Bible Studies

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Paul uses an example of temple prostitution for two reasons. First, he has already identified that the Corinthians have misunderstood something significant related to God's teaching about sexuality, fornication in particular. And secondly, arguments related to prostitution have a long biblical history. The Old Testament prophets have long described faithlessness as a kind of covenantal prostitution. Unfaithful people "live with" or "sleep with" other gods in violation of the covenantal relationship that God has established with all of humanity.

To be joined to a prostitute is to violate the covenant of the family, which is founded on the marriage covenant, which necessarily involves God. Contrary to popular opinion, marriage is not just between a man and a woman, but is between a man, a woman and God. All family relationships and responsibilities are grounded and established on the biblical covenant of marriage, whether or not that covenant is acknowledged. Family membership is based upon the covenant of marriage which has given birth to the family. The family is a product of marriage, and marriage is a gift (or creation, or institution) of God. All sexual activity outside of marriage is, therefore, a violation of family membership. It is a violation of one's personal identity as a human being.

Paul acknowledges that sex is always a renewal -- a remembrance and consummation -- of the marriage covenant given by God to all of humanity for our joy, health and well-being. It is always that, and is never not that, regardless of the partners. Consequently, Paul argues that fornication forges a union that is in conflict with God and family. But sex within marriage reinforces one's individuality and, at the same time, one's covenantal unity with one's spouse and family -- and God.

The best way to deal with sexual immorality or sexual temptation, as Paul notes, is to flee from it. Run! Get away before you are tempted, before you get near it because it will catch you in its web of sin. The fly cannot defeat the spider. His only defense is distance. Why should we run from it? Because it will confuse and ultimately destroy both our individuality and covenantal unity.

Paul says it this way, "Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18). All sin is primarily sin against God (Psalm 51:4, Luke 15:21) and secondarily against some other person -- lying, slander, murder, etc. But the sin of fornication is unique in that is constitutes a sin against one's self. Yes, it violates God's covenant and involves another person, but in some way, according to Paul, it is a violation against one's own body, and against one's own soul. And because our bodies are members of Christ, it is a violation against membership in Christ. It is a violation against the character of the Trinity and against the image of God in which we have been created.

The nature of the Trinity is one in three, three in one -- unity in diversity, diversity in unity. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches a unique understanding of reality that allows for both particularity and unity. It is the only perspective from which both particularity and unity can be philosophically (or logically) justified. But when a person is joined in one flesh with someone apart from God's marriage covenant, the unique essence of the character of the Trinity is obscured. We are less able to understand or discern who God has created us to be because human sexuality is at the very core of human identity. And we are less able to understand or discern who God is because human beings are always related to God covenantally. To obscure the idea of covenant is to obscure God.

Yes, we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but that personal relationship is always manifest through God's covenant. God's covenant is an essential element of reality. To perceive reality apart from God's covenant is to miss the trinitarian character of reality. Truth cannot be seen apart from participation in God's covenant because the universe in which we live is necessarily trinitarian. That is, it is the trinitarian character of God Himself that allows for, or accounts for the existence of individual things and simultaneously, allows for participation in various classes of unity through covenantal relationships.

All things that belong to a group or class of any kind do so through a covenantal or legal relationship. It is God's law that holds everything together through unity and differentiation. God's law not only holds families together, but it holds the universe itself together. So, to obscure or confuse our understanding of covenantal relationship by violating the marriage covenant, for instance, we alter our understanding and our actual relationship with God because God always relates to humanity in terms of His covenant.

Thus, extramarital sex undermines God's unity or order in the universe by violating God's law, which is the only principle that allows for individuality within unity, or particularity in the midst of universality. A person is always more than an individual because all persons are necessarily related to various groups, like families, churches, nations, even humanity itself. And all groups are related covenantally, legally, according to God's law. And it cannot be otherwise. Thus, to dishonor the covenant of marriage, whether one is married or not, always amounts to the destruction of social coherence or unity. It is a form of ultimate social and personal suicide.

Paul concludes this chapter with this thought, "do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19). Paul refers to the bodies of believers as temples. The Old Testament understanding of temple -- the temple at Jerusalem, in particular -- as the place of God's presence. God was present in the temple. Of course, Jesus taught that God is present wherever two or three believers are gathered in His name (Matthew 18:20). And in the Old Testament, the temple was the place that God's people gathered. But the point is that the Spirit of God is present in the lives of believers, not in the temple itself, nor in some particular structure or geographical location.

It is the trinitarian Spirit of God that provides for both the individuality and the unity of believers in Christ. And apart from that trinitarian Spirit, there is only death and destruction. The last phrase, "whom you have from God" (1 Corinthians 6:19) simply repeats this truth. Some versions translate it "whom" and some translate it as "which." It could be either in the Greek. The difference is whether it refers to the temple or to the Spirit. Either interpretation will do.

Finally, said Paul, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). It could hardly be more clear that Christianity is about life in this world and in these bodies. Of course, it's about heaven, but that's later. Our bodies are now. Christianity is about the manifestation of God's Holy Spirit in the lives of believes in the midst of this fallen world for the sake of its redemption and our happiness.

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