First Corinthians 6:15 teaches that Christians belong to Christ in body as well as in spirit, so using the body for sexual immorality is a serious contradiction of that belonging. Paul asks the Corinthian believers whether they realize their bodies are members of Christ, and then whether it is right to join those members to a prostitute. He wrote this letter to the church in Corinth, a busy port city known for its loose moral climate, and he wrote it in the middle of correcting several problems in that congregation.
Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
1 Corinthians 6:15 (WEB)
What 1 Corinthians 6:15 Means
The verse opens with a question that assumes the readers already know something: “Don’t you know?” Paul is reminding them of a truth they have heard before. The phrase “members of Christ” uses the picture of a body with many parts. Just as a hand or foot is part of a person, every believer is joined to Christ as a living part of his body. The idea is closeness and belonging, not a loose attachment.
The second question carries the weight of the argument. If your body is part of Christ, then joining that body to a prostitute would be taking what belongs to Christ and giving it to something opposed to him. Paul’s answer, “May it never be!”, is a strong rejection of the idea. The verse does not spell out every detail of sexual ethics here, but it makes clear that the Christian’s body is not a private possession to be used as one pleases.
The Context of 1 Corinthians 6:15
First Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul to a church he had founded, and the letter answers both reports he received and questions the Corinthians had sent him. In chapter 6, Paul addresses the problem of believers suing one another and, more broadly, a casual attitude toward sin in the body. Some in Corinth appear to have argued that because all things are lawful for them, what they did physically made no real difference to their faith.
The verses just before and after help explain the point. Paul says the body is “not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” and that God raised the Lord and will raise believers too. Verses 16 and 17 then contrast union with a prostitute with union with the Lord. Reading verse 15 in this setting shows that Paul’s concern is the bodily life of the believer as a whole, connected to Christ’s own resurrection and future.
Key Phrases in 1 Corinthians 6:15
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
(WEB)
These verses continue the same thought by saying the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and that believers have been bought at a price. Read alongside verse 15, they show that belonging to Christ is both a fact about our union with him and a reason to glorify God in our bodies.
Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
(WEB)
Paul urges believers to offer their bodies as living sacrifices to God. This connects with verse 15 by showing that the body is not only protected from sin but also given to God as an act of worship in everyday life.
A Short Prayer From 1 Corinthians 6:15
Lord Jesus, you have made me part of your own body, and I am grateful that nothing about me is outside your care. Help me see my body as yours, not as a possession to use however I please. Where I have treated my desires as separate from my faith, forgive me and draw me back. Teach me to honor you in what I do with my hands, my eyes, and my heart. Keep me close to you each day. Amen.