1 Corinthians 6:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This is less important than what was said above. Yet, when speaking about fornicators, he rebukes their sin from every side and shows the gravity of their guilt by both great and small things.

The first is said for the more reverent, and the latter for the weaker.

Paul's wisdom is revealed precisely in this: he admonishes by presenting not only what is great, but also what is small, shameful, and indecent.

But you will say, does not the murderer, the covetous man, and the robber defile his hand? Everyone knows this.

But since it was not possible to say that there is no one worse than the fornicator, he portrays the gravity of this sin in another way.

He explains that by fornication the whole body becomes unclean. It is defiled as though it had fallen into a filthy vessel filled with impurity.

For this reason we have such a custom: after acts of covetousness and robbery, no one takes care to wash, but returns straight home.

After adultery, however, people go to wash, as though they had become wholly unclean. Thus conscience is especially ashamed of this sin.

Both sins are grave, covetousness and adultery, and both cast into Gehenna. Yet, acting with complete foresight, Paul shows the gravity of adultery by every means he could.

But the one mingled with a harlot is joined to an alien member. For "marriage is honorable among all," since its aim is the begetting of children. "But God will judge fornicators and adulterers" (Heb 13:4).

This is because they unite for pleasure alone.

Lawful marriage is an image of the spiritual union of Jesus Christ with His bride, the Church. "And the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:31-32).

See, then, how the Apostle, having proved by the saying of divine Scripture that "he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her," thus prepares the proof that the fornicator 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.

Blessed Theodoret writes: "The Apostle did not without reason apply to fornication what was said of marital union. In the substance of the act, the two are one and the same. The difference is shown by the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the act.

Therefore he says that the one joined to a harlot makes his members members of a harlot. But the one united with the Lord makes his members members of Christ.

Therefore, if you have been united with the Lord and again go to a harlot, the insult extends to the Master Himself. You give His members to a harlot and make the Master's members members of a harlot."

The Christian body is pure and holy, and akin to the Body of Christ, being in mysterious union with it.

The passion of fornication, even when it only begins to arise and draw the soul, already makes the body dark and foul-smelling. When fornication is committed, the darkness becomes impenetrable and the stench unapproachable.

But fleshly people do not see or sense this. Spiritual people and angels see and sense it. There are many accounts of this.

If the coarse covering of the body were removed from a fornicator, leaving him as he is in soul, clothed with the body's vital force, one would see an impenetrably dark human figure giving off unbearable stench.

Meanwhile, this very thing, so dark and foul-smelling, had once been bright and fragrant with the brightness and fragrance of Christ's Body, with which it stood in living relation.

Being such, it was the Lord's and was appropriated by Him to Himself.

When people begin to incline toward fornication, they begin to grow dark and to be torn away from the Lord. Fornication itself tears them completely away from Him, because what is dark and foul-smelling can no longer be one with the Lord.