Permissibility?

PERMISSIBILITY: How much liberty do Christians have?

Christians often quote, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" (Phil.4: 13). Does that mean I can do what the world does? Can a Christian girl parade her body in a sinful world for a beauty crown? Compare this desire to use the body for fame and profit that invigorates lust with what Paul said in I Corinthians 6: 12-20.

"Everything is allowed, but not everything is useful. I am allowed to do everything, but I will do nothing that will enslave me. Nourishment is for the stomach and the stomach is for digestion, but God can terminate both. It is the body God is concerned with. It was not intended for sexual perversion but for the Lord, and the Lord is interested in the body. Just as God raised our Lord (from the dead), by the same power He will raise us up (to live a holy life).

"Do you not realize that your bodies are part of Christ's body? Dare I take a part of Christ and attach it to an act of sexual perversion? No, never should we do that! Understand this that it is the sexual engagement that fuses two bodies into one. They become one flesh. But the one (body) that joins the Lord becomes one in Him in the Spirit.

"Run from sexual improprieties that defile the human body! All other indiscretions a person engages in are outside the body, but sexual acts are committed inside the body. How could you not know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit? It is God who gave you the Spirit that now lives in you. You are not free to do as you wish. You were freed at a price and you belong to God. For that reason you honor God with your body."

This rendition is based on the Geek, German and English translations. All concur that sexual transgressions are the worst sins against the human body and against God. Intimate illegitimate contact does not just result in pregnancy but in endless non-curable diseases. It leaves the transgressors with indelible guilt, unbearable dishonor and a godless eternity. Yet, like the Corinthians, such persons can repent, accept Christ's mercy and be cleansed and sanctified so that they can glorify God with their bodies. In Christ all things are possible.