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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The 1 Cor. 6:12, 13 seem to relate to that early dispute among Christians about the distinction of meats, and yet to be prefatory to the caution that follows against fornication. The connection seems plain enough if we attend to the famous determination of the apostles, Acts 15:19-29, where the prohibition of certain foods was joined with that of fornication. Now some among the Corinthians seem to have imagined that they were as much at liberty in the point of fornication as of meats,... read more

William Barclay

William Barclay's Daily Study Bible - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

6:12-20 True, all things are allowed to me; but all things are not good for me. All things are allowed to me, but I will not allow any thing to get control of me. Foods were made for the stomach and the stomach was made for foods; but God will obliterate both it and them. The body is not made for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. God raised up the Lord, and by his power he will raise us too. Are you not aware that your bodies are the limbs of Christ? Am I then to... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:16

What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot ,.... Not in marriage, but in carnal copulation, and unclean embraces, is one body with her for two ("saith he", Adam, or Moses, or God, or the Scripture, or as R. Sol. Jarchi says, the Holy Spirit, Genesis 2:24 ) shall be one flesh ; what is originally said of copulation in lawful marriage, in which man and wife, legally coupled together, become one flesh, is applied to the unlawful copulation of a man with an harlot, by which... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - 1 Corinthians 6:16

He that is joined to a harlot is one body - In Sohar Genes., fol. 19, we have these remarkable words: Whosoever connects himself with another man's wife, does in effect renounce the holy blessed God, and the Church of the Israelites. read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - 1 Corinthians 6:16

Verse 16 16.Know ye not that he that is joined to an harlot He brings out more fully the greatness of the injury that is done to Christ by the man that has intercourse with an harlot; for he becomes one body, and hence he tears away a member from Christ’s body. It is not certain in what sense he accommodates to his design the quotation which he subjoins from Genesis 2:24. For if he quotes it to prove that two persons who commit fornication together become one flesh, he turns it aside from its... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-16

The sanctity of the body. At Corinth idolatry assumed a most imposing, luxurious, and voluptuous form. It is quite in accordance with all we know of the opulent and pleasure loving inhabitants of and visitors to "the star of Hellas," that those controversies and scandals which are dealt with so fully in this chapter should arise in a Christian society planted by the apostle at Corinth. It should be more especially noticed that there is a sufficient reason for the remarkable fact that... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Christianity in relation to the body. "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient," etc. It would seem that there were those in the Church at Corinth who regarded Christianity as giving them a kind of liberty to do whatsoever they wished. Some of them having left Judaism with its various restraints, and others paganism, which also had restrictions, they were too ready to push the doctrine of religious liberty, as proclaimed by Paul, far beyond its limits. The apostle... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The human body and its relation to Christ. Among the objects about him proper for use and enjoyment—those objects which accorded with his nature and position as a redeemed man—was there anything from which he was excluded? "All things are lawful unto me," and, in this sense, liberty and law are identical, the measure of the one being the measure of the other. If law is of God, so is freedom; if the former is the expression of the Divine will and character, so is the latter; and if man is... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Abuse of Christian liberty. It appears that the principle of Christian liberty, "All things are lawful for me," had been greatly abused by some in the Church at Corinth. It was cited in defence of fornication, as well as of eating all kinds of meats. They confounded it with the philosophical maxim that man is the measure for himself; from which they drew the conclusion that the sexual appetite may be gratified in the same indiscriminate way as that of hunger. This pernicious abuse the... read more

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