APRIL 12, 2020
THE ABUSE OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY
INTRODUCTION:
1. This chapter consists of two distinct divisions.
a) The first relates to Christians having their disputes with one another judged before heathen magistrates.
b) The second has to do with the abuse of the principle “all things are lawful,” i.e. the misuse of Christian liberty.
2. The subject of this second division ought to be of particular interest in this present day when Christian liberties are being interpreted by many as license to sin.
I. THE MATTER OF CHRISTIANS BRINGING THEIR DISPUTES BEFORE HEATHEN JUDGES. (See last week’s notes on Verses 1-11)
II. THE ABUSE WHICH SOME IN THE CHURCH HAD MADE OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. (VERSES 12-20) Having in the preceding verses declared that the immoral cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and having given special prominence to sins against the Seventh Commandment, the Apostle comes in these verses to consider the grounds on which such violations were being defended.
A. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY (THE DOCTRINE THAT ‘ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL” MUST OF NECESSITY BE LIMITED ON TWO COUNTS. (VERSE 13)
1. First, Christian liberty must be limited by expediency. “But all things are not expedient.”
a) Many things that are in our power may not be for our good. This is true of foods, and many forms of work or pleasure. Circumstances often dictate whether a thing is good, irrespective of its being lawful. Here too, the good of others comes into view as a limiting factor.
b) The many texts which encourage us to ask freely of the Lord, assuring us that we shall receive what we ask for, are all, likewise, limited by this same consideration. We shall receive that which will be for our spiritual profit and good. (John 14:13; 15:7; I John 5:14, 15, etc.)
2. Secondly, Christian liberty must be limited by a regard to one’s own spiritual freedom. “I will not be brought under the power of any.”
a) There are many healthful enjoyments that are legitimate and permissible (foods, music, sports, exercise, etc., etc.) but we must not become slaves to any of these enjoyments.
b) It is imperative to the moral health of the soul that it should preserve its self-control, and not be in subjection to any of its appetites or desires, however innocent any desire in itself may be. This is a spiritual rule which Christians often violate. They defend their enslavement to certain forms of indulgence on the ground that they are not in themselves wrong, forgetting that it is wrong to be in bondage to any appetite or habit.
B. CHRISTIANS ARE AT LIBERTY TO PHYSICALLY PARTAKE OF ONLY SUCH THINGS FOR WHICH THEIR BODIES WERE DESIGNED. (VERSES 13, 14)
1. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats.” The one is evidently adapted and designed for the other. It is a legitimate inference from this constitution that it is lawful to eat, and to eat everything adapted for food. (I Tim. 4:4) But, as the Apostle notes, this is only a temporary arrangement, because God shall destroy both of them. The time will come when men shall be no more sustained by food, but shall be as the angels of God.
a) This is proof that meats belong to things indifferent, and have no bearing on the body’s eternal destiny.
b) This is not true regarding fornication, however, because the body was never designed for such promiscuous use. If the Corinthians were using this quotation to imply that fornication was simply a case of nature (as some think they were), their analogy failed.
2. “The body is for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” The one stands in an intimate relation to the other. The body is designed to be a member of Christ, and the dwelling-place of the Spirit. Christ so regarded it, redeeming it with His blood. (Rom. 8:23) He has united it to Himself as part of His mystical body, making it the instrument of righteousness unto holiness. (Rom. 6:12, 13) With this design for the body, the sin here in question is absolutely incompatible and destructive to the relation it sustains to the Lord.
3. “And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.” The destiny of the body being what is stated in the preceding verse, it is not to perish, but is to share in the resurrection of Christ. (Rom. 8:11)
a) So the relation between the physical organs and food is temporary, but the relation between Christ and the body is permanent.
b) What concerns the former relation is a matter of indifference; what concerns the latter touches the design for which we were created. (Ch. 15:15, 20, 35-56; Phil. 3:21; II Cor. 4:14; I Thess. 4:14)
C. THE RELATION BETWEEN OUR BODIES AND CHRIST IS OF SUCH A CHARACTER THAT THE SIN IN QUESTION IS UNTHINKABLE. (VERSES 15-17)
1. “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” This is an established and familiar point of Christian doctrine, and obviously one with which the Corinthians were acquainted. (Verse 15)
a) Our bodies are members of Christ, because they were included in the redemption affected by His blood. (Rom. 8:23)
b) Our bodies are members of Christ because they are united with Him in partaking of His life. (Rom. 8:6-11; Eph. 2:6, 7; 5:30)
2. That fornication is totally incompatible with this relation between the bodies of believers to Christ arises out of the peculiar nature of that sin. (Verse 16)
a) The parties of it become partakers of a common life; whether we can understand this or not, it is the teaching of Scripture. (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:31)
b) Therefore the Apostle’s rhetorical question he emphatically answered with “GOD FORBID.”
3. He that is joined to Christ has one spirit with Christ, that is, they two share the same principles of life. (Vs. 17)
a) The Holy Spirit was given without measure to Christ, and from Him is communicated to all His people who are thereby brought into common life with Him. (Rom. 8:9, 10; I Cor. 12:13; John 17:21, 23; Eph. 4:4; 5:30)
b) This being the case, it places on believers the highest conceivable obligation not to act inconsistently with this intimate and exalting relationship.
D. FORNICATION IS IN A PARTICULAR MANNER A SIN AGAINST THE BODY, DESTRUCTIVE OF ITS VERY NATURE. (VERSE 18)
1. This is not to say that fornication is the greatest of all sins, but it does teach that it is altogether peculiar in it effects upon the body, not so much in the physical sense, but in its moral and spiritual effects.
2. Every other sin, however degrading and ruinous to the health of the body, is external to the life of the body. But fornication involves a community of life, and is a sin against the body itself, because it goes against the design of its creation, and its immortal destiny.
E. THE BODY IS A TEMPLE IN WHICH THE SPIRIT DWELLS, AND THEREFORE MUST NOT BE PROFANED BY LICENTIOUSNESS. (VERSE 19)
1. There are two things characteristic of a temple.
a) First, it is sacred as a dwelling-place of God, and therefore must not be profaned, and cannot be profaned with impurity.
b) Second, the proprietorship of a temple is not in man, but in God.
2. Both these things are true of the believer’s body.
a) It is a temple because the Holy Spirit dwells in it; and because it is not his own. It belongs to God.
b) As it is a temple of the Holy Spirit, it cannot be profaned without incurring great and peculiar guilt.
3. Since these things are true, our bodies are not at our own disposal. They can only be used for purposes for which God designed them.
F. BELIEVERS MUST REMEMBER THAT THEY, EVEN THEIR BODIES, ARE THE OBJECTS OF REDEMPTION. (VERSE 20)
1. They have been bought. “Ye are bought…” (literally “ye were bought”) that is, delivered by purchase. We were condemned and justly held in bondage.
2. They have been bought with a price. We were under penalty of the Law. Until that penalty was satisfied, we could not be delivered. The blood of Christ is our ransom, because it met the demands of the Law.
3. The particular ownership of believers asserted in Verse 19 does not arise from creation or preservation, but from redemption. (Rom. 6:17; Gal. 3:13; Eph. 3:13; Acts 20:28)
4. “Therefore…” Because we are not our own, but belong to God; and because we have been delivered by so great a purchase price, we have a solemn obligation. Since God has redeemed our whole person, its corporeal as well as its spiritual parts, we must seek to glorify Him both in body and spirit, which are God’s.
G. AS FOR CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, THESE VERSES DEFINE WHAT IT TRULY IS.
1. Christ has redeemed us, i.e. bought us back out of the marketplace of sin. He has liberated us from our old master. He has made us His own peculiar people. He has put His Spirit within us, so that we have both the ability and the desire to walk in His ways.
2. Christians are set at liberty, not only from the curse, but the bondage of sin. Christ has loosed the fetters and set us free.
3. What reasonable person would construe this wonderful doctrine so as to make it a license to sin? What true Christian would want to do so?
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