1 Corinthians 6:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He threatened him, as well as all the other sinners listed, with deprivation of the Kingdom, and with that ended the discourse. Here, however, he offers a very powerful exhortation.

A man who assigns punishments for sin but does not show that sin is very grave will accomplish nothing important through punishments. Likewise, one who only exhorts and does not frighten with punishments will not greatly move the insensible.

Therefore Paul does both. He admonishes with the words, "Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor 6:3). He frightens with the words, "Do you not know that ... the covetous ... will not inherit the Kingdom of God?" (1 Cor 6:9-10).

In the same way he also speaks against the incestuous man. Having removed him by what was said earlier, excommunicated him, delivered him to Satan, and recalled the future day, he now admonishes.

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" He speaks with them as with noble children.

Above he said, "the body is for the Lord" (1 Cor 6:13). Now he explains this more precisely, as he does elsewhere when he says, "You are the Body of Christ, and members individually" (1 Cor 12:27).

He uses this comparison in many places, though not with one and the same meaning. Sometimes it expresses love, and sometimes it intensifies fear. Here he uses it to instill fear and horror.

"Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it not be."

Nothing can be more fearful than these words. He did not say, "Shall I therefore take the members from Christ" and join them to a harlot. What did he say? "To make them members of a harlot."

This expression is far more striking.

For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor 10:16-17).

Having said that our bodies are members of Christ, he concludes from this how dreadful the sin of fornication is.

Do you not know, he says, that your bodies are members of Christ? Then he turns the word to his own person and speaks thus: what else do I do when I fornicate?

Do I not take the members of Christ from His Body and make them members of a harlot?

The wording here is notable. He did not say, "I join," but "I take," that is, I separate the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot.

Who would not be horrified on hearing this? Those who crucified Him "did not break His legs" (Jn 19:33), but the fornicator tears and cuts them apart.

After saying this, Paul cried out: "May it not be." This means abhorrence. By this word he prays that God would never leave him to fall into such a sin.

By the following words he explains how the one who fornicates makes the members of Christ members of a harlot.

The bodily and spiritual union of Christians with the Lord is founded partly on our creation by the Lord the Creator. It is also founded partly on the Incarnation of the God-man Christ.

He became the Head of the whole body of His Church, in relation to which we are different members.

Our union with Christ concerns our body also, yet the binding power is rooted chiefly in the spirit, which governs the whole being of the Christian.

Whoever is united to Christ in spirit naturally becomes not only one body, but also one spirit with the Lord.

It is clear that such a person can no longer give himself decisively to anyone except the Lord.

The intimate relation into which adulterers enter is revealed from this alone: they enter a union similar to marriage, of which it was said in ancient times that the two become one flesh.

How the whole body is defiled through fornication is revealed by the great perversion of nature that takes place here.

This perversion is very often accompanied by the most destructive consequences for the body and soul of sinners of this kind.

Both the Apostle himself and his interpreters dwell especially on the highest motives for bodily abstinence.

For example, Saint John Chrysostom says: “The body was not created so that you might live without restraint and commit fornication, just as the belly was not made so that you might give yourself to gluttony.

It was created so that it might serve Christ as Head, and that He might be Lord for the body.

Let us then be ashamed and afraid. We have been deemed worthy of such honor and have become His members, yet we dishonor ourselves with vices.

If our body is a member of Christ, and Christ is risen, then the body without doubt will follow its Head.”

To this His Grace Theophan adds: “By awakening thought of the brightness of the risen Lord's body, the Apostle makes us imagine in what brightness our body will rise.

In this he prepares the strongest inducement to flee fornication, which darkens both soul and body.

The vision of the brightness of the future body served for all ascetics as a powerful motive to refine the body as much as possible, and especially not to allow lustful excitements.

When any of them, by the grace of God, was deemed worthy that lust within him was extinguished and died away, people said of him that before the general resurrection he had tasted its power.

Some of them, when grace-filled movements awakened during prayer, sometimes became wholly luminous. In others, the hands raised to heaven became luminous.

All these are tangible signs that they had tasted the power of the future resurrection.

The Christian body is pure, holy, and akin to the body of Christ, since it is in mystical union with it.

The passion of fornication makes the body dark and shameful. When fornication is committed, the darkness becomes impenetrable and the stench unapproachable.

Fleshly people do not see or perceive this. Spiritual people and the angels see and perceive it.

Fornication completely tears one away from the Lord, for what is dark and foul-smelling can no longer be one with the Lord.”

From this it is clear why the Apostle says, “Flee fornication.” That is, withdraw from this vice swiftly and irreversibly, as from the lowest and most shameful of all.

But one must suppose that there is also another union. Though not tangible, it is real, and the body also enters into participation in it.

All the planets are united with the sun, and the sun with the planets. This is a dynamic union, yet the forces that unite them are material.

Something similar exists between the Lord and believers. Perhaps this takes place through the all-penetrating element of light, with which the glorified Body of the Lord and the vital forces of our body, which support the soul, are of one kind.

If this is accepted, then it will be somewhat visible how our bodies also are members of Christ. This is not only because of the moral and gracious union with the Lord, but also by another path, though not apart from dependence on that union.

Our explanations, however, add nothing to the certainty of the apostolic proposition that our bodies are members of Christ.

We must accept this with childlike faith, without speculations, and in the meaning given by the words.

Therefore take this truth and from it consider what fornication is. It is this: you take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot.

"Nothing can be more fearful than these words. He did not say, Shall I take the members of Christ and join them to a harlot once? What then did he say? Shall I make them members of a harlot, so that they remain such.

This expression is far more striking" (St. Chrysostom).

"The Apostle greatly magnified the force of the lawlessness by calling our members Christ's members. They are no longer yours, he says, but Christ's. How then do you make them members of a harlot?" (Theodoret).

"Who would not be terrified by this: to take away the members of Christ and make them harlot's members?" (Theophylact).

The conclusion is obvious. It remains to explain how this truly happens with the fornicator, and this is what the holy Apostle does, saying: "Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, the two shall become one flesh."