Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [1 Corinthians: Chapter 6].
sense. The horror of deliberately taking "members of Christ" and
making them "members of a harlot" in an actual union staggers
Paul and should stagger us. {God forbid} (\m• genoito\). Optative
second aorist in a negative wish for the future. {May it not
happen!} The word "God" is not here. The idiom is common in
Epictetus though rare in the LXX. Paul has it thirteen times and
Luke once (Lu 20:16).
6:16 {One body} (\hen s•ma\). With the harlot. That union is for
the harlot the same as with the wife. The words quoted from Ge
2:24 describing the sexual union of husband and wife, are also
quoted and explained by Jesus in Mt 19:5f. which see for
discussion of the translation Hebraism with use of \eis\. {Saith
he} (\ph•sin\). Supply either \ho theos\ (God) or \h• graph•\
(the Scripture).
6:17 {One spirit} (\hen pneuma\). With the Lord, the inner vital
spiritual union with the Lord Jesus (Eph 4:4; 5:30).
6:18 {Flee} (\pheugete\). Present imperative. Have the habit of
fleeing without delay or parley. Note abruptness of the asyndeton
with no connectives. Fornication violates Christ's rights in our
bodies (verses 13-17) and also ruins the body itself. {Without
the body} (\ektos tou s•matos\). Even gluttony and drunkenness
and the use of dope are sins wrought on the body, not "within the
body" (\entos tou s•matos\) in the same sense as fornication.
Perhaps the dominant idea of Paul is that fornication, as already
shown, breaks the mystic bond between the body and Christ and
hence the fornicator (\ho porneu•n\) {sins against his own body}
(\eis to idion s•ma hamartanei\) in a sense not true of other
dreadful sins. The fornicator takes his body which belongs to
Christ and unites it with a harlot. In fornication the body is
the instrument of sin and becomes the subject of the damage
wrought. In another sense fornication brings on one's own body
the two most terrible bodily diseases that are still incurable
(gonorrhea and syphilis) that curse one's own body and transmit
the curse to the third and fourth generation. Apart from the high
view given here by Paul of the relation of the body to the Lord
no possible father or mother has the right to lay the hand of
such terrible diseases and disaster on their children and
children's children. The moral and physical rottenness wrought by
immorality defy one's imagination.
6:19 {Your body is a temple} (\to s•ma hum•n naos estin\). A
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