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[a] 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[b] 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.
Footnotes:
- 1 Corinthians 6:16Or who holds fast (compare Genesis 2:24 and Deuteronomy 10:20); also verse 17
- 1 Corinthians 6:18Or Every sin
ESV Study Bible notes:
6:12-30 Sexual Immorality and the Body’s Resurrection. Some of the Corinthian Christians were using prostitutes, theorizing that bodily appetites were matters of indifference for Christians just as they apparently were for everyone else. Paul reminds them that the bodies of Christians are one with the resurrected Christ and, in risen form, the Christian’s body will be eternal. What they do with them now, therefore, is important.
6:15 bodies . . . members of Christ. Already in 1:13 Paul has hinted that the church is Christ’s body and that divisions in the church are incompatible with this truth. See also 12:12, 27; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:13-16; 5:23; Col. 1:18.
6:16-18 Unity with Christ is incompatible with all sin (Rom. 6:6) but particularly with sexual sin. Because sexual union has a spiritual component, sexual activity outside marriage is a unique sin both against Christ (1 Cor. 6:15) and one’s own body (v. 18; see Prov. 6:26, 32). Within marriage, sexual union is not only allowed but has positive spiritual significance (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:22-33) [Emphasis added] Flee. Paul also tells the Corinthians to “flee from idolatry” in 1 Cor. 10:14. Idolatry and sexual immorality were closely connected in Israel’s history (Ex. 32:6; Num. 25:1-2) as well as in Paul’s thinking about the problems in Corinth (1 Cor. 10:7-8).
Christ-centered ANR 