Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 1 Corinthians 6:13

"Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body:" — 1 Corinthians 6:13 (ASV)

Undoubtedly there were some Christians in Corinth who, without examining the Scriptures and its implications, claimed that it was permissible for them to do anything they desired. In making such claims to unrestricted freedom, they evidently argued that since the physical activity of eating and digesting food did not have any bearing on Christian morals and one’s inner spiritual life, other physical activities such as promiscuous sex did not touch on either morals or spiritual life.

Paul grants that food and the stomach are temporal and transitory and, in God’s providence, will disappear—but he denies that what affects the body is unimportant; this denial especially includes the undisciplined and unscriptural use of the body in sexual practices (v.13b). So he denies the parallel between eating and digesting food as a natural process and practicing sexual immorality as a natural process. Of course, he is not denying that sex in wedlock is natural and wholesome (7:3–5; cf. also Heb 13:4).

The apostle sets the stage for discussing the horrors of sexual immorality and the contrasting holy use of the Christian’s body by stating that as they evaluate their right to do “all things,” Christians should ask themselves four questions: (1) Is the thing contemplated beneficial to me? (2) Will the practice in question overpower and dominate me, and will the result affect others? (3) Will the practice support the truth that the body is “for the Lord,” who created it and intended it to be used for his glory? (4) Will it support the truth that “the Lord is for the body”—i.e., the Lord has redeemed my body (vv.19–20)? Thus the Christian must have no part with sexual immorality, because the body is not meant for sexual license (v,13b; cf. Genesis 2:24) but for the Lord.