1 Corinthians 6:13-14

“Meats are for the belly, and the belly for meats, and God shall destroy both it and them. But the body is not for fornication; but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14. Now God hath raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His power.” Several commentators have thought that the contrast set up by Paul in these two verses, between the act of eating and the impure use of the body, was called forth by certain statements in the letter of the Corinthians, in which they justified this vice by assimilating it to the other bodily wants, such as that of eating and drinking. Rückert has combated this opinion, for the reason that the Church could not have gone the length of systematically justifying vice; and besides, would not Paul have repelled such an assertion with the liveliest indignation? But without any allusion to the letter of the Corinthians, he might say: “All is lawful; for, according to the principle laid down by Jesus, it is not what enters into a man that defiles him; this domain of food-taking has nothing in common with moral obligation and our eternal future; but it is wholly otherwise with impurity.”

The apostle distinguishes two opposite elements in our bodily organism: the organs of nutrition, which serve for the support of the body, and to which, by a Divinely established correlation, there correspond the external objects which serve as meats. The morally indifferent character of this domain appears from the fact of its approaching destruction: God will abolish those functions in the day of the redemption of our bodies. But it is not so with our bodies strictly so called, with the body for which Paul exclusively reserves the name, and which he identifies with our very personality. This is the permanent element in our earthly organism, that which forms the link between our present and our future body. Now this element, the essential form of our personality, is that which is involved in the vice of impurity. And hence the profound difference between impurity and the natural functions of physical life. There exists between our body and the Lord Jesus Christ a moral relation analogous to the material and temporary relation which exists between the stomach and meats. The body is for Christ, to belong to Him and serve Him, and Christ is for the body, to inhabit and glorify it.

Vv. 14. In consequence of this sublime relation, the body will not perish. As God raised up Christ, He will also raise the body which has become here below the property and sanctified organ of Christ. The apostle says, “will raise us also;” he thus expressly identifies our personality with the body which is to be its eternal organ.

The readings raises and raised are evidently erroneous. The former would be the present of the idea, which does not suit here; the latter would refer to the spiritual resurrection (Ephesians 2:5-6), which is stranger still to the context. The idea of the future resurrection of this earthly body, like to that in which Christ lived, is fitted to impress us with the reverence due to the future organ of our glorified personality.

The last words, by His power, perhaps allude to some doubts in regard to the possibility of the fact.

It is remarkable that Paul here places himself in the number of those who shall rise again, as elsewhere he ranks himself with those who shall be changed at Christ's coming again. He had no fixed idea on this point, and he could have none, the day of Christ's coming being to him unknown.