The human body does matter

“Everyone does it”

“It’s not a big deal, it’s just fun”

“I was just being honest”

“The ends justify the means”

“Life’s too short to be nice”

“This is my life”

“Gender is who you are and sexuality is who you want”

How do we live out our Christian walk in a world full of slogans that indicate that everyone can do what they want, morality is not important and there are no rules?

This is not a new problem. This is what Paul was addressing to the Church in Corinth. His words are relevant today as they were two thousand years ago. Even then his world had slogans they lived by and in this section he addresses them.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷ But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. ¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6 v 12-20)

The slogans, (v12):-

• I have the right to do anything – I can have sex with whoever I want. This is still the message today.
• Food for the stomach – You’re hungry so you eat and therefore you crave sex so you go and get it.

Paul’s response is this (v12):-

• The real question isn’t, ‘Can I do this?’ but rather, ‘Does this benefit me and others?’

• True freedom includes the wisdom to recognize what might control us.

• The human body does matter.

It is not a mere shell or even a prison for the soul which some philosophies still declare today. Our bodies matter to God.

True freedom is found not in doing whatever we want but aligning our lives – both spirit and body – with the purposes of God.

If we truly believed that our bodies were not our personal property to do whatever we wanted with and God had our spirit but that our bodies were members of Christ’s body on earth, how might our lives look? Especially if we then look through Paul’s list of: “sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers” (v9-10).

This was Paul’s argument. The human body and what we do with it does matter to God.

• Our physical bodies will be raised with Christ, v14. Our bodies matter eternally. They will be perfected in a resurrected form. They have spiritual significance. We are members of Christ’s body (v15) so why go to a prostitute to unite with her? Why use Christ’s body to steal and cheat others?
• Our physical bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and we are meant to glorify God in every aspect of life, v19. If sex is happening within that temple then don’t cheapen it. That was not what it was created for.
• Our physical bodies do not belong to us, v19. We are not the owners. We are the tenants of our bodies. We don’t do what we want. We don’t sleep with whoever we want.
• Our physical bodies and our spirits were purchased (with the blood of Jesus). Understanding of all this is given when we come back to the foot of the cross.

So we see, the human body does matter. We rise today as the living, breathing, deciding, acting, member of Christ’s body in our world today. Let our world see Jesus!