1 Corinthians 6:15-16
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 harlot? God forbid.
Having passed on from the fornicator to the covetous person, he comes back to the former from the latter, no longer henceforth discoursing with him but with the others who had not committed fornication. And in the act of securing them lest they fall into the same sins, he assails him again. For he that has committed sin, though you direct your words to another, is stung even in that way; his conscience being thoroughly awakened and scourging him.
Now the fear of punishment indeed was enough to keep them in chastity. But seeing that he does not wish by fear alone to set these matters right, he uses both threatenings and reasons.
Now upon that other occasion, having stated the sin, and prescribed the punishment, and pointed out the harm which intercourse with the fornicator brought upon all, he left off, and passed to the subject of covetousness: and having threatened the covetous and all the rest whom he mentioned with expulsion from the kingdom, he so concluded his discourse. But here he takes in hand the work of admonition in a yet more terrific manner. For as he that only punishes a sin and does nothing to point out its most extreme lawlessness, produces no such great effect by his chastisement: so again, he who only abashes and fails to terrify by his mode of punishing, does not very keenly hit men of hardened minds. Wherefore Paul does both: here he abashes, saying, Do you not know that we shall judge angels? there again he terrifies, saying, Do you not know that the covetous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
And in regard to the fornicator, he again uses this order of discourse. For having terrified him by what he had said before; first cutting him off and delivering him to Satan, and then reminding him of that day which is coming; he abashes him again by saying, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? thenceforth speaking as to children of noble birth. For whereas he had said, Now the body is for the Lord, he indicates it more plainly now. And in another place as well he does this same thing, saying, Now you are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof. And the same figure he often employs, not with the same aim, but at one time to show His love, and at another to increase their fear. But here he has employed it to startle and fill them with alarm. Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. Nothing can be apter to strike horror than this expression. He said not, Shall I take the members of Christ, and join them on to a harlot? but what? make them members of a harlot; which surely would strike more keenly.
Then he makes out how the fornicator becomes this, saying thus, Do you not know that he that is joined unto a harlot is one body? How is this evident? For the two, says He, shall become one.
1 Corinthians 6:17
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
For the conjunction suffers the two no longer to be two, but makes them both one.
- Now mark again, how he proceeds by means of the bare terms, conducting his accusation in the names of the harlot and of Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee fornication.
He said not, abstain from fornication, but Flee: that is, with all zeal make to yourselves deliverance from that evil. Every sin that a man does is without the body; but he that commits fornication sins against his own body. This is less than what went before; but since he had to speak of fornicators, he amplifies that guilt by topics drawn from all quarters, from greater things and smaller alike, making the charge heinous. And, in fact, that former topic was addressed to the more religious, but this to the weaker sort. For this also is characteristic of the wisdom of Paul, not only to allege the great things wherewith to abash men, but the lesser also, and the consideration of what is disgraceful and unseemly.
What then, say you, does not the murderer stain his hand? What, of the covetous person and the extortioner? I suppose it is plain to every one. But since it was not possible to mention anything worse than the fornicator, he amplifies the crime in another way, by saying that in the fornicator the entire body becomes defiled. For it is as polluted as if it had fallen into a vessel of filth, and been immersed in defilement. And this too is our way. For from covetousness and extortion no one would make haste to go into a bath, but as if nothing had happened returns to his house. Whereas from intercourse with a harlot, as having become altogether unclean, he goes to a bath. To such a degree does the conscience retain from this sin a kind of sense of unusual shame. Both however are bad, both covetousness and fornication; and both cast into hell. But as Paul does every thing with good management, so by whatever topics he had he magnified the sin of fornication.