The apostle Paul taught the early church to be aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and how you treat your body. He goes so far as to say that the way you treat your body could even result in losing eternal life.
In the city of Corinth there occurred many different athletic events. The most ancient and highly esteemed of them all were the foot races, which were held at stated times and places with great pomp. Being patronized by kings, nobles, and statesmen, persons of rank and wealth who engaged in these exercises shrank from no effort and discipline necessary to obtain the honor of victory. These races were governed by strict regulations from which there was no appeal.
Before the names of the candidates could be entered upon the list as competitors for the prize, they were required to undergo a severe preparatory training. Every indulgence of appetite and other gratification which could in the least affect their mental or physical vigor was strictly forbidden. As the contestants in the race made their appearance before the eager and waiting crowd, their names were heralded, and the rules of the race were expressly stated. The prize was placed in full view before the competitors. They all started together, the judges sitting near the goal line so they could award the prize to the person who was victorious, also seeing to it that no one took some unlawful advantage.
Great risks were run by the contestants in these contests. It happened sometimes that somebody overexerted themselves, just as athletes have done in our time, such that as they reached the finish line they fell over dead.
As a person reached the goal there was shout after shout of applause from the vast multitude that echoed around the surrounding hills and mountains and the judge, in full view of the spectators, would present the winner with the emblems of victory – a perishable laurel crown, and a palm branch to carry in his right hand. This crown was worn with great pride. Not only the one who won the race, but also his parents received their share of honor, and even the city where he lived was held in high esteem for having produced so great an athlete.
It is this experience that Paul presents as a striking figure of the Christian warfare. Notice what he says: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate [exercises self-control] in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:24–27).
Notice the seriousness of what the apostle Paul is saying here. The body must be disciplined and be under strict control. The words Paul used in the Greek New Testament are much stronger language than has been translated into our English Bibles. He says that we must have our body under strict subjection and have absolute self-control; if not, we will be disqualified.
“To be carnally [fleshly] minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:6, 7). Paul says here that it is the unconverted person who doesn’t have control over his body.
The Holy Spirit gives to the Christian the power to be in control of his life. By just reading certain portions of the writings of the apostle Paul some people get the wrong idea of his message. They read only the portions that have to do with forgiveness of sin. You cannot do anything to earn forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness of sin comes as a gift of grace alone. The inheritance of eternal life is an infinite gift, and there’s no way that you can earn it. All are saved by grace by a gift of God. Salvation is an inheritance offered free to the entire human race, but it has conditions.
Those who desire to receive the gift must comply with the conditions. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul gives several examples from the Old Testament that are especially applicable to people who are living in the end of time. He says concerning the children of Israel, “All our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:1–5). “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages [“world” KJV] have come” (verse 11).
What are these things that are examples for the people that live in the ends of the ages? He says, “These things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted” (verse 6). When God took the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt into the wilderness, He gave them a program that involved health reform and dietary reform. But many of them rebelled against having a change in their diet that would bring them into a more healthful condition.
Notice what happened: “Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving [lusting]; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: ‘Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes’ ” (Numbers 11:4–6)!
Asaph, in contemplation of the wilderness wanderings, said they “ate angel’s food” (Psalm 78:25) and “were well filled” (verse 29). God did not provide for them an impoverished diet; God gave them a superior diet. Among the millions of people there was not one feeble one among all their tribes. (See Psalm 105:37.) Though they were eating angel’s food and were healthy, they wanted to go back to the kind of diet they ate in Egypt. The diet of Egypt resulted in all of the different degenerative diseases that we have today, a diet that will produce atherosclerosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancers. God prepared for them the kind of diet with which they would not suffer any of those diseases, but still they complained saying, “We want to eat flesh foods.”
Paul said this is an example for people who are living in the last days and warns against lusting after and craving evil things, things that God did not create for you to eat. In 1 Corinthians 10:7, Paul also lists something else. He says, “Do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ ” Here reference was made to worshiping the golden calf. (See Exodus 32.) Paul warned that many would follow the children of Israel in lusting after that which was forbidden, causing them to lose eternal life.
Sexuality was mentioned as being a special problem in the world in the last days. Paul said that just before the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, thousands fell in one day due to the sin of sexual immorality. He said, “Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell” (1 Corinthians 10:8).
The experience at Baal Peor is recorded this way: “Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord, out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.’ So Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Every one of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor.’ And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand” (Numbers 25:1–9).
Being undisciplined, the children of Israel got involved in idolatry, sexual immorality, fornication and adultery and many of them lost their souls as a result. Take the warning, Paul said that what happened to them is an example for those who live in the time of the end. It is not worth forfeiting your eternal inheritance for sexual pleasure.
1 Corinthians 10:9, 10 says, “Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor murmur, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer” (literal translation). The children of Israel being tempted, murmured and complained, tempting Christ. By His miraculous power, the Lord had protected them from the poisonous serpents in the desert for their whole journey, but when the Lord removed His protecting hand, the people found out that life in this world without God’s protection wasn’t nearly as safe as they had thought it was.
Friends, the whole world is under the grace of God at this present time, provided for us through the cross of Calvary. But the Bible teaches very clearly in the book of Revelation that the time is coming when God’s grace that is shielding our world is going to be removed. There is coming a time when the people of this world (that is, those who have sinned away their day of grace) are going to experience what it is like to be in a world without grace, where there is no mercy. If you accept Jesus as your Saviour, the Bible predicts that in that awful time no plague will come near your dwelling. But the way that you live, the way you treat your body, affects your eternal destiny. You can lose your eternal destiny; you can lose the gift of salvation, by treating your body in a sinful way. (See 1 Corinthians 9:24 to 27.)
Notice Numbers 21:5–9: “And the people spoke against God and against Moses: ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water [that was a lie], and our soul loathes this worthless bread.’ So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”
Jesus used this experience to illustrate the gospel to a leader of the Jews by the name of Nicodemus. Jesus said to him, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14–16, literal translation).
Friend, every person in the world has been bitten by that ancient serpent the Bible calls the devil and Satan. We have been bitten by the instigator of sin; so much so, that the Bible says that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But if you will look, if you will commit your life to the Saviour of the world, if you will choose to follow Him as your leader, surrender to Him, and choose Him as your Sovereign and obey Him, then you can be healed from the sting of sin. Paul said point blank that if you destroy your body you yourself are going to be destroyed. You don’t have to destroy your body instantly by taking a gun; you can destroy your body by taking different kinds of drugs or partaking in many other unhealthful practices. Paul was a very strict teacher of health reform.
After Paul told the church in Corinth how that it was necessary for them to be in strict control of their bodies, he knew that they would be tempted. They had been so used to living in sin. Notice what he says to them, one of the most wonderful promises in all the Bible: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:12, 13).
He goes on to say, if you are a Christian, every detail of the conduct of your life should be in harmony with God’s will by stating, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (verse 31). That is the Christian’s motto – the way you eat, what you eat, how you eat, the way you drink, what you drink, whatever you do, it should be to the glory of God.
To the person who does not pay attention to these requirements, Paul says, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:18–20). The Christian is to be sanctified, not only in his mind and in his spirit, but he is to be sanctified in his body. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:22 and 23.) God wants to sanctify not only your mind, but also your body, to bring your entire life into perfect conformity with His will. Paul says, Don’t you know your body is to be the temple, the dwelling place, of the Holy Spirit. What you have is from God. You are not your own because you were bought at a price.
The price at which your body and soul were bought was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. No one in the world belongs to himself or herself; it’s just that most people don’t recognize it. We have been bought with an expensive price.
Paul issues a strict and severe warning about those who do not pay attention to this counsel on how to treat your body, choosing to do as they want. He says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17)? Then there is a play on words that we usually translate two different ways, but the same word is used so it actually should be translated as follows: “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
O, friend, there it is. Paul says that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you. If you defile or destroy the temple of God, God will destroy you.
(Unless appearing in quoted references or otherwise identified, Bible texts are from the New King James Version.)
Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.