Immorality

In 1984 Francis A. Schaeffer published a book called The Great Evangelical Disaster. It was disturbing to see how evangelicals, even if at times unconsciously, are, nevertheless, tragically compromising some of the great standards of the Word of God. The word Francis Schaeffer uses for it is “accommodation,” which serves as something of the theme of the book. In what areas does Schaeffer observe this accommodation? He mentions a number of areas.

The world does not have any objective standard for right and wrong. The world suppresses, and in some cases is ignorant of, the fact that God has given a moral law which is embodied in the Scriptures and does not change. Consequently, it is no wonder that the world shifts from one moral viewpoint to the next. But that accommodation was not present in the Church then as much as it is now. What is a tragedy is when the shifting takes place in the Church of Jesus Christ, who knows there is a God who has revealed Himself in the Bible and who does have an objective moral standard that is true for all people at all times and in all places.

The second area is in regard to how people view themselves. Before these revolutionary changes, even in countries where most certainly not everyone was a Christian, there was at least something of a Christian ethos. Within that ethos, mankind was seen as the creation of God made in God’s image—and therefore responsible to God and unable to exist and function properly without some relationship to this God who had made him. But when God got pushed out of the picture, people asserted their self-sufficiency, believing that they are a law unto themselves and therefore able to establish their own righteousness without reference to anybody else.

Our passage from 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 deals with sexual immorality, but I gave this background because we cannot understand properly what is happening in the Church unless we understand that the Church is simply at this point reflecting the culture around us. Jesus said that the Church is to be salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-16). But in saying that He acknowledged the possibility that the salt can lose its saltiness or that the light can be hidden. That is what has happened as the Church has reflected the world’s values.

Having made these two points—the first being that not everything we can do is beneficial, and the second being that we should not allow sinful things to master us—Paul then takes them and begins to relate them to God. Sin, specifically sexual immorality, is not only harmful to myself and other people; it also ruins my relationship with God, who is the ultimate point of reference.