I often reflect on the things I was taught, whether intentionally or unintentionally, growing up in the local church. I vividly remember pastors, revival speakers, or traveling evangelists, most of whom were significantly overweight, preaching against smoking, drinking, or sexual immorality because after all the body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” I’ve always found that a rather odd contradiction. Make no mistake about it, the Scripture does teach that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit because we have been united to the True Temple, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, what we do with our bodies has everything to do with Christ.
Yet, these same preachers, preaching for the body in this life, were preaching against the body in the life to come. Death was the final end for the human body, at least in how it was described. In preaching the funeral I would hear them dismiss the body and give encouragement that the “true person”, namely the person’s soul, is now in heaven with the Lord. To me, this was a contradiction, namely why preach for the body (“you are the temple of the HS”) in this life, when the body is really not that important when you die (“it is just a container/shell of the true person”)?
My conclusion has led me to see that many in the church do not understand what the Scripture teaches concerning the human body. We view our bodies as an instrument of our own desire, with little regard for what the Creator of our bodies has to say concerning it. We have, unfortunately, viewed the Christian life as though it was only spiritual and that all that really matters is that we go to be with the Lord when we die. I think the Bible rejects both of these statements.
Most of our views on the body are more influenced by Plato, the early Greek philosopher in the 5th century B.C., and Gnosticism, an early church heresy, than the Bible. Plato taught that the human being was made up of two separate parts, the physical (body) and the spiritual (soul). The physical world was viewed as evil, while the spiritual world was viewed as good. (Kind of sounds like most funerals I’ve been to).
Plato adopted this view and argued that the soul of a human being existed in the highest heavens, though currently trapped in a body, which he viewed as a prison. Salvation, according to Plato, was the release of the soul from the evil body. [If you are interested in learning more of the background here, Google the “Orphic myth” for the teachings of Greek mythology]
The early church was influenced by Platonic thought. There arose two major heresies in the early church concerning the body/soul relationship. One was Docetism (the body of Christ was only an illusion) and Gnosticism (the heavenly soul was imprisoned in the sinful body). As a result, the focus on “spiritual” things became a priority. It is clear to see how the earlier Platonic view caused such heresies to arise in the early church and how many of the implications of these teachings still linger in our churches.
Yet, there were many Christians in the early church who rejected such a notion of the body (1 John 4:1-3). They did so for the following reasons…
1) God’s creation of a physical universe, which was pronounced as very good.
2) The physical incarnation of Jesus Christ.
3) The clear interaction of the soul/mind and the body.
4) Sin can take place in the soul, not just body.
5) The necessity of a physically resurrected Christ
6) The promise of a future bodily resurrection of believers.
7) The future restoration of a physical universe.
So how do we know when we are being more Platonic than Biblical concerning the body?
1) When you view the body as something to be disposed of upon death.
2) When you view the body as something meaningless and insignificant.
3) When you view death as a glorious end, rather than the future resurrection of the body.
4) When you do not take care of your body, which is an instrument of worship (Rom 12).
5) When you view the Christian life as primarily “spiritual” in nature.
Let me give you a few general statements concerning what the Bible teaches concerning our bodies.
1) We were created as embodied creatures (body and spirit) as a part of God’s glorious physical creation, of which God, when he had finished His work, described as very good. (Genesis 1:26-31, 2:7, 2:18-3:1, Psalm 139:13-16) We find in these passages that God created us as a gender, as sexual beings, with a vocational purpose, and many other implications (Too many to cover in this article).
2) As a result of the fall, our physical bodies, along with the physical creation are in need of sanctification (1 Thes 5:23, Romans 8) [clothing of the body in Genesis, not letting sin reign in our body in Romans 5-6, etc]. Our bodies are not to be a slave to anything ungodly, which is a part of the sanctification process (1 Cor 6:12-20).
3) As a result of the fall, our physical bodies will die. Though this is a tragic reality, the body is to be honored in view of the complete creation of God (2 Cor 6:19-20).
4) Even though the body will die, our future hope is not our spirit with the Lord in heaven (2 Cor 5:6-10) but a future bodily resurrection (1 Thes 4:13-18, 1 Cor 15) in the restoration of the physical creation (Revelation 21).
This topic may be foreign to may of you, as it was me for many years, mostly because we have been taught that the Christian life is what we do “spiritually.” However, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we need to think biblically about the body. Issues concerning the human body are all around us from cremation vs. burial, how we approach funerals, issues of cloning, transplants, abortion, euthanasia, reproductive technologies, stem cell research, dietary and other health related issues, and much more. How is a Christian to respond to this issues?
When is the last time you’ve stop to think how your body is being used as an instrument of praise, which it was created to be? As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12, “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” This is, after all, a “rational” act of worship given God’s overall redemptive work.
May we as Christians take care of our bodies now, honor our bodies upon our death, and look forward to the day when our bodies will come out of the grave, just as One did 2000 years ago.
Pastor Wes
