The Price

“God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.” 1 Corinthians 6:20

One ancient rite of marriage included the bride and groom paying a price for each other. Being a ceremony, it was not about the sum of money, but about what it represented. In fact, the common amount was referred to as an eight of a farthing. Since a farthing is equivalent to a quarter-penny, that equals a measly 1/32 of a penny. But, having been paid, it said that the bride and groom had bought each other, and therefore belonged to each other.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for His bride, the church. We who have said “Yes” to Him, have acknowledge that we are His and He is ours. Though we could not pay even the slightest portion of the amount expected, He still took us, paying the entire amount on His own.

Even before Jesus was crucified, God called Israel (and, by extension, all who believed in the “God of Israel) His wife. Jesus, from all eternity was the Lover of our souls. Yet His bride fell into sin and captive to the enticement of the world. Jesus, loving us so greatly, gave not just a “price”, but His very self for our redemption. There was no greater price ever given for the love of a bride.

It is not His “price” that keeps us faithful to Him, it is what that price represents. Yes, He gave His very life, His very blood was spilled and His body broken that we might become free. But it is not a simple legal contract that binds us to Jesus. No, it is what that great sacrifice represents. It is the picture, the mere shadow of the eternal love He has for His own.

In light of such great love, how then, can we do anything other than use our bodies to “honor God”? The spouse who has been “bought” in the “buying ceremony” remains faithful, not because of an eight of a farthing, but because of the love it represents. Their bodies are each other’s.

But with Christ, the devotion goes even further. We are asked not simply to keep our bodies only for Him, but to actually honor, or glorify, Him in our bodies. Paul is dealing with the involvement in sexual sin that some early Greek Christians continued. He wants them to know that to use their bodies for self-pleasure outside of marriage is to break the bonds of commitment they have with Jesus.

We have a Love that outlasts any earthly love. We have a Savior that never turns away from us, no matter our sometimes failed attempts at faithfulness. We are loved in ways we cannot even fathom. Waking, we are loved; closing our eyes in sleep, we remain the beloved of Christ. We enter into our daily work fully adored by Jesus; we walk downtown, play at the beach, sit at the coffee house with friends, tarry at the bedside of a sick relative, fight the downtown traffic or drive with the top down in open country…all the object of God’s great love. There is not a moment, a micro-second in which His loves fails us in any way.

How then can we even give thought to using our bodies in any way that dishonor Him? We should examine ourselves, not so much to see how much sin there is, but to see how much we realize His love. We should never justify our unfaithfulness. Instead, we should reenter into the love covenant which Jesus began with us.

Paul makes a very strong case for moral and sexual purity. I have been bought with a price, the very life of Jesus. Therefore, given His great love for me, let me honor Him in everything my body does.