Douglas Vandergraph

There are moments in Scripture where Paul stops sounding like a theologian and starts sounding like a father who has reached the end of his patience—not because he is angry, but because he knows what is at stake. First Corinthians chapter six is one of those moments. This is not abstract theology. This is not a distant doctrinal debate. This is Paul standing in front of a fractured church, looking at people who have tasted grace and then forgotten who they are, and saying, in effect, “Do you have any idea what you are carrying?”

This chapter is uncomfortable because it refuses to let faith stay theoretical. It drags belief into bedrooms, courtrooms, appetites, bodies, and daily decisions. It refuses to allow Christianity to remain a Sunday activity. First Corinthians 6 presses the question that many would rather avoid: if grace has truly taken root, why does your life still look like it belongs to the old world?

Paul opens with something that seems mundane but is deeply revealing. Lawsuits. Believers dragging one another before secular courts. At first glance, this feels like an administrative issue. Church conflict management. But Paul’s response tells us this is not about procedure—it is about identity. He is stunned. “How is it,” he asks, “that you dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?”

That word “dare” matters. Paul is not merely disappointed; he is incredulous. The issue is not that disputes exist. Conflict happens wherever humans gather. The issue is that believers, people who claim to live under a different kingdom, are defaulting to the same systems, instincts, and power structures as everyone else.

Paul pushes the argument further, and this is where it becomes shocking. He says the saints will judge the world. He says they will judge angels. That is not metaphorical fluff. Paul is anchoring present behavior in future destiny. His logic is piercing: if God has entrusted you with that kind of future authority, why are you incapable of handling minor disputes among yourselves now?

This is not arrogance. This is responsibility. Paul is saying that the church’s inability to resolve conflict internally is not a failure of skill—it is a failure of imagination. They have forgotten who they are becoming.

And then Paul says something that sounds almost scandalous to modern ears: “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?” In a culture obsessed with rights, justice, and self-vindication, this sounds weak. But Paul is not dismissing justice; he is re-framing value. He is saying that preserving the witness of the gospel is worth more than winning an argument. That unity in Christ matters more than personal victory.

This is where the chapter begins to turn inward. Because Paul is not just addressing public behavior; he is addressing private entitlement. The problem is not that they are being wronged. The problem is that they are wronging each other—and doing so while wearing the name of Christ.

Then comes the line that rattles people, the line that has been weaponized, misunderstood, and ripped out of context for generations: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?”

This is where many readers panic. This is where sermons often turn into fear campaigns. But that is not Paul’s intent. He is not saying that salvation is earned through moral perfection. He is saying that transformation is not optional. The kingdom of God is not a label you slap onto an unchanged life. It is a reality that reshapes everything it touches.

Paul lists behaviors that characterized the Corinthians’ former lives. Sexual immorality. Idolatry. Adultery. Exploitation. Greed. Drunkenness. Abuse. And then he drops one of the most hope-filled sentences in the entire New Testament: “And such were some of you.”

Were. Past tense. Not “are.” Not “will always be.” Were.

This is not condemnation. This is celebration. Paul is not reminding them of their sins to shame them; he is reminding them of their transformation to wake them up. You are not that anymore. You cannot live like you never left Egypt when God has already split the sea.

And then Paul anchors it all in identity. “But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say, “You cleaned yourself up.” He does not say, “You earned a second chance.” He does not say, “You fixed your behavior.” He says, “You were washed.” Passive voice. God acted. Grace moved first. Transformation began not with effort, but with encounter.

This is where First Corinthians 6 becomes deeply personal. Because Paul is not issuing a rulebook; he is issuing a reminder. You belong to God now. Your life is no longer your own raw material to shape however you please.

Then comes the phrase that has launched a thousand justifications: “All things are lawful for me.” Paul is quoting them. This is Corinthian theology gone wrong. Freedom twisted into permission. Grace misunderstood as license.

Paul’s response is sharp and surgical. “But not all things are helpful.” “But I will not be dominated by anything.”

Freedom, in Paul’s view, is not the absence of restraint. It is the presence of mastery. If something controls you, it owns you—no matter how loudly you shout about liberty.

Then Paul moves to the body. And this is where the chapter reaches its most confronting depth. Corinth was a city saturated with sexual permissiveness. Prostitution was woven into religious practice. Bodies were commodities. Pleasure was detached from meaning. Sound familiar?

Paul refuses to spiritualize faith away from physical reality. He does not say, “Your soul matters; your body doesn’t.” He says the opposite. “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

That line is revolutionary. God is not merely interested in your prayers. He is invested in your flesh. The incarnation proves that bodies matter. Resurrection confirms it.

Paul reminds them that God raised the Lord and will raise us also by His power. That means what you do with your body echoes into eternity. Your physical life is not disposable packaging—it is sacred ground.

Then Paul drops a truth that should stop every believer cold: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?”

Not symbols. Not metaphors. Members.

This means there is no such thing as a purely private sin. There is no act that affects only you. When you belong to Christ, your choices ripple through His body.

Paul’s argument reaches a climax when he says, “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!”

This is not prudishness. This is covenant language. Sexual union, Paul explains, creates a one-flesh reality. It binds. It joins. It fuses. That is why it is powerful. That is why it is dangerous. That is why it is sacred.

But Paul does not stop with sexual ethics. He goes deeper. He says, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.”

Read that slowly. One spirit. Union with Christ is not metaphorical. It is participatory. You are not merely forgiven; you are fused.

And this leads Paul to the command that is often misunderstood: “Flee sexual immorality.”

He does not say, “Resist it.” He does not say, “Negotiate with it.” He does not say, “Test your strength.” He says, “Run.”

Why? Because sexual sin is unique. Paul says every other sin is outside the body, but sexual sin is against one’s own body. It fractures the self. It erodes intimacy. It damages the vessel God intends to fill.

And then comes the line that changes everything: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”

A temple is not a casual space. It is sacred. It is intentional. It is consecrated. Paul is telling ordinary believers—former idol worshipers, former addicts, former abusers—that God has chosen to dwell in them.

Not visit. Dwell.

And then the final blow to the illusion of autonomy: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”

This is not oppression. This is rescue. Ownership in the kingdom of God is not exploitation—it is redemption. You were purchased out of slavery, not into it.

Paul ends the chapter with a sentence that summarizes the entire argument: “So glorify God in your body.”

Not just your thoughts. Not just your worship songs. Your body. Your habits. Your choices. Your relationships. Your self-control. Your boundaries. Your courage to live differently.

First Corinthians 6 is not about moralism. It is about magnitude. Paul is saying, “Do you realize how much God has invested in you?”

If you did, you would stop settling for what diminishes you.

If you did, you would stop using grace as an excuse and start living as evidence.

If you did, you would realize that holiness is not about restriction—it is about alignment.

And if you did, your life would stop asking, “What can I get away with?” and start asking, “What honors the One who lives in me?”

This is not a chapter meant to crush you. It is meant to call you higher.

And we are only halfway through what it has to say.

…What Paul is doing in this chapter, if we slow down enough to see it, is rebuilding the believer’s self-understanding from the ground up. He is dismantling the small, fragile identity the Corinthians have been living from and replacing it with something weighty, durable, and holy. The tragedy is not that they have sinned. The tragedy is that they have forgotten who they are while claiming the name of Christ.

This is why First Corinthians 6 does not read like a list of rules. It reads like a wake-up call. Paul is not saying, “Try harder.” He is saying, “Remember deeper.” Remember what happened to you. Remember what was done for you. Remember who now lives within you. Because behavior always follows belief, and shallow living always reveals shallow remembering.

The Corinthians believed they were free, but they had quietly redefined freedom as the absence of limits instead of the presence of purpose. Paul corrects this not by tightening restrictions but by expanding vision. He keeps pointing forward. You will judge the world. You will judge angels. Your body will be raised. Your spirit is joined to the Lord. Your flesh is a temple. You were bought at a price. Every sentence stretches the horizon of what their lives mean.

This is one of Paul’s most consistent strategies. When believers drift, he does not first threaten them with punishment; he reminds them of destiny. He does not say, “Act better or else.” He says, “You are becoming something—why are you living beneath it?” Holiness, in Paul’s theology, is not fear-based compliance. It is future-anchored alignment.

This is why the misuse of First Corinthians 6 has done so much damage. When this chapter is preached as a club instead of a calling, it loses its power. When it is reduced to sexual policing instead of identity formation, it shrinks. Paul is not obsessed with controlling bodies; he is obsessed with protecting union. Union with Christ. Union within the community. Union between belief and behavior.

Notice how carefully Paul frames the issue of sexual sin. He does not argue primarily from shame, disgust, or social reputation. He argues from belonging. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” That is not an external rule; that is an internal reality. Paul is saying that sexual immorality is not just “wrong” in a moral sense—it is incoherent. It does not fit who you are anymore.

And that word “fit” matters. Because the deepest frustration many believers feel is not that God asks too much of them, but that their lives feel misaligned. Disconnected. Fragmented. Pulled apart by competing loyalties. Paul’s answer is not repression; it is integration. Your spirit and your body were never meant to live separate lives. Grace does not erase embodiment—it sanctifies it.

This is why Paul refuses the Corinthian slogan, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” when it is applied to sex. That argument treats the body as a machine and desire as a function. Paul refuses that reduction. The body is not a disposable appetite engine. It is a relational instrument. What you do with it teaches your soul what it is worth.

That is why Paul says sexual sin is against one’s own body. He is not minimizing other sins; he is recognizing the unique way sexual choices form and deform identity. Sexual union creates memory, attachment, expectation, and meaning. It trains the heart. It scripts the nervous system. It teaches us what intimacy is allowed to cost. Paul is not being old-fashioned; he is being profoundly perceptive.

And this is where grace must be spoken clearly, especially for those who read this chapter with wounds instead of curiosity. Paul is not writing to people who have “kept themselves clean.” He is writing to people who have lived deeply broken sexual lives. “Such were some of you.” That sentence is not theoretical. It includes stories. Faces. Regrets. Trauma. Shame. Exploitation. Paul is not erasing their past; he is refusing to let it define their future.

Being washed does not mean you were never dirty. Being sanctified does not mean you were never fractured. Being justified does not mean you were never guilty. It means God stepped into the mess and claimed it as His own. It means the deepest truths about you are not located in what you did, but in what He did for you.

This is why Paul’s final statement—“You are not your own”—is not dehumanizing. It is stabilizing. The modern world treats self-ownership as ultimate freedom, but self-ownership is also unbearable pressure. If you belong only to yourself, you must create yourself, defend yourself, justify yourself, and save yourself. Paul offers something better. You belong to the One who knows what you were made for.

“You were bought with a price.” Paul does not cheapen that phrase by over-explaining it. He lets its gravity speak. The cross was not symbolic. It was costly. And that cost assigns value. You do not purchase what you consider worthless. You redeem what you refuse to lose.

And so Paul ends not with a threat, but with a direction: “Therefore glorify God in your body.” Not because God is insecure. Not because He needs control. But because glory is what happens when something finally functions as it was designed to.

A violin glorifies its maker when it resonates correctly. A lens glorifies its maker when it brings things into focus. A life glorifies God when belief and embodiment finally agree.

First Corinthians 6 is not asking you to become someone else. It is calling you back to yourself—the self God has already begun to restore. It is asking whether your daily choices align with the future you have been promised. Whether your habits reflect your hope. Whether your body tells the same story your mouth does.

This chapter leaves no room for casual Christianity, but it leaves enormous room for grace-fueled transformation. It does not say, “Be perfect.” It says, “Be who you are becoming.” It does not say, “Never fail.” It says, “Stop forgetting what you carry.”

Because when you remember that God has chosen to dwell within you, some doors quietly close on their own. Some temptations lose their voice. Some compromises start to feel too small. Not because you are afraid—but because you are awake.

And that is what Paul wants for the Corinthians. Not fear. Not shame. Awakening.

An awakening to the sacred weight of who they are.

An awakening to the truth that grace does not lower the bar of life—it lifts the soul high enough to reach it.

And an awakening to the reality that the God who saved them did not do so halfway. He claimed their future, their community, their spirit, and their bodies.

Nothing about that is small.

Nothing about that is casual.

And nothing about that leaves you unchanged.

Your friend,
Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee