The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 193

destroy; shall bring t-0 nought. This would heath cu. They two. The words do not occur occur when the physical body becomes a in Gou. ii. 24, but are always so quoted in spiritual body, like that of the iLngels of the New Testtiment (Matt. xix. 5; Mark x. God (eh. xv. 51, 52). How ..-ile, then, is it 8; Eph. v. 31). Saith he. 'fhis is a vague to make a god of the belly-only to sleep and Jewish formula of quotation, edopted to feed ! Both it and them. There shall be no avoid the needless introduction of the sacred need for the bell,, when men "shall hunger Name. " He" is " God" in Seri pture. Shell no more, neither.thirst any more" (Rev. vii. be one flesh; rather, shall become. This ap- 16); and !he meat alluded to is "meat peal to Gen. ii. 24 (Matt. xix. 5) is equiva- which perisheth" (Luke xv. 16). Now the lent to the rule that no intercourse between body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. tho sexes is free from sin except nnder The argument, therefore, which would class the sanction of marriage. this sin as a matter of indifference, as was Ver. 17.-That is joined nnto the Lord. the Le..-itical distinction between different This phrase, indicating the closest possible hinds of food, at once fell to the ground. union, is found in Dent. x. 20; 2 Kings Food was a necessitv, and the stomaeh was xviii. 6. Is one spirit. The1·e is a. "mystical formed for its assimilation. Fornication is union," not only "betwixt Christ aad his not a .enial but "a deadly sin." It is not Church,'' but also between Christ and the a natural necessity, but a consuming evil. holy soul. Hence, to St. Paul, spiritual The body was created for higher ends- life :neant the indwelling of Christ in the namely, to be a temple of God. "God bath heart-the life "in Christ; " so that be not called us unto uncleanness, but unto could say, "It is no more I that· live, but holiness" (I Thess. iv. 7). And the Lord Christ that liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20; iii. for the body. Therefore our members 27 ; Col. iii. I 7). ought to be used "as instruments of right- Ver. 18.-Flee fornication. In the battle eousness unto God" (Rom. v. 13), and our against sensual sins, there is no victory bodies presented as n. living, holy, reason• except in absolute flight, for the reason able, acceptable sacrifice to him (Rom. xii. which immediately follows, namely, that 1 ). The end of our existence is "to serve these sins have their dwelling in that body God here and enjoy him for ever hereafter." which is part.of our being, and which yet Ver. 14.-God hath both raised up the they tend to destroy. They make a man Lord. St. Paul alwa-ys grounds man's his own deadliest enemy. Every sin . . . resurrection· and immortality on the re- is without the body. Some have supposed surrection and ascension of Christ (see eh. that this cannot apply to gluttony and xv.; 2 Cor. iv. 14; Rom. vi. 5, 8; viii. 11). drunkenness, which they therefore class with Yer. 15.-Members of Christ. We find fornication ; but even in those sins, as in the same metaphor in eh. xii. 12, 27; Eph. suicide, the cause of and incentive to the sin v. 30. The Church is often alluded to as is external, whereas the source of unclean- "the body of Christ" (Eph. i. 23; Col. i. ness is in the heart and in the thoughts, IS; ii. 19, etc.). Elsewhere the union which come from within, and so defile the between Christ and Christians is descl"ibed man. Other sins may be with and by meana by the metaphor of a tree and its branches; of the body, and .may injure the body; but a building and the stones of which it is none are so directly against the sanctity composed (Epb. ii. 21, 22). God forbid. An of the whole bodily being as fornication. admirable idiom to express the real force of Sinneth against his own body. By alien- tile original, which means, '' May it never ating it from the service of him to whom be! " (for the rationale of the Greek phrase, it belongs; by incorpornting it with the I may refer to my 'Brief Greek Syntn.x,' p. degradation of another; by staining the 135). It occurs in Rom. iii. 4, 6, 31; vi. flesh and the body (Prov. v. 8-11 ; vi. 24- 15; ..-ii. 7, 13; ix. 14; xi. I, II; Gal. ii. 32; vii. 24-27); by subtly poisoning the 17; iii. 21. The formula., which involves inmost sanctities of bis own being. St. Paul the indignant rejection of some false con- is here thinking mainly, however, if not clusion, is cuaracteristic of the second group exclusively, of the moral injury and defile- of St. Paul's Epistles, but especially (as will ment. be seen) of the Epistle to the Roma,ns. Ver. 19.-That your body is the temple Ver. 16.-What, know ye not, etc.? The (or rather, a sanctuary) of the Holy Ghost. clause is used to explain and justify the He has already said thut the Church is a strong expression wbich be had used in shrine or sanctuary of the Holy Ghost (eh. the previous verse. It involves an argument iii. IG); but here for the first time ex- against the sin which is the most original pression is g-ivcn to one of tho deepest and ond impressive which could have Leen used. newest truths of Christianity (comp. 2 Cor. To ibis passage especially is due the tone vi. lG). 'fhree great epochs a.re marked by taken by Christians as to these sin~, which the use of the word "temple." In the Old differed ~o totally from that taken by Testament it means the material temple, the -cn. VI, 1-20.J THE FlilST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. H,5