SEXUAL SIN (1 Corinthians 6:9, 12, 15, 18)

SEXUAL SIN (1 Corinthians 6:9, 12, 15, 18)

The terms "effeminate, homosexuals" refer to those who exchange and corrupt normal male-female sexual roles and relations. Transvestism, sex changes, and other gender perversions are included (Genesis 1:27; Deuteronomy 22:5). Those whom some translations refer to as “sodomites,” and Paul as “effeminate,” are so-called because the sin of male-male sex dominated the city of Sodom (Ge 18:20;19:4, 5). This sinful perversion is condemned always, in any form, by Scripture (cf. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26, 27; 1 Timothy 1:10).

Sin has power, and no sin is more enslaving than sexual sin. While it can never be the unbroken pattern of a true believer’s life, it can be the recurring habit that saps joy, peace, usefulness and brings divine chastening and even church discipline (1 Corinthians  5:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5. Sexual sin controls, so the believer must never allow sin to have that control, but must master it in the Lord’s strength (1 Corinthians 9:27). Paul categorically rejects the ungodly notion that freedom in Christ gives license to sin (cf. Romans 7:6;8:13, 21).

The believer’s body is not only for the Lord here and now (v. 14) but is of the Lord, a part of His body, the church (Ephesians 1:22, 23). The Christian’s body is a spiritual temple in which the Spirit of Christ lives (1 Corinthians 12:3; John 7:38, 39; 20:22; Ac 1:8; Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 6:16); therefore, when a believer commits a sexual sin, it involves Christ with a harlot. All sexual sin is harlotry.

There is a sense in which sexual sin destroys a person like no other, because it is so intimate and entangling, corrupting on the deepest human level. But Paul is probably alluding to venereal disease, prevalent and devastating in his day and today. No sin has greater potential to destroy the body, something a believer should avoid because of the reality given in verses 19-20.