Bought with a Price

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20).

This phrase, "your body is a temple", is one that even unbelievers know. It isn't uncommon to hear that kind of thing from an athlete, for instance. It's typically used in terms of healthy living. And it's commonly used by those who would like to tell you that it means, "Thou shalt not smoke."

Funny thing. The context is not about healthy living. The context is about sexual sin. "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (1 Cor 6:13). In fact, if you use it as a warning to live a healthy life, you're likely to run into all sorts of trouble. For instance, we know that living in urban areas is not good for your health. Air pollution, noise pollution, the stresses of working and living in these areas all are bad for your body. Or how about Twinkies? Oh, sure, not just those little gems, but all of that kind of eating. We know that they're not good for you. Do you drive? Likely not a good thing, since the environment of the roads and the car are all bad for you. So, if you're going to make this about healthy living, then smoking would be a sin, sure. And so would eating Twinkies, driving a car, and living in the city. Time to make some changes, Christians, eh?

No, this passage isn't about healthy living. It's about godly living. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10). Instead of these Paul says, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything" (1 Cor 6:12). Godly living. He is, in fact, telling us not to use our freedom as license, but to call ourselves to a higher standard. We aren't to ask, "Is it bad to ...?" but "Is it profitable to ...?"

The other funny thing is the way we get bogged down in these statements. In our squabbles about "Is it really talking about homosexuals?" and "Doesn't this teach that we shouldn't smoke?", we miss the primary point. It is, in fact, the point we most often miss and most badly need. Let's see if I can crystallize it for you. "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God."

Now, to the 1st century Christian that wouldn't sound so dramatic. The concept of a lord, a master, a sovereign with the right to tell you what to do and the right to terminate your life if he so desired was no big thing. It was common. But Americans have prided themselves on freedom, on having no lord or master or sovereign. Independence is the thing. In his book, Now, That's a Good Question!, R. C. Sproul tells about a friend who came from England to be an Episcopalian priest in Pittsburgh. He was visiting Philadelphia and looking at some of the mementos from the Revolutionary War. There were placards that said "Don't tread on me" and "No taxation without representation", but the one that caught his eye was the one that said, "We serve no sovereign here." How does the American culture deal with the concept of God's sovereignty with that mindset as a starting point? Yet here is Paul in the 1st century telling American Christians in the 21st century, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price."

"Not your own." No tougher words were ever spoken to fiercely independent American Christians. We want to be obedient and we want to be godly, but we also want to make our own choices. "Free will" is the larger god of the day, it sometimes seems. Tell us that homosexual behavior is a sin and tell us that sex outside of marriage is evil and even tell us that it's wrong to smoke, but do not suggest that I am not my own. That is heresy.

But those are the questions we are to be asking in our everyday existence. Not "Is it wrong?", but "Will it master me?" Not "What is the minimum obedience?" but "Is it profitable?" Not "Am I free to ...?" but "Does it glorify God?" And, from what I see, there is no limit to the question, "Does it glorify God?" Does it glorify God how I dress? Does it glorify God what I do for a living? Does it glorify God how I drive? It is, in fact, an incredibly invasive question. But, then, that shouldn't be a problem for us. "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price." I joked above that it might be time for Christians to make some changes. It's no joke here.