Meaning, commentary and cross references
1 Corinthians 6:20
“for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”In other translations
KJV · King James Version
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
NIV · New International Version
you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
WEB · World English Bible
for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
What does 1 Corinthians 6:20 mean?
John Gill · Exposition of the Entire Bible, on 1 Corinthians 6:20
For ye are bought with a price,.... Not with gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, as the whole church, and all the elect of God are. This proves them to be the Lord's, not only his redeemed ones, being ransomed by a price from the bondage of the law, sin, Satan, and the world; but his espoused ones, and which is chiefly designed here; for one way of obtaining and espousing a wife among the Jews was by a price (p); "a woman (they say) is obtained or espoused three ways; "by silver", by a writing, and by lying with; by silver, the house of Shammai say, by a penny, and the value of a penny; the house of Hillel say, by a "pruta", and the value of a "pruta": how much is a…
John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 1 Corinthians 6:12–20
We are yielded up to God, and possessed by and for God; nay, and this is virtue of a purchase made of us: You are bought with a price. In short, our bodies were made for God, they were purchased for him. If we are Christians indeed they are yielded to him, and he inhabits and occupies them by his Spirit: so that our bodies are not our own, but his. And shall we desecrate his temple, defile it, prostitute it, and offer it up to the use and service of a harlot?
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706–21; Romans–Revelation completed by Nonconformist ministers). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
John Calvin · Commentaries, on 1 Corinthians 6:12–20
20. Glorify God From this conclusion, it appears that the Corinthians took a liberty to themselves in outward things, that it was necessary to restrain and bridle. The reproof therefore is this he allows that the body is subject to God no less than the soul, and that accordingly it is reasonable that both be devoted to his glory. "As it is befitting that the mind of a believer should be pure, so there must be a corresponding outward profession also before men, inasmuch as the power of both is in the hands of God, who has redeemed both."
John Calvin, Commentaries (Calvin Translation Society English text). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
Context: 1 Corinthians 6:17–20 (WEB)
17But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Cross references
- 1 Corinthians 7:23
You were bought with a price. Don’t become bondservants of men.
- Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
- 1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
- 1 Peter 1:18
knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,
- Hebrews 9:12
nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption.
- Philippians 1:20
according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.
- Acts 20:28
Take heed, therefore, to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.
- Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,”