Flee Fornication: A Meditation on 1st Corinthians 6

In this season of Epiphany, we continue to reflect on how God makes Himself known to His people through His Word.  His Word, both written in the Holy Scriptures and enfleshed in His Only Begotten Son, can never be divided from each other—for the Word Made Flesh who dwelt among us full of grace and truth, is the font from which the Word Written sprang forth by the Prophets and Apostles.  God has always sought to make Himself known to His People and His whole creation, and His means have always been rooted in His Eternal Word.

Amongst our readings for this week, is the sixth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth.  Many scandalous errors and evils were occurring in Corinth’s church, and it was Paul’s duty as an Apostle, a Servant of the Word, to warn the people of the dangers of these sins.  The chapter begins by ridiculing the church for being unable or unwilling to judge even the least of matters among themselves, preferring to seek litigation in the pagan courts for perceived slights.  But then Paul transitions to the weightier matters they should have been able to judge more soberly—sins against God and His Holy Law.  He begins by reminding the people:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not

inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither

fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor

abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves,

nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners,

shall inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were

some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye

are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the

Spirit of our God.

Paul shines the brutal light of God’s Law upon the Corinthian Christians, so that they might understand just how dangerous a game they were playing.  They must know, that those who surrender themselves to such sins, shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.  God is not mocked, and the Christian who thinks he can play safely in sin because of his baptism into Christ, will awaken to a horrible reality.  For grace can only come by faith, and faith cannot coexist with mortal, unrepentant sin.  There is no such thing as a saving faith which willfully lives in sin, refuses to repent, and prefers the sordid company of devils to the Light of Christ.  Be not deceived, for regardless of one’s denomination or affiliation, of his respective office inside or outside the Church of Christ, no one who lives in mortal, unrepentant sin, shall be saved.

And if there were any particular sin that is brashly abused in our day and age, it is fornication.  St. Paul spends the rest of this chapter warning the Corinthian Christians about this heinous corruption, which unlike so many other sins, is actually perpetrated against our own body.  Sexual sin, regardless of its form (fornication, adultery, sodomy, etc.,) dishonors and commits sacrilege against a body which is supposed to be a temple for the Holy Spirit—a body that is united to Christ our Bridegroom by grace through faith in Him.  Disordered sexuality corrupts not only the body of the Christian, but the soul as well, adulterating the relationship of that soul with her Savior, Jesus Christ.  In St. Paul’s words:

Now the body [is] not for fornication, but for the

Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both

raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.

Know ye not that your bodies are the

members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ,

and make [them] the members of an harlot? God forbid.

What? know ye not that he which is joined to an

harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is

without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth

against his own body. What? know ye not that your

body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you,

which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For

ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your

body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

To anyone who thinks that the Word of God is somehow out of place in our age, let them ponder the prescient words of St. Paul, written to a city of Christians nearly 2000 years ago, and to the cities of our world today.  Dalliance in prostitution, cohabitation, homosexuality, and adultery were just as well known in the ancient world, as they are today.  Perhaps our tools for exercising them have developed, but the sins remain—whether you find your prostitute on the street or through Craig’s List, or satisfy your lust through bar flies or internet pornography—the sexual sins remain exactly what they are in light of God’s Law.  They are evil and wicked, separating us from God and the salvation earned for us through Christ’s Vicarious Atonement.  They are damnable, no matter what window dressing we put on them, or how pervasive they seem in our culture.  We do our children and our friends no favors by leaving them to feel comfortable in such sins, as they approach the hideous reality of an eternity separated from the love of God.

But thanks be to God, the hope of the Corinthians is the same hope of New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Seattle—the hope of all mankind, who would be saved from the depravity of sin, and the endless torments of an eternity in hell.  That hope which springs eternal with hope and forgiveness, is the blessed Gospel of Jesus of Christ.  For it was for our transgressions that He was sacrificed upon that Cross so many centuries ago, and it was for our wickedness that He died.  For all our sins, including those of distorted sexuality, He has poured out His Blood, that sinners such as us might be washed clean.  In His death is our life and salvation, and in His resurrection is our hope secure.  For Christ has come to seek and to save the prostitute, the fornicator, the adulterer, and the homosexual, and He has accomplished that salvation through the forgiveness won on Calvary.

And how does so great a salvation from so terrible a fate, come to sinners like you and I?  By that same Word who has made satisfaction for us upon the Cross.  That Word comes to each of us, declaring the reality of our sins and the hell we are due because of them.  And that Word comes to each of us with the free gift of absolution and forgiveness, which is the only Good News that can salve a sinner’s conscience.  That Word, coming to us as both Law and Gospel, works faith and repentance in all who will hear, by the power of His Holy Spirit.  That Word takes dead sinners like you and I, gives us a new birth from above by Water and the Spirit, and sends us forth into a fallen world to strive for holiness, having a new love for God and neighbor motivated by the Love of God which first came to us in Jesus.  That Word continues to seek and to call us, even when we fall, so that we might return again and again to faith and repentance, and thereby to live in His grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  That Word, the very Son of God calling to us by His Spirit through His Holy Scriptures, calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, binding us together into the blessed communion of the saints, both here and in the world to come.

That Word—His Word—is our salvation, now and forevermore.  Hear Him.  Repent, believe, and live.  Amen.