“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #59
“Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth 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 or God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:18-20).
This passage contains one of the most abused verses in Scripture. What Paul says about fornication, and expressly limits to fornication only, has come by zealots to be applied to cigars, refined sugar, whiskey and wine, insufficient exercise, processed corn, and whatever the nemesis of the next great health fad might be.
All other sins, Paul says, assuming them to be sins, are not against the body in the sense that fornication is. And to sin against the body in this sense is sacrilege, because it brings un-covenanted union into the temple of all true covenants. Paul goes right to the heart of the issue. If our bodies are part of this temple, then we ought not to desecrate the temple. Further, if we are part of this temple of the Holy Spirit, this means that we do not belong to ourselves. We are not our own. The only way to be incorporated into the temple is to be purchased for that end. We were bought with a price.
Since we were purchased, and are owned by another, we have no authorization to make sexually immoral decisions. My body does not belong to me—and so I am called to make decisions that glorify God in my body, and in my spirit. Both belong to God, and so He makes all the sexual decisions. He calls the shots.