Being a Person of Sexual Purity

I Corinthians 6:13-15 17-20: "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? . . . . But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins agains his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

The physical body is very precious to the Lord. He created our bodies (which He declared good [Genesis 1:31]), and He has determined that our spirits would indwell these bodies in order that we might glorify Him through our physical experiences. We must remember that God is the owner of all things (see Ezek. 18:4); therefore, He has the right to dictate what we would do with the bodies given to us.

One of the problems with the church at Corinth was their inappropriate sexual behavior. In chapter 5, one of their members was having sexual relations with his "father's wife . . . something that does not even occur among pagans." In that instance, Paul summoned the church to meet together in the name and power of the Lord Jesus and hand the man over to Satan for the destruction of his body. Paul then advised that the church was not to have any contact with a person who would consider himself a follower of Christ and yet was sexually immoral; for in reality, such a person who perpetuates such debauchery is no true follower of Christ. Instead, he is subject to losing the kingdom of God, offered through God's grace, because he is defying the Sovereign One in such an egregious way (see I Corinthians 5:6:9).

In the above mentioned passage, we find that everything we do with our bodies ultimately is for the glory of Lord. This is because we have been bought with a price by the precious blood of Christ, who will raise our bodies to glorious, perfected, immortality at the resurrection. For the true follower of Christ, our bodies have become the residence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and therefore, we are a temple unto the Lord. Therefore, such sinful, sexual wickedness is nothing less than a sacrilege against the Lord and the repercussions are severe, since such behavior is a sin directly against the body . . . the dwelling place of the One True God!

Living in such a sex-saturated society that exonerates all kinds of sexual deviations is not an excuse for the believer to follow suit. We must never forget that we are the possession of the Lord, and we are called to maintain sexual purity as an offering of worship to the Almighty. He has created us and called us to obedience in our physical bodies. Let us be faithful to the calling given to us.