1 Corinthians 6:12–14

1 Corinthians 6:12 — "All things are lawful for me"

Paul almost certainly quotes back a slogan circulating in the Corinthian community — probably a distortion of his own earlier teaching on freedom from the Mosaic Law (cf. Gal 5:1). The repetition of the phrase within the same verse is deliberate and rhetorical: Paul acknowledges the claim, then immediately subjects it to two correctives. First, ou panta sympherei — "not all things are expedient" or "beneficial." The word sympherei carries a social and communal weight: it means what builds up, what is profitable, what conduces to the common good. Freedom, for Paul, is never merely individual; it is ecclesial. Second, "I will not be brought under the power of anything" (exousiasthēsomai). The wordplay is sharp: exousia (authority, freedom, right) becoming exousiazomai (to be mastered, enslaved). The very freedom invoked by the slogan, when abused, produces a new slavery — to appetite, habit, compulsion. Paul is not abolishing freedom; he is insisting that genuine freedom cannot contradict itself by becoming bondage. This is the paradox of Christian liberty that Augustine would later crystallize: our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.

1 Corinthians 6:13 — "Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods"

This appears to be a second Corinthian slogan, and it represents a dangerously reductive anthropology. The argument seems to have been: just as eating is a natural, morally neutral bodily function, so too is sexual activity — both are merely physical appetites to be satisfied without moral weight. Paul concedes the first half: yes, the stomach and food are mutually ordered, and both are transient — God will "bring to nothing" (katargēsei) both at the general resurrection, when the physical economy of digestion ceases. But he emphatically refuses the parallel with the body and sexual activity. The body (sōma) — the whole personal self as embodied — is not analogous to the stomach. The stomach is a functional organ; the body is the person in their entirety. The body is for the Lord (tō Kyriō), and with stunning reciprocity, the Lord is for the body. This is not merely an ethical claim but an ontological one: the body has a theological destiny, a communion with Christ that makes its use a matter of ultimate, not merely pragmatic, concern. The phrase "the Lord for the body" is remarkable — Christ's Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection are all acts of divine self-giving toward the human body, not away from it.

1 Corinthians 6:14 — "God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up"

Paul grounds the entire argument in eschatology. The resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated historical miracle but the first fruits (cf. 1 Cor 15:20) of a universal transformation. The same divine power (dynamis) that raised Christ from the dead is already at work in the bodies of believers, orienting them toward their final glorification. This verse functions as the theological warrant for everything said in verses 12–13: if the body is destined for resurrection, then what one does with the body has eternal weight. Sexual immorality is not merely a social transgression or a failure of self-control — it is an act committed against a body that God has claimed, redeemed, and intends to raise. The verb exegerei ("will raise up") is future but certain — a divine promise underwriting the present moral life.

Typological and Spiritual Senses

At the typological level, the body-as-temple imagery implicit here (made explicit in 6:19) recalls the Jerusalem Temple as the dwelling place of divine glory. Just as the Temple was consecrated ground where profane use was sacrilege, so the Christian body, indwelt by the Spirit and destined for resurrection, cannot be surrendered to uses that contradict its consecration. The "bringing to nothing" of food and stomach also echoes the passing of the old covenant's dietary regulations (Col 2:16–17), but the body itself — like the soul — belongs to a new and eternal order.

Catholic tradition illuminates this passage with a precision that safeguards against both dualism and libertinism — the two heresies always lurking at opposite extremes.

Against Gnostic and Manichaean dualism, the Church insists that the body is not a prison of the soul but an intrinsic component of the human person. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "The human body shares in the dignity of 'the image of God': it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit" (CCC §364). Paul's "the Lord for the body" is the scriptural anchor of this teaching. The Incarnation itself — God taking on a human body in Christ — is the definitive divine endorsement of bodily existence.

Against libertinism, the passage insists that freedom without order is self-destruction. Pope Saint John Paul II's Theology of the Body develops Paul's logic extensively: the body has a "spousal meaning," a capacity to express self-giving love that images the inner life of the Trinity. Sexual immorality, in this framework, is not merely rule-breaking but a falsification of the body's language — using for self-gratification what is structured for total self-donation.

St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, Homily 16) notes that Paul's argument is not primarily prohibitive but elevating: he does not say "the body is too base for sin" but "the body is too noble for it." The dignity of the body, not mere law, is the ground of chastity.

The Council of Trent affirmed bodily resurrection as a de fide dogma, ensuring that verse 14 is read not metaphorically but literally: the same body that acts now will be judged and glorified. This gives Paul's moral argument its ultimate eschatological urgency.

Contemporary culture presses Catholics from both sides Paul addresses. On one side, a therapeutic and consumerist culture recycles the Corinthian slogan in new forms: "My body, my choice"; "What consenting adults do is no one's business"; "Sexual expression is a basic human need." These are precisely the arguments Paul anticipates, and his answer is not prudishness but a higher anthropology: your body is not merely yours — it has been bought at a price (6:20) and is destined for eternity.

On the other side, a residual Puritanism — even within Catholic circles — sometimes treats the body with suspicion, as though holiness means transcending physicality. Paul's "the Lord for the body" and the resurrection promise of verse 14 correct this too: bodily mortification, fasting, and chastity in Catholic asceticism are not acts of contempt for the body but acts of reverence for it, training it for glory.

Practically, Catholics today might ask: Do I treat my body — in sleep, food, exercise, sexuality, and rest — as something consecrated, or merely as an instrument for pleasure and productivity? The Eucharist, in which the risen Body of Christ is received into our bodies, is the weekly renewal of this conviction: matter matters eternally.