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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Corinthians 6:13

The maxim “All things are lawful to me” has been guarded within its province; now it must be limited to its province : “Foods (are) for the belly, and the belly for its foods”. τὰ βρώματα, the different kinds of food about which Jewish law, ascetic practice (Romans 14:1 ff.), and the supposed defilement of the idolothyta (8., 1 Corinthians 10:25 ff.) caused many embarrassments. The Ap., adopting the profound principle of Jesus (Mark 7:15-23), cuts through these knotty questions at a stroke: the βρώματα axe morally indifferent; for they belong to the κοιλία, not the καρδία (cf. Romans 14:17). Food and the stomach are appropriated to each other; the main question about the former is whether or no it suits the latter. A second reason for the moral indifference of matters of the table lies in their perishing nature; κοιλία and βρώματα play a large and troublesome part in the existing order, “but God will abolish both this and these”. For the somewhat rare antithetic repetition of οὗτος, cf. 1 Corinthians 7:7, also Joshua 8:22 (LXX). The nutritive system forms no part of the permanent self; it belongs to the passing σχῆμα τ. κόσμου τούτου (1 Corinthians 7:31), to the constitution of “flesh and blood” (1 Corinthians 15:50) and the σῶμα ψυχικόν; hence the indifference of foods (1 Corinthians 8:8): “quæ destruentur, per se liberum habent usum” (Bg [968]; cf. Colossians 2:20 f.). “But the body” has relations more vital and influential than those concerned with its perishing sustenance it “is not for fornication, out for the Lord and the Lord for the body”: the same double dat [969] clause of mutual appropriation links τὸ σῶμα with ὁ Κύριος as τὰ βρώματα; with ἡ κοιλία each is made for the other and requires the other. “The body” regarded as a whole, in contrast with its temporary apparatus is fashioned for the Lord's use; to yield it to heretry is to traverse Christ's rights in it anu disqualify oneself for a part in His resurrection (1 Corinthians 6:14). The Lord Jesus and πορνεία contested for the bodies of Christian men; loyal to Him they must renounce that, yielding to that they renounce Him. In Gr [970] philosophical ethics the distinction drawn in this ver. had no place; the two appetites concerned were treated on the same footing, as matters of physical function, the higher ethical considerations attaching to sexual passion being ignored. Hence the degradation of woman and the decay of family life, which brought Greek civilisation to a shameful end.

[968] Bengel's Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

[969] dative case.

[970] Greek, or Grotius' Annotationes in N.T.

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See also 1 Corinthians 6:13 in other biblical comments:

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Old Testament