The Body

It’s tempting to make sense of illness by denigrating the body: “Everyone gets sick, suffers injuries, and eventually dies, so the body must not really matter. What’s important must be the immaterial part of us that lives beyond the grave.” We’re inclined to treat our bodies like those old tools in the garage—always broken and taking up space, so you might as well throw them away.

Body shaming has always existed, but the Greeks were the first to give it philosophical clout. For Plato, the body was an illusion, a flickering shadow in a cave, as evidenced by its transitory nature. Reality was purely spiritual and transcended matter.

After Plato, a Stoic named Epictetus wrote,

Inasmuch as these two elements were comingled in our begetting, on the one hand the body, which we have in common with the brutes, and, on the other, reason and intelligence, which we have in common with the gods, some of us incline toward the former relationship, which is unblessed by fortune and is mortal, and only a few toward that which is divine and blessed.

True freedom, according to Plato and Epictetus, comes from splitting our bodies from our spirits. But only magician’s assistants survive getting sawn in two. What about the rest of us?

I knew a man who suffered from diabetes. His case was so severe that he had to endure numerous amputations. He left this earth, literally, a piece at a time. He was a man of faith and faced his trials with great courage. When doctors removed a finger or a hand or a part of his leg, he smiled with resignation and said, “It's just dirt.”

I've always felt uncomfortable with the way he dealt with his disease. His apparent disregard for his body was unsettling to me.

But my friend had a point. When the Lord created Adam, he formed him from dust (Genesis 2:7), and after Adam sinned, God said, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19). Looking back on these accounts, Paul compared our physical bodies to Adam’s, calling us “those who are of the dust” (1 Corinthians 15:48).

Our bodies are dust.

But that is not all.

The full account of Adam's creation reads, “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7).

It's what's between the particles of dust that makes us special. If our bodies were just dirt, there would be no difference between them and a plowed field. The full truth of our bodies is that God formed them (that is, he distinguished the dust comprising our bodies from the dust of the ground by shaping them in his image) and breathed into them nephesh, the Hebrew word referring to the life essence animating our bodies.

Nephesh, often translated “soul,” is not to be confused with “spirit,” which is expressed using a different Hebrew word in the Old Testament (ruah). Only humans have spirits that survive physical death, but the Bible speaks of animals as having nephesh. Still, nephesh should not be taken for granted. Without it, our bodies would be nothing but dirt. With it, they are a wonder of God.

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Matthew describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, saying,

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. (4:23-24)

Jesus’ miraculous power identified him as the Messiah the world had been waiting for. No one could deny his supernatural abilities. But could there have been an additional purpose behind his healing the sick? Jesus was omnipotent. He could have performed any miracle imaginable. His healings in Galilee attracted a lot of attention, but the reports were limited to a small geographical area. I have no doubt that had he chosen to do so, he could have attracted the world all at once, by shifting the continents on their tectonic plates, for example, or appearing to every inhabitant on earth in a dream.

Why healings? Matthew says the miracles accompanied his proclamation of “the gospel of the kingdom.” By healing the sick, Jesus somehow demonstrated the nature of his kingdom.

He forgave sins, but he also healed bodies.

And let's not forget that he, too, came in a body. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Not only that, but he died in a body. He was raised in a body, and he ascended in a body. Before his birth, he existed in a purely spiritual state, but when he came to earth to redeem man, he became an embodied human being, and now, even in his glorified state, he retains a body (Philippians 2:6-8; 1 Timothy 2:5).

Contrary to Greek philosophy, which viewed the body as an evil encumbrance we should shed as soon as possible, Jesus’ incarnation and miraculous activity encourages a positive attitude toward our own bodies. In that respect we find sympathy for those who are dealing with chronic illness, age, injury, and death.

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“Ascetism” is bodily deprivation for religious purposes. Think of the extreme fasting of Tibetan monks or the flagellants of the Middle Ages. Frustrated with the flesh and its weaknesses, certain religious people have punished their bodies, thinking self-harm earns extra credit in heaven.

When Paul encountered this attitude in Colossae, he condemned it, saying,

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23)

Teachers influenced by dualistic Greek philosophy had come to Colossae, declaring the evils of the body with words like, “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch.” Paul calls these “human precepts and teachings.” Asceticism with its pain and discipline may seem to be righteous, but it “has no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

In fact, restrictiveness may fan the flames of the lusts of the flesh. The more forbidden we make something, the more attractive it becomes. Some young people brought up in stringent homes grow up and run to the other extreme of indulgence. Once they get their rumspringa, they don't know what to do with themselves because they've never been taught how to live in the bodies God gave them.

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Corinth had a different take on Greek dualism. In Colossae it led to asceticism, but in Corinth, the home of the temple of Aphrodite, goddess of love, it led to sexual license.

In Corinth they reasoned that since the body was irredeemably bad, there was no use in trying to curtail its vices. Let the body do what it has to do, it was thought. This spirit, which will soon be freed from its fleshly prison, is so distinct from the body that it cannot be hurt.

Paul disagrees. In 1 Corinthians 6 he builds a case against sexual immorality by emphasizing the importance of the body.

He cites a slogan repeated in Corinth, the city whose streets teemed with prostitutes: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” (v. 13a). “Food” stands for any bodily urge, including sex. The average Corinthian believed sex was strictly a physical function, having nothing to do with the spiritual part of our being. The same attitude lies behind casual sex and pornography in our age.

Paul counters, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (v. 13b). He reminds his readers that, as Christians, they are married to Christ. As Moses wrote, “The two will become one flesh.” One cannot take his body, which belongs to Christ, and join it to another through sexual immorality. It’s a “sin against your own body,” Paul says (v. 18).

Besides, Christians’ bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. God isn’t waiting for the Second Coming. He dwells in us now! This was made possible by the costly price of Jesus’ blood. “So,” Paul says, “glorify God in your body” (vv. 19-20; cf. Romans 12:1).

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I skipped one of the apostle’s arguments in 1 Corinthians 6 so that I could come back to it here. In verse 14 he says, “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.” Jesus’ death isn’t the end of the gospel. After three days in Joseph’s tomb, his body—not some ghostly apparition—was raised! (Luke 24:39).

Just as Jesus’ healings functioned on different levels, his resurrection not only confirmed his claims to be the Son of God, but it also foreshadowed our own bodily resurrection. In this connection Paul calls Christ “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Our bodies, which will return to the dust when we die, will be reconstituted when Christ returns, just as his was. Not only that, but our resurrected bodies will be glorified, no longer subject to sickness, pain, and death! (Philippians 3:20; Revelation 21:4).

If our lives are on a trajectory headed toward repaired and glorified bodies in the resurrection, how should we treat the physical vessels that now temporarily hold our immortal spirits? To mistreat them would be a rejection of the gospel, which gives meaning to every Christians life. Caring for our own bodies, nurturing the sick, sympathizing with the afflicted, and prolonging life are practices that not only show compassion, which is part of our calling, but also demonstrate our hope in the resurrection.

You have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.