1 Corinthians 6:19 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 6:19

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Now the apostle has been explaining the impossibility of fornication among Christian people; the ugliness and the wickedness of fornication, and all sexual uncleanness. He has been demonstrating its foulness and its hypocrisy. It was necessary to do this in writing to the Corinthians. The church was now around 6 years old. It had been formed through the preaching of the apostle himself. But it was a church in a very evil community. Corinth, for the time, was a vast city, but a city filled with vice and fornication, and so, although we do not assume by any means that a large number of the people in the church at Corinth were prone to fornication, some evidently had fallen and sinned; one in particular, a person who we know all about, and we are told more about. But some were tempted. And the apostle has to say to them. ‘This cannot be among Christian people. It is a wholly avoidable evil and sin.This verse opens up to a theme which is far greater than the sin of fornication. These words are rich and meaningful for all believers. ‘Don’t you know this?’ says the apostle. Of course they did, but he emphasises it. Back in chapter 3:16-17 we have come across exactly the same thought, but with a different application. There the temple metaphor is applied to the local church. True Christian people, who are born again by the Spirit of God, who have repented of sin and come to know Jesus Christ, who are worshipping as a community; they are collectively the temple of the Spirit of God. But exactly the same may and must be said of every individual Christian. There is no question in the Greek that the words ‘body’ and ‘temple’ are singular. The body of every Christian is a temple and the Holy Spirit indwells it. You have it from God with a new nature, ‘and ye are not your own.’ We may say that Christ is within us; but more accurately Christ is within us by his Spirit. Both are true in a sense, but specifically Christ is in us by his Spirit. We have a divine Guest; we have a divine Resident within us. He cannot leave us, and he will not leave us if we are truly saved; and we will always be the Lord’s. What a concept this is.

Application

The trouble is, we are going to be dealing with a theme now which many of us forget, and which we get used to. Time goes by, and we think nothing of it. If only we could keep in our minds what the apostle is mentioning here. It is such a deterrent from all forms of sin. It will hold us mightily in life, in spirituality, in communion with the Lord. We so often forget it: ‘What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?’ This is a tremendous principle for Christian people. This is something to hold onto and to cherish and value. How we must protect the shrine within us. There is a note of incredulity in the apostle’s voice, and it is deliberate. ‘What?’ he says, ‘Know ye not? You must know this.’ We were fallen creatures; we still are in such great measure. Our hearts were entirely for ourselves; under the rule of sin, under the power of the devil and temptation; under the great sword of eternal condemnation. Our hearts were corrupt and depraved and worthless. Now they are rendered beautiful within, and the Holy Spirit is there. What dignity, what elevation! There is a shrine, a holy of holies, a temple within me.

That is one of the reasons why in our nonconformist churches, and in all truly Reformed churches, you do not have altars or chancels in the church, and you do not decorate and construct and arrange the church as though it, the building, is the shrine or the altar, or the central theme of the presence of God and his worship. That is to distract from the fact that it is the congregation as people together and the individual Christian of whom this is true, not the building, not the place. The shrine, the life, the presence of the Holy Spirit is within people. This is what is precious, and what is important to us.

If you run a business – maybe it is a shop – and you have hard times so that the profits fail and you are getting into debts, then you have clearly got to wind the business up and lose a lot. But then somebody comes along and says, ‘I will be your partner. I will buy you out; you carry on running the business and earning from it, but I will own it, and I will pay the charges and see you through.’ So now you have a partner, and he undertakes the business side, the finance, the sponsoring. What a relief! You never expected it. But after a few weeks you meet somebody and you say to him, ‘I have got a business. Would you like to be my partner?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’ So you give away your business to this new partner for some reason or other. But it is not yours to give. You have already had somebody who has been your benefactor and your partner, and paid your charges and bought you out. You do not own it, and you have given it away. That illustrates what the apostle is saying here. You have been bought out. Christ has purchased you; he owns you; you have given yourself to him and you are so glad of it. What is fornication? Giving something you do not own to his enemy. See it like this. You cannot possibly do that. ‘For ye are bought with a price.’ Isn't that the absolute winning method of avoiding all fornication, to see it this way? All unclean images, all wrong looking. Hasn't the apostle given us the true and the sure antidote? ‘Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.’

Through this I have assurance and I have comfort and I have help. What comfort Christian people have. However turbulent life is, however down we may become; when we begin to reflect spiritually and to pray and to measure our blessings and re-evaluate them, then that comfort surges in. The holy of holies within is also the place through which divine intimations come to Christian people. God communicates with his people through the word of course, authoritatively. But the Holy Spirit dwelling within prompts us in many ways; and we call these ‘divine intimations’. Not as in the person who proudly says, ‘God told me to do this. God led me to do that. That is human pride. That is not spirituality. But there are intimations from God, and this comes from the Holy Spirit. You will have calls of conscience. When you are about to do or say something which is quite wrong. Then there are many stirrings to carry out certain duties and obligations, stirrings of compassion and tenderness. Don’t quench divine intimations.

How do I know I have the Holy Spirit within me? Because the voice of conscience is speaking regularly, and I seek to honour it. I have stirrings and intimations to do good and to help this one, and to witness to that one. I praise the Spirit for his kindness in urging me forward. When I stop the dismal thoughts going round and round and I fix my mind on Scripture and I thank God, I have a surge of comfort and help, light and information. When I pray for power over a particular sin, I am mightily helped. I am moved to love of Christ more and more – that is the work of the Holy Spirit, creating a holy of holies within.

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1 Corinthians 6:19 Commentary and Bible Study