Wholly His To Be Holy.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 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.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. – 1 Corinthians 6:12-17 ESV At the heart of Paul’s ongoing discussion with the Corinthians was his defense of and belief if the centrality of the gospel. For Paul, the gospel was about far more than a guaranteed place in heaven. There is no doubt that Paul looked forward to the day when he would be with the Lord in His heavenly kingdom. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul states that he “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 ESV). Speaking of our earthly bodies, Paul says, “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:2 ESV). He knew that the day was coming when he would receive a new body, a spiritual body, created by God for eternal life. “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1 ESV). But even with that assurance of a redeemed body and a reserved place in eternity, Paul lived with his sights fully set on the present. It was his aim to please God with the life he had been given and to do the work to which he had been assigned by God. It was this view that led him to write, “whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:9-10 ESV).

But what does all this have to do with the passage above? It seems that there were those in the church in Corinth who were living as if what they did in their earthly bodies didn’t matter. As Greeks, they probably held the view that the body was unimportant, acting as nothing more than a receptacle to hold man’s soul. “The Greeks always looked down on the body. There was a proverbial saying, ‘The body is a tomb.’ Epictetus said, ‘I am a poor soul shackled to a corpse’” (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, p. 22.). Evidently, it was this view of the body that was leading some of the believers in Corinth to commit acts of immorality. And Paul used some of their arguments against them. There were those who were justifying their actions by saying, “All things are lawful for me.” In other words, they argued that they were free in Christ. As Paul even taught, they were no longer required to keep the Mosaic law and its host of restrictions in order to be justified before God. But they were taking their newfound freedom in Christ to an inappropriate extreme, replacing legalism with license. They were combining their freedom in Christ with Greek dualism, that said the body didn’t matter, because we are spiritual beings. This viewpoint went contrary to the gospel. Christ came to redeem body and soul. He died to free us from the future penalty of sin, but also from the present power of sin over our lives. That is why Paul was able to say, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 ESV). 

While, as believers, we do experience a newfound freedom in Christ, that does not mean that everything we are free to do is the right thing to do. Paul said that no all things that are lawful for us are helpful. For Paul, the gospel was about life change. It was about becoming other-oriented rather than self-focused. In fact, it was about dying to self and living for others, just as Jesus had modeled. Paul will raise this same issue later on in his letter. “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (1 Corinthians 10:23-24 ESV). Living the Christian life is not about what is best for me, but what will benefit the body of Christ and honor God. As Paul so clearly states, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31b ESV).

There is a sense in which the Corinthians did not understand the full impact of their conversion. When they had accepted Christ as their Savior, they had been joined to Him. They now shared His nature. They had been inhabited by His Spirit. As Paul states it, “your bodies are members of Christ” (1 Corinthians 6:15a ESV). The Greek word for “members” was commonly used to refer to a limb of the human body, such as an arm or leg. As Christians, we are members of the body of Christ. We have been joined to Him and He is the head of the body. We do not exist for ourselves. What we do affects the entire body of Christ. Which is why Paul asks, “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” (1 Corinthians 6:15b ESV). And he answers his own question with an emphatic, “Never!” What we do in our physical bodies has a direct impact on our spiritual lives. We are not dualistic in nature, but holistic. The Hebrew word for “blameless” is תָּמִים (tamiym) and it means “complete, whole, entire, sound, having integrity” (“H8549 - tamiym - Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (KJV).” Blue Letter Bible). We are to live our lives before God with integrity or wholeness. What I think with my mind matters. What I do with my body makes a difference. What I see with my eyes impacts my soul. Christ died to redeem all of me. He came to save me from what Paul refers to as “this body of death” (Romans 7:24). He came to give me new life here and now, and to miraculously re-purpose my body for the glory of God. So Paul would remind us, “Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God” (Romans 6:13 NLT).

Calling Out the Called Out.

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. – 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 ESV

Paul began this letter as he had most of his others. First, he introduces himself. This was not because they did not know him. He had actually lived among them for 18 months after he had helped found the church there on one of his missionary journeys. Paul’s point in re-introducing himself was to establish his calling as an apostle of God. This will become an important factor as his letter unfolds.

Paul was cordial, even complimentary, in his greeting to the believers in Corinth. But there was a subtle, underlying purpose behind his words. He referred to them as “the church of God in Corinth.” This too will prove to have a purpose behind it. Paul wanted them to understand that they belonged to God and no one else. He was preparing the way to deal with a problem of division that had made its way into the church there. Paul also referred to them as “sanctified in Christ Jesus” and “saints.” Paul used two words, ἁγιάζω (hagiazō) and ἅγιος (hagios) to describe the believers in Corinth. First of all, at salvation they had been set apart as God and dedicated for His purposes. They belonged to Him. And this made them saints, or set-apart ones ("G37 - hagiazō, G40 - hagios - Strong’s Greek Lexicon (KJV)." Blue Letter Bible). They no longer belonged to themselves or to this world. And yet, as Paul would eventually point out in his letter, they were not living up to their calling as saints. Their actions were not reflecting their set-apartness.

Paul’s emphasis in the opening of his letter was on God. He even thanked God for all He had done in bringing the Corinthians to faith. It had been God who had extended His grace to them by making the good news of Jesus Christ known to them. The “testimony about Christ was confirmed” among them (1 Corinthians 1:6 ESV) as they came to faith in Christ and had their lives radically transformed. The believers there in Corinth had received the gift of the Holy Spirit and, along with Him, the gifts of the Spirit. In fact, Paul said that they were “not lacking in any gift” (1 Corinthians 1:7 ESV). God had been good to them. He had called them and He would be faithful to them as He continued His work among them. He would sustain them to the end. The problem, Paul seems to be saying, was not with God, but with them. It was the Corinthians who were proving to be unfaithful. They had lost their focus. They had lost sight of their unique standing as God’s holy people. The calling of God on their lives had taken a back seat to their own selfish agendas and worldly outlooks on life. They were missing the point.

Paul was preparing to deal harshly with his readers. He was setting them up so that he might call them out. He was not going to tolerate their behavior. The honor of God and the integrity of the gospel was at stake. Their behavior was not in keeping with their status as God’s chosen people. Rather than living as set apart and distinctive from the world around them, they were allowing themselves to blend in and take on the ungodly characteristics of the society in which they lived. Their professed beliefs and practical behavior did not seem to match. There was a disconnect between their faith and their daily practice. Their spiritual talk and their daily walk were in conflict. So Paul started his letter reminding them of who they were and to whom they belonged. Paul will remind them a little later on in this same letter, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV). 

Paul was about to call out the called out ones. He was going to sit down the set-apart ones and give them a piece of his mind – in love. He would not tolerate their actions or excuse their sinful attitudes. God had sacrificed His Son on their behalf. He had paid a high price for their salvation and Paul was not willing to sit back and watch them waste God’s grace or bring shame to His name. It was essential that their profession of faith show up in their walk and talk. Their conduct needed to match their confession. Their status as sons and daughters of God was to be reflected in their actions and attitudes.

A Loving Father.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. – Hosea 11:1-4 ESV

Sometimes, because God is transcendent and invisible to our eyes, we can see Him as distant and difficult to comprehend. After all, He is the creator of the universe. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He is sinless and perfect in all His ways. So we find it hard to relate to Him. While we speak of His love and rely upon His grace and mercy, it's not always easy to feel those things in daily life. After all, we can’t experience a hug from God. We have never been able to talk a walk with Him and have Him put His arm on our shoulder to encourage us. There is a sense in which His transcendence makes Him unapproachable and somewhat aloof to us. But God would have us see Him as our Father. In fact, He uses the imagery of fatherhood throughout the Scriptures. And Jesus Himself encouraged His disciples to approach God in prayer with the word, “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9 ESV).

Here in chapter 11, God addresses the people of Israel as a father would speak to his child. He reminds them of their past and jars their collective memory in order to get them to recall what their relationship with Him used to be like. He had been like a father to them. They had been like a helpless child, trapped in the bonds of slavery in Egypt. They were oppressed. They were crying out in pain and suffering. And God had heard them. When He had called Moses, God had told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:7-8 NLT). And that is exactly what He had done. He had rescued them, set them free and led them to the land of Canaan, just as He had promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier.

God had shown the people of Israel unconditional love. He had rescued them, not because they deserved it, but because of His love for them. And yet, their response to His love had been to refuse it. The failed to recognize and appreciate the incredible miracle that the God of the universe had chosen to shower His love on them. He had adopted them as His own and yet, they had treated His love with contempt. The prophet Isaiah recorded these indicting words from God against the southern kingdom of Judah.

Listen, O heavens! Pay attention, earth! This is what the Lord says: “The children I raised and cared for have rebelled against me. Even an ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s care—but Israel doesn’t know its master. My people don’t recognize my care for them.” Oh, what a sinful nation they are—loaded down with a burden of guilt. They are evil people, corrupt children who have rejected the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. – Isaiah 1:2-4 NLT

They were corrupt children who had rejected the love of God. And God uses the imagery of a father teaching his child to walk to illustrate just how painful their rejection of Him was. He had held their hand and lovingly, patiently guided their every step. He had walked alongside them, steadying their way and ensuring their safety. And then had inevitably fallen, He had lovingly healed them. Just like any earthly father would have done. It was Jesus who said of His heavenly Father, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11 ESV). God is a faithful, loving Father. And yet, Israel, His adopted children, had forsaken Him for false gods. He had “led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love” (Hosea 11:4 ESV), but they had chosen to reject His love and come out from under His protection. Those cords of kindness and bands of love, portrayed through His holy law, had been intended to provide them with loving protection. Like a father’s rules for his children, God’s law was meant to provide appropriate boundaries and protective guidelines for their lives. But they had repeatedly broken God’s laws. They had seen them as oppressive and overly restrictive. But now they were going to understand what the yoke of oppression was really like. The generation to whom Hosea spoke had long ago forgotten the trials and tribulations their ancestors had gone through in Egypt. Slavery was not something to which they could relate. They had been born free and had enjoyed the privilege of growing up in a powerful, successful nation where problems were few and the blessings of God had been many. But the love of the Father had not been enough to hold their attention or keep them faithful.

When we fail to recognize God’s love, His fatherly care and protective presence in our lives, we find it easy to walk away from Him. Like the prodigal son who only saw his father as a source of financial blessing, we can overlook and take for granted our heavenly Father’s unceasing, undeserved love, care and protection. We can end up wanting what we can get from Him more than we want Him. We can treat Him as some kind of genie in a bottle, obligated to grant our wishes and fulfill our every self-centered desire. But God would have us realize just how much He loves us. The apostle John reminds us, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1 NLT). And God demonstrated just how much He loved us in a powerful and very costly manner. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 ESV). The Father’s love for His children is real. It is boundless and tireless. It is patient and unceasing. And Paul would have us come to grips with the startling reality that nothing can separate us from God’s love. “If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself” (Romans 8:31-33 NLT).

Built To Last.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. – 1 Peter 2:4-8 ESV

Peter reminded his readers that they have “tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:3 ESV). He is χρηστός (chrēstos) – kind, gracious and benevolent.And as a result, we come to Him – not just once for salvation, but continually and repeatedly for help and hope as we live our lives on this earth. By coming to Jesus, our Lord, out of our longing for “pure spiritual milk,” we grow. And together, as the body of Christ, we are “built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5 ESV). Jesus becomes the foundation stone upon which the body of Christ, the church, is built. We come to Him, in spite of the fact that He has been rejected by the vast majority of our peers. To us, He is a living stone, the chief cornerstone on which our spiritual lives are built, both individually and corporately. But to others, He becomes nothing more than a stone in their path over which they stumble. To us, He is foundational and supportive. To others, He is fictional and irrelevant.

The key point in this passage seems to be that God desires to build something out of those who place their faith in Christ. He has a grand plan for their lives. Like an architect, He has a design for each and every individual whom He has set apart as His own. Like our Savior, we are living stones, no longer lifeless and dead in our trespasses and sins. We have had new life breathed into us by God Himself, and He has plans for us. He is building us into a spiritual house. Peter compares us to the temple itself. Together, as God’s people, we are the temple, the habitat of God. Paul supports that same thought when he writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17 ESV). It is interesting to note that the personal pronoun, you, that Paul uses is plural in these verses. He is referencing the corporate body of believers in Corinth, not individual believers. While the Holy Spirit dwells within individual believers, He also inhabits the corporate body of Christ, the church. Paul says this very same thing in his second letter to the Corinthian church. “For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17 ESV).

But not only are we the stones who make up the temple of God, we are the priests who offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5 ESV). Paul told the believers in Rome, “I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him” (Romans 12:1 NLT). We are to be living stones and living sacrifices, offering ourselves up to God for His use. Like the priests who served in the temple, we belong to God. We live to serve Him. One of the greatest sacrifices we can make to God is to willingly and submissively allow Him to do with our lives what He sees fit. When we allow Him to use us as stones in His spiritual house, we are sacrificing our desires to Him. We are giving up our dreams in order to fulfill His. And we will not be disappointed. Peter assures of this very thing when he quotes from Isaiah 28:16:

…therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: Whoever believes will not be in haste.” – Isaiah 28:16 ESV

The phrase, “will not be in haste” refers to someone acting in a panic, rushing about in disappointment and surprise.When we build out lives on Jesus, we will never end up disappointed or let down. And when we allow God to use us as stones in His spiritual house, we can have every confidence that the final product will be perfect and complete, without flaws and designed to last for eternity. And we should see it as an honor to have God choose to use us as part of His grand, eternal construction project.

But the sad truth is that Jesus was rejected by His own people. The gospel of John reminds us, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:10-11 ESV). But the rejected one became the chosen, precious one. They stumbled over the very one who would become the cornerstone of the true house of God. They found Him to be an offense to their religious sensibilities. He was not the one for whom they were waiting. He did not fit the bill of the Messiah for whom they longed. So they rejected Him. They had Him crucified. And Peter tells us, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (1 Peter 2:8 ESV). God was not surprised by the reaction of the Jewish nation to His Son. It was all part of His plan. Because, as Paul tells in his letter to the believers in Rome, the rejection of Jesus by the Jews opened up the gospel to the Gentiles. “Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” (Romans 11:11-12 ESV). They failed to recognize Jesus as their Messiah and, as a result, the gospel was taken to the Gentiles. But as Paul goes on to say, “a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins’” (Romans 11:25-27 ESV).

The Jews will one day be added into this grand structure which God is constructing. He is not done yet. He is building something beautiful and eternal. His plan is flawless and His timing is perfect. He knows what He is doing. Each stone has been personally selected by Him and is being placed where He wants it in order to create a living temple in which He will dwell for eternity.