WWUTT 1511 Your Bodies Are Members of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15)

The Body Is for the Lord, Not Sexual Immorality

Once again, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul says that the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. So glorify God in your body when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I want to preface this once again by saying the subject that we're talking about as we exposit this portion of the chapter is sexual immorality.

This week in particular, I'm going to talk about some things that are rather adult in content. I'll be tasteful as I talk about these things, but it still may be some things you've not yet addressed with your kids.

I'm going to begin by reading verses 12 through 20 out of the Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. Now, God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power.

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?

For he says the two shall become one flesh, but the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

Verse 15 is really where we're starting today, picking up where we left off from last week, with the Apostle Paul asking, 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. It's in verse 13 where the Apostle Paul said, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now what is sexual immorality? As we're going to be talking about that, and more so this week, it's important to define it.

What do we mean by sexual immorality? Now in some translations, like the New American Standard, places where it will read sexual immorality in the ESV, it may only say immorality in the New American Standard, but we understand that to be pornea.

We understand that in the Greek, that's the word that's being used. So it's sin of a sexual nature that is therefore outside of the covenant bond of marriage. So sex that is outside of marriage, God has called that sexually immoral.

Defining Sexual Immorality as Sex Outside Marriage

Now I recently had confronted an evangelical leader on Twitter about this. This is somebody who works at a Christian seminary. She had written an article for a pretty well-circulated website, and in her article she made a mention of sexual immorality, but she did not define what it was.

She did not say that sexual immorality is sex outside of marriage, that God created sex to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife, and any other kind of sex therefore is sexually immoral. She didn't give that definition.

She mentioned the term, she said sexual immorality, but did not define it. So I reached out to her and I said, when you write articles like this and you make a mention of sexual immorality, you have to define it.

Because if you don't define it, what a person reads when they see that term is a person whose sexual ethics are different than mine. That's what they see as sexual immorality. Sexual ethics that are different than my ethics.

And therefore the definition is very subjective. You have to come back to scripture on this, or you're not helping a person understand what you're talking about, or correcting a sin problem when a person is not able to identify the problem.

And she responded to me and she agreed. She said, yes, I agree with you that sexual immorality is sex outside of marriage. But that's not the only kind of sexual immorality. Even a husband can sexually assault his wife.

And so therefore you can't just say that sexual immorality is sex outside of marriage because you can commit a sexual sin even within a marriage. So instead of providing all of these different ways that sexual immorality has to be qualified, it's just better for me to use the term and then a person can look up the term on their own.

That was stunning to me that she said that, that she said that she had no responsibility to define what sexual immorality was because a husband can commit sexual immorality within his own marriage against his own wife, can sexually assault his wife.

Therefore it's just too tricky for us to have to define it. It's better for me to not define it at all. That is absurd. When the Bible defines sexual immorality, it doesn't give all this list of bullet points.

Oh, but a husband may do this and that would be sexually immoral. We know what this is. God created sex for a husband and his wife, not for a husband to assault his wife. That's not being implied in that definition at all.

God created sex for a husband and a wife. We know that you can even observe that by nature. Sex is consummate. It is procreative. It is two becoming one flesh. Anything else is sexually immoral. Hebrews 13 for marriage is to be held in honor among all and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for the sexually immoral and adulterers.

God will judge. Nobody's reading that verse and going, oh, but it looks to me like Hebrews 13 for is giving permission to a husband to assault his wife in a marriage. So we have to be a little bit more descriptive about that.

Nobody's going to do that. That's absurd. We know what is meant here by the marriage bed being held in honor above all. It means there's no abuse in the marriage, either a husband and a wife who love one another, the two becoming one flesh and honoring God with this, which God created for marriage.

Sex outside of marriage is immoral, premarital sex. We call that fornication. That is a sexual sin. It is sexual immorality, adultery. If a spouse cheats on their significant other with somebody else that they're not married to, they've committed adultery.

Now that term has even been softened over the years. We started using the term affair. So instead of saying someone committed adultery, we say they had an affair. That's still the same thing. It's still sin in the eyes of God, although I think we need to name the sin as the Bible calls it.

So that person committed adultery, even if a person has or even if a couple has agreed to an open marriage. Do you know what I mean by an open marriage? So both persons are married to one another by law, a husband and a wife married to each other, but they have an open marriage and they give permission to each other to sleep with others outside the marriage.

There are some professing Christians that are using this term and they're saying that an open marriage is okay as long as permission has been granted by the partner. No, it doesn't have anything to do with what your partner says.

It has to do with what God says. That's still adultery. It doesn't matter if the spouse has given permission to the other spouse to go fool around. God calls it adultery, and he will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous.

Again, Hebrews 13, 4. So adultery is sexual immorality. Doesn't matter if permission is granted, doesn't matter if you got two couples that are swingers, they're trading partners, they're committing adultery.

In fact, probably even bordering on an orgy then at that point, homosexuality is sexual immorality because you cannot have a marriage between a man and a man. God does not define marriage that way. Christ defined marriage, citing from Genesis when he responded to the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 19.

And this definition is the only definition he needs to give. There are people out there who say, well, Jesus never condemned homosexuality. Well, he never permitted it either. If you're trying to use that argument, he defined what a marriage is in Matthew 19, beginning in verse four, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate or let no man redefine. So Christ gave the definition of marriage and therefore the definition of sexual morality, their sex to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife in the marriage bed.

Anything else outside of that is sexual immorality. So therefore that covers everything else. Homosexuality is wicked. It is evil. God calls it an abomination. He judged it by fire in the Old Testament.

And in the book of Jude, talking about the sexual immorality that was committed at Sodom and Gomorrah, and they now serve as an example of the fire of the judgment of God that comes upon those who do such as such sexual immorality.

The apostle Paul was quite clear in Romans chapter one, the unnatural desire that a man has burning for another man or a woman has burning for another woman. Lesbianism mentioned there in Romans chapter one, and these will suffer under the judgment of God if they do not repent.

The Bible speaks very strongly against homosexuality. It is sexually immoral. Incest being another one. We talked about incest when we were in first Corinthians chapter five. The Bible forbids incest, a brother and a sister together.

Or in the case of first Corinthians five, it was a son with his father's wife, as we would understand it, his stepmother. That's considered incest. He's not even related by blood to this woman. But yet it's considered incest that he would have his father's wife.

So even step siblings, though they're not related by blood, they are related by marriage. And therefore, the Bible would consider that to be incest. Orgies are mentioned in Galatians chapter five as being of the works of the flesh.

That's sexual immorality, bestiality, which in the Levitical law says is punishable by death. So if a man has sex with an animal, that is an abomination before God and he is to be put to death pedophilia where an adult has sex with a child that is abominable before God and he will pour out the fire of judgment on such a one who molests a child.

Pornography is sexual immorality. It is lusting for another person outside of marriage, somebody that you're not married to, somebody who may be married to somebody else, someone who is a son or a daughter of someone else, someone who does not belong to you because you're not married to this person and you lust after them in your flesh.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter five that if you lust after a person, if you if you undress them with your eyes, if you lust for their body, you want to have sex with them, though you don't actually engage in the sex act.

The lust that you have for them, that desire for that person, Jesus says in Matthew five is the same as if you've committed adultery in your heart. Let me read straight from the scriptures so you hear it from the mouth of Christ.

This is Matthew chapter five, beginning in verse twenty seven. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

So even lust is committing adultery. It is breaking that commandment. You shall not commit adultery if you lust for somebody else. You've committed adultery in your heart and you have broken that commandment.

And God considers that sexually immoral. Pornography is not permissible. You continue to look at porn. You continue to lust after these bodies like pieces of meat on a screen or in pages of a magazine.

And that's not as common anymore. It's mostly the stuff that can be right in front of you on your smartphone or on your computer. But you're lusting after these bodies. God will destroy you in that lust if you do not repent.

It is a very serious sin. Masturbation, my friends, have nothing to do with it. Flee from sexual immorality, as Paul says here in First Corinthians, Chapter six. Pornography is a very serious sin. I'm going to come back to that one again later this week.

Masturbation. Is sexually immoral because that's what comes after lust, right? You've lusted for another person and then to please yourself in that lust leads to masturbation. We're not talking here about a couple pleasing one another in an intimate act.

We're talking about a person pleasing themselves when we use that word masturbation. That's sin. That's sexually immoral. And the Bible speaks of this very, very seriously. And we need to take it seriously as well.

Sexual Immorality in the New Testament Vice Lists

Whenever sexual immorality is mentioned more often than not, this isn't every single time, but most of the time, whenever you see a vice list in the New Testament, a list of sins, sexual immorality is first on that list.

We've seen two examples of it already in First Corinthians, in Chapter five and in Chapter six. In Romans, Paul begins to speak there in Romans, Chapter one in verse 18. He says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

And then he describes this unrighteousness and ungodliness. And he begins by talking about sexual immorality, that Greek word pornea, which is used to describe any kind of sex outside of marriage. Galatians Chapter five, where we read about the works of the flesh, the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry.

Those first few all tie back into sexual immorality, just like the list that we read last week in Colossians Chapter three. That's another place where Paul begins talking about sexual immorality. In fact, that vice list in Galatians Chapter five begins and ends with sexual immorality.

The first thing he mentions is sexual immorality, and he concludes it with orgies. The Apostle Peter in First Peter Chapter four mentioned sexual immorality in Revelation twenty one eight. This is one of the places where sexual immorality is not mentioned first, but still prominent on a list of sins that God will judge by casting such persons in the lake of fire.

Revelation twenty one eight. As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters and all liars, their portion will be in the lake of fire that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

And again, it's mentioned there in Jude verse seven, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

That's how serious this is. That if you do not repent of your sexual immorality, God will judge you with fire. Flee from sexual immorality, as it says in Ephesians chapter five, three sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints.

Christ Jesus will forgive you of your sins. He will cleanse you of all unrighteousness. He will give you a new heart and a new mind that does not desire these things, but desires Christ and wants to honor Christ with our bodies.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.