Law
• The Law makes demands, shows us our guilt before God, and causes us to be afraid of God.
Grace
• Gospel does not make demands but refers to Christ’s death and resurrection and resultant benefits.
• Grace as a rule of life makes demands, may cause us to fear the consequences of our disobedience, and produces sorrow for failure. Generally, grace motivates believers to obey by love.
(The above statements were taken from “Law and Grace” by Myron Houghton.)
1 Corinthians 6:9–10 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
• In these verses Paul is speaking of Law. This is bad news for Paul’s hearers, and is meant to show them that they do not deserve to enter into the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
• This verse is good news; this is gospel. They have been justified “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” that is, by His authority that He has as the One who took the penalty of the Law on our behalf. We are justified “in the Spirit of our God,” in that the Spirit is the One who draws us to the realization that we are sinners who need to be saved.
1 Corinthians 6:12 12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
• “All things are lawful to me” means that as a Christian, I will never be condemned by the Law.
• However, there still are some choices I can make in my Christian life that will not help strengthen my relationship with God. Some choices will actually weaken my relationship with God.
The Proper Order
The proper order is always Law, then Gospel, then Grace. It is wrong for someone who has not trusted the Gospel to say “All things are lawful for me” because they are still under the threat of the Law.
1 Corinthians 6:13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
• “Food is for . . . both of them”- this is a catchphrase that some of the Corinthians used to say that just as eating is a normal bodily function, so to were sexual relations. They implied that just as it doesn’t matter whether you eat chicken or vegetables, it also doesn’t matter who you sleep with, as both fulfill a simple bodily function.
• But Paul rebukes them, saying that the body is “for the Lord” (that we can live a worthwhile, meaningful life as Christians) and the “Lord is for the body” (in that, the prohibitions that He gives us are for the good of our bodies).
1 Corinthians 6:14–17 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
• Marriage is an illustration of the relationship that Christians have with God. If we love our husbands or our wives, why would we join ourselves with a prostitute? The same is true of our relationship with God.
1 Corinthians 6:18–20 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
• Verse 20 explains the motivation for a Grace-based life. Christians should obey God out of gratitude that Jesus died, paying the price for our sins, so that we do not have to pay the price the Law demands.