Paul then continues by revealing for us a another reason why the members of the church at Corinth, and us here today, can find ourselves believing that we should have sexual freedom and license in 1 Corinthians 6:15-17:
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 prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Paul uses a rhetorical question in order to introduce the well known and generally accepted fact that, as followers of Jesus, we are mystically and spiritually united with Christ. If you are a follower of Jesus, God sees you in Christ as part of His body. And in light of the reality that we are united mystically and spiritually in Christ, Paul asks the members of the church at Corinth if they should take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Paul then answers the questions with the strongest possible negative statement possible in the language that this was written in. In our culture it might sound like this- no way! But what does Paul mean when he asks whether they should take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
The Apostle provides the answer for us by introducing another well known and generally accepted fact that the church should know: “do you not know that the one who joins himself with a prostitute is one body with her?” To back up his point, Paul quotes part of Genesis 2:24 ‘the two shall become one flesh’. To understand what Paul is communicating here, we need to understand what happens when we have sex. When we have sex with someone, the very act of sexual intercourse causes two separate bodies to become one. The act of sex physically, emotionally, and even spiritually fuses two people together.
It’s kind of like a cardboard box I received in the mail this past week from UPS that contained a book that I had ordered. Like many boxes, this box was closed with glue as an adhesive. Now here is a question for you: have you ever been able to open a box that was glued together without destroying the box? Have you ever been able to open a box that has been glued together in a way that the individual pieces remains as they were prior to being glued? No. Usually what happens is the glue is so strong that part of one part of the lid ends up remaining on the other part of the lid as you rip the box open, doesn’t it? We never end up with a clean break or separation of the parts of the box when we open a box, do we?
And just like that cardboard box, when we have sex with someone, pieces of us remain attached to one another. So, a piece of every person that you have ever had sex with has become a part of you. And because of the powerful nature of sex to connect us physically, emotionally, and spiritually, God designed sex for one specific environment, which is one man and one woman united in a monogamous marriage relationship for life. Let’s look at the entire quote of Genesis 2:24 to see this reality:
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
God created and designed sex to occur when one man leaves from his home to commit himself in a covenant relationship with one woman for an entire lifetime. Any sex that occurs outside of one man and one woman united in a monogamous marriage relationship for life is outside of God’s design. The members of the church at Corinth, however, misunderstood God’s design for sexuality and the powerful nature of sex as God designed it.
Parents, one of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to try to tell and convince our children that sex is bad. This is a mistake for two reasons. First, all our children have to do is to go look in the mirror to see that sex is not bad. Seriously. All a child has to do is say, “if sex is bad, then why am I here? And what about all my brothers and sisters?" I mean are you going to try and convince your child that you just had sex one time and decided it was bad? How is that argument going to go over? Second, and unfortunately, many of the friends of your children are already experimenting with sex. So when you tell your children that sex is bad and then they hear their friends talking about how great sex is, you have just lost credibility to speak into your child’s life about sex.
And the church historically has done a horrible job when it comes to talking about sex. That is why many want to cringe in you seats when a preacher begins to talk about sex, isn’t it. Many of us have sat in an environment where a red faced preached pounded the pulpit and spewed condemnation when it came to sex. However, the Bible clearly teaches that sex is an awesome gift from God that is divinely designed to be experienced in one environment- marriage.
Paul then contrasts the one flesh relationship that occurs during sexual intercourse with the eternal relationship that occurs with Jesus Christ by stating that the one who unites himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Paul’s point here is that the follower of Jesus who is united mystically and spiritually to Jesus Christ will experience a different type of intimacy that is eternal and unbreakable in nature. The sexual intercourse that occurs in a covenant marriage relationship that provides for the open expression of love in the context of total vulnerability and intimacy is a glimpse of the depth of the intimacy that we will have in our relationship with Christ for all eternity.
So, how does sexual reality impact your view of sexuality and sexual freedom? How does God's design for sexuality fit with your expression of your sexuality?
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