Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
The argument from the indifference of meats (1 Corinthians 8:8; Romans 14:14; Romans 14:17: cf. Mark 7:18; Colossians 2:20-22) to that of fornication does not hold good. Meats doubtless are indifferent (with, however, the qualification discussed, 1 Corinthians 10:23, etc.), since both they and the "belly," for which they are created, are to be "destroyed" at Christ's coming to change believers' natural bodies into spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:44; 1 Corinthians 15:52). But 'the body is not (created) for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body' (as its Redeemer, who hath Himself assumed and united Himself to the body): "And God hath raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us" (i:e., our bodies) to eternal existence; therefore the "body" is not, like the "belly," after having served a temporary use, to be destroyed. Now "he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18). Therefore fornication is not indifferent. Here is the germ of the three subjects handled in subsequent sections:
(1) The relation between the sexes.
(2) The question of meats offered to idols.
(3) The resurrection of the body.
A real essence underlies the superficial phenomena of the present organization of the body: this germ, when all the particles are scattered, involves the resurrection of the body incorruptible.