Biblical View of the Body is Essential

Introduction: The Appropriateness of Sexual Purity for Communion

0:01 May I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to 1 Corinthians and chapter 6, 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

0:16 Follow please as I read beginning at verse 12 and read to the end of the chapter.

0:25 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach, and the stomach for foods, but God shall bring to naught both it and them. But the body is not for fornication or sexual uncleanness, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

0:59 And God both raised the Lord and will raise up us through his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid.

1:20 Or do you not know that he that is joined to a harlot is one body? For the two said he shall become one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee sexual uncleanness.

1:40 Flee sexual uncleanness. Every sin that a man does is without the body. But he that commits sexual uncleanness sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have from God, and you are not your own?

2:03 For you were bought with a price. Glorify God, therefore, in your body. And if you are reading a version of the Scripture that goes on to say, and in your spirit, which are his, there is very little solid textual evidence that Paul wrote any such words. It was some people who felt this was too crassly sensual and earthly and tangible and had to make it a little more spiritual.

2:33 But the words given by the Holy Spirit were, Glorify God, therefore, in your body. Period. Full stop.

2:43 Now it is evident, as we've already announced, and as we see from the spread table before us, that the culmination of this service will be an act of obedience on the part of God's people to remember the Lord Jesus in the way of his appointment by the eating of bread and the drinking together of the fruit of the vine. And here I am tonight about to bring the fourth message in a brief series entitled, The Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity. Or more positively stated, The Divine Prescription for Sexual Purity. And I trust it will be both.

3:24 Surely some may say, few subjects could be less fitting and more inappropriate for a communion service than the subject, The Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity. Now I can understand why some might think that way, however, if you will listen and carefully attend to the word of God that I trust you have opened before you, as together we look at this portion of God's word, I trust you will be persuaded that few subjects could be more evidently appropriate than this subject as it is handled by the Apostle Paul in the passage read in your hearing.

The Central Thesis: A Biblical Understanding of the Body is Essential

4:08 In the first three messages on this subject, of The Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity or The Divine Prescription for Sexual Purity, I set before you four propositions which I use to embody some of the most basic teaching of the word of God on the issue of sexual purity. Given the time constraints, I cannot go back and repeat those four propositions, much less open up the many scriptures that we studied, but I do hope that you will listen to them and understand them together. The messages are on tape. The series is, in a very real sense, a fabric of truth,

4:51 and I trust that none would detach what we hear tonight from the previous three, or stop with the previous three and detach it from our meditation tonight, and God willing, the completion of this series next Lord's Day evening. Tonight, I want all of our attention to be given to this passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and if I were to give a title to our subject tonight or to our study in the word of God, it would be this. As a Christian, a biblical understanding of my body is essential to sexual purity. As a Christian, what Paul is writing in 1 Corinthians 6, 12 to 20,

5:35 is directed to Christians, to people who have heard the gospel, and by the power of the Spirit have come to see their desperate need of Christ, and by the same working of the Spirit have been brought to repentance and faith. They are not strangers to the new birth, to what it is to be constrained now by the love of Christ and other gospel motives. And in this passage, what we have is Paul's directive to these saints at Corinth that they must, as Christians, have a biblical understanding of their bodies if they are to maintain sexual purity,

6:17 especially in a pagan society where sexual uncleanness hung in the air like fog. Now, why do I state the essence of the teaching in this passage in these words? Well, for the simple reason that we have two imperatives in the passage. If you were listening carefully, you would have picked up that in verse 18 there is a simple, straightforward, terse imperative, flee fornication.

6:49 Run from sexual impurity. That's the negative. Then, in verse 20, you have the second and the only other imperative in this paragraph, glorify God therefore in your body. Now, surely those two imperatives should be enough for any Christian to avoid sexual impurity.

7:11 God says, run from it, and in place of sexual impurity from which you run, bring glory to God in your body. Use your bodily functions in such a way that it reflects the honor and the glory of the God who in Christ has redeemed you and would give no thoughtful person reason to concur using your body as a sensual playground or a tool of the devil to bring dishonor to God. But you see, the Apostle Paul is not convinced that those two imperatives stripped of gospel motives would be sufficient for the Lord's people. If God thought that the mere commands,

7:55 flee sexual impurity, glorify God in your body, if those naked commands were enough, that's all God would give. But He's done more than that. He has surrounded those imperatives with a biblical theology of the body of a Christian. For the most frequently used noun in this paragraph is the Greek word soma.

8:18 It's the word that refers to the body. Eight times Paul uses the word the body. The body, the body, the message that comes through to these Corinthians and to us if we follow the track of the Holy Spirit as He speaks through the mind and pen of the Apostle is, as a Christian, understanding of my body is essential to sexual purity. Now what I propose to do within the added time constraints of a communion meditation is to look with you from the passage at five principles which the Apostle Paul

Principle 1: My Body is for Serving Jesus Christ

9:03 sets before us in enabling us as Christians to have a biblical understanding of our body's imperatives, flee sexual impurity, glorify God in your body. Principle number one is this. My body has been given to me to serve Jesus Christ the Lord in this world and in the age to come. What is my body for?

9:37 My body has been given to me to serve Jesus Christ the Lord in this world and in the age to come. That's the essential teaching of verses 13 and 14 of this paragraph. Passing over the significance of verse 12 and it does have significance for the Corinthians but is not essential to our understanding of these principles, notice what the Apostle says in verse 13. Foods for the stomach and bring to naught both it and them.

10:17 God will render inoperative both the stomach and food that is suitable for the stomach. The body is not for sexual uncleanness but for the Lord, the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up through His power. Now what in the world is Paul saying?

10:42 Well basically this. Apparently there was a saying going around in Corinthians. Among the Corinthians there at Corinth. That it is obvious that foods are made for the stomach, the digestive system and the digestive system is perfectly suited to receive food.

11:02 So you have the saying foods for the stomach and the stomach for food. And apparently, this can't be established with dogmatism, apparently some were also saying in the same way as there is this congruity and suitability between food and the digestive system, foods, meats, and the stomach. You have the body that is suited for fornication. It has its sexual appetites and powers and drives and capacities.

11:39 And you have fornication that is suitable to the body and its passions. So it's logical, is it not, if a loving God made foods, He made them consumed by men's bellies. So He makes a belly suitable for food and He makes a body that has sexual appetites and passions and fornication relieves the passions, gratifies the appetites, the appetites are suitable to the body, the body to the appetites. Paul said, no, no, you've totally missed what your body is for.

12:22 So he answers by saying, look at the text, foods for the belly or the stomach and the stomach for foods, but that is not to go on forever. God shall bring to naught both it and them. In the resurrection we will not have the precise same physical constitution that we now have. There will be no necessity to consume food.

12:50 Apparently our glorified bodies will not have the same digestion system that we now have. Paul can say, God shall bring to naught both it and them and then he takes up their second premise, but the body is not for sexual impurity, for fornication, but for the Lord. Your body is given to you to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Your body is not given to you with all of its capacities and appetites, physical appetites for food, sexual appetites for sexual gratification.

13:34 That body with all of its appetites and passions was not given to be your personal playground. That body was given for the service of the Lord. And for you who are believers, Paul says, that body in a unique way is not for sexual uncleanness, but it is for the Lord and the Lord is committed to the good and the well-being of that body. And it's as though someone says, well, how do we know that?

14:02 Paul says, God will even go to the trouble of raising it from the dead. Look at the next part of the verse. How do we know the Lord is committed to the body? God both raised the Lord, speaking of the Lord Jesus, and will raise us up through His power.

14:22 The acme of the glory of the Christian is not the disembodied state. When the Spirit leaves this body, and in an instant of time is made perfect in holiness, joins the spirits of just men made perfect. But the hope of the Christian goes beyond the intermediate state. Yes, to depart and be with Christ is far better.

14:47 But the hope of the Christian in the Bible is not defined as the intermediate state, but it is the glorified state at the coming of the Lord Jesus, when our bodies shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall have bodies fashioned, Paul says, like unto the body of His glory. So for these Corinthians struggling with a society in which sexual uncleanness was not only accepted by the rank and file of people, it was augmented to the place of a sacred act of worship. And there were men in the Corinthian church who had been brought up in a society

15:31 in which part of the religious ritual into which you were introduced as a young man was having intercourse with temple prostitutes as an expression of worship to the gods. That's how much they had sunk in the wretched moral degeneration that accompanies idolatry. And now Paul comes along and says, look, if you're to flee sexual uncleanness, if you're to glorify God, if you're to glorify God in your body, get this principle firmly embedded in your soul. My body has been given to me to serve Jesus Christ the Lord in this world and in the next.

Principle 2: My Body and Spirit are United to Christ

16:16 That's principle number one. Principle number two, verses 14 to 17. My body and my spirit are inseparably united to Jesus Christ in a real spiritual, union. My body and my spirit are inseparably united to Jesus Christ in a real spiritual union.

16:45 Verse 15. Do you not know that your bodies, doesn't say you, but your bodies, soma, your physical constitution, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot, of a prostitute? May it never be.

17:14 God forbid. Or, do you not know that he that is joined to a harlot, to a prostitute, is one body? For the two said he shall become one flesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

17:33 What is Paul doing? He is planting the lofty doctrine of the believers' union with Christ smack down in the midst of the moral mess at Corinth. And he's saying to these believers, if you're going to flee sexual uncleanness, if you're to glorify God in your body, get hold of this truth that as a Christian, your body and spirit are inseparably united to Jesus Christ in a real spiritual union. He did not say a carnal union, but a spiritual union.

18:07 But because it's spiritual, it doesn't mean that it's not real. Paul says it's so real that when you, Corinthians, who are united to Christ, join yourself in an immoral sexual relationship, Jesus Christ says, I didn't write it, don't you know one of Paul's favorite teaching devices, it's the sixth time that you've ever seen Jesus Christ in your life. He says, I didn't write it, don't you know one of Paul's favorite teaching devices, it's the sixth time he's used it in this letter alone. He uses it again and again or several times in the epistles of the Romans.

18:48 And whenever he uses it, he's not introducing something that is not true of those to whom he writes, he's introducing it saying, don't you know, here is a fact that is true about you. You ought to know it, you ought to be living in the light of it. But if you have forgotten it, get hold of it afresh. If you're living in the light of what I'm about to tell you, you've never lived the way you're living.

19:12 That's how he uses this terminology. Do you not know, do you not know, uses it twice in this passage, don't you know, he says, that your bodies, every Christian, dance your fingers and hands, your arms, your legs, your feet, think of your primary and secondary sexual organs, that's part of your bodies. And every bit of you is united to Christ. So the text says, look at it, look at it, let the truth of it sink down in, know you not that your bodies, and it doesn't put a parenthesis, except your little toes, your bodies, except your fingers, your bodies,

19:57 except your primary and secondary sexual organs, God has nothing to do with that dirty stuff, no, he says your bodies. From the tippy toe to the top of the head. All that constitutes your body, your body, Paul says, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? And now he sets before them the unthinkable.

20:21 Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of the harlot? How deep and real is the union with Christ that makes our bodies members of Christ? It's real. Now Paul says, shall I take away the members of Christ and make them members of the harlot?

20:42 And it's as though a Corinthians says, what we do when we play around with the young ladies and with the young men, when we indulge in our necking and our petting and our heavy breathing short of intercourse, I mean, that has nothing to do with being immediately joined, that's just casual sex. Paul says, no, it doesn't exist. He uses the same word. He says, your bodies are members of Christ.

21:09 The union with Christ is deep and real and spiritual. Take away from Christ and make them members of a harlot. The relationship is deep. It's real.

21:22 There's no such thing as casual sex. Look what he goes on to say to prove it. Or do you not know, have you forgotten, that he that is joined to a harlot, a euphemism for having sexual relations, is one body? He says, don't you know that the very nature of that relationship is that it constitutes you in a relationship of the deepest intimacy?

21:47 And he says, how do we know that? He goes right back to Genesis 2, 24, where God says, the truth, said he, shall become one flesh. And then, to add, as it were, insult to injury, he says, but he that is joined to the Lord is not only in his body joined to Christ, but becomes one spirit with Christ. That doesn't mean we become Christ, we are elevated to deity, but it means the union is not just physical, this physical frame, it is spiritual.

22:20 Hence the principle, my body and my spirit are inseparably united to Jesus Christ in a real spiritual where I touch, where I look upon. I do so as one united to Christ. You see how profound the impact of this would be in any moral society? Some young man begins to hit on a young woman who belongs to Christ.

22:55 He thinks, that she's in the same orbit of sexual laxity by which they've both been conditioned. She looks the young man in the eye and says, do you know who you're fooling around with? You're fooling around with the Son of God. Well, where is he?

23:14 I'm joined to him. He's in heaven at the right hand of the Father, but by the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit I have been called, 1 Corinthians 1.9, into the fellowship, into the communion of Jesus Christ. My soul, my spirit, all that I am is united to the Son of God.

23:31 Be careful how you treat the property that is united to Him. See how profound this impact would be that when they hear the words flee fornication, glorify God in your body, it is a body along with the Spirit that is inseparably united to Jesus Christ in a real spiritual union and in a way that I cannot imagine that the Bible makes plain that that union, the bodily union of the believer with Christ is not even dissolved in death. But the Scripture says that the Lord will come and pay special attention to those who die in the Lord, those

24:15 who sleep in Jesus and the sleep never refers to the soul but to the body and our union with Christ is not dissolved even in death. Precious truth. Principle number one. As though this were not enough Paul says let's load up all the gospel guns against this horrible sin of sexual promiscuity at Corinth and it's this my body which belongs to Christ and is united to Christ and exists for the service of Christ is in a unique way compromised by sexual impurity.

Principle 3: Sexual Impurity Uniquely Compromises My Body

24:53 My body is in a unique way compromised by sexual impurity. After the imperative to which we've been referring again and again flee fornication he brings another motivation. Every sin that a man does is without the body but he that commits fornication sexual uncleanness sins against his own body. He not only sins against the Lord sins against the one with whom he indulges sexual uncleanness he sins against his own body.

25:33 Not just his own soul. Note the text against his own body. A very helpful commentary on this first letter of the Corinthian to the Corinthians Leon Morris writes the Christian must not temporize with sexual impurity but flee the very thought. Paul goes on to develop the idea that this sin of a man's being.

26:00 He does not say that this is the most serious of all sins but its relation to the body is unique. Other sins will occur to us which have their effects on the body but this sin and this sin only means that a man takes that body which is a member of Christ and puts it into union which blasts his own body is the paraphrase that one has to it. Other sins against the body such as drunkenness and gluttony involve the use of that which comes from without the body. Excessive drink drunkenness excessive food gluttony the sexual appetite

26:44 rises from within. These sins serve other purposes this has no other purpose than the gratification of the lusts. They that is sinful in itself. Fornication involves a man in what Godet calls a degrading physical solidarity incompatible with the believer's spiritual solidarity with Christ.

27:12 Paul wants them to understand that my body which belongs to Christ and is united to Christ and exists for the service of Christ in a unique way is compromised by sexual impurity. And you remember what Paul says in Ephesians 5 20 mind when giving direction to Christian husbands how to love their wives. He says love your wives as being your very selves for the two should be one. For verse 29 no man ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.

27:54 It is unnatural to hate your own flesh. And I need not tell you. You know they have a word for it. STDs sexually transmitted diseases in which God seems determined even in the patterns of the horrible diseases to make it plain to men.

28:23 He that sins in this area sins against his own body. He does not commit a murder that he may cover up but he doesn't self-destruct the body with which the murder was committed. It will eventually if he doesn't repent be destroyed when he is cast into hell. I know that but in terms of its present effects someone may blaspheme and have very little if any effect upon his body.

28:58 That's reality. And Paul says Christians need to remember that. He says surely that's enough. No it isn't.

Principle 4: My Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit

29:09 Paul is going to load up the gospel gun and shoot some more at this sin that when God's people think of the words flee sexual impurity glorify God in your body their minds will be loaded with the Holy Spirit made such by God thus making my body the sole possession of God. That's the teaching of verse 19. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit made such by God thus making my body the sole possession of God. Look at verse

29:53 19. Or once again the know you not form and say you generically or your souls your soma your body that comprised of the stuff that makes your fingers and your hair and your face and your feet and your armpits your body the whole shebang your body is the temple not the hieros the general courts of the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you which this reality you have from God it's God

30:38 that made your body the temple of his spirit underscoring the preciousness of the divine initiative in grace as we were reminded in the adult class again this morning it's God who takes the initiative salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end of this reality your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit how did it become that because God in grace and in power took the initiative to call me out of darkness into light and to place his spirit within me but having done that that gives God unique claims over the temple which he has

31:22 made for himself but God's own the temple has made your body and mine his temple he who in grace has made this body his temple has absolute claims over his temple do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you which you have from God and you are not your own you see the language do my own thing should never be found on the lips of the child because the God of heaven and earth in grace and mercy

32:07 has arrested me brought me to his son cleansed me purged me made me his child placed his spirit within me and he has absolute rights over that which he's made his own dwelling now will that make a difference when your hormones are raging or when you as a married woman get a crush on a man other than your wife and when at work you see a woman more attractive than your wife and that will happen and when all of the glossy photos and all of the images constantly paraded over the TV and over the internet with its

32:51 vile glut of pornography when all of that is pressing in upon you what do you need child of God man or woman my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit made of God thus making my body the sole possession of God I have no right to use these eyes to serve that wicked devilish God of lust and leering looks and inordinate and illicit desires and fantasies no such foul filth should be allowed in the temple of the Holy God this body is his temple and you say Pastor you still

Principle 5: My Body is Blood-Bought Property

33:36 haven't convinced me of that well we come now to the fifth and final principle and I think you'll see the relationship this is most likely brought forward as a further explanation and buttressing of what he has just said your body is a temple of the Spirit who is in you which you have from God you are not your own but I've chosen to isolate it as a fifth principle and state it this way my body is to man as Christian woman as Christian in the total integrity of the body soul existence he doesn't do that up till now it's always body body body body

34:20 body body body now he says for you in the entirety of what you are were bought with a price does he need to tell us what the price is we know what the price is this word agarazzo is a marketplace word and you can buy something in your bag and through some shekels on a counter to purchase something this is the term you would use you went to market today and you purchased something it's marketplace language and most likely has reference to what was common in that day when slaves would be held up for auction and some would buy the slave

35:05 and then from thenceforth the slave market where we were found with our chains and our manacles and our old master the devil gloating that we belonged to him and he went to the cross and there under the anathema of god in the language we read tonight that pastor jeff read from mark 15 our blessed savior was plunged into the abyss of outer darkness and all the waves and pillows of the wrath of god broke upon his head and he cried my god why have you forsaken me that's the price that was paid that we might be released that we might be the bought possessions

35:50 of the living god and of his son the lord jesus for you were bought with a price you in all that you are not you minus your sexual urges minus your primary and secondary sexual organs no everything that makes you you has been purchased if i may say something that i trust will help to make it stick there's not a member of your body that is not branded with the sign of the cross think of your eyes branded

36:34 with the sign of the cross can you look through the cross upon images on a screen in a theater in your home in a magazine at an airport in a local bookshop can eyeballs stamped with the cross look upon uncleanness can hands marked by the cross illicitly touch erogenous zones of anyone other than one's wife or husband you work out the rest of the details but you must paul says you

37:18 were bought with a price it makes you you is purchased property it's marked with the sign you have yet to enter in to boy girl relationships ask god to embed this principle in your mind and in those moments when you may be tempted the young man may be tempted graciously say you cannot touch me there you cannot place your lips on mine they're marked with the sign of the cross and the one who purchased them has said

38:01 these are to be kept for my husband these parts of my body that god gave that they might be the expression of the intimacies of marital love they are marked with the sign of the cross don't put your dirty hands on them if you claim to have yours marked by the sign of the cross keep them to yourself bucko and to take that stance you may be called a prude you may be called a number of things but to be able to come home any night from any relationship in any

38:46 circumstance and get on your knees and say lord jesus thank you that by your bricks i conducted myself as one bought with a price of one from sexual impurity of all kind glorify god in your body will it make a difference if you bring to those two imperatives these five principles my body's been given to me to serve christ the lord in this age and in the age to come my body and my spirit are inseparably united

39:30 to jesus christ in a real which belongs to christ and is united to christ and exists for the service of christ in a unique way is going to be compromised by any sexual impurity my body is the temple of the holy spirit made such by god and thus my body is the sole possession of god and my body along with my spirit is the blood bought property of his son and his holy spirit which belongs to jesus and the holy spirit comes to me from him

40:15 and brings me to this heaven and from him to the heaven of god he is fears and desires and by and by to keep Corinthians pure in the midst of a society that was proverbial for its sexual uncleanness. When you want to speak of someone being really debauched, there was a word you could use, they've been Corinthianized. That's all you need to say.

40:50 And everyone would know exactly what you were saying. It has just about come to the place where you can say in our day, if someone's debauched, he's been thoroughly Americanized. Talk to some of our friends from third world countries and ask them, what our exported television is doing in third world countries to Americanize them, that is to suck them into the vortex of this whirlpool of ever-increasing filth and moral degeneration. Children of God, if they need it, those principles, who are we to think we don't need them?

Conclusion: Application and Warning

41:26 May God help us here at the table to say, Lord Jesus, as I take in my hands the symbol of the body that you have given me, that you took for me, that you gave up to death for me, as we take the fruit of the vine and drink it to say, Lord Jesus, this was the purchase price, the price to purchase me, to make me a temple of the living God, a temple in which a holy God dwells by the Holy Spirit, to enable me to live a holy life, in all of the ramifications of that, for our human sexuality in the midst of the reality, of remaining sin, a seducing devil, and an evil world.

42:10 God's grace is sufficient for us. May God help us then as we come to the table, that here we will afresh, say, Lord, brand every faculty of my mind and body with the sign of the cross. If I thought wearing a cross around my neck and one around my wrist and going and getting tattooed crosses on my hands would help, I'd be willing to bear the social stigma, the stigma from most of you and get tattooed. But that won't do it, friends.

42:41 It has got to be a truth that embeds itself in the mind and is kept fresh in the mind by reflection, by meditation, constantly praying through this passage. Nine-tenths of what you heard will go out by the time you go out the door. But if you go back and by reflection and meditation and re-assimilation, these things will by degree take root in your heart under the blessing of the Spirit of God, and I trust that as a result in that day when we're gathered home to our Lord Jesus and we reflect upon things that went on down here, if we'll do that, I'm not sure. But if we do, what a blessed thing it will be to have some say, Pastor, whatever you'll call me there, I don't know what you'll call me, I don't know what my name there will be,

43:26 but whatever you'll call me, I know it will be kind and loving and whatever I call you will be the same. Say, you know, I'm so thankful that that communion service, you didn't break off your series, it's unsexual purity. That passage was used of God at a critical time in my life, and God, by the Holy Spirit, helped me and enabled me, and I bless God for that truth that was brought that night. And if you're sitting here as someone who says, well, phooey on all of that, my body's my own, I'll do with it what I want, Christ, God, the holy law of God, the word of God, it's going to have no influence over me, my friend, I just remind you of one of those propositions we looked at

44:11 in the seven texts that we used to support it. Willful, impenitent, continuance, insexual sin will land you in hell.

44:22 So the next time you think it's worth it to indulge the feelings at your fingertips and at the tips of anything else that's part of your body, remember, remember, willfully to continue is to welcome hell. May God help you to flee the wrath, and pray that God will make you His child, and that by His grace you will begin to live a life that reflects joyfully that you're not your own, you're bought with a price, you're committed to glorify God in your body. Now to just tease you a little bit with holy teasing, I urge all married couples to go right on, remembering there was no break, chapter breaks,

45:05 and I want you to read the first four verses of chapter seven. In our final message next, we're going to see that the very God who says, your body's mine, I bought it, He assigns a lesser authority to that body, to your husband and to your wife, and says to every wife, your body is not your own. Same word, soma, it's your husband's. And He says to every husband, your body's not your own, it's your wife's.

45:32 You reflect on that and ask yourself, what does this involve in my relationship to my husband and my wife if the God who purchased my body, says my husband in a sense owns it, in the marital relationship, and vice versa with the wife. You think through that, and I hope it will prepare your own mind as we move on into that section and several other portions of the Word of God in bringing this series to a conclusion. Well, let's pray.

46:08 Our Father, we are so thankful for the Scriptures. We thank You for the realism of the Apostles' treatment of this subject. We thank You, that You allowed that Corinthian society to degenerate so far that there would be need to address these issues so thoroughly and explicitly, for You saw that we would be living in a similar society and that we would need these instructions. Right then, we pray upon our hearts, we ask that for Your glory and for the good of our souls and for the credibility of our testimony, each of us will be kept safe, sexually pure,

46:49 by the grace and power of Your Holy Spirit working by and with the Word and by every holy resolve to flee fornication and to glorify You in our bodies. Continue with us now as we come to the table. May we know Your gracious presence. We ask in Jesus' name.

47:12 Amen.