” The Lord does not disdain it; He once made it the vehicle of His self-manifestation. He died “for the body” which He once deigned to wear, in that He died for the whole man; and when the man is raised, His body will not be forgotten. As when God “raised up by His own power” the whole humanity of the Incarnate Redeemer, so will He raise up the whole of our redeemed humanity too. In human thought the body had been the slave, the outcast, the Pariah-part, of man’s complex nature. Now it was elevated and set by the side of its companions, soul and spirit, with an outlook and a hope.
2. If, in any sense, believers are so “one spirit” with Christ that they can be said to be “extensions of Him,” “part of His enlarged Self,” then the body’s “members are His”; He appropriates them for His own.
3. This more definitely, because, not only is the Church, in its totality and aggregate, a Temple within whose precincts dwells the Spirit of God, but also the very body of the individual believer has its own special, peculiar indwelling, and is a veritable shrine of the Spirit upon earth. (See Separate Homily.)
IV. A great ransom price.—A. A true and beautiful distinction may be drawn between redemption by price and by power: here by price. Not the redemption of (say) Lot and his fellow-captives by victorious Abraham, but the ransom of a slave by the payment of the price fixed by his owner. Measure the greatness by:—
1. “Blood.”—The last, greatest, most sacred thing a man can give for his fellow-man (Joh_15:13; 1Jn_3:16). “The fountain of life; the first to live, and the last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body” (Harvey, in Speaker’s Commentary). Shedding the blood is the most solemn method of self-surrender of life.
2. “Blood of Christ.”—“Of Christ!” Do men hear that? “Of Christ!” “Silver and gold?” Not to be put into comparison. The very blood of the old sacrifices only serves by comparison to bring out this as more gloriously excellent (Heb_9:12-13). When it became a question of redeeming man, it must be by the blood-shedding of none other, none less, than Christ!
3. The great deliverance it has wrought.—Said the Roman, “With a great sum obtained I this freedom.” So such a liberty as ours, liberty, that we might have conferred on us the citizenship (Php_3:20 true reading)—could be purchased at no cheaper rate. Perfect, “eternal redemption” (Heb_9:12). Liberty, and power, to be holy.
4. God’s noblest creature has been redeemed by it.—“What will a man give in exchange for his—a man’s—soul?” God gave this price in exchange for each soul.
B.
1. It has redeemed from curse, bondage, death, into blessing and privilege, viz. liberty, peace, life. Fundamentally it is the price of release from Sin as a condemnation and as a power. Satan and death are real, but subordinate, accidental, representatives of the power of evil; evil might have had its dominion in a world where were no Satan and no death.
2. Complementary truth to the release, whether from penalty or power, is the buying for the Redeemer’s purposes and use and glory.
3. Also, by payment of price, debt cancelled, bond cancelled, liability and fear gone. [Illustrate to children by Gregory and slave-boys in the market at Rome. Buying them from the slave-dealer, by putting down so much money. Yet buying for his own purpose. They are not free, but are his slaves now; to be set free by him, indeed, so that they might study, and serve, under Gregory, from love and gratitude, and that they might in turn go to Angle-land to preach to their fellow-countrymen the Gospel and its greater ransom and deliverance.] All this brings:
V. A great obligation. [Notice the true reading, 1Co_6:20.] The Religion of the Body.—
1. Non-Christian view of body branches into
(1) asceticism, or
(2) licentiousness. Suicide was Stoicism confessing itself defeated, confessing that it could not change man, or the world; nothing for it but to get out of it “nobly.” So Asceticism is Christianity confessing itself defeated, and thinking only of self-preservation. [“Are suicides intense egotists?” (Paxton Hood). Disavowing, or in their self-absorption forgetting, that others have claims upon their life and service. Are asceticism, monasticism, simply egotism thinking chiefly of saving itself?] At least this has been the practical issue of the monastic life, though this began in a nobler ideal, and with a fair justification of celibacy in the special circumstances of the time. [Was good even for civil society that there should not be a powerful, hereditary, sacred caste.] Asceticism proclaims that one whole province of human life, one whole side of human nature, can be done nothing with except (like slaves shut down beneath deck of a slave-ship, or like the Devil in Rev_20:3) to suppress it, keep it under hatches, under lock and key and chained up. [Licentiousness is an acknowledged defeat in another way. Religion, and even temporal motives, cannot control the physical; it must be left to do its will; even the nobler part of man must submit to its imperious demands.] Christianity assumes, and shows, that there is no part of man’s redeemed nature which ought not to, and cannot be made to, “glorify” its Redeemer. It is the one, only religion which has ever taken full account of the body, and laid it under contribution to accomplish any holy end. [In heathenism, ancient and modern, only too common for devotees to “present their bodies a living sacrifice”; which indeed—remembering how sins of the body had played large part in the lives of Roman converts—gives the form to that exhortation (Rom_12:1).] Sensual, impure sin is really heathen, even when decked out with all the beauty that culture and poetry can lay upon it. It gives the lie to one of the profoundest ideas of God in creation. The merely physical unions of the sexes in plants and animals are the beginning of the disclosure of a thought of God, which passes on through the physical side of marriage, and through the mating of two perfectly suited partners (above all, if these be both Christians), up to the final, full exhibition of it,—the union between Christ and His Church. Sins of impurity empty this grand idea of its contents, till nothing but an appetite and its gratification remains; a reversion to the crude, elementary beginnings of God’s order in creation. Christianity with firm, yet kind, hand traces out limits of lawful exercise of appetites, denying anything beyond, “for our good alway” (Deu_6:24, a far-reaching truth).
2. Glorify Him by keeping the body in health for His service. Noble service is done by invalids and sick persons. But the bulk of work of Christ must be done by those who are in health. Other things being equal, the best body makes the best worker.
(1) Cleanliness is therefore part of godliness. It is Christian duty to give body, brain, eye, hands, etc., sufficient sleep to make it morning by morning at its best for Christ’s service. Holidays find their chiefest benefit, and honour, when they send a “run-down” Christian back to office, or shop, or church, with physical powers reinvigorated by rest and change. It is more than folly not to take sufficient, regular meals of good food, even under pressure of the “claims” of God’s work. Some spiritual phenomena, visions, trances, or the like, have sometimes found basis and explanation in a mistaken, overdone fasting.
(2) Every habit or indulgence which exhausts the bodily powers, or destroys their health, is sin against Christ’s lordship of the body. Too much pleasure, in any form which leaves body or brain unfit for prayer or thought, or even for that honest work of the daily calling which is really a most important sphere for glorifying Christ, is condemned. There are “sports that kill” the sportsmen soul and body. All intemperance or excess in gratifying any physical desire, eating, drinking, is condemned. There are prudential reasons against such pleasures or sins; such reasons are God’s danger-signals at the entrance of “roads to ruin.” But only two reasons have very much practical force against passion: to the ungodly, hell-fire; to the godly, the love of God and the twin truths, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,” and this—“The body for the Lord (Christ).”
3. Even the dress of a Christian will find a regulating principle here. The body needs covering for comfort and decency. The instinct of taste is implanted, and may have its rightful gratification. No Christian man or woman is required to dress in an ugly, or ridiculous, or eccentric fashion. One supreme question—having taken account of station, means, proportion of expenditure upon dress, claims of Christ’s poor and Christ’s work—settles everything: “Do I—I—not somebody else dressing as I do—glorify God in my body?” [Early Christian women very noteworthy in this respect.]
4. As said above, the consecrated service of the body to the glory of Christ may be wrought out—may be asked for by Him—in its sickness and weakness rather than its health and vigour. The man may not only be employed for Christ; he may also be laid aside for Christ. It may glorify Christ that he should be a concrete example of the patience, peace, resignation, triumph, which grace can work in ordinary human nature. The testimony of sickness is sometimes a powerful argument and appeal. [Faith-healing exaggerates a true principle, of particular application, into an entirely general rule; teaching that Christ is as certainly, and to as full extent, the present Saviour of the body as of the soul; that it dishonours Him for a believer to lie under the burden of sickness as really as to lie under the burden of sin; that faith in Him would now and in all cases remove both.] [We dare hardly censure those holy spendthrifts of the powers of the body which belongs to Christ, who “kill themselves” by excessive labours, and, still oftener, by taking no proper care of their general health, or of the body when exhausted after labour; who “kill themselves” because they cannot stand and see men unsaved, or work undone. Yet, for most servants of God, more moderate labour, making the body last longer for Christ, is better consecration of the body.]
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1Co_6:12. Christian Expediency.—[Combine also for study of this text chaps. 8, 10, and Romans 14.]
I. A Christian man’s rule in regard to “things indifferent.” “All things are lawful to me” seems strong; it had been made to carry a stronger and broader meaning than Paul intended. Verbally, he is correctly reported; actually, he is misrepresented. Three specimen cases of what he had in mind found here:
1. The observance of “days” by Christian converts—the fasts and festivals of the law of Moses.
2. Circumcision.
3. Eating of flesh, especially such as had been offered to an idol. Intrinsically “indifferent” all these. No natural mark of distinction upon any “day.” Flesh-meat or vegetables equally “creatures of God, nothing to be refused” (1Ti_4:4). An “idol nothing in the world” (1Co_8:4), and never made any real difference to any healthy food. God had been pleased for a time to make some days “holy”; to have disregarded them would have been sin; but the Jewish system was now done away in Christ, and the old schedule of fasts and festivals with it. Circumcision had become a mere piece of surgery. “All such things are lawful to me; I may do or forbear according to circumstances and expediency.” Evident that before expediency can settle a point of conduct for a Christian, it must be quite clear that essential wrong and right are not involved. The business practice, the amusement, the pleasure, must be morally indifferent, before a Christian can permit himself to conform to it. He will remember, too, how much keener his sense of sin should be, how much higher, and stricter, his standard. Not only nothing that violates the letter, but nothing that touches the spirit, of the moral law, is “lawful,” or “indifferent,” to him. There is, then, no question of “expediency.”
As to really “indifferent” things, Paul gives four cases of “inexpedient” things.
II. (Chap. 8) Paul could with a clear conscience eat any wholesome food; ceremonially “clean” or “unclean” “offered to an idol” or not. The kind of food he ate did not affect his standing before God (1Co_6:8). Many Jewish converts could not so rapidly unlearn the teaching of years, or get rid of the habit [reading as, e.g., R.V.] of thinking of some things as “unclean,” and so not allowable to eat. Many Gentile converts could not get rid of old ideas and associations, but still ate “with conscience of the idol” [displaced reading of, e.g., A.V.; true in fact]. Idol to them not nothing, but a “devil” (1Co_10:20-21; a “demon” to Paul also). The unreasoning, needlessly tender, habit of their mind made them attach some importance to it. Moreover, public heathen banquets were so full of sin and sinful associations, that to join in them was likely to be ensnaring (1Co_6:12, “Not be mastered by any”), and a source of weakness. “Call it prejudice, if you will” (Rom_14:14 sqq.), “he is a weak brother. But if he cannot do these things with a clear conscience, or without danger to himself, he may not do them at all. Doubteth … is condemned. Not of faith … sin.” Conscience, even half enlightened, must be respected and obeyed. Let a man seek for light; but until he gain more, let him follow conscience with the light it has. (Better a faithful judge, doing his best with an imperfect law, than a more perfect law with a less faithful judge. Help conscience, train it, to be faithful, by obeying it, whilst it acts up to all light it has.) Principle touching (notably) amusements. Whole territory of our life ought to be wholly subject to God. In point of fact, Sin and Satan have entered, and in the pleasures of life notoriously been enthroned, and around their seat is a wide area of occupations manifestly belonging to the territory of evil. A group of pleasures still left manifestly good. Between lies a debatable ground of things indifferent, to be apportioned by “Christian expediency.” The boundary of evil tends to widen. “Expedient” readily becomes “inexpedient”; seldom or never the reverse. Christian men must have relaxations. They may only have such as abide these first tests: “Can I take them with a clear conscience? Can I take them without being mastered by them?” Training may have been (like Jewish) in a “narrow” school. Or (as with Gentiles) associations of the things may be full of sins of past life, and they seem sinful to me, or are really snares. These at any rate not “expedient,” probably not “lawful.” A young convert just rescued from the maelstrom of wordliness must say: “A thing doubtful to my conscience or dangerous to my soul is not a thing lawful for me.”
III. The weaker brother may still further narrow the range of my liberty (Rom_14:1 sqq.). I am not to harass him with stronger views, on these “doubtful disputations,” when he first enters the Church. The clever pupils in the school of Christ must not force such a man on too fast in his learning. Be tender of his conscience; try to enlighten it, and so establish his principles; help him to strength of Christian character. But to force him to build himself up in knowledge before the foundation is settled, is to “edify” him to his ruin (1Co_6:19; 1Co_6:15). May not with sneer, or contempt, taunt him about “weakness,” old “prejudices,” or the like. Granted that his is not the highest type of Christian manhood, neither teaching nor practice of stronger ones must urge trifling with his conscience. “Destroy not with thy meat” etc.; “If meat make … stumble, I will eat no meat,” etc. (Or, again, chap. 1Co_8:8 sqq.). “To see you eat meat from the idolaltar will make him bold to swallow down his scruples and violate conscience by sitting down to eat with you? Your greater strength of principle or greater knowledge will make him harden his conscience to do what he cannot yet see clearly right, and what also exposes him to the temptations of his old life, perhaps leading him into greater sin than before? Then “walk in love,” abstain. It is no longer indifferent, or “expedient” for you. I.e. If associations or real danger make these things matters of danger to a “weaker” Christian, they may so become matters of conscience to the “stronger” also.
1. Can hardly determine by general rule how far such association with “weaker” ones is to be regarded as extending. Older Christian and newly converted friend; Sunday-school teacher and class; father and children—is that all? Or (as, e.g., total abstainer in England or America thinks) when the “brotherhood” is that of the same nationality or social system, or wide as manhood.
2. Nothing intrinsically wrong in the dramatic way of telling a story, or in setting horses to race against each other. But such an accretion of vice and villainy gather around the theatre and the turf, that for sake of others (if not for his own sake) a Christian gives up any participation in them. He can stop at any point on the inclined plane, can walk on very verge of danger. If weaker ones follow him, they cannot. He is then in part responsible for their ruin. “Bondage to weakness!” No; but to Christlike love for souls. We shall do anything, abstain from anything, rather than by going the full length of the tether of our own liberty, even contribute to ruin one soul for whom Christ died.
IV. (1Co_10:25 sqq.) Feast going on. Strong brother eating quietly whatever set before him, “asking no questions for conscience’ sake,” but thanking the bountiful God for His good gifts (1Co_10:30). To see what he will say or do, a weaker Christian, or a heathen guest, says: “That … offered to an idol.” In a moment it acquires new character. If it is to cause difficulty to the conscience of the Christian guest (1Co_10:29), or the heathen makes it a test of his Christianity, then let him put that dish aside. I.e. If a thing has become a test as between religion and the world, and will be so regarded by servants, children, neighbours, then it is no longer lawful, or at least no longer expedient. May be unreasonably so regarded, but cannot afford to dispute. World will have rough-and-ready tests. Its instinct as to what is “worldly” is as a rule very true. Many Christians will abstain altogether for this reason (or for others) from cards or ballroom, who will still play at billiards. Or they distinguish between billiards and bagatelle, or between playing where all are Christians in a private house, and before a mixed company in public. One all-embracing rule: “Do all to the glory of God” (1Co_10:31).
V. Circumcision. (See Critical Notes, and Homily on 1Co_7:19.)—Jewish controversialists gave a revived, accidental importance to circumcision, which made it still “not” even “lawful” to Paul (Gal_6:14 sqq.). Modern parallelism in Ritualism. In itself matters nothing, except to taste and cost and convenience, what architecture or music shall be associated with Christian worship. “Vestments” mere matter of interesting archæology. Might smile at the fancy for wearing or using a Roman gallows, and the instrument of sore pain to our Redeemer. But when all these things are made to mean doctrine, then, to those whom the doctrine is not true, and even seems to dishonour the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, these things become “not expedient,” or even “not lawful.”—H. J. F., “Wesleyan Magazine,” 1878 (abridged).
1Co_6:12. Worldly Expediency. (To Young Men.)—
1. Days of expediency rather than of principle; in politics, in business; even in Church, the question mooted: “How much of new teaching is it expedient to give as yet to the popular ear?” Need not exaggerate danger, as if of these times only. Expediency always gains strength as God is less completely or vividly realised. [Cf. Heb_11:27, “Endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” “So did not I, because of fear of God” (Neh_5:15). “Set, Lord, always before me … not be moved” (Psa_16:8).]
2. Expediency may never be a rule of Christian action in case of intrinsic, absolute right or wrong; and in cases of relative, accidental wrong or right will always operate in direction of narrowing area of “right,” and adding to area of “wrong.” Of things lawful, some, to Christians, not expedient; never true that, of things not lawful, some are expedient. Matthew Henry suggests (commenting on Daniel 3) several “expediency” pleas often addressed to young men. World tempts, asks, would compel, to fall down to its fashions and ways of thinking and practice; gives “reasons”:—
I. “Do not ask you to renounce your own God; only ask a recognition of that of Nebuchadnezzar also. Do not be narrow; think and let think. All truth is ‘relative.’ Be charitable, tolerant, broad. Perhaps idolatry is not after all merely the crude worship of the thing seen; originally, and was to nobler minds, only the use of this to assist to realise the unseen behind, or within it. Some truth in all religions, you know; even in all Christian heresies.” Christianity is intolerant; truth is intolerant of error; such love for Christ as Paul’s (1Co_16:22), or John’s (2Jn_1:10), is intolerant of doctrine, or practice, or persons, that “deny” Him. The Samaritans “feared the Lord, and served their own gods” (2Ki_17:33). Alexander Severus proposed to put statue of Jesus Christ in his private Pantheon, amongst the other greatest and wisest of the race. Christian heart will have no such compromise. World really intolerant. “Think yourselves right; but must not condemn us as wrong. Tolerate us; we cannot tolerate that you should not see it right to tolerate us.”
II. “Only this once”; just the one prostration. Young Christian girl, or wife, “will comply this once,” to win her husband by her outstanding fidelity afterwards. Young Christian man of business “in tight place”; just for this time tempted to do the doubtful (but not obviously wrong) thing; and then no more “tight places,” all plain, sure, right doing and easy, afterwards. But the “once” gives up the principle. No reason for doing once which will not sanction doing habitually. Do it once, and then how the very world that tempted triumphs! “Did you not see Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, bow down?”
III. “Absolute power of king would excuse them.” They really only his subjects. Besides, what a benefactor he had been to them! Very hard when sense of obligation seems to plead against duty. “Surely you will strain a point for So-and-so’s sake. Remember your many obligations to him. Think how you will grieve him. Think how you will condemn him by your action.” Very hard this last to a sensitive, diffident, modest spirit. Hard to seem to set up oneself as right, to the implied condemnation of older, wiser, and not less admirable people. Yet nobody can answer for another in matter of conscience. “Every man … his own burden” (Gal_6:5).
IV. “At Rome do as Rome does.” At Babylon, as Babylon. Ungentle-manly to be singular. Carry this far enough, and you will reach: “Amongst devils do as devils do” (Beecher).
V. “Have not your forefathers, and the very priests, complied with idolatrous times and monarchs? Are you so much wiser than your fathers?” Very forcible, to those not too confident in their own judgment.
VI. “By one act you may save your lives and be of immense service to brethren and against idolatry in future. Did not Knox and others flee to Geneva until storm was over? He who fights and runs away,” etc. Let God take care of the consequences: we must do right. Let Him see to His work and His people. If we perish in the flames, He can do without us. No man is “indispensable” to God. “But we want such as you in the world; reasonable Christians, no fanatics. What good can you do if you make the world cut you, or drop you, from its acquaintance? Very beautiful ideal of yours, no doubt! B-u-t, you know—” No! Second Commandment forbids it. Not lawful; cannot be expedient.
[In matter of sensual sin, the only effectual barrier against the rush of the tide of passion is the command of God and its sanction hell-fire. No other motives are strong enough in the moment of the inrush of appetite. The animalism of it, the wrong done to the other party, the moral degradation and the physical consequences of excess and irregularity—none is strong enough to hold back. All are like Samson’s bonds, when the spirit (in this case evil) enters in. (Or, better, like the chains and fetters snapped by the demoniac.) The moment the religious sanction is relaxed, the gate is open to all excess of riot. Expediency, reason, conventionalities of life, reputation—all are too easily overborne. But the waves of passion beat vainly against the breakwater of God’s law and its utmost sanction. At least, if that do not resist, nothing will.]
1Co_6:19. “Temples of God.”—The Spirit is in the Church (1Co_3:16-17). He is in the individual Christian too. All Christians together, with their Lord, form the true temple of our spiritual dispensation. But each Christian is a temple too. [Both combined in 1Pe_2:5. Every stone is alive; the temple is a living temple too. That figure, however, cannot bear the weight of the truth; hardly a possible conception—a living building, built of living stones; other figures must help it, e.g. in a body, every member, part, particle, is instinct with the life of the whole. In a vine every branch is (botanically) a complete little vine; less accurately we say that every member in the Body has a life complete in himself, lived by himself. Every “stone” of the Temple is a temple, with its Divine Tenant. True, “Ye are the temple.” True also, “Your body is the temple.”
I. Appreciate the assertion.—
1. “Whither … go from Thy Spirit?” If Divine, then omnipresent, and as really without as within the body; and conversely, however little we understand it, as perfectly within it as around it. But, for the sake of the worshipper, the temple localises the god. Aphrodite was everywhere, but a Corinthian sought her in her temple. Jehovah was everywhere, but the Shekinahcloud over the mercy-seat, for the sake of the worshipper localised, emphasised, His presence within that sacred enclosure. [All words on this topic halt sadly. But the wise man uses them as unhesitatingly as the humblest reader of the Book which teaches him to employ them: with this difference—he knows how imperfectly they exhibit the truth. Figurative language is not necessarily misleading. So] if the figure here be not wholly a falsehood, we are to think of a localised, emphasised, specialised manifestation of the presence of the Spirit within a Christian man’s bodily frame. We do not know how. Nor do we know how or where our own spirit dwells within it. The mystery is not greater in the one case than in the other. Both full of mystery, but both may be, for all that, facts.
2. May illustrate this fact by another; men were once possessed by a demon, or even by seven; in one case a legion of such had taken up their abode within the man. [The facts of demoniacal possession never to be criticised as mere isolated phenomena. They give, and they get, probability if they are found to be part of a harmonious system of spiritual facts, and to have analogies and relations to others. An undesigned, piecemeal self-consistency gives argument for a system, and credibility to its several parts.] I.e. within the one human frame dwelt two or many spirits—two or many persons—the man himself and the demon himself, side by side in mysterious joint occupancy. Jesus constantly distinguished between the spirit and the man: “Come out of the man, thou … spirit!” The demon sat within, enthroned within the debased form, lording it over the manhood of his victim, leaving him a man no longer, stripped as he was of self-control and freedom of will. At the very centre and “core” of the man’s being, the evil spirit had entrenched himself, thence directing the life, and controlling the very acts and speech. Indeed, more than once the man was so completely overborne that, though the man’s organs of speech are employed, it is the demon who uses them to converse with Christ. [E.g. the “Legion”: “We are many.”] The man seems lost. Will, thought, body—all are become scarcely more than the instruments of the evil spirit within. The possessed man’s body is a temple in which the demon is the god. Putting “good” for “evil,” all this closely parallels the “possession” of believers’ bodies by the indwelling Spirit of God. The ordinary temptations of the Evil One come from “without” (so to speak). The Good Spirit also works upon the unsaved man “from without” (in the same sense). On the believer—as in the analogous “evil” case—He works “from within.”
3. Compare the asserted fact with another. Jesus “spake of the temple of His body.” But our Brother is not our brother in this. His frame “had no” special “form or comeliness” beyond that of many of those amongst whom He moved; yet God dwelt within it. But God dwells not in Christians as in Christ. Indwelling in them; Incarnation in Him. Within His body were two natures—the human, the Divine; within the possessed man also were two—the human, the demoniacal; within us—if the words here do not entirely mislead—are the human, and the Divine also. But within us and within the possessed, are two persons. In the Saviour only the one—the God Man. He was the Son. The believer is a man, but “possessed by” the Spirit. [Imperfect, and of necessity inexact, language; readily obvious to criticism, but useful as marking distinctions, which have their basis in differences of fact.]
4. A blessed “possession.” Within the man is an “inward man”; yet more intimately within is the Spirit of God. At the root and source of thought and judgment, making them “spiritual.” At the fount and origin of will, at the very seat of government of manhood, site enthroned the directing Spirit. At the source of affection He has His seat, making every throb and vibration to have its centre and origin with Himself. Holy impulses and desires; holy love for God and for men; strength for good, power over evil; judgment illuminated and brought into agreement with the mind of God; conscience sensitive and voiceful, speaking the mind and verdict of God; will brought into ever more complete and glad submission to, and harmony with, the will of God,—all because the Spirit of God has taken possession of the temple of the body in the name of the Three-One.
5. “Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?” cried Solomon, offering his superb Temple to be God’s palace in His capital, Jerusalem (2Co_6:18). Here is an answer Solomon could not anticipate. “With man?” “In man!” “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” Paul on Mars’ Hill, the Acropolis of Athens with its temples in near sight, cried, “God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” True, but in temples made by His own hands, the wonderful human body He has builded and compacted together, He consents, delights, to dwell.
II. Three results from this.—
1. This indwelling is the test of our being Christians.—“Examine yourselves” (2Co_13:5). “Christ is in you except … reprobates.” [“Reprobate” is not, rejected without testing, but rejected after testing. “Approbate” metal will stand test, and gets hallmarked; “reprobate” metal will not. The hall-mark of approbate souls is “Christ in you.”] In the unity of the Undivided Trinity this practically is “Holy Ghost dwells in me.” Not an exceptionally strict test; Paul’s ordinary one. [Perfectly general, Rom_8:9.] “If a man love Me … abode with Him” (Joh_14:23). This indwelling in the temple is the life in the Vine. “Christ liveth in me.” “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” By that test he learned the exact position of the little group of anomalous Ephesian disciples (Act_19:1-7). Will a man know? When “the Spirit of a Son”—“of His Son”—first enters and tells him that he is now a son, who has believed in Christ (Gal_4:6), will the entrance of God bring no self-evidence? Did the man know of the entering of the demon into his temple? God took possession of Solomon’s Temple in a cloud of blinding glory, before which even the priests had to retire. If God accept the temple of a man’s heart and being and body, it may not always be with the same overwhelming glory—though it often has been—but it will hardly be unknown and unknowable.
2. The honour of the body (as above).
3. Sin grows in gravity. Enter a temple. Divinity there high-throned; altar not without offerings; but spiders weave festoons of web from pillar to pillar; walls are hanging with thick mildew and mould; every corner holds accumulated dust and filth; rubbish heaps gather outside against the walls. A loaded altar does not atone for such dishonour to the god. So in the human temple, what dishonour is done by the woven web of worldliness, by thick fungoid growths of sloth everywhere, by envy, pride, uncleanness of imagination, accumulating undisturbed in many a dark corner! Happy if outside, in open day, there do not gather even Corinthian sins! “Him that defileth temple of God”—the personal as the collective—“shall God defile.” Dishonour the glorious Tenant; the tenement may be left to ruin and dishonour. How many things this principle makes unlawful to a Christian! Like the altars and saints in Romanist side-chapels, diverting from the Christ upon the highaltar, so do many things divide and divert from the supreme honour due to the Spirit of God.
1Co_6:19-20. The Christian’s Obligation to a Holy Life.—Three facts in context deserve attention:
1. Sinners of every class are excluded from heaven;
2. Sinners of every class have been changed;
3. Those changed are under immense obligations to a holy life. Text contains three facts:—
I. Christian’s body the temple of God.—Three ideas suggested:
1. Special connection with God. As with Temple of old, as with a good man (“Thus saith high and lofty One,” etc., Isa_57:15).
2. Special consecration to God. Body dedicated to God, with all its powers and functions.
3. Special manifestation of God. In good man’s body God specially displayed; more of God seen in good man’s life than elsewhere throughout the world.
II. Christian’s being the property of God.—“Not your own.” Does not mean—
1. Your personality not your own. You will never be absorbed in God.
2. Your character not your own. Character the creation of moral being, an untransferable thing. It does mean our existence absolutely at His command. He has a sovereign right to do with us whatever is pleasing in His sight. Christ has laid on us the strongest conceivable obligation to a holy life (Rev_14:5).
III. Christian’s duty to glorify God.—
1. What is that? To make Him more glorious than He is, impossible. To fulfil the end of our being. A holy mind is glorified in realisation of its ideals. [Sir C. Wren is glorified in the realisation of his idea.] God glorified in man when man realises in his life God’s ideal of a man.
2. Will include two things—(a) That the human body be under absolute government of soul. The crime and curse of humanity, that matter governs mind, body rules soul. (b) That the human soul be under the government of supreme love to God. Love
(1) always seeks to please the object;
(2) always reflects the object;
(3) always lives in the object.—“Homilist,” New Series, iii. 370 (condensed). (See Appended Note also, following below.)
APPENDED NOTES
1Co_6:17; 1Co_6:19. “Temple” religion.—Paul never forgets the ancient Temple. His words [viz. Rom_1:1] give us a glimpse, and a most beautiful one, into the secret sanctuary of the Apostle’s devotion. He does not, indeed, say, “in the temple of my spirit,” but we may say it for him, and then appropriate it to ourselves. The regenerate soul is regenerate because inhabited by God, the Triune God, through the Holy Ghost. Where He dwells must be a temple; and all the glorious things spoken of the ancient dwelling-place of Jehovah may be transferred to the spirit of the regenerate believer in Christ. The Lord has entered, and with the peaceful majesty of His grace has said to the former usurper, “Go out of him, and enter no more into him!” Concerning all that pertained to the former unholy service—for the heart was still a temple, even in its defilement—he cries, “Take these things hence!” But it is the spirit of the new worshipper himself that hears the command, who is both temple and priest; rather the Christian man, spirit and body, for our whole nature is the temple of the Holy Ghost. There is no more impressive view of personal religion than that contained in the injunction, “Sanctify the Lord—the Lord Christ—in your hearts!” It means that the great concern of our life must be to preserve our spirit inviolate for the Sacred Indweller, to suffer no abomination of desolation to enter the holy place; to take the Saviour’s whip of small cords from His hand, as it were, and use it effectually in cleansing for Him His temple. Nor is there any more terrible threatening than that which says, “If any man shall defile the temple of God”—that is, by any impurity of thought or act pollute the body, which is the framework of the Divine sanctuary, or by any filthiness of spirit desecrate it—“him shall God destroy.” The Apostle lived in the flesh of his bodily life as in a temple; “an earthly house,” indeed, which should be dissolved, but then be built again. He lived in his spirit, however, as in a temple which should never be dissolved, and from which his God should never for a moment depart. And he lived in hope of a better day and a more glorious service, when spirit and body should be reunited and glorified as the eternal dwelling-place of God in Christ.… Your body is part of that temple; let every act and office of your physical nature be offered in your priestly ministration.… You shall become a man in God as well as a man of God; a man in Christ as well as a servant of Christ. Joined to Him you will be one Spirit with Him, and your advance to perfection will be rapid and sure.—Dr. Pope, “Sermons,” pp. 181, 183.
1Co_6:19. The Sacredness of the Body.—About forty-five years ago, a funeral was passing through the streets of Carlisle, Penn. It was the burial procession of John Hall Mason, the son of the eminent Dr. Mason, President of Dickinson College, one of the most powerful and eloquent preachers in America. The son was distinguished for his piety and talents, and his death had cast a gloom over many hearts. Many gathered to the funeral, from far and near, and especially young men. After the services at the house had been performed, and the pall-bearers had taken up the bier, a great concourse obstructed the entrance, and great confusion and noise ensued. The bereaved Doctor, observing the difficulty, and following closely the pallbearers, exclaimed in solemn, sepulchral tones: “Tread lightly, young men! tread lightly! You bear the temple of the Holy Ghost.” These sentiments, as though indited by the Holy Spirit, acted like an electric shock: the crowd fell back and made the passageway clear. Through the influence of these words a most powerful revival of religion sprang up and swept through the college, and extended over the town.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 12. “All things are lawful, but all things are…
12. “All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable; all things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any one.” Here he makes an allusion to his privileges as an apostle, to exercise authority on lines purely optionary and where it is his privilege to decline; e. g., temporal support was his right and privilege, yet he did not claim it lest the enemies of the cause should make capital of it. And in availing himself of that, as well as other privileges, he might embargo his glorious and perfect spiritual liberty. If the preachers were as independent as Paul, they would soon bring in the Millennium. How few can say, “I will not be brought under the power of any person or thing. I am God’s redeemed child, free as Gabriel!” God help the preachers! They are afraid of one another, afraid of their members, afraid of the members of other churches, afraid of the world, afraid of their reputation, afraid of the Holiness people, afraid of the evangelists, afraid of poverty, et cetera.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain All things are lawful for me; but not all…
All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient . [The abruptness here suggests that, in palliation of their undue laxity and toleration, they had in their letter ( 1Co_7:1 ) urged this rule; which they had doubtless learned from Paul ( 1Co_10:23 ; Gal_5:23 ). Hence Paul takes up the rule to show that it does not avoid the disinheriting of which he has just spoken.] All things are lawful [literally, within my power] for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any . [They had erred in taking the rule as to things indifferent, such as natural appetites, and so applying it as to make it cover not only sinful things, but even those grossly so, such as sensuous lusts (comp. 1Pe_2:16 ). The rule is properly applied by the apostle at 1Co_8:8-10 . He here refutes their ideas as to the rule by showing that their application of it would gender bondage, as excess of freedom invariably does.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Necessity of Keeping the Body Undefiled.
The Necessity of Keeping the Body Undefiled.
Christian expediency:
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v. 12. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
v. 13. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
v. 14. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.
The apostle has repeatedly touched upon the fact that Christian liberty and license of the flesh are incompatible. The love of Christ is to regulate the use of Christian liberty according to the rule that all my deeds which I have the power to perform are to aid and benefit my neighbor; and on the other hand, Christian liberty will not suffer anything over which I have power to overpower me and to take me captive. The laxity of morals in the Corinthian congregation could not be excused by the motto: All things are in my power, chap. 3:22. The fact itself stands, but it must be balanced by the principle of expediency and by the distinction between liberty and license. A Christian may have power to do all things, but he will find that all things are not advantageous, are not good for his own welfare. And again: Certain things may be in the Christian’s power, but it would be foolish to use them to excess (temperance, continence), for in that event they are apt to get the mastery of him, and so by the abuse of his liberty he will forfeit the richest fruits of this liberty.
The apostle brings two examples to illustrate his meaning: foods for the stomach and the stomach for its foods. God has made the various kinds of foods for the purpose of being received and digested by the body in the stomach, and he has designed the stomach for the purpose of receiving the foods and taking part in their digestion. And God will finally abolish, destroy, both the stomach and the foods. So the process of eating is a thing morally indifferent in itself. But to become a slave of the stomach, to yield to intemperance, is obviously an abuse of the power given by God. The other case is more serious: The body not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. One cannot argue that the procreative ability and venereal desire will at any time justify a transgression of God’s holy rule about the sacredness of the marriage-tie. Fornication is a perversion of the legitimate uses of the body, which has relations more important, more vital, than those connected with this life on earth. The body belongs to the Lord, it is fashioned for the Lord’s use; it should be found employed in His service. And the Lord will, in turn, live in the body, He will Himself be its true food and sustenance, Joh 6:15. This fact is brought out all the more strongly, because the destination of the body is eternal life: But God has raised up both the Lord and will raise up us through His power. The raising of Christ out of the grave came first, but we, as His brethren and members, will follow our first-fruits in His resurrection, and our bodies will be fashioned like unto His immortal body. But these things being so, how can any Christian still yield his body as an instrument of immorality?
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul reminds the Corinthian believers that God wants them pure because Christ has bought them with his death. Their bodies are now God's temple. He does so by saying what the Corinthians might say and then correcting them.
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Everything is lawful for me
Possible meanings are 1) Paul is answering what some Corinthians might be thinking, "Some say, 'I can do anything'" or 2) Paul is actually saying what he thinks is true, "God allows me to do anything."
but not everything is beneficial
Paul is answering whoever says, "Everything is lawful for me." AT: "but not everything is good for me"
I will not be mastered by any of them
This can be stated in active form. AT: "I will not allow these things to rule over me like a master" (See: Active or Passive)
"Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food," but God will do away with both of them
Possible meanings are 1) Paul is correcting what some Corinthians might be thinking, "food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food," by answering that God will do away with both the stomach and food or 2) Paul actually agrees that "food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food," but he is adding that God will do away with both of them.
Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food
One possible meanings is that the speaker is speaking indirectly of the body and sex, but you should translate this literally as "stomach" and "food."
do away with
"destroy"
translationWords
lawful
God
body
sexual immorality
lord
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 6:12-20 Paul gives several reasons why Christians must not…
6:12-20 Paul gives several reasons why Christians must not engage in sexual immorality.
6:12 “I am allowed to do anything” seems to have been a popular attitude among some Christians who were sexually immoral. Paul counters this attitude by emphasizing that not all things are helpful; true Christians must lead disciplined lives (cp. 10:23; Gal 5:13).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.