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As I mentioned in part 1, the other negative effect fornication implicates, besides defiling your physical body, is its defilement of the body of Christ. As I described, the moment you are born again, you become a part, a member of Christ’s body. As a member, you are to glorify the rest of the body, including the head, which is Christ, by living a holy obedient lifestyle. You are to strive for the well-being of the body – the church.
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When a member of the body becomes infected, which fornication promulgates, the whole body suffers. The member, if unrepentant, becomes a deterrent, crippling the body. Unless that infection is stopped, the whole body will eventually be infected. “…for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25). Infection is very evident in the church body today. It hinders testimony and the work of the Holy Spirit.
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This is the warning the Apostle Paul stressed to the Corinthian Christians in 1Corinthians chapter 5, when he demanded that they “put away that wicked person” among them who had committed fornication with his “father’s wife.”
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Paul indicated how important it was for them to exscind that member for the well-being of the whole by saying, “…Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened” (1Corinthians 5:6,7).
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Anyone who is aware of the principles of making dough for the purpose of baking knows that if a lump of dough leavens too much, it will rise and collapse making it unfit and useless.
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The leaven of Christendom is worldliness adopted by its members. The leaven of the church today is alarmingly excessive just in its violation of Biblical marriage alone. Staying separate from worldliness and abiding in the doctrine of Christ makes us unleavened. Those who leaven the body of Christ, particularly with fornication, must be “put away” from the church and will be cut off from receiving the blessings, which come to Christ’s body – the Kingdom of God, if true repentance is not exercised. I believe the Scripture gives indisputable evidence to this fact.
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Now, concerning spousal forgiveness and the extent of its influence toward their fornicating spouse: One can be forgiven for the transgression of fornication by the spouse and the Lord. However, forgiveness does not mean your body is converted back into the clean, pure, and unattached state you possessed before the fornication was committed.
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This is what I stated previously in part 1. Once the body is defiled from an unholy connection, it will continue to be that way until death. It is the conclusive consequence when Biblical marriage is violated. They have “sinned against their own body” (1Cor. 6), and if already legitimately married have defiled their marriage at the same time. Hence, the reason why Jesus advocated the innocent spouse to put away the fornicating spouse. By removing their self from the fornicated spouse, the innocent spouse will now be able to remarry and not be committing fornication their self.
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The sin of fornication not only violates the law of God, but also the law instilled in creation of one’s own flesh. It is not like other sins, which men commit, as the Apostle Paul signals clearly. Other sins are “without the body” (1Cor. 6). In other words, other sins, unlike fornication, do not make lasting attachments. Other sins have their injurious effects upon the individual and the church, but do not carry with them the permanent consequence of a connection to another bodily, as does fornication. This is why the connections we make in our flesh must be holy.
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Fornicating the body is to make unholy physical attachments where there is no remedy for those attachments to be disconnected. For the Lord to cleanse you back to a holy body again would mean, He would have to cleanse and make holy the one you are attached to as well. And with the harlot, how many attachments come with that package? You are attached to another flesh in an unholy, defiled way and nothing is available that will disconnect that attachment and halt the defilement while alive. You “sinned against your own body.”
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As with the harlot, it is one of the reasons Paul says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness… or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel” (2Corinthians 6:14)? In saying this, let me pose this question… If the unbeliever’s body is not a member of Christ, who’s body are they the member of? And if a body is already defiled by not being a holy member of Christ’s body, why would any holy Christian desire their body to be connected to it. How sad it is that we do not understand what it truly is to be born again and made holy and pure in our flesh!
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As I stated, one can be forgiven, but one cannot continue in fornication and “receive the kingdom of God.” If you repent, then that means you turn and discontinue that sinful way of life. This is what we are supposed to commit to the first time we repent, which by the working of God’s Spirit, we are made into a new creation. Otherwise, it’s like Adam being forgiven, cleansed, and made new, only to go back and eat the apple again and bring a curse upon all, again. This is the severity of fornication that Paul is trying to convey in this text. Committing fornication is not just doing wrong but doing wrong against and to your own body. You have defiled it and can never have a legitimate physical joining with another while alive. And you will defile all who you are joined to thereafter.
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Fornication is not like other sins. It is to make your body accursed. The sin can be forgiven, but because of the connection made, the consequences from it cannot be wiped away. With Biblical marriage, forgiving the violator 70×7 is inapplicable. It is a one-time forgiveness. There is no second opportunity. Unless the innocent spouse separates from the defiled spouse, once having knowledge of it, both will be defiled. They didn’t just sin against you, they also sinned against their self. Jesus made this very clear when He attached the condition of fornication to putting away your spouse in Matthew 5:32 &19:9. Howbeit, there is no hint of any repenting and forgiveness attached. Why? Because they would be fornicating themselves with them if they took them back sexually. If they do, then it creates a defiled marriage and marriage bed (Heb. 13:4). In a nutshell, forgive the violator with all your heart, but don’t take them back sexually.
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Please understand, when Jesus spoke this to the Pharisees in Matthew 19, this statement caused them to be taken aback. Why? Never had anyone in Israel ever put a spouse away for fornication. The Israelite had never heard this before. Why? The fornicator was always stoned to death. They never had to put them away to be free of them, especially for remarriage, once their spouse was dead from stoning. They were now completely free. The bond of marriage was now abolished, because death was the end of the marital law between them. Not so now Mr. Pharisee. But what if their spouse forgave them and wanted to take them back? It didn’t matter. They were stoned anyway. It was to rid Israel, the holy congregation of God, of that abomination, so not to be passed on.
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However, now, through Christ, the fornicator has the opportunity to be forgiven by Christ, yet the spouse is to, yet, put them away, because they are still polluted. By the spouse putting them away is the same as if the violator is put to death to them, and to any other opportunity of making a sexual connection with them thereafter. The innocent spouse is free from that bond of marriage, so they can go and have a pure and holy marriage in this life, in the Lord. The violator is now bound to their deadness sexually of ever having a holy Biblical marriage.
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Repenting of the sin of fornication committed after being born again, and being aware of this truth means, you have no options but to stop all sexual intimacies and be celibate for the rest of your life. Otherwise, if you don’t, you will be living as a fornicator. As I said before, once you fornicate your body, never will any sexually intimate connection be viable thereafter. You have sinned against your body. You are defiled. You just aren’t killed over it anymore. Anyone that is sexually intimate with you will be committing fornication together with you, including your spouse.
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To illustrate how forgiveness, whether from God or from the victimized spouse, does not revert or renew a person back to how they were before they fornicated their self, I will offer two examples:
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1. Let’s say, there is an adulterous affair and the woman becomes pregnant. Question… Can grace or forgiveness revert her back to the condition she was physically before her affair and pregnancy took place? Can forgiveness extinguish her pregnancy to where it never happened? No, of course not!
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We know this pregnancy resulted because a connection was made, and the pregnancy is outward physical proof of that connection for all men to know. However, God doesn’t need the conception of a baby or its outward evidence for Him to have knowledge that a connection was made. He sees all and knows all that we do.
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God’s configured design in the creation of men and women for their sexually intimate attachments are perfect. And because the Christian is connected to His body, He is particularly aware of every inordinate, defiling, and imperfect physical connection made by His members. Our body is His body.
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His law of Biblical marriage and its consequence when violated within creation is not altered just because we are sorry and forgiveness is acquired, whether by the victimized spouse or the Lord Himself. The bond of oneness is not dismissed because of repentance or forgiveness. If that were so, then you could be sexually intimate with another (Biblical marriage) and then decide 6 months later that you made a mistake, repent for making that marriage, and the Lord would then abolish that oneness and let you start all over again. It doesn’t work that way with two becoming one in the flesh. The law of Biblical marriage is not flippant like secular marriage is. This is why it is considered sacred.
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Grace, whether extended by man or God, does not alter the effect a fornicated act will have upon a person’s body, as well as upon the body of Christ. It is the same as with the pregnancy. “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned” (Proverbs 6:27)? Fornicating spouses defile the bed of Biblical marriage, and they will be judged (Hebrews 13:4).
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2. Esau is another very good example where repentance and forgiveness cannot and does not undo what is already concluded under the regulation of natural law.
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There is the described account given to us in Genesis 25-27 of Esau and his younger brother Jacob. Esau, extremely hungry, sold his birthright to Jacob for some “bread and pottage of lentils.” When the time had arrived for the blessing of the birthright inheritance to be administered, Esau received his just reward. It was given to Jacob. When Esau realized that he had missed out on the blessing, he cried and pleaded with Isaac his father to take the blessing away from Jacob and give the blessing to him, but it was too late.
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The writer of the book of Hebrews uses this account in defense of respecting holiness and those things that are holy, when he stated, “Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Hebrews 12:16,17).
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No matter how much Esau wept and repented for the loss of his birthright blessing, it was too late. Nothing more could be done. He sinned against his birthright. The Bible says he was “profane” (evil). Esau had contempt for what was holy. The blessing went to Jacob who had respect for the holy birthright (the blessings of Abraham) and it was rightfully his. God rejected Esau and made sure that the blessing went to Jacob, through their mother.
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It was Rebekah whom God had spoken to when she conceived the two men saying, “the elder shall serve the younger.” The Lord knew that Esau would make that exchange, a holy thing for something unholy, and, then, attempt to rob Jacob of it later. Well, he didn’t get away with it.
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Why didn’t Isaac, once he knew that he had been tricked, rescind the blessing to Jacob and proceed to pronounce it upon Esau? Surely, Isaac had that power? No, he didn’t. When the blessing was declared it became effective immediately. He was incapable of taking it back. The inherited blessing was Jacobs.
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When Isaac figured out what had happened, the Bible says, “…And Isaac trembled very exceedingly…And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold I have made him thy Lord…” (Genesis 27).
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See how it says in Hebrews 12:17, “for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” There was a consequence where repentance and forgiveness would not and could not revert the blessing back. He defiled himself of it.
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Now look again at the verses and see who the writer of Hebrews includes with the profane actions of Esau –“Lest there be any fornicator…” (Hebrews 12:16). Esau sinned against his holy birthright and lost its benefits. Fornicator’s sin against their holy body and lose out on the benefits of Biblical marriage, regardless of how much repenting is exercised and forgiveness is granted. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7,8).
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The marriage concepts advocated by the church today, i.e., love, covenant, vows, commitment, etc, are all good things, but do not make a Biblical marriage. I hope that after having written all that I have, all who read them will see why I have been making this claim.
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Okay, now, what comes next? To all who have read this exposition and have discerned truth and soundness in what I have presented so far, the first thing to not do is to become irrational and make any wrong quick decisions. There is hope of forgiveness and making things right, but it’s only because we were ignorant to these truths. Start now, now that you are ignorant no more and fashion your life accordingly. There is a remedy, as I will present later. However, first, knowledge must be acquired.
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God knows where we are in this. I believe He is giving this knowledge to the church to get back what is His and also, for the church to halt their sin of fornication.
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It wasn’t an easy decision for me to bring this forward because of the controversy it will probably generate and the difficulty in implementing it into the worldly tainted culture of Christendom today.
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However, it is needed and “all things are possible with God.”