6:14 Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. 6:15 Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 6:16 Or don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, "The two," says he, "will become one flesh." 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 6:18 Flee sexual immorality! "Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 6:19 Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, 6:20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.  

Today's Lesson 

In the last lesson, we read that Paul did not disagree with the concept that all things were lawful for the Christian. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Paul did, however, extend the concept to say that while all things are lawful for us, not all things are expedient. Paul explains exactly what he meant in Today's Scripture.

God raised up Jesus Christ and has promised to raise us up as well that we might be united with Christ in His life and His death. If we are united with Christ, that means that we have become part of the body of Christ. It is because of our unity with Christ that God grants us the righteousness of Christ and sees us as holy and blameless in His sight. When God looks at us, all that He sees is the beloved Son of whom we are a part.

But Paul writes that there is another kind of unity as well. When a man joins himself in a sexual relationship to a woman, he makes himself one with that woman. So Paul tells the Corinthians that when they unite themselves with a prostitute, they become one with her. Worse yet, because they are part of the body of Christ, it would be as though they were trying to unite the holiness of Christ with the sexual iniquity of a prostitute.

Paul reminds them that their bodies have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. They have become one with the Holy God. Would they take a prostitute to worship with them? Would they fornicate on the very altar of God? Of course not! But in essence, that's what they were doing when they allowed themselves to fall into sexual sin.

"You are not your own, for you were bought with a price." Once we were slaves to sin, but Christ redeemed us from sin by paying the price to set us free. We were redeemed by His precious blood. A slave is redeemed when someone buys him and sets him free. Paul reminds us that when we were slaves to sin, Christ paid our debts and we were set free and for this we owe Christ our lives.

How then can we treat that sacrifice so shabbily as to fall back again into sin when we have been set free at such a high price? Jesus gave his life so that you and I might be set free. How can we repay him by turning again to the sin that enslaved us?

So here are our motivations to remain sexually pure. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Would we defile it? Our bodies are part of the body of Christ. Would we defile Christ? Our freedom was won at great cost. Would we repay that sacrifice by making it to be as nothing and returning again to our sin?

No, in all these cases, the more we know about what God has done for us in Christ, the more we will glorify God in our body and our spirit. That is why it is so important that we understand how great a salvation we have in Christ. The more we know, the more we realize how very important it is to live our lives in the way that is pleasing to God. The more we know, the more we will appreciate the great sacrifice that God made so that we might become the children of God.

How are you treating your "temple of the Holy Spirit?" Are you honoring, with your body and your spirit, the great sacrifice that Christ made to redeem you?

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