We are in an era of great trauma, particularly in the ethical field. Definitions of ethics are critical, especially today. The history of our country has a different record, however. A couple of centuries ago the great New England theologian Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He had definite boundaries. He knew where the absolutes were.
But today situation ethics has no absolutes. Nothing is right or wrong except as it may affect someone else. But the Christian life is different. It is controlled by standards derived from the Bible. The Christian life is far more satisfying than the life out there in what we call the world, with no holds barred.
Discipline is a part of reality in the Christian life. All conduct is a matter of the will whether you are thinking in terms of Christian concepts or not. And the will is the distinctive characteristic imparted unto us by the act of the divine Creator. The will is united to reason. We are a threefold being body, soul, and spirit. Yes, the Bible refers to us that way. Paul prayed that the Lord might preserve the Thessalonians in body, mind, and spirit until the day of Jesus Christ (see I Thessalonians 5:23). So with this threefold being, we have certain relationships with the outside world.
In I Corinthians 6:12-20, Paul wrote words that laid the truth on the line:
12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.
15 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.
16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
19 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?
20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Now, my friend, I propose that CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR is inseparably united to three basic FACTS related to the body that the apostle Paul teaches here.
First, for the Christian:
BY CREATION
12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.
When you go back to Genesis, you learn that God fashioned the human body as it pleased Him. Marvelous. I would remind you that Adam was not a baby. He was created as a full-grown man. God made Adam in His own likeness. So the body is for the Lord by creation.
The body is our environmental awareness. It h...
