The Sanctity of the Body — Paris Reidhead

The Sanctity of the Body in 1 Corinthians 6

Now directly to the word. Chapter, 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 20. Our general theme is the sanctity of the body. I should like to read the portion. I shan't read it in the course of the message.

I shall read it in its entirety now through 20. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, that ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought unto the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy both eat and then. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of Anharad?

Not that he which is joined to Anharad is one body, for two sayeth he shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committed fornication sinneth against his own body.

What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit.

Corinthian Philosophy and the Rise of Antinomianism

You must have some insight into the cultural state of holy given over to idolatry. A city where the pagan philosophies have had their full fruition. According to the philosophers of Corinth, it was that since the body is simply a flesh and will die and be put into the grave and never come from the grave, and since the soul is distinct from the body and should it possibly have life beyond the grave, it still is in no way, no real sense influenced by it.

Therefore said the pagan philosophers, there is nothing that you can do in your body that will in any wise affect your soul. Now can you see what has happened? These people have come from this philosophy into the church.

They have come on the basis of the grace of God, on the basis of not of works of righteousness which they have done, but by the gift of God's grace. But do you see what they've done? They have taken this pagan philosophy, tied it up with the grace of God, and have produced a most insidious and vicious kind of antinomianism.

Now I've used the word from time to time, I define it again unless some should fail to comprehend. Anti means against, nomos, the law. Against the law, or that teaching which says since Christ kept the law for you, it doesn't make any difference how you live.

Now obviously the Bible teaches that God cares for and protects and holds secure in his hands those that are his. But the Bible teaches the preservation of the saints because God causes them to persevere.

And it does not teach licentiousness or license. It teaches that God, when he saves someone, performs a miracle upon them, and they become a new creature in Christ. That's the first point that I bring to you.

The Evidence of Unregeneracy

The evidence of unregeneracy. See these two verses 9 and 10. I shall read them. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves of mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

The evidence of unregeneracy. It is put here because he's writing to a church. And you will find at the end of the second letter, 2nd Corinthians chapter 13 in verse 5, that Paul says examine yourself whether ye be in the faith.

Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Christ, Jesus Christ, is in you, except you be reprobate. Here he is giving the yardstick by which they can measure. This is God's foot rule, if you please.

By which he can, that can be tested. Now it is just as simple as can be, here it is. None of these who do these things, the the strength that is given in the very word itself, and the manner it's presented is, they who practice these things, they who do such things.

I think you should see this in first John the third chapter, if you wish to turn to verses 8 and 9, you will have a corroborating testimony here. First John chapter 3 verses 8 and 9, he that committeth sin, practices sin, keeps on sinning, is of the devil.

For the devil has kept on sinning from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does not keep on practicing sin, because God's seed remaineth in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he is born of God.

In this, and I have used the strength of the verb, they're not in the King James Version, but if you use any of the other proper translations you will find that I have given the substance of the verb in all of these instances.

And then in the tenth verse, in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Now there were some in this church undoubtedly who did these things, who claimed to be saved, who pled that salvation was by grace through faith plus nothing, and that the God was glorified by the forgiveness of sin, and the more sin they had forgiven the more glory God got.

This is, Paul says, a doctrine of devil. And he states it just as clearly as it's possible for words to convey meaning. They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. There it is, it's just open shot, there's no place for debate, no place for argument.

It is a revelation of God, given with the clear purpose in the heart of God, that no one should misunderstand. Now you will notice, and I pass on, I could take a good bit of time on this, but I leave it to your perception and judgment to evaluate these and define them.

The Effect of Regeneration

I would have you see now, in the second place, the effect of regeneration. The evidence of unregeneracy immediately gives place to the effect of regeneration, as you find it in verses 11 to 14. And such were some of you, it's in the past tense.

You were. Or if you continue to be in the present tense, are, then you know that he has to conclude from what he said, that the testimony to salvation is spurious and false and counterfeit. Such were some of you.

Either it is a worse situation, or you'll have to conclude that they're not Christian. You see, God's purpose in salvation is to save people from sin, not to save them in their sins. Thou shalt call his name Jehovah Savior, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.

Notice what he has done to affect this salvation. But you are washed. This carries you back to the fountain of cleansing that was opened at Calvary. It carries you back to that which Jesus Christ did for sinners.

It takes you back to that place where God, the God who had become flesh, the eternal God who'd become man, the Lord Jesus Christ, had out of love for you and for me, taken upon himself our nature and our likeness, that he could be subject to every kind of temptation we experience.

And that it could be said of him, he was tempted in all points such like as we are, yet without sin. Out of love for you, he reached down across the ages to you, and the rest of the race included, and drew us all to him.

You see, since he was the infinitely holy God-man, he was capable of taking the guilt of an infinite number of sinners. And thus he could reach out and gather at him in one hand and even the other, and sweep across all the ages and bring to his bosom all the sinners.

And be there, as it were, representing their accumulated guilt and uncleanness in the same he did. And the Lord Jesus Christ then, the infinitely holy God, reckoned counted to be sin, went to the cross for you.

My friend, you may die unsaved, but you can't die unloved. Because he loved you, and he died for you. You may die unsaved, but you can't die without the penalty of your sin having been paid for. You may choose to continue in your sin, you may choose to go on in your rebellion, but I want to assure you that there has been made for you a way of escape, there's been made for you a complete and perfect salvation.

For the Lord Jesus Christ died, he took you with him to the cross, and there in your place instead he drew to his own bosom all the arrows of God's wrath, and the sword of God's justice. And then his heart was pierced, and from it gushed that fountain of blood and water that became forever the fountain of cleansing.

And we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the blood that makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. You're washed, and everyone that's in Christ is washed from all the guilt and stain of his sin. Then he said you are sanctified, you're sanctified.

This is the extended meaning of the word sanctified. This is the meaning that carries with it its timelessness. The word means set apart for holy purpose. There's a sense in which one we are sanctified before the foundation of the world, in the mind of God, in the purpose of God, in his understanding of the means of grace being affected, effective in our lives.

And then we are sanctified by the sacrifice of Christ, and by the work of the spirit of God calling. And then of course there is that specialized use of the word, wherein all that God has purposed and accomplished is wrought out in the heart as Paul prayed that you might be sanctified wholly.

So this word has tremendous scope in terms of time. And he's saying not only was there provided for you a fountain of cleansing, but God began drawing and pulling and bringing you by the strange levers of his love to the place where you would be a candidate for the cleansing that he provided.

Justification and the Imputed Righteousness of Christ

And then there's the word justify, justify. Oh the wonder of it, oh the marvel of it, oh how guilty sinners ought to raise their voices in ceaseless praise. Justify, what does the word mean? Well the meaning is right in the word itself.

You see, since the Lord Jesus Christ went as you to the cross and for you and as you died, the father counted that all of your sin and rebellion and uncleanness, all that you had done and all that you were, was laid upon Jesus Christ.

And the God the father dealt with Christ as you. And there wasn't anything else that his law could ask or demand. And he died as you. And the law has been perfectly satisfied in your behalf. And God raised him for his son from the dead, testifying that all that Christ had done for you was accepted by the father.

Now if you are willing to come on his terms, throw down the arms of your warfare against a holy God, a loving God, abdicate the throne that you so foully usurp from such a such a worthy sovereign. If you are willing to come and sue for peace, you can believe that all of your sin was laid on Jesus Christ.

And that he died for you and was raised from the dead. All the words are so pure, so simple, so unmistakably clear. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, justified.

What does it mean? Why it means that in the heavenlies there is a leap and a legal transaction. All of the mountain of your sin and such it would be, all that vast accumulation of your guilt and your uncleanness, was by the loving act of God counted as lifted and scraped and taken from you and laid on Jesus Christ.

So that he stood before the tribunal of divine justice as you, he was sentenced as you, he was executed in your place as you. And then when you come seeing that Christ died for you and receive him as Lord and Savior, God in heaven counts that all of the spotless purity and righteousness of the eternal son is credited to your account, laid upon you.

So you stand before God on this grounds of justification. Hear me now, just as holy as Jesus Christ. You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified. Such were some of you. This is the miracle of God in the heart.

But this miracle in the heart is manifest in the life of any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are passed away, all things have become new. And whereas the miracle in the heart is seen in verses 11 and 12, the manifestation is seen in verses 13 to 15.

Liberty, Love, and the Inner Control of New Life

God has not called us, believe me, God has never called us to license, to legalism. He's called us to liberty. The Christian life is not a long list of do's and don'ts. I sometimes feel that the long list of do's and don'ts that have been erected for Christians were there, put up by evangelists and pastors who didn't understand the supernatural miracle of the grace of God, and had to get a sort of a six or seven barred fence to put their unconverted converts in to try and get some behavior that was becoming to Christians.

I believe when God works a miracle in your heart, when God implants new life, when you're born of the spirit of God, there is an inner control that's been placed there by the presence of the risen Christ.

Instruction is needed, yes, but this, God never intended Christianity to become just a new, just another kind of gentile Phariseeism, with a long list of do's and don'ts. What he said was, I will take out of you the heart of stone, and I will put into you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statue.

I will cause you, because of new life. Now said he, if you are in Christ, you walk this way. If you walk this way, you're not in Christ. Now, he's called us to liberty, not to legalism. But you will notice something else, he's called us to love and not to license.

Let me read the verses for you. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful under me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, belly for the meats, but God shall destroy both it and them.

Here you have it. Paul will not put himself in bondage, he will not bring himself back under the awful treadmill of Phariseeism. He says all things are lawful to me, I am not going back to legalism. But said Paul, when I came to Christ, he gave me a new heart, a new nature, a new life, he made me a new creature.

And he turned me loose in the world, and I haven't had any trouble with it. Because I've had a deep desire to please God. One of our pastors, David Anderson, now up in Edmonton, Canada, was telling me of his experience in Minnesota.

He'd come to know the Lord Jesus one night. The next day he went to do what he'd been doing long before. And right in the middle of this thing that had been so enticing and alluring and satisfying to him in the past, he got up and he walked out.

He turned his back on him. No one had ever said a word to him. I think of Mona out there in Africa. This dear boy that one night prayed the sinner's prayer sitting on a stone in front of the back of the mission house.

The next day he came, his customary dress for years, all his life in fact, had been nothing but red ochre ground between stones mixed with rancid butter and poured on his head. Make it other way. And he came the night before this way quite content with this, the custom, costume of the people and the custom of the people as well.

He came the next day, said you know now that I'm a Jesus boy. And now that Jesus has come into my heart. I can't be like this. I can't be this way. Nobody'd said anything to him. But something had happened to him.

He was in Christ. He was in Christ and Christ was in him. And he was a new creation. He said I must have clothes and so would you sell me clothes? And he brought all the money he had to buy shorts and a shirt.

And they said they brought them out and he said now I won't touch them. You see how I am. He said did you notice how I smell? Well they'd been a little aware of it in the past as they'd worked with him day after day under the tropical sun.

He said yes we thought something about it. He said well I can't be like this now that I'm a Christian. Don't you sell, won't you sell me something of that that'll make me clean. I see you use it. Didn't even know what to call it.

And so he had his first piece of soap and he put his clothes in a paper and took the soap and went off to the stream and never was seen again without. Nobody'd said one word to him. But you see light and life had come into him in the person of Jesus Christ and he couldn't be the same.

No more than the electric light bulb can have the surge of electricity through it and stay cold and dead in its own emptiness. There's something in it. That's what Paul said. He said I've not been brought under law.

I've not been brought under a legalistic system. I don't have 613 acts of righteousness and taboos and ritual. What I have said he is the presence of a person that galvanizes me and dynamically changes me.

Some people say well I I don't see how I can hold out if I become a Christian. Well your only fear my dear is is not understanding what a Christian is. Christian isn't someone that holds out. A Christian is someone that's held up because of the presence of the risen Christ in him.

Paul said everything is lawful to me. But you see I have a higher law now than pleasing me. I have a higher goal than satisfying my glance. I have a higher ambition than my enjoyment. I want to please him.

I want to glorify him. I want to magnify him. And because of this I do not want to offend his. There it is the effects of regeneration brought out in the light. Now just one word in closing about the employment of the body.

The Body as an Instrument of the Lord

The evidence of unregeneracy the effects of regeneration and the employment of the body. The first thing we find is here in the 13th verse that the body is for the Lord. This is the principle. Your body is no longer primarily the vehicle of your own satisfaction and gratification.

It was before you sat on the throne of your life and reigned in regal splendor as a little puppet prince in the precincts of the dominion of your heart. And the only thing you had to do was that which pleased and satisfied and gratified and filled your fantasy.

Tickled your appetite. Oh yeah. Ah but now you've abandoned that throne. You've abdicated it. You've invite the rightful sovereign to sit down. And this has somehow changed the body. And it's no longer primarily the instrument for satisfaction and gratification.

It is now the instrument by means of which Jesus Christ is going to accomplish his loving purpose. Now he has in this in his will and in his purpose that which will please him and glorify him and please you and satisfy you in his will and his purpose.

But you see the difference is this. Previously you were under the tyranny of your body and you were forced to serve it. You were forced to serve it. You were forced to take that and do that and become that which your body demanded.

You didn't rule you. Your body ruled you. Now you've abdicated the throne in favor of Jesus Christ and the body has become as it was intended to be the vehicle and the tool for volitional purpose. And not the master to drive the spirit in the ceaseless round of foolishness.

The body is for the Lord. Oh if you can understand that he by his body accomplished his glorious redemption for us. Now his body is at the right hand of the father as the first proof of the resurrection.

And everything that Jesus Christ did in his body to provide redemption now must be mediated through your body to those for whom the redemption was provided. That's why he says present your body. He needs a body.

Mary gave to him a body by means of the incarnation. That body is at the right hand of the father there is the proof of our deliverance. But his purpose is ever to work for men through men. And he asked you therefore to think of your body as no longer the vehicle for your ambitions but the vehicle for his purpose.

And so he says bring your body and present your body. The only thing you have that Jesus Christ wants is your body. And once you've come to know him. And he wants it so that through you he can live his own resurrection life.

And this is the mystery and the glory and the wonder of our redemption. This is what he died to do. Not that you a mere human spirit in the frailty of your weakness and ignorance should try to do divine work.

That isn't it. But that it is that you a mere human being can recognize that Jesus Christ has asked you for that which he needs and wants your body. And you can present it to him and invite him therefore to live through you, your brain, your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet and possess your body and make it the vehicle by which he can accomplish his resurrection purpose in the world.

Therefore the body is for the Lord. You must understand this. Now it says the Lord is for the body. But there are many people that would like to be healed of the Lord and have his life flow in to do that which doctors never could do.

But there is no reason to expect that he will become the Lord for the body until we're prepared that he should have the body should be for the Lord. Why should the Lord give healing to one who is going to go on in stubborn rebellion against divine purpose?

Why should he? All that you recognize, all that I can recognize in my need that the only reason for him to meet and supply and to bless and to strengthen and to help and to heal is that he might have a vehicle wholly his, unimpeded, unhindered by which he can accomplish his glorious love purpose.

This is it. This is what you must see. The Lord for the body when the body is for the Lord. Now you'll notice here and just quickly one look at it that the body is the member of Christ. You are a member of Christ.

The Body as a Member of Christ

Know ye not in verse 15 that your bodies are the members of Christ. Can you take the members of Christ said he and use them for a noble purpose? Not so. Belongs to Jesus Christ. He purchased it with his blood.

He bought him. He first made you and then he bought you back from the slaveholder to whom you deeded yourself. Now your body is his, a member of Christ. Not to be used in sinful purpose, not to be squandered, to be dissipated, to be wasted.

Your body is his and then he bought it. You presented it to him or you must if you haven't out of desire to please him you must. And thus it has become the member of Christ. And you therefore recognize that what you as a Christian do, you are in one shameful sense, if it is of a shameful nature, asking Christ to do.

Do you see this? That when you take your body to any given place or use it for any given purpose or employed in any nefarious act, you are actually taking, and I use the word in its restricted sense, taking Jesus Christ into such employment, into such place, for such purpose.

You are a member of Christ. He has joined himself to you. If you be in Christ, then Christ is in you. If you're a Christian, Christ is in you. The hope of glory. There is no hope apart from him and his presence.

Therefore, your body is not yours to use, it's a member of Christ. Then the last truth is, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The dwelling place, the sanctuary.

The Body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit

No longer is there a temple made with hands. No longer does God desire wood and stone. We ask for a comfortable, clean, dry place to meet as a company of believers. But let it be understood that the hall in which we're gathered is not the church.

And if you speak of this building as the church, or even the corporate organization in the sense of its official standing before the state as the church, you misunderstand it. The church is composed of those who have been washed in the blood of Christ, born of the Spirit of God, and have been built together as an habitation of God through the Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 3 .16, you find you are the temple of God, speaking of the corporate group. Now he's extended this one step further, and he speaks to the individual and he says, yea, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Do you not see why your body must be clean? Be kept in as nearly as good health as possible? Be spared from every unnecessary use that would detract from its ultimate usefulness for Jesus Christ? I think of McShane, that dear man whose writings have blessed so many.

And he said, dying at the age of 28, he said, God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. His body. And he looked up from his deathbed, but he said, I have killed my horse before I've had my message delivered.

He'd overdone, he'd hurt himself, he'd injured himself, and cut off in the midst of his ministry. Oh, that you can recognize that your body is not longer the vehicle for your ambitions and your plans and your hopes.

Paul understood it and gave us the secret when he said, I, that I that sat behind the wheel of my body and drove it like a vehicle madly down the highway of my ambitions and desires. I am crucified. But I've learned the secret.

No longer do I sit behind the wheel. No longer do I count that my body is the vehicle that I drive. I've turned it over to Jesus Christ and I've invited Christ to live in me his own life. Won't you recognize that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, that you're not your own, that you've been bought with a price, and that it is therefore your purpose and God's purpose to glorify God in your body and in your spirits, which are God's.

This isn't something light and shallow and cheap to be wasted and squandered. This is something infinitely precious, so precious that God has promised in the resurrection to give you a new body, a glorified body.

We can't therefore fall prey to the pagan philosophies like miasmas that poison the atmosphere. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost and there's only a church when there are spirit filled believers who meet together and thus by their presence, the Lord Jesus Christ is manifest in the midst of his people.

A Final Exhortation to Consecration

I therefore entreat you and beg you to hear these last words. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own, for you are bought with a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which undoubtedly this word has found its way to some heart that is in great spiritual need. There are you among us those who have employed their bodies other than he is purposed.

And would you hear this as his exhortation and his entreaty to you? Will you not hear it and heed it? Oh, might I just now ask you to make covenant of love with him? You know your problem, you know your need.

Let's have just a brief moment. We're going to the Lord's table. Let's have just a brief moment that you can prayerfully tell him of the purpose of your heart.