During our Wednesday night Lententide devotions, we have been walking through passages from the Gospel of John, highlighting not just the details of Jesus’ passion and death (“what” and “how), but why He had to die. Likewise, in this morning’s text from 1 Corinthians it could be easy to focus on the prohibitions Paul places on sexuality and miss the “why” of the passage: we glorify God in our bodies because we were “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). Our Savior washed us with His blood, purchased our pardon on Calvary’s tree, and was weighed down with the grief and shame which rightly belonged to us. In response, we join the chorus of praise, we consecrate our lives to Him, and we rise and go to His embrace. We ask him to “take away the love of sinning,” to make us His forever. We “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18)—and every other kind of immorality—because of Christ’s sacrifice. The “follies of sin” cannot compare to the “ten thousand charms” we find in the arms of our Savior.
—Henry C. Haffner
Key Words: Immorality, Antinomianism, Union, Bought, Glorify
Keystone Verse: For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 12
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 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. 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! 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. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.