Mar 14, 2021
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.