Not our souls, but our bodies are declared to be members of Christ

First Corinthians. So, in this chapter, the very last phrase is gonna be glorify God in your body. And we've discovered that the body is for the Lord. Your body is to be controlled by the Lord. And the bodies of the saints are members of Christ. They're the vessels through which Christ is to be expressed. You know, he doesn't have any other vehicle on the earth to express his glory other than your and my body.

That's the vehicle he chose to use. So it puts a dignity on our bodies of all the saints, of all the saints. So I'm gonna read, these are the verses we'll cover today. I'm gonna read them all and then we'll go back and drill down. I want you to notice one thing. He says three times, do you not know?

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her or him?

For he says the two shall become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit within. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. So, he's gonna teach us union with the body of Christ.

Do you not know? It's interesting here. Do you not know is indicative, perfect, active? What that means is that this is the mood of reality. He's saying to them, you should know this is real. This is perfect tense, which means you understood it, and it was delivered to you in the past, and it has abiding results now and into the future, and right now it's active voice. So what he's saying to them, you should know better.

Don't you know? Yeah, you do know. It's a rhetorical question. The questioner maybe doesn't expect a direct answer, and in many cases, it may be intended to just start the conversation, to start the discourse, as a means of displaying the speaker. It's an affirmed truth.

The word members means a limb or parts of a body, not only the whole, but the parts are in union with Christ. As we are members of Christ's body, so our bodies are members of him. Think about that. The word translated members is normally a word that just talks about body parts. like arms and legs. And I wrote in my notes, is my right arm in union with the Lord? This isn't just a clever play on words.

Our physical bodies are just as much a part of Christ, united with him in genuine spiritual union, as we are, in the corporate sense, members of the body of Christ, the church. He's not speaking here of the believer's union with Christ by becoming a member of a church. He's talking about you and I, individually, members of Christ. Figuratively speaking of the individual union with Christ's physical body.

So the pagan view of the body is that we're brutes, that the body really isn't of any importance. It's just linked with animals. And because of that, their thinking is, shouldn't our bodies be used as animals use theirs? That's the highest level that they would agree that a body is.

But the Christian view links the body and soul and the spirit upward to Christ. Paul says the body is a member of Christ. The body is linked to him. Essential to the teaching of these verses is an assumption that sexual relationships is not merely a physical act. It's a spiritual act also. It's an act that forms a union. Fornication is therefore, it's a creation of a monstrosity. Christ united to a harlot.

So, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were talking about this and I could hear on the other end of the phone when we were mentioning that sexual intercourse is a spiritual act. But it's only a spiritual act for believers, nobody else. Because your body is linked with Christ. There's no other scripture I know of, and I've searched around, that talks about my body being a member of Christ. It shows that the bodies of the saints are the vehicles through which Christ is to be expressed. How do they know in the world about who Christ is? Because they can see him in us. And how do they see? Through your body.

They're not to be used to express self-will. They're not to be used for any unrighteous act of any kind in any form. It rules out by the highest possible consideration the gratification of your own body. I could go on here a lot about when I say something like that, I know we think, well, things that are immoral, that's fine, but there's also things that are on the other side of that spectrum that, as we talked about last week, Paul said, I won't do anything that controls me.

Have any of you ever been in a situation where something that you did that was good controlled you? In my case, it was running, when I first started running. I realized one day, I'm out in Cherry Creek Reservoir. I thought, gee, this controls me. I have to, I'm addicted to this. See, so you can be addicted to things other than evil things.

And your body is to be used to glorify Christ, not that there's anything wrong with a lot of things you do, a lot of things that we do, but do they edify? Or am I controlled by them? And the Lord will let you know, because he wants to use your body for his glory. It rules out, or in the presence of this, how can we entertain the thought of bringing our body into contact with anything vile? It's an inconceivable thought. If you start with the premise that my body is a member of Christ.

When a Christian has sexual relations with a prostitute or someone other than his spouse, He or she takes what belongs to God and he gives it to someone else. You know what he's doing? He's stealing from God. That's what's really going on. When a Christian gets married, he has this incredible What's the word I'm looking for?

This incredible admonition from God, ordained and approved because God approved marriage. He can share his body or her body with his mate or her mate. And it works out for the holiness of the individual believer. Sexual intercourse in marriage is a spiritual act. The thought of being actually joined to the Lord, the most intimate link possible of the individual believer who is in a mortal body and linked to the Lord. It involves a personal nearness and intimate contact with the Lord.

You know what, I jumped ahead of a page. I'll go back, you won't even notice. Notice in this verse that taking a member of Christ and uniting them to a heart that involves the Lord in an immoral act. And what's Paul's revulsion to that? May it never be, may it never be.

And you see that phrase a lot in the Word of God. We might see in Acts certain persons turn to the Lord, Certain persons were exhorted to abide with the Lord. Some were added to the Lord. But this is an intimate contact with the Lord in relation to the body itself. And Mary's is the figure that Paul has in mind here. And he implies it not necessarily to the church, but to the individual. And I think the next couple of weeks, Roger's gonna have a lot of really cool things to say about that.

God would have us conscious, I think, of this link, this living link with the Lord, as a husband is to a wife, are conscious of the affectionate spiritual link with each other. It is with the Lord in a marriage sense. It is only as we are conscious of that that we shall understand the marriage link that exists between the church and Christ. We're gonna be the bride of Christ.

There's nothing, I don't think, any more wonderful than the way that here the highest possible considerations are brought to bear on the lowest dangers that attack us in the flesh. I'm amazed at how Paul goes at this. He does not say, stop doing it. He does say that. But then what he does is rather than saying, well, there are lots of consequences for this behavior, he goes really high to Christ. Do you not know that one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says the two shall become one flesh.

Paul urges his readers not to think of sexual intercourse as simply a physical linking of two people for the duration of the sexual act. Intercourse involves the entire person, not just the body. It's the most intimate sharing that a human being can experience. spiritual union takes place. Sexual relations affects the inner unseen condition of the individual involved very deeply.

And I think this is what is in view with reference to Genesis 2.24 when God told Adam and Eve, Adam, a man will leave his mother and father and will cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

So but the one who has joined himself to the Lord as one spirit. When it comes to this question of being joined to the Lord, it's a spiritual matter, and it's true of believers when he's still in his physical body. You and I as saints in dying bodies are joined to the Lord. It's a wonderful, elevating reality that are brought about in regard to our mortal bodies because all this refers just to our bodies. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. It's a remarkable introduction to marriage, though in connection with the bodies of the saints. It's worked out in the holiness of the individual believer. So the thought of being actually joined to the Lord, the most intimate link possible, the individual believer who is in his mortal body with the Lord, imagine what God has done here. He has taken my body, which is dying, and he's linked it with himself. And he's gonna tell us in a minute that he's occupied that body with his spirit. And we are united to him in a bodily sense.

It's a personal nearness, an intimate contact with the Lord Jesus. One of the things that just has fascinated me for a long time is how Scripture, especially Paul the Apostle, constantly stays on this point, and the point is we are intimate. We are near Christ. He is our very life. We are to have an intimate, personal relationship, fellowship with him, and that includes our body.

Paul had spoken of the body as being for the Lord back in verse 13. The Lord has an exclusive right to it over against any unclean association. Our bodies are members of Christ, which is a wonderful adulation of the body. The mortal bodies of the saints are members of the anointed and exalted man, the glorified Christ.

And why does he bring this in? He brings it in to correct the debased filthiness of those who had recently come out of the corruption of the heathen world. He's telling these Corinthians, your body has a purpose, and it's a lot more than you understand about it just being animal. God has a purpose, and the purpose is spiritual.

In this sense, Paul speaks of the individual believer as being joined to the Lord. It is evident that the marriage bond he has in mind. As members of Christ's body, conception is before us. Our bodies are the expression of Christ, but being joined to the Lord is the way in which we are brought into vital oneness and one spirit within. I don't remember that the thought of being joined to the Lord is found in any other scripture and is presented as an individual matter like this is.

We can see that Lydia and Sharon turned to the Lord. At Joppa, many believed. At Antioch, a great number believed. Barnabas exhorted all with purpose of heart to abide with him, to abide with the Lord. We can read that a large crowd of people were added to the Lord. but something more intimate is suggested in being joined to the Lord.

It is a personal bond entered into which is comparable to the marriage relation, as I said, which results in a spiritual oneness. The individual is one spirit with the Lord whom he's joined to. It's an incredible, magnificent thought. In contrast to the union that takes place with two people have a sexual relationship, the person who trusts Christ unites with him in an even stronger and more pervasive oneness. This is an even stronger spiritual union. Consequently, it's a very serious thing. to give your body for any other use than what God has already united you to.

You'll take a look, if you take a look at Romans 12.1, which I'm sure we've all studied a lot.

Romans 12.1 says, therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice accepted to God, which is your reasonable service. Notice in that verse, God says, here's what I want you to do with your body. But he doesn't say that here. You know what he says here? I've already united you to Christ. I've already done that. Your body is united to him. So there's a difference in the language here in terms of the spiritual act of what this means. In John 17, you know, that we quote a lot because it is so profound.

In verse 21 through 23, the Lord Jesus says, in praying to the Father that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us. so that the world may believe that you sent me. This union between you, your body, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the vehicle through which God says to the world, I sent my son because I see him in you. The glory which you have given me, I've given them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them, you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, purpose, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you have loved me. The expression of the Lord Jesus through your body says to the world, the God of the universe loves you and has loved you from all eternity with the same love that he loves his son, the Lord Jesus.

So what do you do about it? First thing he says is flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Flee, great word. Considering the day in which we live, 2020, I think it's important to note that the issue of fornication is really not a matter of debate. The imperative mood and present tense of command says, make this your immediate and continual practice. Run away from fornication as fast and as hard as you can. It's an action to be taken in light of what the teaching of these verses gives us.

The second part of this is Paul tells us the uniqueness of fornication. Other sins can be described in ways like, if you steal, you do it by your body. You might be gluttonous or you might drink too much. And it hurts the body as well. But involves the excess in things morally neutral, abstinence may be able to correct those things. Even if you did something like commit suicide, you've acted on your body. But fornication is a sin against your body. Fornication is a sin that involves the purpose of the body. What was the purpose back in verse 13? Food is for the stomach, and the stomach's for food. Remember that? Food is for the stomach, but God will do away with both of them.

Your body is not for fornication. Your body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for your body. Fornication violates the resident in your body. Fornication is more destructive to the sinner than any other sin because the people who engage in it can't undo the act. So the conclusion is that believers should flee fornication. The best example I could find in the Bible is Joseph.

He was the head of Potiphar's house. He was a slave, but he was put in charge. And Potiphar's wife decided that she wanted to fornicate with him, to be simple. And he, why didn't he give in? I think it's because he was filled with the spirit and dwelt by the spirit like we are.

And the one verse, Genesis 39, 12, He's running away. She caught him by his garment saying, lie with me. And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. Now there's a guy who's fleeing. And she got a piece of that garment and she used that to bring a charge of assault against him and he went to prison for it. But guess what? He didn't lie with her. He ran away.

Fornication is especially a serious sin because it involves placing the body, which belongs to the Lord, under the control of another illegitimate partner. No other sin has this result. All other sins are outside and apart from the body in this sense. We can say, well, while sin is sins, immorality is unique.

It's unique in that it affects the body as well as the resident of the body. Here comes that phrase again. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? Key word here is or. It starts, verse 19, and introduces a further argument of why you would flee in this case.

Previously, Paul had taught his readers in the Corinthian church back in 316, do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Notice this, God's way of deliverance is from what is unworthy of himself is not only by pointing out that it's wrong, but by giving us an enlarged conception of what's in his own mind. The Corinthians were in danger of falling into practices which were of the most degrading character morally.

But the way of divine wisdom to deliver them was to call their attention to the holy and exalted character that attach to them. Every one of them, every one of us, has a body that's a temple. And the Holy Spirit is truly indwelling each one of these temples. We've been studying Exodus on Wednesday nights and we've been going through the verses on how the sanctuary was set up and how meticulous it was adorned and built and just the finest of everything, gold.

And then the priest who was gonna go in there, how he was to be dressed and how careful all this, and God warns these Jews and warns Aaron and tells Moses, you know, if you don't do it this way, you're gonna die. Or you're gonna be locked out of the nation of Israel, which in that case would have been like death. The sanctuary was so important to God. Why? Because that's where he was gonna meet the people. So he says here, you're a sanctuary, you're a temple. And the thing that makes you holy is the person who resides in you.

So in 1 Thessalonians 4.8, we find out that this spirit that we have been given as a gift, And Paul says to the Thessalonians, so he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but God, who gives us his Holy Spirit to you. Notice that the dignity and the holiness of the temple, I said this, is not derived from us, but derived from the one who indwells it. And because he indwells it, and indwells us, guess what? We belong to him.

The one thing, it's one thing to have the spirit, but it's quite another thing to recognize the presence of the spirit and the holy character of the vessel in which the spirit is, which is our body. Paul clearly teaches that believers, that the believer does not have the option of living as he pleases. In this day, in 2020, this fits so well. The emphasis is on what we call human rights.

The believer must remember that by virtue of redemption, we have no rights of our own. Our only concern is to be submissive to the will of God. The whole entire abortion platform is based on one issue, women's rights. We as believers don't have any rights.

Guess who has them all? God has them all. Every single one. Nowhere does Christianity and the culture clash more than at this point. I got my rights. No, you don't. Sorry. Christ has them all, and thank God that he does. For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. This is the last motive that he gives. And it's the motive of purchase. It is unrighteous for me to indulge in anything in the flesh because someone else owns me. Our bodies belong to the Lord. The price has been paid for them. What did it cost him? The most valuable commodity that's ever been on this earth is the blood of Jesus Christ. So it's a great thing to see the immense value that God attaches even to our bodies. Think about this, that God bought our bodies by the blood of Christ.

Nothing else is more valuable or ever will be more valuable than that commodity. So to sum up, So a chain of the most wonderful statements are brought in to counteract the lowest and the basest things that you can think of. Joined to the Lord is an affectionate personal intimacy with him. There's no question that sexual immorality is wrong.

Paul concluded because it involves sinning against one's body, which in the case of believers belongs to the Lord through divine purchase. The point here is not who paid the price of redemption or how great or small, but the question can be answered. The point here is the believer doesn't have any rights to himself.

You know, I think it's a really settling thing in a believer's heart to recognize and to say to our Lord, hey, I belong to you. I don't belong to me anymore. And I'm happy about that, because you can do a lot better job with me than I've been doing. I belong to you, and you can do with me whatever you wish.

The conclusion of this whole matter is introduced by the word therefore. Here's the therefore, which translates a unique word in the Greek called the urgent, Well, I'm not even gonna tell you that. We could translate it by saying this, it is therefore a matter of utmost urgency that you glorify God in your body.

God has purchased us, every believer with a great price. We belong to him. In view of this, what do we do? Our job is to glorify God in our bodies rather than degrading them Usually the New Testament emphasizes our redemption leading to freedom from sin. But here, redemption is leading to faithfulness to God. Even our physical bodies are to be faithful to the Lord with whom we are joined.

He tells us, going all the way back to chapter five, talking about his cross. We talked about the man taking up an incest with his stepmother. Incest was a manifestation of the carnality in the church. Roger talked about in the beginning of Romans 6 that fellow believers shouldn't sue one another in the public arena. Now we find out that we should not use our bodies for prostitutes. because we've been bought with a price. So how do you glorify God in your body? You ever think about that? How do I do that? How does that happen?

Well, there's several scriptures. One, it is God who both causes you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Two is, the spirit of God is there indwelling each one of us in this temple that we are to manifest the glory of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ.

It's his job. Our job is to believe him. So my answer to my own question is that probably the most crucial thing for us as believers is to just believe him. Spend time in the word, find out who you are, where you are, what you have, who you belong to, and just trust him about that.

Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the fact that, boy, we don't have to worry about these bodies. They belong to you. And we're very excited about that. We're thankful for that. So as we go on in our life, day by day, we're to recognize that we're to glorify your son, glorify you in our bodies. And we pray in his precious name, amen.