1 Corinthians 6
LenskiCHAPTER VI
II. Litigation before Pagan Courts, 6:1–11
After concluding his exhortations in connection with the case of incest Paul continues with the matter of litigations before pagan courts and then deals with fornication in general in 6:12–20. This order has been thought strange since the case of incest and the subject of fornication would seem to belong together. Some of the explanations offered for Paul’s arrangement of materials seem fanciful. One thing is certain, we have no call to reconstruct Paul’s letter; it is our task to understand what he has written and to learn why he wrote as he did. In this instance the arrangement of the subjects is entirely simple. First comes the one definite case of incest; secondly come the recurrent cases of litigation which are also definite.
These special cases receive priority. Then follows the general subject of fornication. This arrangement is entirely natural.
The line of thought in our section is as follows:
1 Corinthians 6:1
1 Without the use of a connective Paul at once confronts the Corinthians with the deplorable facts. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
“Dare” does not express the boldness of the act involved but the lack of shame thus shown. “Any of you” is indefinite. It does not refer to some particular case but to any case of this nature that occurs at any time. Actual cases of this kind must have occurred in Corinth. Paul, however, deals only with this wrong as such. He takes the Corinthians severely to task in order once and for all to stop this wrong way of settling disputes and to inaugurate the right way, yes, to prevent disputes from arising. He calls for no disciplinary action on the part of the congregation regarding these litigations.
For the cure of certain evils strong admonition and full instruction are enough. In graver cases the stronger medicine of actual discipline must be added. When Paul writes about one “having a matter against another” he means one member against another, but πρός denotes reciprocity, for each of the two has something against the other. One sets up his claim, and the other sets up a counterclaim with the result that the aggravating matter remains unsettled. Then they rush to the pagan law courts. If the matter in question were entirely one-sided, Paul would have used κατά.
The verb κρίνεσθαι is middle, to go to law in one’s own behalf, R. 811. A sharp oxymoron is evident in κρίνεσθαι and ἐπὶτῶνἀδίκων, seeking justice before the unjust (judges) instead of before the saints or fellow church members. The two plurals “the unrighteous” and “the saints” are generic, the former referring to all non-Christians, the latter to all Christians, although in a given case of actual litigation only certain individuals of either class would function as judges. In the trial of Jesus before the Jewish and the pagan tribunals and in Paul’s own trials before pagan authorities Paul’s phrase “before the unrighteous” finds abundant corroboration.
In the legal practice of today all manner of injustice still prevails. Yet Paul has the deeper view that the whole world is “unrighteous,” and its law courts are only part and product of this world while the Christian Church is not only “righteous” but “holy,” and all judges and courts of the church are, therefore, of the same character. If attention be drawn to the fact that even the most august church courts have been glaringly unjust in their verdicts, the rejoinder is that the world’s spirit of injustice dominated these church courts so that, while they operated with a show of sanctity, they were really subject to the secular spirit.
There is a natural difference between the two tribunals which Paul contrasts. The pagan judges operate with legal power and machinery in a regular order of law or trial; when Christian brethren are asked to decide disputes they have no legal and police power and no legal machinery but serve voluntarily, operate with arbitration and the Christian sense of fairness, and rely on moral power for their results. But for all ordinary disputes between Christians, if these must be carried that far, the submission of the case to tried and trusted brethren should certainly be preferred. The trouble in Corinth lay, not only with the litigants who would run to pagan courts, but with the entire congregation which interposed no check upon such actions. Hence Paul first addresses the litigants and then turns to the church as such.
1 Corinthians 6:2
2 Does such a litigant think that his Christian brethren are not competent to judge justly such cases as had come up between members in Corinth? Paul intimates that such can scarcely be their serious opinion. Or do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? Well, if with you sitting as a court the world is judged, are you unworthy of the lowest tribunals? The argument is from the major to the minor. Those who are worthy of sitting as judges in a supreme court are certainly not unworthy of functioning in a tiny local court. Surely, the Corinthians know that much. Or is Paul mistaken as to their knowledge regarding this self-evident point?
One of the fundamental teachings of Christianity is that the saints shall judge the world. Dan. 7:22; Ps. 49:14; Matt. 19:28; Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 20:4. But it is one thing to know a truth and quite another to be alive to it and to act upon it when the time comes. We judge the world now. Paul does it when he calls the world “unrighteous.” Whoever has the Word of God and rightly uses that Word thereby judges the world, and judges it truly. And in the final judgment at the last day the saints shall be Christ’s associate judges.
This is a part of their royal rule as crowned kings. The Corinthians thought themselves “wise men”; well, here they have a place where they may use some real “wisdom.” We may note that this judging is not identical with that which is repudiated in 5:12: “What have I to do with judging those outside?” As far as disciplinary judging is concerned, the church deals only with “those inside,” see the remarks on 5:12.
The force of καί is stronger than that of the mere copulative conjunction “and,” it is more like our “well,” for in chainlike manner it begins to repeat the previous statement: “Well, if with you sitting as a court the world is judged,” etc., but now the passive and the present tense are used. The phrase ἐνὑμῖν is an instance of the forensic ἐν, coram, “with you sitting as judges,” R. 587. The condition is one of reality; without question the saints do judge the world.
What a tremendous act—to judge the world! What lofty dignity for those to whom such judgment is committed! Paul always hurls the full power of fact against wrong thought and wrong action; he overwhelms and never merely moves a little. And now some foolish church member in Corinth presumes to think that the saints who judge the world are “unworthy” to adjudicate in some trivial affair between himself and a brother? The very idea is ridiculous. And he must rush off to some pagan judge who stoops before idol shrines to have his case tried.
This multiplies the absurdity. The R. V.’s “the smallest matters” is a mistranslation, for κριτήριαἐλάχιστα (elative superlative, R. 670) are not the most insignificant cases that might be tried but the lowest type of tribunals such as justice of the peace courts; and the genitive is not the genitive of price (Blass in R. 504) but is equal to the ablative, R. 516: “are you unworthy of sitting as the lowest kind of court?”
1 Corinthians 6:3
3 The case can be stated still more effectively. In the world which is subject to our judging the angels rank highest. So Paul adds: Do you not know that we shall judge angels? to say nothing of common life affairs. This argument is again a majori ad minus with the minor concentrated in μήτιγεβιωτικά. This minor is not a part of the question (our versions) but an assertion: “to say nothing,” etc. And μήτιγε is elliptic, vollends aber, B.-D. 427, 3. It is used only here by Paul but is frequently found in the classics: “not at all (to mention that we shall judge) common life affairs.” The contrast is tremendous: “angels” on the one hand and βιωτικά on the other, things connected with βίος, vita quam vivimus, the course of our physical existence as distinguished from vita qua vivimus, the life principle itself which animates us.
The Corinthians are not to make this deduction; Paul himself states it. In v. 2 the contrast is between the Corinthians as world judges and as judges of petty courts; in v. 3 the contrast is between the cases judged, between angels and common affairs, and this contrast is intensified, for angels are the mightiest persons, and these affairs are the trifling things about mine and thine, about what you said and what I said, etc. Regarding the judging of angels compare Isa. 24:21; 2 Pet. 2:4, and Jude 6. Many passages speak about the connection between the angels and us, Heb. 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:12; Eph. 2:20, etc., 3:10; Rom. 8:38. The Word by which the saints judge extends also to the angels. Osiander writes: “Just as we find a law of mediation in the ministration of grace from man to man although the Lord remains supreme, so we find the same law of mediation in the final ministration of justice, the believers judge the world including the angels, yet the Lord is always supreme. In what this judging consists, in promulgating or confirming the verdict or in otherwise assisting, we must leave until the great act takes place.”
1 Corinthians 6:4
4 By repeating βιωτικά Paul again links the thought together like a chain. Coming to the little tribunals that deal with the everyday affairs of life, do the Corinthians really intend to choose judges for these courts that have no standing whatever in the church? If, then, you have courts for common life matters, do you seat as judges such men as are accounted nothing in the judgment of the church?
To regard this sentence as a question is more effective than to regard it as a declaration. In v. 2 the condition is necessarily one of reality, εἰκρίνεται, for the world is, indeed, judged by us, and Paul intends to imply just that. In v. 4 ἐὰνἔχητε is properly a condition of expectancy, for Paul thinks of the cases about common earthly affairs that may arise from time to time. Here again κριτήρια, which is now modified by βιωτικά, denotes courts or tribunals, namely such as deal with these common matters. The object of the verb may be placed before the conjunction as it is here placed before ἐάν. “If, then, you have courts for common life matters,” Paul asks, is this what you do, “seat as judges such men as are accounted nothing in the judgment of the church?” That is, indeed, what the Corinthians were doing. By taking their cases to the pagan judges the Corinthians “seat” them, namely make them sit on the judge’s bench to try their cases.
Paul has already called these judges “the unrighteous.” Now he specifies by stating who it is that renders this verdict upon them, who says that they are unrighteous. But he now uses a stronger negative term than “unrighteous,” namely “men accounted as nothing” (οὑδέν). This is the verdict of the church, ἐντῇἐκκλησίᾳ, again the forensic ἐν, coram: “in the judgment of the church” or “before her judgment bar.” This verdict of the church is even made emphatic by τούτους, which here, as often, follows a participial description to stress the description: “such men” or “men of this kind,” namely mere heathen judges, them you make your arbiters? Paul himself appeared before pagan judges, but they were not of his choosing, he was compelled to appear before them, and we know what justice he received.
By saying that these pagan judges are accounted as nothing at the bar of the church Paul corroborates what he says about the saints judging the world, v. 2. Yet he does not assail their legal standing in the state, or preach rebellion and lawlessness, or offer disrespect to the judiciary of the state, Rom. 13:1–7. The judgment bar of the church deals with spiritual findings and not with secular matters. Spiritually considered every pagan or unbeliever is “nothing,” and this includes every official pagan personage. Yet every case that occurs among Christians, even the smallest dispute, turns essentially on points that are spiritual in their nature and thus are far above not only the common law of the state but also far removed from the mind and the apprehension of a pagan judge. In fact, even if a judge should be a Christian, his duties as a secular judge debar him from applying Christian, spiritual principles to his official judicial actions. And yet the Corinthians run to such judges and such courts.
The context does not favor making the verb imperative as some interpreters do: “Seat as your judges, when you have disputes, members of your own, those who are counted as nothing, least esteemed and least capable in the estimation of the church.” Thus the A. V.: “set them to judges who are least esteemed in the church.” It would be the height of folly on Paul’s part to send such a command to the Corinthians. Such an order would shake their confidence in him completely and induce them to resort to the state courts more than ever. The church has always done the very opposite in her practice. She has always chosen the most capable and most experienced men in her midst to settle disputes. This interpretation would give καθίζετε the meaning “establish a court,” but there is no necessity to understand this word in such an unusual sense. And then “men who are accounted as nothing,” is taken to refer only to “the simple members” of the church, those who are looked down upon by the proud, whereas the term is the equivalent of “the unrighteous,” namely pagan judges mentioned in v. 1.
1 Corinthians 6:5
5 In 4:14 Paul writes that he does not intend to shame the Corinthians but to admonish them. Here he expressly tells them: I say (this) to move you to shame, πρός expresses intention. The Corinthians had forgotten the spiritual pride which they should have as Christians. They ought to be ashamed to run off to pagan courts. Yes, there are certain things which we ought to be ashamed to do; but if we do them, the moment we see what we have really done, shame should fill us.
Here there is evidence of Paul’s pastoral wisdom in dealing with his people. Not a few faults disgrace our members, for which disciplinary action would not be the proper remedy; the true and effective remedy is to set those faults into the right light, to show how they disgrace the profession and the lofty character of a Christian, and thus to win our members to truer, higher, more Christlike ideals.
In this effective manner Paul concludes the first point of his discussion on litigations.
The second point tells the Corinthians that disputes in their midst should be settled by themselves. So, then, is it possible that among you there is not even a single wise man who shall be able to adjudicate between his brother (and another), but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
“So, then,” sums up the situation as Paul has just described it, sic igitur, running off to pagan courts as you do. Ἔνι = ἔνεστι, it is an old Greek idiom, R. 313, from ἐνί (the strengthened ἐν) with the accent moved forward: “is it possible?” Also οὑδείςἐστινὅς is idiomatic, R. 726: “is there no one who?” There is a sting in the term “wise man”: Among all of you Corinthians is there not even a single “wise man”? This sting is intensified when it is remembered that this wise man would have but a slight task to perform, one that required only a modicum of wisdom. And yet the Corinthians cannot achieve so much although all of them boast so loudly about their wisdom. The fact that a discreet and wise man would be chosen to act as an arbitrator Paul assumes without further remark; he certainly does not expect them to choose a man who is inferior as the faulty translation of v. 4 in the A. V. suggests.
In the relative clause: “who shall be able to adjudicate between his brother (and another)” ἀνὰμέσον is only a compound preposition governing the genitive, a kind of prepositional circumlocution which is found four times in the New Testament. It has the meaning “between.” There is a difficulty in the use of the singular τοῦἀδελφοῦαὑτοῦ, literally, “between his brother,” for which no satisfactory explanation has been offered. If we had the plural “between his brethren” or a collective noun, all would be clear. We should not charge Paul with slovenliness of style. Such a statement only dodges the difficulty. To change the meaning of the preposition “between” into gegenueber (over against) is only eine Verlegenheitsauskunft (a convenient evasion) and not a solution.
Paul knew that this singular with αὑτοῦ was proper, the Corinthians also knew it, we do not—at least not as yet. The sense is fortunately plain: to decide between one brother and another.
Paul is very careful to write διακρῖναι, “to adjudicate between” or “to decide between,” and not κρῖναι, “to judge.” For when a Christian brother or several Christian brethren act in a case of dispute between their brethren they do not function as legal judges in a secular court but render a Christian decision which involves much more. Their chief difficulty will also usually be with the complainant who comes with charges against a brother and demands “his rights,” or insists on admissions on the part of his brother, or demands that the brother be expelled. This may, in a way, help to explain the Greek singular “his brother.” The future “who shall be able” is a regular future which refers to any case that may come up.
1 Corinthians 6:6
6 Both features are reprehensible, going to law at all and especially taking their matters before unbelievers. “And that” calls attention to the worst feature. The verb “goes to law” is the same as that used in v. 1. The pagan courts and their judges are now called ἄπιστοι, “unbelievers,” men who are devoid of “faith,” which latter really makes the Christian what he is. To these judges the whole world of faith in which the Christian lives, moves, and has his being is terra incognita. Yet every dispute among Christians involves faith in one way or in another, some fault that is hurtful to faith, some virtue that ought to grace faith. And these are the real things about which Christians ought to be concerned in any dispute apart from the mere question of injury which they may or may not have suffered, or the mere justice which they may or may not be able to secure. Yet in these vital matters that touch our faith “unbelievers” cannot function as judges; the very law of secular courts debars them from that.
What a sad spectacle to see one Christian brother going to law with another Christian brother before unbelievers! Are they unconcerned about the real matters of faith that are involved in their dispute? Is their entire concern only about secular law and justice? Do they care nothing about their hearts? Is the Christian wisdom of their own faithful brethren in the church, which might, indeed, do something for their faith, nothing at all to them? Even when they obtain full justice, is that all they want?
Yet even that is not always obtained in secular courts. Jesus did not obtain it from pagan Pilate, nor Paul from the pagan governors of Palestine. And, worst of all, the Corinthian congregation stands by and lets these foolish litigations before unbelievers go on without even a word of protest. Where is this wisdom of theirs of which they are so proud? Are these some of its fruits?
This is Paul’s second point in regard to the litigations at Corinth, and it certainly strikes home.
1 Corinthians 6:7
7 The third point is this: the very fact that the Corinthians have difficulties that are pressed to the point of requiring adjudication is a reflection on their Christian character. Already, then, in general it is a loss for you that you have lawsuits with each other. It is not necessary to adduce the aggravating circumstances regarding the kind of judges you choose, “already” the fact that you have all these disputes with each other is “in general” a decided loss. The οὗν is, perhaps, not genuine but an insertion by a copyist from v. 4; in both places μὲνοὗν = demnach or also, “then” or “accordingly” and connects with what precedes. Both “already” and “in general” intend to generalize so that the argument is now a minori ad majus. In v. 2, 3 Paul argues: If you judge the world, even angels, you can certainly act as judges in petty courts and regarding petty matters (argument from the major to the minor, in fact, from the greatest to the least).
Now he argues: You ought to settle your own disputes and, what is far more important, you ought to be above having disputes, for the greatest loss lies in having them at all (argument from the lesser to the greater). For if the Corinthians have no disputes at all and thus exclude the greater loss, they themselves will not even need to settle them and thereby suffer a lesser loss than by running off to pagan courts.
The idea suggested by ἥττημα, a rare word, is that of defeat and loss; it is the opposite of νικᾶν, to conquer, to win. “Defeat” in the R. V. is not strong enough, and “fault” in the A. V. points in the wrong direction. “Loss” is what the Corinthians thus suffer “in general,” a great loss in honor and in dignity for one thing and an equally great loss in Christian fellowship and love. Matters ought never to arrive at the point where it is necessary to have κρίματα, litigations, no matter who adjudicates them, namely “incriminations,” one member being constrained to bring serious charges against another. Long before they reach that stage such things should be settled quietly, otherwise the loss is very great.
But how can the occurrence of disputes be prevented? In an exceedingly simple way which even makes their beginnings impossible. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be defrauded? Both verbs are probably middle voice and have the permissive sense which is closely allied to the causative and approaches the passive, R. 808: “let yourselves,” etc.
This is exactly what Christians so often forget. When a fancied or a real wrong has been done them, they think they must demand and secure redress. They at least feel that the brother who supposedly wronged them or who actually did them wrong must be humbled and made to ask their pardon. Or to take a more specific case, this is also true when one is defrauded or thinks he is. Simply to suffer the wrong, the injustice, or the injury does not occur to many Christians. The least they do is to set up a loud complaint and then continue complaining and ill will.
To forgive at once and to forget so thoroughly as to make no complaint at any time, is an unknown ethical practice even to brethren who think they are σοφοί, well read in the Scriptures and rather advanced Christians. Of course, when Paul asks the Corinthians why they do not rather suffer wrong he in no way excuses those who actually do wrong, nor encourages them to continue their wrongdoing. What obligation they have is plain; it needs no elucidation here.
1 Corinthians 6:8
8 Instead of following the right course when they are wronged or defrauded the Corinthians do the very opposite: Nay, you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and this to brethren, either by wronging and defrauding them or by retaliating for mistreatment received from them. The present tenses of this verse imply a course of conduct. The Corinthians not only refuse to suffer wrong and injustice and thus to avoid most of the great loss to which Paul draws their attention, they go on doing wrong and inflicting injury, and that to the brethren to whom they owe a special obligation as brethren and thus increase their loss to the greatest proportion. No wonder, then, that the Corinthians had all sorts of litigations in their midst.
The third point in Paul’s discussion reveals the disgraceful condition existing among the Corinthians, a condition that should never have made progress.
1 Corinthians 6:9
9 All such ἀδικία should have disappeared when the Corinthians became Christians. Paul warns them that it is wholly foreign to the kingdom of God. Or do you not know that unrighteous people shall not inherit God’s kingdom? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor voluptuaries, nor pederasts, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit God’s kingdom.
The two “why” occurring in v. 7 are the logical hinges on which there swings the question: “Or do you not know?” etc. Paul’s thought is: “I cannot understand why you do not rather let yourselves be wronged, etc., unless it be that you do not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit,” etc. Paul’s question implies that the Corinthians certainly do know, and that they cannot deny that they know, for what he has said about the unrighteous belongs to the very elements of Christianity. Since ἄδικοι, as well as the entire list of sinners following, has no article, the quality is stressed: “unrighteous people,” they who are such. Compare the “unrighteous” judges mentioned in v. 1. Let the Corinthians beware! None that are unrighteous in God’s sight inherit his kingdom. “Unrighteous” and “God’s” are juxtaposed in the Greek in order to intensify the contrast.
While “God’s kingdom” does not need the articles since only one such kingdom exists, and since the genitive also makes this kingdom definite, the emphatic way in which it is named God’s kingdom shows how opposite in character it is to all that is unrighteous. Paul refers to the kingdom of glory. God’s kingdom is found already in this life and exists wherever the power of God’s grace operates in men’s hearts and makes them truly righteous; compare 4:20. But when Paul speaks about inheriting the kingdom he necessarily refers to the kingdom that is still above us, which is filled with heavenly blessedness. Paul might have said that the unrighteous cannot enter into or remain in the kingdom as it exists here on earth, but it is characteristic of his thinking and his writing that in many connections he includes the whole sweep of time and of eternity, of this world and of the world to come; compare, for instance, v. 2, 3, our judging the world, even angels.
“Shall inherit” should not be reduced to mean only “shall participate in.” The view that no process of inheritance is indicated is refuted by Rom. 8:16, 17: “if children, then heirs.” In order that we may inherit, God first makes us his children who naturally inherit because of their birth and his sons who inherit legally because of their legal standing. Again, God has made his will and testament in his promises which are duly sealed and attested in his Word, and in this will he names us as the heirs. We do more than merely to participate in the kingdom. The latter may be done without ownership as when a slave participates in the shelter, the food, etc., of a grand mansion, John 8:35; but only a son abides in the house forever, for he owns it. So we “shall inherit” and own. The “unrighteous” are not named as heirs in the will.
“Be not deceived,” Paul writes because regarding this very point people constantly deceive themselves although it is so self-evident and so elementary, yes, the simplest catechism truth. Thousands who are living today are ἄδικοι, “unrighteous,” and yet expect to reach heaven at last. The negative μή shows that the verb is imperative, R. 947.
Now Paul repeats 5:10, 11 and adds an entire list of the unrighteous so that the Corinthians shall surely know what he means. He uses ten designations, for ten symbolizes completeness. This list of ten classes is not exhaustive but representative. Paul writes objectively, yet any one of the members in Corinth who needed a warning can apply what he says to himself. As far as the arrangement of the list is concerned, Paul seems to heap up all of these classes of sinners in one great mass. Seven οὕτε are followed by three οὑ, apparently only for the sake of variation.
Efforts to detect a reason for the order of the designations result in finding no order. The fact is that Paul intends to follow no definite order in presenting this list. Just as the number ten symbolizes completeness, so this motley array which is devoid of order pictures the mixture of sinners as they actually occur in the world: a fornicator sits beside an idolater, a thief beside a drunkard, any of these sinners beside any others. They are all of one kind, all headed for hell; why should an apostle trouble even to group them—let the devil do that if he cares. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 320, etc., reports some interesting parallels from popular pagan sources.
In a papyrus of circa 245 B. C. Deissmann found the word μαλακός, which he translates “the effeminate.” This word is used in a secondary (obscene) sense and is an allusion to the foul practices by which musicians eked out their earnings. The term is not an equivalent of mollis, one who submits himself to a pederast. There is no reason that this vice should be indicated twice by naming its passive and its active perpetrators. It denotes a voluptuary.
The ἀρσενοκοίτης is a pederast, cinaedus, “abusers of themselves with men,” our versions. Regarding ἅρπαξ Deissmann tells us that this was current as a loan word in Latin comedy and was used in the sense of swindler. Paul himself distinguishes it from λῃστής, “robber,” or “brigand,” 2 Cor. 11:26. He himself had suffered at the hands of such hold-up men.
1 Corinthians 6:10
10 At the beginning of the sentence “God’s” precedes “kingdom” evidently in order to juxtapose the “unrighteous” and “God’s” so as to form a clashing contrast; here at the end of the sentence the genitive follows in ordinary fashion. Yet Paul repeats: “shall not inherit God’s kingdom” as if he would hammer this elementary truth into the consciousness of the Corinthians. Gross immoralities are one of the outstanding marks of the kingdom of this world. They begin with all forms of idolatry, false religion and irreligion, and include especially, as Paul’s list shows, sexual vices, sins against property, and sins of the tongue. While the requirements for inheriting God’s kingdom go much farther than the avoidance of such open sins, the presence of any one of them in a man is evidence that he is debarred from heaven, and this plain negative fact Paul re-emphasizes.
1 Corinthians 6:11
11 In closing this section regarding litigations Paul reminds the Corinthians of the blessed state they entered when they left the company of all the evil men he has named. This loving reminder is to confirm them in their new state in order that they may not become apostates. And such some of you were; but you had yourselves washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
The predicate of the masculine plural τινές is the neuter plural ταῦτα, which is quite proper in the Greek, but this neuter plural has a derogatory sense: solches Gelichter, such rubbish, or trash. “Some,” Paul writes and keeps to the facts, only some, not all, for there were not a few persons among Jews and pagans who hated these vices and lived respectably, the Jews did not practice idolatry; and some of these were among the number that had been brought to Christ—sinners all but not stooping to the grossest forms of sin. The predicate ἦτε is significant because of its tense: “you were”—once but now no longer.
The limitation that only some were once gross sinners ends with this statement. The three adversative statements include all of the Corinthians. The three ἀλλά, “but,” are not only highly rhetorical but make each verb stand out independently. Each of these three statements is therefore complete in itself. Each covers the same ground as the others, but each does it in its own way. To be baptized is to be sanctified, and vice versa. And this is true of each act in relation to either of the other two. Paul most impressively describes what happened to the Corinthians when they were brought to Christ.
All three verbs are aorists and not perfects. It has been said that there are sermons in tenses, and there is a sermon in these. Perfects would mean that the activity expressed by these three verbs as definite past acts still continues into the present as an unchanged condition, and that it remains unchanged. The three aorists state only what occurred in the past (historical aorists) and stop there. These aorists thus leave open the question as to whether the present still fully agrees with what took place so blessedly in the past. Yes, there is a sermon in these tenses.
While all three verbs are aorists, only the last two are passives, and the first is most significantly a middle. This middle ἀπελούσασθε does not mean: “you were washed” (passive), R. V.; nor: “you are washed” (perfect), A. V.; nor: “you washed yourselves” (ordinary reflexive middle) R. V. margin and R. 807; but: “you let yourselves be washed” (causative or permissive middle), R. 809, “you had yourselves washed,” as we translate. Paul is, of course, speaking about baptism, but when he uses ἀπολούειν he at once names the effect of baptism, the spiritual washing away of all sin and guilt, the cleansing by pardon and justification.
This causative or permissive middle, which is exactly like the same middle ἐβαπτίσαντο used in 10:2, adds what the passive would omit, namely that with their own hearts the Corinthians themselves desired and accepted this washing and cleansing. In their case baptism was not a mere outward, formal, or only symbolical act. And what they desired they obtained: they were cleansed of sin and guilt.
The two passives that follow: “but you were sanctified, but you were justified,” are different as far as their voice is concerned. Considered by themselves, both state only what God, the agent behind these passives, did and no more. And yet the force of this first middle in this series of three acts affects also the two passives. This does not mean that the passives are changed and now receive a middle tinge; they remain what they are. But the Corinthians could not also be sanctified and justified by God (passive) if they had not in their own hearts desired and accepted the true cleansing of baptism. The moment they accepted that in true faith they were also at that moment sanctified and justified. Thus, not only in tenses but also in voices there are real sermons.
“You were sanctified,” separated from sin unto God, and were thus made holy. “That he (Christ) might sanctify it (the church), having cleansed it by the washing of water with the Word,” Eph. 5:26. This is total sanctification, the removal of all sin and guilt; it makes us ἅγιοι, “saints,” and ἡγιασμένοι, “people sanctified,” two of the standard terms employed in the New Testament to designate Christians. This sanctification is not total in the sense that we shall not and cannot sin, are perfect in this respect, need no more forgiveness of sins, need no longer pray the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. 1 John 1:8. But this sanctification drives out sin more and more, we grow in grace, 2 Pet. 3:18, and by daily contrition and faith continue constantly and totally cleansed, 1 John 1:9.
Paul might have stopped after mentioning the verb in the middle voice or after the first verb in the passive. Paul adds another passive; so important is all that occurred when the Corinthians were made Christians: “you were justified.” The word δικαιοῦν and its passive δικαιωθῆναι always have a forensic force: “ye were declared just” by God, the Judge, by a verdict pronounced from his judgment seat. See C.-K. regarding this vital term and regarding its derivatives. God justifies the sinner for Christ’s sake the instant that God brings that sinner to contrition and faith: “My son, thy sins are forgiven thee!”
In these three verbs there lies much more than the verbs themselves express, namely this that these Corinthians, who were once thus washed, made holy, and declared righteous in God’s sight, ought to remain so and be so still. It would be monstrous if by open pollution they should now revert to their former state, to what they once “were,” and again become ἄδικοι, “unrighteous.”
The two ἐν phrases are to be construed with all three of the verbs. And this connection with all three of the verbs is pertinent in every respect and vital and not intended merely to create the impression that divine persons and divine powers were active in these three acts. It is also useless to puzzle our heads about the meaning of ἐν and about the fact that it is once connected with the “name” and again with the “Spirit”: “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” In both instances “in” has its natural meaning: “in union with,” “in connection with.” There is no instrumental idea in the preposition since neither this name nor the Spirit can serve as an instrument nor are ever thus described in the Scriptures. Nor does “in the name” express a subjective condition and “in the Spirit” the objective condition that are connected with the three verbs.
“The name of our Lord Jesus Christ” is his revelation, which is presented in the Word and reveals him in his person and his work (Jesus Christ) and in his saving relation to us (Lord). This revelation is the comprehensive means of grace for our salvation in connection with (ἐν) which alone the three acts named can take place. “The Spirit of our God” is the divine person through whose agency alone the three acts are possible. He brings the revelation of Christ to us by the Word and thus implants Christ into our hearts by faith. Only in connection with (ἐν) his agency can the three acts named take place. Both “the name” and “the Spirit” are objective, but ἐν is like the link or tie which connects us with these two objectives; where this “in” (“in union with”) is actualized, there faith is implanted, and thus this “in” brings us cleansing, holiness, justification.
We note incidentally that the entire Trinity is named in connection with the three great saving acts. With the solemn mention of the holy names this section of the letter comes to a fitting close.
III. The Sanctity of the Body, 6:12–20
Regarding the connection of this third section with the two sections preceding see the introductory remarks on section two. Again Paul starts medias in res.
1 Corinthians 6:12
12 All things are lawful for me but not all benefit. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.
This statement resembles a principle or rule of life. And now Paul begins to discuss it. The Corinthians formulated this principle thus: “All things are lawful to me” or “are permitted to me,” and by repeating it on all sorts of occasions made it a shield for many questionable and even wrong actions. The principle itself they had received from Paul, but instead of understanding and using it aright they made it cover doubtful and evil actions and thus misused it. Paul, it seems, had learned about this misuse from private sources just as he had found out about the case of incest and the litigations.
The matter is so important in many respects that Paul feels he must clear up the misunderstanding and stop the abuse. We need not credit even the more educated of the Corinthians with a philosophic effort to penetrate Paul’s principle of Christian liberty, for we have no hint to that effect. So also Paul’s way of setting the Corinthians right is governed entirely by practical considerations. It is rather usual when Christians are released from the fetters of legalism by throwing open to them the beautiful gates of Christian liberty that they tend to turn this liberty into license. The correction, however, lies not in again erecting some form of legalism like the Pharisaic οὑκἔξεστι, “it is not lawful, not allowed,” and in abrogating πάνταμοιἔξεστι, “all things are lawful, are allowed for me,” but in clearly defining and explaining just what this Christian principle contains.
In the first place, “all things” cannot be understood in the absolute sense, for this would vitiate the entire principle and make it pernicious. What God forbids is never allowed; what God commands, no man is allowed to set aside. Wrong is wrong and is outside of the domain of liberty; right is right and is also outside of this domain. “All things” is by the very context restricted to the so-called adiaphora, to the things that are not specifically commanded or forbidden by God. These are left to the Christian’s own judgment and thus lie in the domain of Christian liberty.
When Paul writes “for me” and “I” he merely exemplifies in his own person what is true of any and of every Christian. In fact, this pointed repetition: “All things are lawful—all things are lawful for me!” sounds like a quotation from the lips of some of the Corinthians. And they, in turn, when they uttered this slogan were quoting no less an authority than Paul himself; he had taught them this very principle.
Not for a moment does Paul now retract this principle nor say, “This is not so.” He opens no new or no old gate to the legalism toward which so many, and some very earnest, Christians are inclined even to this very day. That would be a mistake that would be at least as serious as the one the Corinthians were making by abusing the principle. The way out lies in an entirely different direction. Paul, first of all, points to what may be called the self-evident minor limitation contained in the principle itself: “All things are lawful for me, but not all benefit.” “Yes,” Paul would say, “all things are, indeed, lawful for me—I fully agree with you—but that is only the half of it; you must add the other half: not all things bring benefit, not all things further and aid us even in our earthly life, to say nothing about our spiritual life and our Christian profession.”
In the clause “not all things benefit” Paul omits “me”—“benefit me,” for the range of benefit includes not only me and my person but also all others who are affected by what I do or refrain from doing. This is, then, the right way, the only sensible way in which to apply the principle that all things are lawful for me. It is pure folly to insist on the formal right expressed by the principle and to ignore the actual advantages or disadvantages that will result in any given case. When in a given case no advantage accrues or actual harm results for myself or for others, insisting on mere formal liberty only defeats its own end.
We may add that the right to do a thing or to use a thing naturally also involves the right not to do or to use that thing. And the exercise of this double right is in its very nature governed, first of all, by the consideration of the resulting advantage or the disadvantage, whichever it may be. To illustrate from common life: I have the formal right to eat a certain food; but if that particular food should make me ill, οὑσυμφέρει, I should be a fool to eat it just because I have the formal right to do so. Yet no one would dare to set up a law that would bind my conscience before God and forbid the eating of that food.
This is, however, only the minor side of the matter, the graver side follows. Again the principle stands: “All things are lawful for me”; there is no question about that. But in its very nature this principle involves a fundamental limitation if we may call it so: “but I will not be dominated by anything.” Now the contrast is between things and persons, “anything” and “I.” Decisive between the two is the ἐξουσία, authority, power, domination. “Yes,” Paul would say, “it is perfectly correct that in the case of all of the adiaphora I may use any or all of them as being lawful for me, but in doing so I will not allow myself to be dominated by even as much as one of them.” The genitive τινὸς is neuter since it refers to πάντα. Here lies the greatest danger of foolishly applying the principle of liberty, viz., that all things are lawful for me. One might himself suffer more or less harm or do some harm to others; that would be bad enough. But to become a helpless slave of some “thing” would be deplorable in the extreme.
When Christians plead Christian liberty to justify some action of theirs they usually imagine that they can remain the masters. Paul does not elaborate this side of the subject and show how easy it is to deceive oneself in this respect. He simply enunciates only the natural limitation that is contained in “all things are lawful for me.” “I” will not be dominated by a thing is to be echoed by every one of the Corinthians. The future tense: “I will not be dominated,” means more than: “for myself I am resolved not to be dominated,” for while resolutions may be good enough they often fail of realization. The tense denotes fact, and οὑ negatives the entire sentence: this will not occur to Paul, it is excluded. Note the paronomasia: ἔξεστι and ἐξουσιασθήσομαι, the latter being both a select verb and a rare form of the verb (passive) and being chosen for the basic idea of ἐξουσία.
If the Corinthians understand the great principle of Christian liberty, all danger of not living up to it vanishes of its own accord.
1 Corinthians 6:13
13 After clearing up the principle itself Paul proceeds to apply it to the Corinthians. He does this, first of all, objectively, without personal reference, after that, with personal reference, but even then only as a matter of instruction. As a background we may picture to ourselves the temptations that continue to beset the members of the Corinthian congregation and try to besmirch them. And in connection with such temptations we may visualize the efforts to whitewash sins from the new Christian standpoint by catching up and misapplying the doctrine of Christian liberty: “All things are lawful.”
Thus the Corinthians seem to place on the same level the appetite for food and the appetite of sex and apply equally to both: “All things are lawful.” They failed to see the great difference. Now as to the appetite for food, this is the situation: Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God shall abolish both it and them.
Here we have a clear case to which the principle as defined by Paul applies. The food we eat is βρῶμα, the act of eating is βρῶσις. Anything that comes under the heading of βρώματα is for the stomach, intended for it by God; and the reverse is true, the stomach is intended for all that is food. The food must, of course, profit us both as to selection and to quantity. And again, we must maintain our ἐξουσία and not become slaves of our appetite as drunkards or gluttons do. And this relation between food and the organ for its digestion continues during this life.
God, who made both, will eventually put both out of commission, καταργήσει. In the Parousia no digesting and no organ for that purpose are needed to keep the body alive. Regarding the change of our bodily organs compare Matt. 22:30; 1 Cor. 15:44, 51. This is the real reason that foods belong to the adiaphora. “Foods and the belly … are transient things …; therefore they are adiaphora.” Melanchthon. Quae destruentur per se liberum habent usum. Bengel.
Now it seems that some of the Corinthians tried to parallel with the stomach and food the sexual organs and their use: these organs for any and all use, and any and all use for these organs—”all is allowed,” for at the Parousia these organs, too, and their use “God will put out of commission, will abolish.” But such reasoning is specious and wholly fallacious. Paul exposes this in a simple way. As he pointed to the facts in regard to the stomach and food, so he points to the facts in this case. But the body is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body; and God both raised the Lord and will raise up us through his power.
These are the facts. This statement regarding the body and the Lord is composed exactly like the one regarding foods and the stomach with only the necessary qualifications inserted. Paul writes “the body” and not, as in the previous statement, only one organ of the body. For in this case the fact is that the entire body is involved in the matter of sex and we may add the entire mental constitution. With this initial vital difference corresponds the divine intention concerning the body: “the body for the Lord,” and therefore here, too, the reverse: “the Lord for the body.”
Now foods and the belly are on the same level, that of “the lower story,” as someone has aptly said; they are physical, for this life only. The facts in the case of the body and the Lord are different, for the Lord is on the supreme level of heaven and glory. Between foods and the belly the line is horizontal; but between the body and the Lord the line is perpendicular. Every attempt to make it horizontal is wrong, violates the facts. One cannot and dare not say: “the body for fornication”; this would be a lie. To utter it and to act on it breaks and destroys the relation between the Christian’s body and his Lord. The line is not horizontal or, still worse, downward, for “the body is not for fornication”; on the contrary, the line is straight upward, “the body for the Lord.”
In this instance, then, the principle that “all things are allowed” cannot be applied. God himself regulates the sex relation. He limits it to two distinct spheres, the one that is stamped with his approval, the other with his severe disapproval; both are thus entirely removed from the territory of the adiaphora. God instituted marriage in Paradise, hence “a man shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” God forbade fornication in the Decalog: “Thou shalt not!” “The body is not for fornication.” Marriage does not destroy the spiritual relation of the body to Christ and of Christ to the body; fornication does destroy that relation or makes it impossible in the first place. These are the facts. The four datives may be called ethical: foods for the body to nourish it, and the belly for foods to receive the nourishment; the body for Christ to obey and to honor him, and Christ for the body to bless and to save it.
1 Corinthians 6:14
14 All of this becomes clearer when the Parousia is considered. In both cases, that of the stomach and that of the body, Paul looks at all the facts. He does not do as mere mundane philosophers, in particular the everyday kind do: consider only a few transient physical facts. What God eventually does in the one case, and what he eventually does in the other case, this decides. In the one case “he will abolish,” καταργήσει; in the other “he will raise up,” ἐξεγερεῖ, and thus conserve forever. Regarding the assertion that Paul intends to indicate no difference between the verb ἤγειρε used with reference to Christ, “raised,” and ἐξεγερεῖ used with reference to us, “will raise up,” the reverse is true.
Christ’s body never saw corruption, our bodies are subject to corruption and thus rot in the grave and turn to dust, 1 Cor. 15:50–54. The preposition ἐκ thus suggests the grave and its decay “from” or “out of” which God will raise our bodies.
Paul does not say merely that God will raise up our bodies. This would not suffice because the body is not alone, it bears a gracious and a heavenly relation to “the Lord.” Hence he writes: “and God both raised the Lord and will raise up us,” καί … καί, “both … and.” He did the one, he will do the other. But the two acts are not mere parallels, they constitute a unit. We (including our bodies) who belong to the Lord by grace share the resurrection with him. In the case of both acts of resurrection Paul names the persons: God raised “the Lord,” will raise up “us.” The two acts are thus alike: we shall be raised up as he was raised. His soul was united with its body, and thus the Lord was raised; our souls shall be united with their bodies, and thus we shall be raised up.
It does not seem as though Paul uses the pronoun ἡμᾶς, “us,” only instead of “the bodies” or “our bodies,” but, as he does in the case of the Lord, in order to intimate that in this raising up our bodies shall again be joined with our souls. Paul often reaches out to cover all sides of a subject. The assumption that by using the pronoun “us” Paul corrects himself regarding the importance of the body because our present body shall not be raised up at all but a new and entirely different body, is unwarranted. The denial of the identity of the resurrection body with our present body leads those who voice this denial to attribute such an assumption even to the inspired writer.
Paul’s statement is rounded out by the phrase: “through his power.” We may content ourselves with attaching it to only the one verb “he shall raise up us,” although Eph. 1:19, 20 shows that it was the same power that raised up Christ. “His power” is God’s omnipotence. The resurrection of the body is a divine miracle—nothing less. Human reason cannot fathom it.
1 Corinthians 6:15
15 In v. 13, 14 Paul furnishes the factual proof that fornication is not an adiaphoron like the eating of food but is wholly contrary to Christ, to whom our bodies belong, as God shall also raise them up. In v. 15, 16 Paul adds to the proof a statement regarding the abominableness of fornication. The latter rests on the former, but by combining it with the former Paul brings the enormity of this sin fully to the consciousness of the Corinthians. The presentation continues in its simple and lucid manner by just using the facts so that their force overwhelms.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I remove the members of Christ and make them a harlot’s members? God forbid.
Paul first appeals to the basic fact that our bodies are members of Christ. “Do you not know?” implies that the Corinthians do know, and that the fact pointed out in the question is undisputed by them. Compare Rom. 12:1, 6, 12–14. What is really involved in the statement that “the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” is now combined in the unit thought that our bodies are “members of Christ.” Just as we ourselves possess our own members and use them as our own for our own purpose, so my entire body and your entire body are members of Christ to be used by him alone for his own purposes. What is a fact regarding our entire person, body, mind, and spirit, is evidently also a fact when the body is considered by itself. For we all belong to Christ, not partly but in entirety.
This fact, however, involves a self-evident conclusion, οὗν: “Shall I remove the members of Christ and make them a harlot’s members?” The abominableness of the very suggestion is repudiated by: μὴγένοιτο, an aorist optative of wish (one of the few optatives still found in the Koine which is used often by Paul), literally: “Let it not be!” and in our idiom: “God forbid!” “Perish the thought!” The action expressed by the aorist participle ἄρας (αἴρειν) precedes that indicated by ποιήσω, literally: “having removed … shall I make?” One must first sever these members from Christ to whom they belong, for only thus could they be made to belong to the harlot. Paul asks: “Do you Corinthians want me to do a thing like that?” and again uses himself as an example for all. And ἄρας conveys much more than the far commoner λαβών, namely das verwegene Sichvergreifen an den Gliedern Christi, Meyer. The contrast pivots on the genitives “of Christ” and “of a harlot,” hence we have the chiastic arrangement: the members of Christ … a harlot’s members.
1 Corinthians 6:16
16 “Or do you not know,” etc. = “Or if this repudiation (God forbid!) of the statement of the case I have made (robbing Christ of his members and making them a harlot’s members) still seems doubtful to you (which I can hardly believe), do you not know,” etc.? Paul is fully aware of the place where the doubt may lie for some or at what point some may try to raise a doubt. They would not question the statement that their bodies are “the members of Christ,” for that would mean to repudiate their own Christianity, but they might deny that by an act of fornication their bodies would assuredly become the members of a harlot. That, they would say, is surely overstraining the result of contact with a whore. Therefore Paul writes another “do you not know.” Or do you not know that he who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? for, The two, says he, shall be one flesh.
Whereas before the act there are two separate and distinct bodies, the fornicative act makes one single body of the two. No question can be raised regarding this point. It is also vital in Paul’s array of facts. This is true whether men know it or not, acknowledge it or not, are ready to reckon with it or not, either in Corinth or elsewhere. The unimpeachable proof is therefore at once added with γάρ; it is the Scriptures themselves.
The participle ὁκολλώμενος is middle (not passive, our versions) and characterizes the person: “he who joins himself” to the harlot by means of the sexual act of committing fornication. One such act bestows this character just as one theft makes a thief, one killing a murderer. The Greek article used with “harlot” indicates the one concerned. The simple φησίν needs no subject in the Greek. It is used in the New Testament to introduce passages that are so well known that neither God nor the Scripture need to be indicated as being the subject, it is like the German heisst es.
The fact that by an act of fornication the two sinners become “one body” is established by the quotation of Gen. 2:24: “The two shall be one flesh.” “Flesh,” σάρξ, basar, denotes merely the substance of which the “body” is composed and needs no further explanation. Incidentally, too, “flesh,” which applies to all of the body, excludes the evasion that in the sexual act only a small part of the body, namely the sexual organs, are involved. In Genesis the statement refers to the legitimate sexual union that is consummated in marriage, yet here, too, the oneness of flesh is due to the sexual union and to that alone and not to the legitimacy of the union. Paul is entirely correct when he uses this passage to prove the oneness of flesh in an illegitimate sexual union. The act of sexual union with a harlot makes the two “one body,” which means “one flesh.” The stress is not on the noun “flesh” but on the two numerals “one.”
The Hebrew lacks “the two,” yet Jesus has it in Matt. 19:5, Paul again in Eph. 5:31, the Rabbis also introduce it. Instead of stating that “the two” was later inserted into the text in the interest of monogamy we should acknowledge that “the two” is exactly what the original Hebrew means when it says: “They shall be one flesh,” the man and his wife. Regarding the predicate εἰςσάρκαμίαν instead of a nominative, note the Hebrew le and see R. 481; in German: werden zu einem Fleisch.
1 Corinthians 6:17
17 With δέ Paul introduces the directly opposite union and merely states the fact as such without again asking: “Do you not know this fact?” But he that joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. This parallels the other statement exactly: “He that joins himself to a harlot is one body with her.” The two opposites clash in every word. What is meant by “the body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” in v. 13 is now defined by “he that joins himself to the Lord.” The body as such could, of course, never belong to the Lord, it is always the person as such that belongs to him and thus the body: “he who joins himself” (middle, not passive as in our versions). This belonging of our body to the Lord and of the Lord to our body is on the part of him who so belongs, not a passive, but an active relation, one of the great activities of our faith and our love. This activity marks the character of that person, he is ὁκολλώμενος. Yet we must say that, while in the opposite case a single act of fornication is enough to bestow the evil character, here the very nature of faith and of love is durative and the spiritual character is bestowed accordingly.
The body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, means that we join ourselves to the Lord in faith and in love and remain thus joined to him. But this means still more, for he who thus joins himself to the Lord “is one spirit with him.” This is the opposite of the result that is obtained when one joins himself to a harlot. These two can become only one body and one flesh, can consummate only a physical union, and one that lies on the very lowest material plane, is wholly unspiritual, utterly carnal and base. What the harlot is in her vice and degradation he becomes who joins himself to her. Of his own volition he descends to her in her filthiness.
What a difference when one joins himself to the Lord! He becomes one spirit with the Lord. For while our union with Christ involves also our bodies as a part of our person it is really a union of the spirit and only as such includes our bodies. Christ and the Christian become “one spirit,” he in us, and we in him in a wondrous mystical union. This is the very highest plane that by what is highest in our being, namely the spirit, lifts us into a union that is completely spiritual, blessed, and heavenly. This is the unio mystica which is so abundantly attested in the Scriptures.
With no absorption of our spirit into Christ, with no mingling or fusion of the two, with no loss of the identity of either, our spirit is joined to Christ’s so that one thought, one desire, one will animate and control both, namely his thought, desire, and will. This mystical union is adumbrated in the marital union of husband and wife, Eph. 5:28–33, yet only adumbrated, for no human relation is capable of doing more.
The great practical summation of this entire array and this comparison of facts is self-evident: Flee fornication! The asyndeton makes the conclusion the stronger. Severitas cum fastidio. Bengel. Some sins we must necessarily face, fight, and thus conquer. From others we recoil with a shock, their baseness and their stench repel us, we flee. Fornication is and should be one of these. Paul writes φεύγετε for another reason. He recognizes the danger that lies in our sinful flesh. So he admonishes: flee lest a spark ignite the tinder and fire the passion and the lust, and you be scorched in the flames, Prov. 7:6–27.
Here we have an instance when Paul uses the gospel and not the law for inculcating a moral requirement. He might with a stern and a threatening finger have pointed to the Decalog with its commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery!” and thus have been done with fornication. That method has its proper place, especially where men’s ears are dull toward gospel appeals. A more favorable light is cast on the moral situation obtaining among the Corinthians from Paul’s use of the gospel method in their case. Not only were the ears of these people still open to the appeal based on gospel facts, we must also conclude that those of the Corinthians who misused the dictum concerning adiaphora and full Christian liberty still intended to cling to Christ and not in the least to fall away from him. Only in the case of such people can Paul use patient explanation and the reminders: “Do you not know?” He first clears up the principle concerning adiaphora and secondly sets the pertinent gospel facts before them so that all of them can see for themselves what these facts signify, how they prove that fornication is utterly against Christ, and how they reveal that fornication is utterly abominable when it is compared with their relation to Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:18
18 If Paul were preaching law he might stop with the command to flee fornication although even in the sense of law this negative involves its corresponding positive. He is preaching gospel: “Flee fornication!” since your bodies are members of Christ. Just because this is gospel Paul must go on and add the great gospel positive: “Glorify God, therefore, in your body!” v. 20. Because all of this is indeed gospel, a second evident reason intervenes that prompts Paul to advance beyond the call to flee fornication. He cannot stop with the gospel fact that we are “one spirit with Christ,” for this mystic union pertains not only to our spirit but also to our body which now becomes the “sanctuary” (ναός) of the Holy Spirit so that in this sense, too, we are no longer our own, having been bought with a price. Thus Paul reaches the cross of Christ, the very heart of the gospel, and there he may bring his appeal to a close. Those who know this price, the cross and its atoning blood, will be ready to “glorify God in their body.”
How simple it is now in this gospel light to show the enormity of a sin like fornication! Without a connective Paul begins the final step. Every sinful act that a man may do is outside of his body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.
Paul again states undeniable facts in comparing sinful acts in general with that of fornication in particular. Also this is only a necessary preliminary statement that paves the way for the following. It really states the major premise of a syllogism: Fornication, as does no other sin, violates the body. The minor premise will follow: The Christian’s body is the Spirit’s sanctuary. And then the conclusion of this syllogism is plain: Fornication, as does no other sin, desecrates the very sanctuary of God. This conclusion runs downward—the sanctuary is desecrated. It must be completely reversed. Major: Fornication, as does no other sin, desecrates the body. Minor: Now our body is the Spirit’s sanctuary. Ergo: We not only flee fornication but glorify God in our body.
Sexual sins bear a vicious character all their own. They are peculiarly unsavory and hence entail shame and disgrace in a peculiar manner. They rot the body, fill the mind with rottenness, and rapidly eliminate the sinner from this life. One of these markedly peculiar features Paul cites in this connection: this ἁμάρτημα, result of sinning, is not like other sinful acts and results, “outside of the body,” but “the fornicator (characterizing participle, substantivized) sins against his own body.” Paul is speaking of the result of sinful deeds, hence he writes ἁμάρτημα and not ἁμαρτία and even adds: “which a man may do or perpetrate.” We have no reason whatever for restricting the sins which Paul may have in mind to those listed by him in v. 9, 10. We err also when we question or challenge Paul’s statement regarding the exceptional character of fornication by referring to a sin like suicide or others that damage the body like drunkenness, gluttony, addiction to drugs, etc. Paul is far more profound: no sinful act desecrates the body like fornication and sexual abuse.
In this sense fornication has a deadly eminence. A sanctuary is desecrated by befouling it within; so this sin desecrates the sanctuary of the body. All other sins besmirch the sanctuary on the outside only.
1 Corinthians 6:19
19 “Does this fact seem new and strange, perhaps questionable, to you Corinthians? Then do you not know?”—and Paul states why the statement just made by him is true. “Or do you not know?” has the same force as it had in v. 16. The Corinthians do know what Paul is about to state, but, as in the case of so many things that we indeed know, we fail to apply them to our lives. We let them lie unused in the lumber room of our intellects. Regarding our body it is the great fact that was already touched upon in v. 13, etc., but is now stated fully: Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have from God? We now see fully what Paul meant when he wrote a moment ago: “The body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
Our humble, earthly body is nothing less than “a sanctuary of the Spirit,” and Paul writes “Holy Spirit,” for because of its very name “a sanctuary” is holy. He uses ναός, the inner sanctuary itself, not ἱερόν, which may mean only the outer temple courts. The genitive “of the Holy Spirit” denotes possession but not in the sense that one may merely own a building without dwelling in it, for Paul adds two modifiers. First the phrase “in you,” which is placed attributively after the Greek article. Only as being “within us,” dwelling in us, does the Holy Spirit own our body as his sanctuary. Paul writes “in you” and not “in your bodies” and thus abides by the fact. For the Spirit dwells in us as persons and makes us “one spirit with the Lord,” v. 17, and in this profound way takes possession also of our body so that this body actually becomes his sanctuary.
In the second place Paul adds the relative clause: “whom you have from God,” οὗ for ὅ by attraction to the genitive antecedent. We are the Spirit’s, and he is ours, a blessed mutuality but one that is “from God,” a most gracious gift to us. The moment we hold this fact beside the other that fornication desecrates our body as does no other sinful act, the true character of this vicious sin becomes clear to us.
1 Corinthians 6:20
20 The blessed fact that we are the Spirit’s sanctuary has two sides: one that he is ours, the other that we are his. The latter lies in the genitive: your body a sanctuary “of the Holy Spirit.” But Paul restates it in so many words, and first in negative form: You are not your own, you do not belong to your own selves. As the Spirit’s sanctuary we belong wholly to him, and that certainly includes also our body, so that this body itself can be called his sanctuary. To this is added the positive: for you were bought with a price. The positive is linked to the negative by making it the proof (γάρ) for the negative. Effect and cause are thus combined: our having been bought (cause) results in our no longer being our own (effect).
The aorist “were bought” is historical and reports the fact: God bought us when on Calvary he paid the blood of his own Son as the price, Acts 20:28. God, indeed, bought all men with this price, even those who deny the Lord, 2 Pet. 2:1; yet what is thus true of all men in a general way is true of Christians in a particular way, for they have actually come into God’s possession, are “a people for God’s own possession,” 1 Pet. 2:9, R. V., the price paid for them is not in vain.
The genitive of price, τιμῆς, needs no modifiers; the brevity has more weight, for, as it does so often, it suggests the idea of a great price. In 7:23 this same fact that we were bought with a great price is used in a different connection, namely that we are slaves of God and must not again become the slaves of men. In the present connection the great fact of our purchase establishes that we, including our body, no longer belong to our own selves, no longer dare desecrate our body with fornication, but must ever glorify God in our body.
Paul adds the capstone to the positive part of his presentation. By all means, then, glorify God in your body! We might expect Paul to close by saying to the Corinthians: “By all means, then, sanctify your body as a sanctuary of God!” But, as he does in so many instances, Paul, like Jesus, passes over what, after all, would be only an intermediate thought and not the real climax and at once reaches the climax that alone properly ends the discussion. The thought cannot be carried higher than this admonition to glorify God in our body. To be sure, that includes also the sanctification of our body. But “God” and not “our body” is the ultimate consideration.
The aorist “glorify” is urgent because of its tense. This tense implies that the glorification thus urged must be attained. The present imperative would not only be milder in its urgency, it would also imply a gradual process and thus leave open the question of full glorification. To glorify God in our body means so to use our earthly body that men may actually see that also these our bodies belong to God. We refuse to use them for sinful acts, we reserve them wholly for obedience to God.
The urgency expressed by the aorist tense is increased by the postpositive particle δή, for which we have no English equivalent. It is really climacteric and points to what is now at last entirely clear, R. 1149. We attempt to reproduce its force by the cumbersome turn “by all means, then.”
Fornication is an all too common sin, and much has been said, preached, and written about its vicious character. Yet who can point to a treatment that in any way compares with this one paragraph dictated by St. Paul’s inspired lips? Principle and facts are combined, and these facts reach to the profoundest depth and to the most sacred height and are yet presented with a simplicity and a lucidity that are unique. While we appropriate the substance, let us not fail to appreciate also the manner and the form in which it is stated.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.
B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.