1 Corinthians 6:8

Section 3. (1Co 6:8-20.)

The holiness of those whose bodies are temples of the Spirit.

The apostle proceeds now to speak of the holiness which befits those whose bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. They were, in fact, acting in utter forgetfulness of this. They were not only not suffering themselves to be defrauded, they were doing wrong and defrauding their own brethren. "Do ye not know," he asks, "that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" and then gives a catalogue of evil works, samples only, after all, of what was in the world at large, and which certainly God would never tolerate in His kingdom. Here it is of no use pleading grace in any wise. Grace is that which breaks the dominion of sin, sets the soul right to go on with God; and if this be not the result of it, grace has not been learned at all, nor can it be pleaded as availing in behalf of those who, whatever they may profess, show themselves uninfluenced by it. This was indeed the character of some of these Corinthian saints, in a city which was proverbial for its immorality. God had brought them out; they were "washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the. Spirit of our God." The order and connection of these things is to be noted. The washing comes first, which is, of course, but the removal of the positive evil with which they were connected. Sanctification carries this on to the full setting apart to God Himself, so that the life shall be His. Justification as it is put here is evidently that which is implied in the Spirit of God taking possession of the believer as His temple. This is indeed the most wondrous justification, and could only be the result of the Lord’s work in their behalf. Thus it is said "in the name of the Lord Jesus," and this applies to the whole three things. The washing was on the authority of the name of Hui who is our Saviour Lord.

One need hardly say that the reference which some here find to baptism is a mistake as to one essential character of Christianity. No external washing can affect the soul. The "washing of water," as the apostle himself has told us, is "by the word." God never uses things out of the place which He has given them. This is magic, not mystery. It is a perversion of things, it is essentially evil and of Satan. The parent it has surely been of a multitude of evils. The washing of baptism is at the hands of disciples, and no disciples hands can cleanse the soul; but this is an error which has gone far and wide in Christendom.

Sanctification is here both positional and practical, as "in the name of the Lord Jesus" it implies, first of all, the power of His blood to set apart to God; but it is also by the Spirit, therefore practical and internal, the making good in inward reality what the blood has made positionally ours.

As to justification in the sense in which we have it here, we find it once again in the first epistle to Timothy, where it is said of Christ that He was justified in the Spirit, the Spirit of God as coming upon Him being the witness to His absolute perfection. His was an anointing without blood; ours, on the contrary, is because of the value of that precious blood with God. Thus, then, the soul is brought into freedom. The law has not accomplished this, and therefore he speaks for a moment here of the entire liberty from law which thus results. "All things are lawful to me" does not, of course, for a moment change eternal moral conditions, but has reference to restrictions which were ceremonial merely. "Meats for the belly," as he says, and "the belly for meats." As to these things, there was the fullest and most absolute freedom; and yet even here there might be things inexpedient, and the apostle refuses to be brought under the power of things that are lawful. This is an important matter for our own guidance, for it may well be that that in which we loosely allow ourselves within the range of things entirely lawful may nevertheless have a sorrowful effect upon us. We have to use everything with the wisdom of God, and in our conduct with regard to others in an especial way are not to maintain our own rights, but to seek to minister to the needs of others. These were all things, as he shows us, of a merely temporary nature. Food was necessary in the meanwhile for the life that is, but it will come to an end and that which sustains it. On the other hand, there were things, -and the Corinthians needed the warning, -things which for the heathen in his darkness had little of real evil, but which, brought once into the light of Christianity, were seen in their true character; yet, after all, the power of bad habits might revive, even in the Christian. and thus he has to warn them that the body is simply for the Lord and the Lord for the body. God has already raised up the Lord, and we are to be raised up. In the meanwhile the body will betray us, if we do not take care to govern its appetites. But how wonderful that it is in the body of the believer that the Spirit of God has His abode! "Your bodies," says the apostle, "are members of Christ." This is a different mode of speech from that which we find elsewhere. It is not that believers simply are members of Christ, members of His body, but that our bodies are His members. They belong to Him and are to be used for Him. The body is in the world, that by which we maintain our connection with external things, and in which, therefore, the mind of the human spirit is manifested. Now it is the Spirit of God that has control; the body, as we have been taught in Romans, being simply to be offered up to God as "a living sacrifice, acceptable to Him through Jesus Christ." Our members are to be His members, expressing His mind in lives devoted to Him. "Shall I then," he says, "take away," as the word is, "the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? Far be the thought!" He refers to the Lord’s words in Genesis to show how really this would be taking away the body from the Lord. Every other sin, he says, that a man may practise is without the body, does not compromise it in the same way. Gluttony, for instance, or any kindred thing, evil as it is of course, yet after all does not take the body away from Him, and put it in the hands of that which is contrary to Him. With the sin in question, this was in fact what was done. The man sinned, therefore, against his own body. "Know ye not," he says, "that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and," as the result of it, "ye are not your own, for ye were bought with a price? Glorify God, therefore, in your body." There are readings here which evidently have come from the thought that this was, after all, altogether too meagre a statement; but if the body be indeed kept in this way for God, if He be glorified in it, if this be really carried out, the whole life must of necessity be His. Our life is in the body; and to have control of the body is to have the life governed for Him. Thus it may be that the body is spoken of as the temple of the Holy Spirit, and not the spirit as His temple, which one would rather expect. It is a triumph of divine grace indeed that here where even as yet the power of redemption is not known, for "we wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body," yet, through the work of Christ, the Spirit of God can dwell in us. How thoroughly that shows He is the witness to Christ’s perfection, to the perfection of His blessed work, and not to any perfection of our own; and here, where the contact with the world is seen in the fullest way, the Spirit of God is found to deliver us from the evil influences of that contact. The anointing oil, as we may say, flows from the head down to the hem of the garment. In the Lord Himself we remember; also, that it was His body of which He expressly spake as the temple which, if men destroyed, would be raised up; and it is the Church as the body of Christ in which, therefore, the Spirit dwells. Here the same thoughts are found connected, in whatever different spheres. The Church is that which is to express the mind of Christ as here in the world, the Spirit of God ruling for Him, and the absent Christ thus being, as it were, manifested before the eyes of men; as the apostle says in another place, we are "the epistle of Christ, read and known of all men." Thus we can understand, also, why it is that the Church is not looked at as people so commonly look at it, as partly now in heaven (in those who are its members there) and partly upon earth. The Spirit is in the Body and the Body is upon earth, -in our bodies, and that makes it decisive that death must of necessity for the time interfere with this. He that is joined to the Lord is indeed one Spirit. Through the body is the present expression of this in the world.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6:8 Far from following Christ’s example or his teachings about sacrificial love, some of the Corinthian believers were cheating even their fellow believers. Both their actions and their attitudes were wrong.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Co 6:8. Ὑμεῖς, ye) Emphatic. The Antithesis is to those, from whom they ought rather to suffer injury.—ἀδικεῖτε, ye do injury) by taking away.—ἀποστερεῖτε, ye defraud) by refusing [to give back a trust] and retaining.—ἀδελφοὺς, brethren) This increases the fault.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_6:8. The question beginning with διατί in 1Co_6:7 still continues: Why do ye not rather allow yourselves to suffer wrong, etc., and not, on your part, do wrong, etc.? This view, instead of the ordinary one, which makes 1Co_6:8 an independent sentence like 1Co_6:6, is necessary, because ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε in 1Co_6:9 has its logical reference in διατί. The reference, namely, is this: There is no ground conceivable for your not, etc. (διατί … ἀδελφούς), unless that ye knew not, etc. (ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε).

καὶ τοῦτο ἀδελφούς] to whom nevertheless, as your brethren, the very opposite was due from you! With respect to the climactic κ. τοῦτο, and that, see on Rom_12:11, and Baeumlein, Partik. p. 147.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 6:8 . ἀλλὰ ὑμεῖς κ . τ . λ .: “Nay, but you commit wrong and robbery this too ( cf. 6) upon your brothers!” Mr [951] reads this, like the parl [952] ἀλλὰ clause of 1Co 6:6 , as a further question; it is the answer to the question of 1Co 6:7 the sad fact contrasted with the duty of the Christian. The spiritual kinship which heightens the duty of submission to wrong, aggravates its commission.

[951] Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[952] parallel.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_6:8

Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that (your) brethren.

Instead of having reached that state of perfection in which ye can patiently submit to injustice, ye are yourselves unjust and fraudulent. This must have been the case with some of them, otherwise there would be no occasion for these lawsuits. Their offense was aggravated, because their own brethren were the object of their unjust exactions.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ye--emphatic. Ye, whom your Lord commanded to return good for evil, on the contrary, "do wrong (by taking away) and defraud" (by retaining what is entrusted to you; or "defraud" marks the effect of the "wrong" done, namely, the loss inflicted). Not only do ye not bear, but ye inflict wrongs.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. Nay, ye do wrong] Far from suffering, ye are the aggressors; and defraud your pious, long-suffering brethren, who submit to this wrong rather than take those methods of redressing their grievances which the spirit of Christianity forbids. Probably the apostle refers to him who had taken his father's wife.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. But ye do injury. Hence we see for what reason he has inveighed against them with so much bitterness — because there prevailed among them such a base desire of gain, that they did not even refrain from injuring one another. He premised a little before, with the view of exposing the magnitude of the evil, that those are not Christians who know not to endure injuries. There is, then, an amplification here, founded on a comparison: for if it is wrong not to bear injuries patiently, how much worse is it to inflict them?

And that your brethren Here is another aggravation of the evil; for if those are doubly culpable who defraud strangers, it is monstrous for brother to be cheated or despoiled by brother Now all of us are brethren that call upon one Father in heaven (Matthew 23:9.) At the same time, if any one acts an unprincipled part towards strangers, Paul does not palliate the crime; but he teaches that the Corinthians were utterly blinded in making sacred brotherhood a matter of no moment.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) Nay, ye do wrong.—Better, No, but you yourselves do wrong.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Nay, you do wrong, and defraud, and that (your) brethren] Not only are you not willing to suffer injury, but you inflict it, and you inflict it upon those with whom you are conjoined in relations as affectionate as the ties of blood. ‘One is your Master upon earth and all ye are brethren.’ And this was not to be a convention or a sentiment, but a fact; witnessed to by the affectionate name “the brethren” by which everywhere Christians were known.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nay, you do wrong and defraud,.... So far were they from taking and acting up to the advice given, that instead of taking wrong, they did wrong; and instead of suffering themselves to be defrauded, they defrauded others:

and that your brethren; that were of the same faith, of the same religion, and in the same church and family: in short, neither party, not the plaintiff, nor the defendant, sought anything more or less than to wrong, trick, and defraud each other; such a sad corruption and degeneracy prevailed among them: hence the apostle thought to deal plainly and closely with them, as in the following verses.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8 Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

Ver. 8. Nay, you do wrong] In person and name.

And defraud] Of goods and estate.

And that your brethren] Which very name should charm and allay all discords, as between Abraham and Lot, Gen 13:8. Aristotle could say, It is better to suffer wrong than to do it. And, I know how to bear injuries, Εγω μεν επισταμαι αδικεισθαι, said Chilo to his brother, who took it ill that he was not chosen to be one of the judges.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nay, ye do wrong ... - Instead of enduring wrong patiently and cheerfully. they were themselves guilty oi injustice and fraud.

And that your brethren - Your fellow Christians. As if they had injured those of their own family - those to whom they ought to be attached by most tender ties. The offence in such cases is aggravated, not because it is in itself any worse to injure a Christian than another man, but because it shows a deeper depravity, when a man overcomes all the ties of kindness and love, and injures those who are near to him, than it does where no such ties exist. It is for this reason that parricide, infanticide, etc. are regarded everywhere as crimes of special atrocity, because a child or a parent must have severed all the tenderest cords of virtue before it could be done.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Defraud....your brethren. That is, you still make yourselves much more guilty by the injustices done to one another: for the unjust, and all they who are guilty of such crimes as I have mentioned, shall not possess the kingdom of God. And some of you were guilty of part of them, which have been washed off by your conversion, and your baptism, when you were justified. (Witham) --- And such some of you were. It is probable that this was added by the apostle, to soften his preceding words, lest he might seem to accuse all the Corinthians of each of these sins, and he likewise adds, such indeed you were, but now you are washed, &c. &c. (Estius; St. Thomas Aquinas)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle riseth higher in his charge against them; he had before only charged them for want of self-denial, that they could not bear or suffer wrong; he now chargeth them for doing wrong and defrauding, and that not heathens, (which yet had been bad enough), but Christians that were their brethren, whom they had the highest obligations upon them imaginable to love, and to do good to. And indeed this charge followeth directly upon the other: for as in war, one army always are murderers, or guilty of the blood which they spill; so in suing at law, (which is a civil war between the two parties), either the one or the other party suing must do wrong, either putting his brother to trouble and expense, to recover of him what is not his right, or that he might withhold from him what is truly and indeed his right, either of which is indeed a doing of wrong or defrauding.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Nay—You follow the reverse of the Christian course, and are, therefore, in need of the following warning of failing at last of the kingdom of God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nay, ye do wrong and defraud. Thus they violated a rule which Paul had laid down to the Thessalonians, (1Th_4:6) and incurred God"s anger.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nay, ye do wrong - Openly. And defraud - Privately. O how powerfully did the mystery of iniquity already work!

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

8. “But you do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren.” Primary truth lies at the bottom of this castigatory decision of Paul, i. e., that lawsuits are not even a financial success. They are like Aesop’s fable of the two cats finding a cheese, jumping into a fight and making the fur fly terrifically, till the monkey comes in, and pleading with them to desist from their mutual cruelty, proposes to make an equitable division of the cheese equally between them. To this they give their mutual consent. Sitting down and watching the proposed settlement of all difficulties by their neighbor monkey, who, taking a knife and cutting the cheese in two in the middle, putting one-half in either end of the scale, and observing that one piece is too heavy, pulling up the other, goes to it, eating off the excess till it tilts up. Then he goes to the other end, and with his sharp teeth gratifies his appreciative appetite till that piece flies up and the other comes down. So he proceeds with his contract to effect an equal division, constantly eating the heavier piece, till the cats see he is going to eat it all, and interpose, begging him to desist, and proposing to settle the matter themselves. The monkey now gravely observes, “But the balance is due me for my service.”

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren . [Far from enduring wrong and obeying Christ ( Mat_5:40 ; 1Pe_2:22 ; comp. Pro_20:22 ), they were actually perpetrating wrong upon their brethren. In view of this flagrant wickedness Paul proceeds to warn them of the results of wickedness, and of their professed repentance as to it.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. ἀλλὰ ὑμεῖς ἀδικεῖτε. Not only are you not willing to suffer injury, but you inflict it, and you inflict it upon those with whom you are conjoined in relations as affectionate as the ties of blood. ‘One is your Master upon earth and all ye are brethren.’ And this was not to be a convention or a sentiment, but a fact; witnessed to by the affectionate name ‘the brethren’ by which everywhere Christians were known. ὑμεῖς gives emphasis to ‘you’—‘you members of the Christian brotherhood.’

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8.] cannot be, as Meyer, a continuation of the question, on account of the emphatic ὑμεῖς, which would thus be without meaning. The account of this emphatic ὑμεῖς is to be found in an ellipsis after ἀποστερεῖσθε to the effect, ‘as our Lord commanded us His disciples,’ or ‘as it behoves the followers of Christ.’ Then ὑμεῖς comes in contrast: you on the contrary (ἀλλά, see above ver. 6) do wrong, and defraud, and that (your) brethren.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. ἀλλὰ ὑμεῖς. ‘Whereas you, on the contrary.’ The emphatic pronoun contrasts their conduct with what is fitting. ‘Not content with refusing to endure wrong (and as Christians you ought to be ready to endure it), you yourselves inflict it, and that on fellow-Christians’;—a climax of unchristian conduct. Mat 5:39-41 teaches far otherwise; and the substance of the Sermon on the Mount would be known to them. The sentence is not part of the preceding question.*

D transposes ἀδικεῖτε and ἀποστερεῖτε. For τοῦτο, L, Arm., Chrys., Thdrt. have παῦτα, perhaps to cover the two verbs.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 8. But there is more: to account for a lawsuit, there is needed something else than the lack of charity on the one hand; there must be a graver want still on the other, the want of justice. To speak of maltreated, robbed, is to speak of maltreating, robbing. Hence the gradation expressed by ἀλλά: But much more! The ὑμεῖς, ye, coming first, expresses indignation: “It is ye, Christians, who...!” The, and that, indicates a new gradation: the want of justice betrays a more odious character when it assails one nearer our heart, a brother!

It is easy to see why certain copyists have substituted ταῦτα (the two acts mentioned) for τοῦτο.

It really seemed that the Corinthians, since they had received grace, thought themselves freed from all moral responsibility; it is this dangerous security which the apostle attacks in what follows.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.