6:12 The ESV places quotation marks around “All things are lawful for me” both times Paul says it because he is almost certainly quoting or summarizing the Corinthians themselves. After each statement Paul responds with a strong contrast: “You say x, but y is actually true.”

If we did not know what Paul was about to say after these two sentences, it is highly unlikely we would guess that Paul is arguing against Christians’ claiming the right to sleep with prostitutes (vv. 15–16 use the word “prostitute”). But that is exactly how this connects to what follows. Some Corinthians apparently are arguing that they have freedom in Christ to do many things. They are right in principle but wrong in how they apply it, because their freedom does not include freedom to sin. Paul refutes the slogan here more gently because there is a sense in which a Christian can say “All things are lawful for me.” It simply depends on what he or she means by “all things.” The statement is right if “all things” refers to nonessential matters of conscience (cf. Romans 14), but it does not work if “all things” refers to sins like immoral sexual activity. Some activities that are inherently nonsinful could be unhelpful for a Christian or could negatively master him. It is an understatement to call sex with a prostitute “not . . . helpful” or something that could enslave a man.

Paul himself may have said, “All things are lawful for me,” but, if so, the Corinthians are twisting his statement to justify sexual sin, saying something like, “Sex outside of marriage is permissible because it occurs in the body. All things done in and through the body are permissible” (cf. 1 Cor. 6:13–18). But Paul replies with understatement: immoral sex helps neither others (it is “not . . . helpful”) nor yourself (it can dominate or enslave you).

6:13–14 Most exegetes agree that verse 13 begins with another Corinthian slogan, but they disagree about where to end the quotation. The ESV ends it after the words “and the stomach for food,” although the quotation might continue for one more phrase in light of the grammatical and logical parallelism in verses 13–14. Paul quotes the Corinthians and then refutes them phrase by phrase (cf. table 2.5).

TABLE 2.5: Paul’s Rebuttal of a Corinthian Slogan

The first part of the slogan is a euphemism that means “Sex is meant for the body, and the body is meant for sex.” Some Corinthians wrongly argue that relations with a prostitute are permissible because God will eventually do away with both sex and the body. But Paul replies point for point essentially saying: “No, the body is not meant for immoral sex but for the Lord, and the Lord is meant for the body. Your physical body matters because God powerfully resurrected Jesus’ body and in the future will resurrect your body.”

The physical body matters to God.81 The idea that the soul matters but the physical body does not matter is pagan. Christians affirm the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe . . . in the resurrection of the body.” (Paul addresses this issue directly in ch. 15.)

6:15–17 These sentences support how Paul refutes verse 13a in verses 13b–14. Paul argues by using the structure of a chiasm—that is, the A-B-B'-A' pattern uses inverted parallelism.

(A)  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

(B)  Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

(B')  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”

(A')  But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

To paraphrase:

(A)  Do you not know that your physical body is united to Christ?

(B)  So how can you use Christ’s body to sleep with a prostitute?

(B')  Using a prostitute physically unites that man to her.

(A')  But you are already spiritually united to Christ.

The implication is clear: the two unions are mutually exclusive, so become what you are. You are united to Christ, so live like it.82

6:18bc Verse 18 comprises three propositions. One could translate them based on form as follows: “[a] Flee from sexual immorality. [b] Every sin, whatever a person commits, is outside the body, [c] but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” Translators have attempted to make sense of the middle proposition in one of two ways:

(1)  Some add the word “other” to verse 18b to smooth it out, like the ESV does: “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body.” The word for “other” is not in the Greek text. If adding the word “other” is the correct reading, then Paul divides sin into two categories: nonsexual sins, which take place outside the body, and sexual sins, which are against a person’s own body.

(2)  Some translators (e.g., NET) add quotation marks around verse 18b to attribute these words not to Paul but to the Corinthians; thus the Corinthians would claim, “Every sin a person commits is outside the body,” and then Paul would be refuting them. If this is the correct reading, then the Corinthians are using this slogan to justify immoral sex. They are arguing that sin occurs only outside the body, that one cannot sin in or through one’s own body.

The evidence strongly supports the view that verse 18b is a Corinthian slogan.83 The distance between Paul’s historical-cultural context and ours is significant enough to leave some room for doubt, but it is more plausible that verse 18b is a Corinthian slogan that Paul refutes. At least ten reasons support this view:84 (1) A slogan is a more natural reading. (2) The other view is confusing and unclear. Why is only immoral sex a sin against your body but not other sins such as suicide or gluttony or drunkenness? (3) The grammar does not by itself support adding the word other. (4) This passage (vv. 12–20) is an ideal context for Paul to quote Corinthian slogans. (5) The Greek word Paul uses for sin is hamartēma, unlike the rest of the letter, in which he uses hamartia. (6) Verses 13–18a and 18b–20 are parallel. (7) The body in verses 13–20 refers to a person’s physical body, not to the whole person. (8) The statement fits well with what Paul says about the resurrection of the body in chapters 6 and 15. (9) The statement plausibly matches Corinth’s social, cultural, and religious context. (10) If the statement is a Corinthian slogan, then it does not matter if it seems abrupt to us. Thus Paul essentially argues, “You claim that all sins are outside the physical body and that therefore sex with a prostitute is not a sin. But immoral sex is a sin against your physical body.”

6:19–20 This passage supports verse 18c by explaining why committing immoral sex is a sin against one’s own body. To paraphrase: “Christian, your individual physical body85 is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom God gave you. Consequently, you do not own your body—God does, because he paid for it at the cost of his Son’s death.” The final line is an inference of verses 18c–20a (as well as vv. 12–20a): “glorify God in your body.”

Paul asserts, “Your body is a temple.” The temple is a major theme in biblical theology.86 Tracing how it fits in the Bible’s storyline richly enhances how one understands verses 19–20. There are at least eleven significant points along the temple trajectory in the Bible’s storyline:

(1) The garden of Eden. The parallels between Genesis 1–3 and Revelation 21–22 are amazing. The Bible has brilliant bookends, and part of these bookends is the temple theme. When God creates the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1–2, the earth is his dwelling place. Before the fall, God regularly fellowships with Adam and Eve. From the point of the fall onward, God’s dwelling place is associated with heaven, and he “comes down” to earth. The garden of Eden is the first temple. It is where humans meet God. There are all sorts of parallels between (a) the garden of Eden and (b) the tabernacle and temple.

(2) The tabernacle. The tabernacle was a large rectangular tent about 45 feet (13.7 m) long by 15 feet (4.6 m) wide. It had two rooms. The first room was twice as large as the second. The second room was a perfect 15-foot (4.6-m) cube. The first room was called the Holy Place. After one entered the Holy Place through the large outer veil, he would see directly in front of him at the other end of the room the altar of incense. The second room in the back was the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. It was God’s throne room on earth, and only the high priest entered it once a year, to make atonement for the people. When priests served in the Holy Place, the inner veil kept them from seeing into the Most Holy Place. It made it possible for God in his white-hot holiness to dwell among unholy people. God instructed the Israelites to weave cherubim skillfully into this veil (Ex. 26:31; 36:35), which signaled that the Most Holy Place was to parallel the garden of Eden (cf. Gen. 3:24).

(3) The temple of Solomon. This was the first temple in Jerusalem, and it was magnificent. The dimensions doubled those of the tabernacle, so the Most Holy Place was a 30-foot (9.1-m) cube. To go to Jerusalem was to go where God lived, so it devastated Israel when Babylon demolished this temple in 586 BC.

(4) The new temple in Ezekiel 40–48. The new temple symbolizes God’s presence with his people in the future.

(5) The temple of Zerubbabel. After the Babylonian captivity, it took about twenty years for a group of Jews to rebuild the temple slowly. This began a period of time called Second Temple Judaism (c. 516 BC–AD 70).

(6) The temple of Herod. This grand temple was standing during Jesus’ earthly ministry.

(7) Jesus and the temple. At least six significant events in Jesus’ life involve the temple: (a) Jesus, who is God, dwelt or “tabernacled” among humans (John 1:14). (b) Jesus visited the temple complex as a boy. (c) Jesus judged the temple at the beginning and end of his earthly ministry. (d) Satan tempted Jesus to jump off the Temple Mount. (e) Jesus claimed that his body is the temple (John 2:18–22). (f) When Jesus died on the cross, the veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place “was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matt. 27:51). That massive curtain blocking access to God was the “type,” or shadow, and Christ’s body was the “antitype,” or the reality the shadow anticipated (cf. Heb. 6:19–20; 10:19–22). Jesus is the only way to God. The temple rituals and the Mosaic covenant are now obsolete.

(8) The church as God’s temple. Because the church is God’s temple, the church must be unified and pure (1 Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:14–7:1; Eph. 2:21–22; 1 Pet. 2:4–10).

(9) The individual Christian as the Holy Spirit’s temple. This is where 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 fits.

(10) The heavenly temple. This is prominent in Hebrews 8–10 and is the setting for the drama that plays out in Revelation 4–20.

(11) The new Jerusalem. Revelation 21 begins, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:1–2a). This city is a perfect cube (Rev. 21:16). The only other cube in the Bible is the Most Holy Place in Israel’s tabernacle and temple, and both cubes are overlaid with gold (cf. 1 Kings 6:20 with Rev. 21:18). Thus there is no longer a small section of the earth that is the Most Holy Place. The entire new earth is the Most Holy Place. The entire city is God’s temple. The temple theme culminates with Revelation 21:22: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”

In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 Paul declares that the Christian’s individual body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That is amazing compared to how God’s people under the old covenant related to the temple. And it is striking when we realize that Paul wrote this while the grand temple that Herod built was still standing in Jerusalem. This theology is as practical as it gets. It is unthinkable to pursue immoral sex in the Most Holy Place. But now, Paul argues, your physical body is the Most Holy Place. So believers must not defile it. They must keep it pure, for it is sacred space.

Once again Paul reasons from who we are to how we should live (cf. 1:2; 5:7; 6:11, 15–17). The logical order is important: one’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit; therefore, one should avoid immoral sex. We must become what we are!