This year we are studying 1 Corinthians at Oceanside Christian Fellowship. I preached the message on 6:12-20, with the above title. I began by explaining Paul’s foundational principles in verse 12: (1) not all things are helpful, and (2) I will not be dominated by anything.  The rest of the sermon outlined the “Five Good Reasons” (subtitle, above) as follows:

 

SETTING THE STAGE

# 1 — My Body Is Part Of God’s Story

13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

 

# 2 — My Body Is Part Of Christ’s Body

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

 

# 3 — My Body Is United With Christ

16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

 

# 4 — My Body Is God’s House

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

 

# 5 — My Body Is God’s Property

You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

 

Christian sexual ethics stood in sharp contrast to the practices of the surrounding pagan culture in Paul’s world. The same should be the case, of course, among Christians today. More than behavior is at stake, however, in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. As I studied the passage, I was reminded once again that good ethics depend on good theology. Indeed, it is striking just how deeply Paul’s ethic of sexual morality, as we encounter it in 1 Corinthians 6, is rooted in the apostle’s understanding of what God has done in Christ. As I wrapped up my sermon that Sunday, I took a moment to demonstrate to our people how each of Paul’s challenges regarding our sexual behavior finds it origins in an indispensable theological truth:

 

# 1 — My Body Is Part Of God’s Story

Eschatology (the future resurrection of the body)

Bibliology (we need to know the story!)

 

# 2 — My Body Is Part Of Christ’s Body

Ecclesiology (the church as the body of Christ)

 

# 3 — My Body Is United With Christ

Soteriology (salvation as union with Christ)

 

# 4 — My Body Is God’s House

Pneumatology (the indwelling Holy Spirit under the New Covenant)

 

# 5 — My Body Is God’s Property

Soteriology (salvation as redemption from slavery)

 

For some years a major shoe manufacturer had a motto that read Just Do It! That might work for athletics but it does not work in the Christian life. In order to “do it” — that is, to DO what God has commanded (with sex, or any other area of life) we need a deep understanding of what God has DONE for us in the marvelous gift of his son Jesus. The imperative assumes the indicative, not only at salvation, but every step of the way along the Christian path between here and glory.