Second Sunday after Epiphany Worship Report
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
“Not Your Own”
Rev. John C. Wohlrabe, Jr., Th.D.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. The text for our message is the Epistle lesson, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, read earlier.
Friends of Jesus and Friends of mine: “May God the Father, who created this body; may God the Son, who by his blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be his temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh.” Those are the words I spoke over Ellamae Krinjob’s body yesterday at Oakwood Cemetery. They are the words at the committal in the Service of Christian Burial. I have spoken those same words over the bodies of many other members of this congregation, as well as the bodies of both my parents and my grandmother within the past few years. Those words proclaim the truth about the body of a believer. It is a body created by the Maker of heaven and earth, purchased with the blood of Christ, and hallowed by the washing of the water with the Word in Holy Baptism. It is not a leftover carcass to be discarded. Quite the contrary, your body is not your own!
Yet, the body is you; it is uniquely you, unlike anyone else. No one else has your fingerprints, or your eyes, or the numbers of hairs you have, or the collection of other characteristics you have, or the memories and history you have. Yet, it does not belong to you. You did not create yourself. When God created Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply, he set into motion a remarkable biological process for procreation or the continuing of creation. And yet, he is still involved. Scripture says that God’s hands knit us together and formed us in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13: 119:73). Our bodies belong to God. They are the work of his hands.
Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. We remember this day that we belong to God. Life is God’s gift from the moment of conception and throughout its natural course. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
Some people may view the body as simply a pod that houses our intellect, our creative and free will. Many view their bodies as their possession, to do with as they see fit. They may treat their bodies as an instrument for hedonism, as a plaything for their pleasure. And when a child is conceived through their “playing around,” then they think they are free to do with that life as they will through abortion. When the toy of the flesh begins to break down due to abuse or disease or age, then some seek ways to be relieved of the burden through assisted suicide and euthanasia. But these things should not be. You are not your own. You belong to the Lord.
What do we do with the body? That is the question that murderers have to face as they seek to hide their heinous crimes. Accounts abound of grotesquely creative ways in which killers seek to dispose of the bodies of their victims. What do we do with the body? That question is also faced by family members when a loved one dies. Unless that person has specified what they wanted done prior to their death, decisions concerning embalming and casket or cremation as well as the place for the burial must be made. What do we do with the body? That’s a question faced not just at the time of death, but here and now as we live in the bodies that God has given us.
Paul was writing to a group of Christians in the Greek seaport of Corinth who had questions about what to do with their bodies. Most sailors know that certain seaports can be very decadent places, and Corinth, Greece was the Olongapo, Philippines or Pattaya Beach, Thailand of that day. Apparently some of the Christians there thought that something as bodily or fleshly as sexual intercourse could not affect their life in the Spirit or their Christian faith. Freedom in the Spirit translated into a life unhampered by restrictions, boundaries, or limitations. They thought they were free to do whatever they wanted with their bodies. Homosexual practices, prostitution, and even incest were fair game. It could be that they thought the Gospel is a message of liberation from the body. That’s what Greek philosophy taught, after all – that the spirit was good, while the body was evil. Some dealt with the evil of the body by depriving their bodies of all worldly pleasures, while others dealt with this evil by indulging it to the fullest. That idea of indulging the flesh seems to be the mindset of many today, even in the church, particularly among some liberal Protestant denominations.
But, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul asserts that “the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” Your body does not belong to you; it belongs to the Lord because he made it. Your body does not belong to you; it belongs to the Lord because you are members of Christ. You are part of his Body, the Church. Your body does not belong to you; it belongs to the Lord because “you were bought with a price.” The word “bought” is the everyday word used in the marketplace. It implies ownership through purchase.
Because our bodies and the life that is in them belong to the Lord, we respect that life as a gift from God. We do not take that life, our own or the lives of others, including the baby in the mother’s womb or the elderly, comatose, or critically ill. You are not your own, you were bought with a price.
Now, it may seem strange that God would need to buy something that already belongs to him. But, because of sin, we were born enslaved to sin. Sin separates us from the One who made us. But God still loves what he made, and so he paid the penalty for our sin. It cost him dearly. As Martin Luther writes in the explanation to the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from Eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”
It was not just our souls for which Jesus died, but for our bodies as well. Our bodies belong to him because he made them, because he bought them with a price, and because in Baptism he made our bodies part of his body, the Holy Christian Church. And something else happened when Jesus purchased us – he also purified us. In our text, Paul puts it this way: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…?” But, if our bodies are going to be temples where God dwells, then they must be cleansed, purified. Our holy God can only live in a holy place. It was in the Most Holy Place of the temple of the Old Testament in which God was present. When the temple was defiled by the Greeks in 167 B.C., it had to be purified. We are by nature defiled with sin. And so we need to be cleansed if God is going to live in us.
But, that too is why Jesus died for us. John writes (1 Jn. 1:7): “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” Jesus took the impurity of our sins upon himself and suffered what we deserved when he died on the cross. That’s why John goes on to say: “If we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). Through faith in Jesus Christ, God declares that we are purified. We are holy enough to be God’s temple.
This is such wonderful good news on this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. God’s forgiveness is here for all of us sinners to cleanse us, so that now God dwells in us. That includes women who have had abortions and men who have encouraged a woman to have an abortion. For most women, abortion is not what they want. It is what they choose when pressured into believing they have no other choice. The reality of that choice is devastating and creates a tremendous spiritual burden of guilt, a burden that can last for many years. They feel that this sin is too big to be forgiven.
The Good News at the end of our text is that there is no sin that is too big to be forgiven. When we confess our sin, the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin, including the sin of abortion. Paul reminds all of us sinners, that through Christ we are pure enough to be temples of God himself.
On this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, it is good to be reminded about the God-given purity of our bodies. This enables us to honor God with our bodies by making decisions to live in purity. Christ Jesus will not have the body that belongs to him rendered unclean, desecrated by fornication or adultery and so be enslaved by a fleshly union to someone who is not your spouse. Christ Jesus would not have you live in bondage to another lord, a false god, because he has made you his own. Our sexual desires are not to control our bodies. Our bodies are not our own – they belong to the Lord. Our “bodies are members of Christ himself.” Paul is basically saying that this makes sexual immorality, although involving the flesh, to be spiritual adultery as well. Sexual immorality is then a form of idolatry. Therefore, we who are united with Christ should not be uniting ourselves in any form of sexual immorality. Sex is a beautiful gift from God that he wants reserved only for marriage, the life-long union of a man and a woman.
So, living in faith, faith in Christ, means recognizing that you are not your own; you were bought with a price; you belong to Christ Jesus. It means that with the help of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you, you can make good decisions concerning what to do with your life. Paul says, “Flee from sexual immorality.” You are temples of God. You can honor God with your bodies. You can make God-pleasing decisions as to what to do with your bodies.
Many young people today are making good decisions. Teen sexual activity has decreased. Teen pregnancies have gone down. Abstinence and chastity are not longer “old fashioned” or “dirty words,” but are seen as wise and healthy choices. Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Denver Broncos, recently announced that he is still a virgin. So have other celebrities. Adults and teenagers alike can make good decisions based on more than just the fear of pregnancy or the contracting of some sexually transmitted disease. Your bodies belong to the Lord. He has purified you to be his temple. You should consider that before deciding to do something that is improper or immoral.
Your body is not just a lump of flesh. It is not something simply to be discarded, even at death. Your body is neither evil nor irrelevant. Your body, and that of every human being, is a special gift from God. He made you. He purchased you with his holy, innocent suffering and death. Your body is the dwelling place of his Holy Spirit, cleansed and purified. Your body is destined for the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Because of that, we hold life to be very special. We respect it and protect it. Because of that, we seek to make good choices with respect to our own bodies. Because of that, we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). And so, we glorify God in our bodies. That is how we live life, for we have life, true eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. To our Triune God be all glory, honor, and praise, now and forevermore. Amen.