Lessons #193 and 194
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Avoidance of Sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:12-20)
.... 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
We have come to our last consideration of this section of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 that we have been considering for some time. Thus, it will be useful to give a quick review of where we have been, to enable us to understand the last two verses of the section. Recall that the message of this section is that Avoidance of sexual immorality requires a determination not to be controlled by anything of this life and understanding the body’s function, fate, and its various relationship to sex and God. We indicated that the exposition of this message requires two major propositions. A first proposition is that avoidance of sexual immorality involves the determination not to be controlled by anything in this life that we considered in detail. A second is that avoidance of sexual immorality involves understanding facts about the body as it relates to sex and God. Concerning this second proposition, we have considered in detail four of the five relationships associated with the body that if understood should stir a believer away from sexual immorality. The first two concerned sex, the Lord and the future act of God. The third relationship focused on Christ since believers’ bodies are members of Christ Himself. The fourth relationship involves harm the body suffers and so the command to flee sexual immorality. The fifth and the last relationship we started to consider in our last study is that of the body of believers to the Holy Spirit. The body of the believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit as in the clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We demonstrated that because of the significance of the temple in the OT Scripture that the body of a believer should remind such a person of the need for continuous fellowship with God that is not possible if the body that is in union with Christ is involved in sexual immorality. Furthermore, such understanding reminds us that as the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because Israel did not obey their God, we can also be punished if we do not avoid the abuse of our body through sexual immorality. We indicated that the Holy Spirit wants us to recognize His indwelling presence in our bodies. This, the Holy Spirit did through Apostle Paul by making two statements regarding the Holy Spirit that should help us to recognize His indwelling presence. A first statement is that the Holy Spirit resides in our bodies as in the next clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 who is in you. It is with this clause we begin our study today, as we promised at the close of our last study.
The clause who is in you lends itself to an important point we should observe before we consider it. The point concerns the false doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who claim that the Holy Spirit is a force. It is inconceivable how a force can be in a person. Thus, the clause clearly conveys that the Holy spirit could not be a force that God uses to accomplish His will as per the false teaching of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Admittedly, a person with limited knowledge of the Greek or one who follows strictly interlinear Greek English Bible could argue that the statement who is of the NIV is not in the Greek since the literal Greek reads in you. This argument is not weighty because the word “is” is implied in the text. This is because the Greek verb translated “is” that we will consider shortly should be regarded as a zeugma, that is, the use of a verb to modify or govern two or more nouns usually in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense or makes sense with only one. Thus, the Greek verb translated “is” applies to the word “body” and then the implied word “who” that refers to the Holy Spirit. Anyway, the point is that the clause we are considering refutes the false doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses of taking the Holy Spirit as “a force” that God uses to carry out His will.
Be that as it may, the clause who is in you is concerned with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. This is because the word “is” that we described as a zeugma is translated from a Greek word (eimi) that basically means “to be” with several nuances. It may mean “to be present” as it is used to give the number of men in the miracle of Jesus feeding four thousand with seven loaves of bread Mark 8:9:
About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away,
The word may mean ““to live” of a lifestyle as in Romans 8:5:
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
However, in our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:19, it has the sense of indwelling of the believer. This, of course, leads to two possible interpretations of the clause we are considering, especially because of the phrase in you. The Greek preposition (en) translated “in” has several other usages but in our clause who is in you, it could also mean “among.” Furthermore, the pronoun “you” is in the plural in the Greek. Consequently, there are two possible interpretations of the clause we are considering. It could mean that the Holy Spirit indwells the individual believer or that the Holy Spirit indwells the church of Christ as a body. Both interpretations are true in that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer and the church in keeping with the promise of the Lord Jesus that indicates the Holy Spirit was present with the disciples during His earthly ministry but would indwell them after His resurrection, as recorded in John 14:17:
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
While both statements are true and may well apply here but because the focus of the section we are considering is on the literal body that could be involved in sexual immorality, it is the interpretation that the Holy Spirit indwells the body of believers individually that we believe the apostle had in mind in the clause. The fact that we have the pronoun “you” in the plural recognizes the many believers in the local church that individually is indwelt by the Holy. In any event, the teaching of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in the clause who is in you is that each believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a doctrine raises an important question which is, how does a person know that the individual is indwelt by the Holy Spirit? The primary answer to this question is that it is by faith that a believer knows this truth. In other words, the Scripture declares that the Holy Spirit lives in believers as indicated in the passage we are considering and in other passages of the Scripture such as 2 Timothy 1:14:
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Thus, the person who has believed in Christ should know that the Holy Spirit indwells the individual because God would not tell us that which is false. Of course, we should usually be concerned that we confirm doctrinal truths through our experience. The implication is that many teach that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is evident in the fruit of the Spirit. For example, some contend that the presence of the Holy Spirit should result in the power for witnessing, as we read in Acts 1:8:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
There is no question that power is an evidence of the Holy Spirit experientially in the believer but that does not necessarily prove that one is indwelt by the Holy Spirit as much as it proves that a believer is filled of the Holy Spirit. Take for example, Zechariah the father of John the Baptist, he was filled of the Spirit as stated in Luke 1:67:
His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
There is no definite statement in the Scripture that indicates Zechariah was indwelt by the Holy Spirit although he was filled of the Holy Spirit considering that the Holy Spirit did not indwell the disciples of Jesus Christ until after His resurrection. That aside, the filling of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the indwelling of the Spirit. Admittedly, the filling of the Spirit since the ascension of Jesus Christ can only occur in a person who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but it is possible to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit without being filled of the Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit assures that a person is a believer which is different from being filled of the Spirit that is concerned with control of the soul. That indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to indicate a person is a believer is stated in Romans 8:9:
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
A person has the Spirt of Christ or the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit indwells the individual. Thus, when a person is saved, the Holy Spirit automatically indwells the person but the experience of the filling of the Spirit is that which occurs because a person is controlled by the Spirit when sin is absent in the sol. My point is that we should recognize that although since the ascension of the Lord Jesus no one can be filled of the Spirit without being indwelt that the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our experiences are not the experiences that primarily prove we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. As we have stated, a person may be indwelt by the Holy Spirit but not be controlled by the Holy Spirit so that such a person is described as a carnal believer. A carnal believer is still indwelt by the Holy Spirit so we cannot use the fruit of the Spirit primarily as an experience that confirms the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but a secondary confirmation of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is my conviction that there is only one experience that primarily proves the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the internal struggle between righteousness and sin in the soul of the believer that proves the indwelling of the Spirit. When this struggles takes place and one submits to righteousness then the person is controlled by the Holy Spirit and so would produce the fruit of the Spirit but when the person is defeated then the sinful nature takes over but the believer is still indwelt by the Spirit. My point is that it is the internal struggle between righteousness and sinfulness that is the one experience that primarily proves the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as we read in Galatians 5:17:
For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
There can be no true struggle inwardly between righteousness and sin unless the Holy Spirit indwells a person. So, when there is this internal struggle for control of the believer, that is an experience that tells the believer that the Holy Spirit indwells the individual. Every other manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives is evidence of being filled of the Spirit and serve as secondary confirmation of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In effect, the question of the apostle in 1 Corinthians 6:19 is that believers should know this truth that they are individually indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Anyway, the first statement of Apostle Paul about the Holy Spirit is that He indwells the body of the believer.
A second statement about the Holy Spirit in the passage of 1 Corinthians we are considering is that God sent Him as in the next clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 whom you have received from God. Literally, the Greek reads whom you have from God. This is because the expression “have received” of the NIV is translated from a Greek verb (echō) with the basic meaning of “to have” but with several nuances. It may mean “to have” in the sense of “to own” or “possess” something as it is used in Jesus’ description of the gift of the widow recorded in Luke 21:4:
All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
The sentence all she had means all she owned or possessed. To have may mean “to be in charge” as it is used to describe Judas Iscariot as being in charge of the money of the Lord Jesus and His disciples in John 13:29:
Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor.
The word may mean “to have” in the sense of “to experience something” so it is used to experience trouble or persecutions in the words of the Lord to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2:10:
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
The experience associated with our word may be that of enjoying something or privilege as it is used to describe the enjoyment of peace in God through Christ in Romans 5:1:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
The clause we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ may be understood to mean that we enjoy peace with God through the Lord Jesus. The word may mean “is” as that is the sense Apostle Paul used it to indicate he had ran out of places to do his ministry work, as stated in Romans 15:23:
But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you,
The verbal phrase no more place for me to work in these regions is literally no longer having a place in these regions. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:19, the word means “to have,” implying that something was received. The idea of having Holy Spirit is a reality because the present tense the apostle used here in the Greek is one that emphasizes the present reality of something which came into being in the past. It is a reality that the Corinthians have the Holy Spirit that they received when they believed. He continues to remain in them. Thus, the apostle reminds us that it is when we believe in Christ that we have the Holy Spirit. There is no evidence that receiving of the Holy Spirit occurred later like the unique experience of the Samaritan believers who had to wait for a while before the Holy Spirit came upon them.
Again, the Holy Spirit the Corinthians and so all believers have in the sense of indwelling them is said to come from God in the clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 whom you have from God. Although it is not directly stated but the clause is still one way that the apostle acknowledged the three persons in the Godhead. As we noted previously, the apostle had implied that Holy Spirit is God so when he wrote the clause we are considering, he meant to convey that the Father and the Son are the other persons in the Godhead. You may say “I do not see how God here means that the apostle acknowledged the other two members of the Godhead.” Well, you must understand that the apostle wrote under the control of the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit would have brought to him truth already revealed. This being the case, we know that Jesus Christ has already revealed who would send the Holy Spirit. The very first time the Lord Jesus, during His earthly ministry, promised the coming of the Holy Spirit, He indicated the Father would send Him in His name, as recorded in John 14:26:
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The next time He referenced the sending of the Holy Spirit, He conveyed that He would send Him, as we read in John 15:26:
“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
Still another time He referenced the sending of the Holy Spirit, He indicated He would send Him, according to John 16:7:
But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
The fact that Jesus Christ asserted that the Father would send the Holy Spirit and He also would send the Holy Spirit must imply that there is no distinction between the action of the two persons, the Father and the Son when it involved the sending of the Holy Spirit. Of course, this is not the only place where Jesus Christ conveyed that He and the Father are involved in the same activity that conveys the oneness of the Godhead. He stated that He and the Father are one in John 10:30:
I and the Father are one.”
This simple declaration has caused much debate over the years as to its interpretation. There are those who take it to mean that Jesus Christ described that He and the Father are one person despite the fact that we have the word “are” and the word “one” is in the neuter gender in Greek instead of the masculine that would be expected if Jesus was asserting that He and the Father are “one person,” the theological error known as Sabellianism. Others take it to mean “moral unity of will” as that was the teaching of the Arians, the forerunners of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that deny the deity of Christ. The context of the passage simply indicates that the Father and the Son carry out the same deeds, so it is not concerned with identity of the persons of the Godhead although it lends itself to the conclusion of the oneness in the Godhead. In the context, the Father and the Son are involved in preservation of Jesus’ sheep and so there is oneness in deeds and will of the Father and the Son. Of course, our concern is not to go into the detail interpretation of this passage but only so we can see that the Father and the Son have been described as carrying out the same activity. Anyway, to the point we are considering that the Father and the Son are involved in sending of the Holy Spirit. If the apostle directed by the Holy Spirit states that the Holy Spirit comes from God and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ indicates that the Holy Spirit will be sent by the Father and by Him then there is no other logical conclusion that would make sense other than the apostle acknowledged the two persons involved in sending the Holy Spirit as God. This means that the clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 whom you have from God conveys that the apostle acknowledged the deity of the two persons involved in sending of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, the apostle has referenced the Triune God as he discussed the reasons believers should not be involved in sexual immorality. We should emphasize that although the apostle did not focus in the passage we are considering, on the subject of the Triune God but that what he wrote leads to that consideration. He wrote under the Holy Spirit who knows the implications of what the apostle wrote. This being the case, we will be amiss if we did not bring to your attention that although the apostle was not focused on the doctrine of the Triune God but what he wrote makes it inescapable to reference this doctrine. This should not surprise you because the Lord Jesus had endorsed this kind of application when He quoted from OT in support of the doctrine of resurrection in Matthew 22:31–32:
31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
The Lord Jesus implied that the Jews should have known there is resurrection because God identified Himself as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when He appeared to Moses at Mount Horeb. By doing this, He endorsed the practice of drawing an implication from a given Scripture that would support a given doctrine. Hence, when the Holy Spirit directed Apostle Paul to write that the Holy Spirit that indwells believers is from God, He meant for us to see the doctrine of the Triune God where God the Holy Spirit is sent by the other two members of the Godhead, the Father and the Son. This sending of the Holy Spirit by the two members of the Godhead is similar in a sense to the Father sending of the Son to the world to die for our sins as Lord Jesus asserted several times. Take for example, the assertion recorded in John 5:36–37:
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form.
This aside, the second assertion of Apostle Paul regarding the Holy Spirit is that the Father and the Son sent Him to indwell believers. Of course, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer implies that the Father and the Son also indwell the believer, but the focus is on the ministry of the Holy Spirit as it relates to individual believer.
In any case, the apostle having made two assertions about the Holy Spirit, proceeds with another statement with its justification that leads to the final instruction of the passage that we are considering in 1 Corinthians. It is this statement that is given in the clause of 1 Corinthians 6:19 You are not your own. This statement is an emphatic addition to the fact that believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It may not appear that our point is supported by the sentence You are not your own because the translators of the NIV and other English versions omitted a Greek conjunction (kai) that often is translated “and” in our English versions as it is done here in the NET or the NASB that used the expression “and that” to translate it. Its omission implies that the sentence is seen to present a new thought that is not connected with the question of verse 19. However, the Greek conjunction is probably used here by the apostle in an emphatic sense to add to the fact he already stated about the body of believers being a temple of the Holy Spirit that it should be translated “even” leading to the translation Even you are not your own. This is because the apostle was certainly thinking of the body as reflected in the last instruction of verse 20 that we will get to at the appropriate time. We are saying that the apostle’s argument against sexual immorality includes the fact that the body of a believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit and that additionally it does not belong to the believer, only that he stated it in an emphatic manner.
The sentence of 1 Corinthians 6:19 You are not your own conveys that the believer does not belong to self. We use the word “belong” because it is a meaning of the Greek word used that makes more sense in our passage. You see the word “are” is translated from a Greek word (eimi) that basically means “to be” with several nuances. The word may mean “to belong” as it is used in the Lord Jesus’ statement recorded in John 15:19:
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
The sentence you do not belong to the world is literally you are not of the world. The Greek word has the sense of “to belong” in Apostle Paul’s use of it in Romans 14:8:
If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
The sentence we belong to the Lord is literally we are the Lord’s. Thus, the meaning “belong” is established in the NT. In fact, some English versions such as the CEB and the NCV among others used the meaning “belong” to translate our Greek word so that the sentence You are not your own is translated you do not belong to yourselves. This meaning of “belong” is, of course, enhanced by the fact that the phrase your own is literally of yourselves so that the genitive used in the Greek also conveys the sense of belonging to self. So, the apostle states that believers do not belong to themselves. We have already indicated that the apostle was emphatic as he wrote the sentence of 1 Corinthians 6:19 You are not your own we are considering, because of the Greek conjunction that begins the sentence but there is another indicator of the apostle’s emphasis. It is the word “not.” He used a Greek word (ou) that is more objective in expressing the meaning “not” instead of another Greek word (mē) that has the same meaning but is more subjective and so less emphatic.
The apostle wants all believers to recognize that they belong to God and not to themselves. In effect the sentence You are not your own is a way of telling us that we are not at liberty to do what we want with our bodies since they are not ours. The statement is one that goes against the thinking of some who believe they are under no one’s control. The truth is that none of us is free at any time whether we admit it or not. We are slaves either to God or to Satan. A person who is a slave of God manifests it through righteousness, that is, doing what God demands while a person who is a slave of Satan conveys that through sin. It is this truth that we are not free at any time that the Holy Spirit conveyed through Apostle Paul in Romans 6:16:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Anyway, the sentence You are not your own is intended to convey to us that we belong to God and under His control and so we are not at liberty to use our bodies anyway we choose, especially not in sexual immorality. God owns our body in absolute sense. This statement is to accommodate that fact that in marriage relationship the bodies of husbands and wives belong to each other as per the declaration recorded in 1 Corinthians 7:4:
The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.
The assertion of this verse does not negate the truth that the body of believers belong to God. True, God gave us the body, but we should recognize that for believers their bodies belong to the Lord. The implication is that no believing lady should be a part of those who say that a woman’s body belongs to her and so she can do what she pleases with it. No! Believers’ bodies belong to the Lord and so we are not free to do anything with it, especially as it involves sexual immorality.
It is possible that when a believer hears the teaching that the body belongs not to self but to the Lord, the person may ponder how that could be. Consequently, the apostle gives the justification for such statement in the first sentence of 1 Corinthians 6:20 you were bought at a price. The translators of the NIV omitted a Greek conjunction that is a second word in the Greek due to the Greek rule that prevents the conjunction from being the first word in a Greek sentence, but it should begin the verse in the English. Hence, the English translation of our verse should begin with the word “for” as it is done in many of our English versions. This is because the word “for” is translated
from a Greek conjunction (gar) that is used in different ways in the Greek. The Greek conjunction may be used as a marker of cause or reason so that it may be translated “for” or “because” in the English. It may be used as a marker of clarification or explanation so that it may be translated in the English with the word “for” or “you see.” Under this second usage, the Greek word may be used as a narrative marker to express continuation or connection in which case the Greek word may be left untranslated in the English translation. There are more nuances of the Greek conjunction under this second usage. The Greek conjunction may be used to signal an important point or transition to another topic, leading to the translation “well, then, you see.” It can also be translated “yes, indeed, certainly, surely,” especially when the Greek conjunction is used in replies, confirming what has been asked. Still another usage of the Greek conjunction is as a marker of inference so that it may be translated “certainly, by all means, so, then.” In our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:20, it is used to provide the reason or justification for asserting that our bodies do not belong to us.
The justification for asserting that our bodies do not belong to us is given in the sentence you were bought at a price. The word “bought” is translated from a Greek word (agorazō) that means “to buy” as it is used to describe purchasing of merchandize from an open market in exchange for money as in 1 Corinthians 7:30:
those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;
The word may mean “to buy” in the sense of “to secure the rights to someone by paying a price,” as it is used to describe believers whom Christ bought in 2 Peter 2:1:
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
It is this second sense of “to buy” in the sense of “to secure the rights to someone by paying a price” that it is used in our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:20. The apostle emphasized the sense of buying believers because of the word order he employed. Although there is no strict order to the Greek sentence, but it is not normal to begin a Greek sentence with a verb unless the author wanted to emphasize the word. The fact that the apostle began verse 20 with a Greek verb indicates he wanted to emphasize the word “bought” in the sentence you were bought at a price. The Greek used a passive voice to convey that someone was responsible for the purchase of believers. God, specifically, the Lord Jesus, is the One who purchased us since He is described as the One who redeemed believers in Titus 2:14:
who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
The point is that Jesus Christ purchased us as in the sentence you were bought at a price.
The word “price” is translated from a Greek word (timē) that mean “price” as in the amount of money paid to Judas Iscariot to betray the Lord Jesus in Matthew 27:9:
Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel,
The word may mean “value” as it is used in Colossians 2:23:
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
The word may mean “compensation” given to teaching elders in1 Timothy 5:17:
The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
The word may refer to the act of showing of honor, reverence, or respect and so it is translated “respect” in the instruction given to slaves regarding their masters in 1 Timothy 6:1:
All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:20, it has the sense of “price” needed to purchase something.
The price of purchasing believers is the death of Christ on the cross. Apostle Paul referenced this in his farewell speech to elders in Ephesus as recorded in Acts 20:28:
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
Apostle Peter referenced this price to indicate it is not something material as we may gather from what is recorded in 1 Peter 1:18–19:
18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Peter’s description of the price paid to redeem believers should enable us to recognize that the phrase blood of Christ does not refer to His literal blood but His death on the cross since blood is that which perishes once it is shed. We have studied in detail in first chapter of this epistle the phrase blood of Christ to indicate it is a reference to the death of Christ on the cross. Let me refresh your mind with an argument we used to demonstrate that the phrase blood of Christ refers to His death. Apostle Paul says that God reconciled us to Himself through the death of His son, that is, Jesus Christ, in Romans 5:10:
For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
The same apostle spoke of the idea of God reconciling Himself to all things but this time he used the same phrase his blood in Colossians 1:20:
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
If reconciliation mentioned in Romans 5:10 is through the death of Jesus Christ, certainly it is the same reconciliation that the apostle had in mind in Colossians, but instead of using the word “death” in association with Christ he used the word “blood” that was shed on the cross. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the blood of Jesus Christ refers to His death on the cross. The point then is that the blood of Christ should not be thought of in a literal sense but in a figurative sense to refer to His sacrificial death on the cross. In any event, the price of the purchase of believers is the death of Christ on the cross. Because Christ redeemed us, we belong to Him and not to ourselves.
The apostle’s point is that our bodies belong to God because He purchased us through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This being the case, the apostle introduced what should result from understanding this purchase with the first word of the last clause of 1 Corinthians 6:20 Therefore honor God with your body. The apostle was emphatic and conveyed the sense of urgency in stating the result that should arise from understanding the costly price paid for our redemption as the death of Jesus Christ and that we belong to God. We say that the apostle was emphatic because of the word “therefore” is translated from a Greek particle (dē) that may mean “indeed” as it is used in the explanation of the Parable of the Sower of Seed in Matthew 13:23:
But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
The translators of the NIV did not translate the particle with this meaning since the sentence He produces a crop is more literally who indeed bears fruit and produces as reflected in the LEB. The word may also mean “therefore” as a marker to show urgency or certainty in exhortations or commands. It is in this sense that it is used in our passage. Based on the price Jesus Christ paid to redeem us, we have an obligation to God as in the last clause of 1 Corinthians 6:20 honor God with your body.
The word “honor” of the NIV is translated from a Greek word (doxazō) that may mean “to honor” as what people do for others who have done something commendable as in Matthew 6:2:
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
The word may mean “to glorify” as it is used to state what is done to Jesus because of His miracles in John 11:4:
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
The word may mean “to take pride” or “to take seriously” as that is the sense the word is used by Apostle Paul in describing his ministry in Romans 11:13:
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry.
The sentence of the NIV I make much of my ministry is more literally I glorify my ministry but the standard Greek English lexicon of BDAG suggests it may be translated I take pride in my ministry or I take my assignment seriously. The word may mean “to praise” as in the expected response of believers in Jerusalem on receiving the gifts from Gentile believers organized by Apostle Paul, as we read in 2 Corinthians 9:13:
Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:20, it is used in the sense of “to glorify,” that is, “to positively acknowledge, recognize, or esteem one’s character, nature, or attributes.”
How are we to glorify or honor God with/in our body? To understand what that entails, we should recognize that honoring or glorifying God certainly means to do what He requires as we may learn from the priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus, as stated in John 17:4:
I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
The sentence I have brought you glory is literally I have glorified you. The Lord Jesus indicated He glorified the Father by doing what He was assigned to do. Therefore, if we are to glorify God with our bodies, it means that we should not do with our bodies anything that is contrary to His word. The immediate context of the instruction indicates that we glorify God by avoiding sexual immorality. We should not use our body in anything that is sinful as the Holy Spirit instructed through Apostle Paul in Romans 6:19:
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
Furthermore, we should use our bodies to carry out any activity that will reflect the goodness and holiness of God. We should no longer live to satisfy our flesh but to reflect God’s goodness. We should live for God as the apostle puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:15:
And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Anyway, as we end our study of this section of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, let me remind you of the central message we have expounded which is Avoidance of sexual immorality requires a determination not to be controlled by anything of this life and understanding the body’s function, fate, and its various relationship to sex and God.
12/27/19