Brethren, “all things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” — and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one flesh.” But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God.
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How many of us today fall slave to habit? How many of us are trapped by our addictions? Yes, provided it is not illegal, everything is permitted to me. I choose, or I think I do. That is the problem with the world today: we embrace our particular vice and in so doing fall under its spell. We tell ourselves that we can stop drinking whenever we like, stop gambling whenever we like, that we have mastery over our lives and that whatever substance we are using, we can control it. If not a substance then it may be personal abuse, abuse of power, physical abuse or psychological abuse but whatever it is, we say that because it is permissible, it is acceptable. What an immature proposition! It is permissible for me to drink myself comatose and it is permissible for me to gamble all my money away, but are those things advantageous to me? Are we to fall victim to whatever sweet vice takes our particular attention?
Certainly not. What we fail to realise is that we fall under the authority of the very thing we say we can control. What human folly. The first thing we must do is admit we have a problem and that the problem is bigger than us. The greatest substance of abuse we have in our society is alcohol. Alcohol robs children of parents. It robs wife of husband and husband of wife. It is pernicious and pervasive. It can run and ruin your life whilst you are still clinging to the nonsense that you are in charge. We all need help. Alcoholics Anonymous has a 12-step program which is applicable to all addictions in our lives. The 12 steps for taking responsibility of our actions are that:
- We admit that we were powerless over our vice —that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character from ourselves.
- Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and, when we are wrong , promptly admit it.
- Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Have a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, and try to carry this message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
This is, in effect, no different to what Paul is saying. He says that although something is permissible it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is helpful. Even if we pursue our vice in moderation we are not in charge – it must be God who is in charge.
Instead of alcohol Paul uses fornication as an example of the need to practice restraint in the Lord. The Corinthians, as we know, led an immoral lifestyle, and to be called a Corinthian was no great compliment. You were, in effect, being called a fornicator and a drunk. Paul says all things are permitted to me but are they good for me? If they are not in the Lord, these things I do, I do them for my downfall. It is true that no food, no Sabbath day, no law is binding on the Christian. But, this does not mean that you have an absolute freedom to do anything you like. The alcoholic for instance can well assert that he is free to drink whenever he likes. But consider this, once under that vice, is it easy to stop? Indeed, can he stop? Thus he falls to his sin and drowns in his vice.
We have a body and that body unites us to Christ. We are united because God raised Christ and by doing so made salvation possible, by freeing us from the grave. Now, having such a body, filled with the grace of Christ, are we to take that body and use it to embrace, say, a prostitute so we become one with her? Certainly not! May it never be! Yet, our very freedom allows us to cling either to the body of the Lord to be one spirit with him or to cling to a prostitute and be one in spirit with her. There is no comparison between the two. Flee the sin so that you are capable of being saved. By so doing we save our body for the higher things intended by God.
God raised Jesus from the dead and he will raise us with his power because we are members of Christ. Just as cleaving to a prostitute leads to a union so does cleaving to Christ. We have the Holy Spirit which dwells in our body and sanctifies us. Thus, our body is a home for the Holy Spirit. It is no longer ours and we are no longer on our own. Through the cross we were bought at a price: the precious body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We therefore, both in body and soul, live and belong to God. We must take care of these bodies which belong to God. This way, our bodies are glorified in God.
So, like Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step we must take is to accept there is a greater power than ourselves and that we should turn our will and lives over to the care of God. In other words, we repent for our past and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God. Next, we reflect and examine ourselves in all honesty. We ask God to come into our lives. We then seek to make restitution and seek forgiveness. We change. We become transcendent. We have a spiritual awakening and we rely upon God to keep us strong. Yes, all things are permitted but am I permitted to have all things? If what I seek is Godly then yes. If what I seek is not Godly then no. So, throw it out – cast it away. Cling to the Lord and be one with him. In that way you will receive salvation.
