Love Is the Universal Language

My kids are in that fun phase where -- when they're watching a movie and the two leads begin developing ooshy-gooshy feelings for each other, or worse, seal their newfound romance with a G-rated kiss -- they squinch up their faces, and our living room fills up with "Ewww, why do they have to do that?" 

And I tell them: Love is a universal language. Everyone understands the need for it, everyone participates in it in some form or fashion, and it has been around since the beginning of time, when God looked at the man He had made and said: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18).

"So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man" (Genesis 2:21-22).

And the man opened up his eyes and said: Wow! (2 Hesitations 1:1). ;)

So, he didn't say Wow (that we know of), but he did say: "'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of a man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:23-24).

But I left something out. Back up with me to Genesis 1, the story of creation. On days one through five of creation, God separated light from darkness, separated the sky from the water, created the land and the seas, made seed-bearing plants, developed the solar system, filled up the water with sea creatures, filled up the air with aviary creatures, filled up the land with land creatures. All of these things, He called "good."

Then God created the first man -- Adam -- and He made him ruler over everything else He had made. Psalm 8:6-7 says: "You made [man] ruler over the works of your hands, you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea -- all that swim in the paths of the sea."

So with this crowning achievement, "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). God already loved His humans He'd made. They were very good; God took pride in His work. And so when He formed Eve out of Adam's rib and brought her to Adam, the wow that may inevitably have risen to Adam's lips was a reflection of the awesome and impressive wow-moment that had already happened when God formed man for relationship, walking in the cool of the evening through the garden (Genesis 3:8).

God framed the picture of His relationship with humanity -- with the love he placed in Adam for his wife Eve and in Eve for her husband Adam. The two became one flesh. Him and her became they together. Complete and total unity.

Now jump over to John 17:20-23, where Jesus is on His knees in the Garden. I think it's significant to note here: Jesus -- this same Jesus talking to God in John 17 -- was, as a part of the Triune God, there the day God looked at His creation and saw that it was very good. In John 17:20-23, Jesus prays to His Father: "My prayer is not for [My disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are One; I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me."

Why is unity between God and mankind so all-fired important?

Because the world needs to believe that Jesus came from God to sin-filled creation in order to pay the ultimate and required price exacted by sin -- to die in the sinner's place -- so that humanity can be restored to unity -- to walking in the cool of the evening in the garden -- with its Creator.

Whew! Come on, raise a hallelujah!!!

Okay, so what does the story of creation have to do with 1 Corinthians 6:12-20?

Let's go to the setting of the church of Corinth, to whom Paul is writing, and I'm going to nerd for a moment. Corinth was a center for trade -- its location just off the Corinthian isthmus was ideal, because it was a crossroads for travelers and traders. It wasn't a university town like Athens, but it still centered quite a bit of focus on wisdom. And, significantly, it was the founding place of at least twelve temples, one of which was a temple built to honor the goddess Aphrodite -- the Greek goddess of love. And in that temple, worshipers came to practice religious prostitution. Historical documentation tells us that at one time in the temple of Aphrodite, at least 1,000 "priestesses" served their clientele. Corinth become so well-known for this temple and what happened inside it that the term: "to Corinthianize" meant to practice sexual immorality.

So Paul puts it this way: Followers of Christ who are one with Christ in spirit (a la John 17:20-23 mentioned above) cannot at the same time be one with prostitutes in the bodily act of sex. "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.' But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:15-17).

Most of us know that, right? Prostitution = bad, and in most states, it's illegal. But here's the thing: Prostitution is not just the selling of services to the highest bidder as one stands on a street corner. Prostitution is the giving away of the body in a sexual encounter with anyone other than the one to whom we belong.

Why? "Because the two have become one flesh." And stepping outside of that one flesh to unite with another flesh... goes completely against the picture frame of creation -- the picture frame that surrounds God's relationship with His creation -- reflected in the making a man and a woman... and uniting the two together for relationship.

This is why Paul says sexual sins are worse than other sins. We say -- well, there's no ranking order to sin; sin is sin. It's true. Every single sin separates us from God, and that's why we can only return to a relationship with Him through the blood of His perfect Son, Jesus, who cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:3).

But Paul says: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside the body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:18-19).

And then listen to this: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price! Therefore, honor God with your body." 

What price was I bought with? The price of Life-blood. Whose Life-blood? Jesus' Life-blood. 

You. Are. Not. Your. Own. Jesus paid the price in order to restore the "very good" of creation before sin. So Paul's injunction to "honor God with your body" isn't a throwaway phrase saying, "Hey, y'all, maybe you should shower this month. Or scrape out your fingernails; they're gross." 

He's reminding the church whose they are and what Jesus did to bring them back into relationship with His Father.

Whew! Hallelujah!

I need a nap.

What if we've already messed up? What if we didn't keep the marriage bed pure (Hebrews 13:4)? What if we've ruined that picture frame that God created in Genesis when He made the first man and woman as a reflection of His relationship with mankind? What if we've called ourselves followers of Christ and still slept with a boyfriend or a girlfriend before marriage? What if we've called ourselves 'one with Christ' and looked at a woman or a man lustfully, committing adultery with her or him in our hearts (Matthew 5:28)?

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. The price was the perfect and innocent blood of the Son of God, paid. for. us. Redemption and justification. We can be clean, because He is clean for us. We can be made new, because He made us new. This is the message of the cross, and the love that kept Jesus on that cross for us, well... it's the universal language.

Hallelujah!