Why Should I Care About This?
Our culture is obsessed with the human body. Have you turned on the television or stood in the supermarket checkout line recently? Images and information about the human body bombard our senses from almost every direction. And what we believe about the body can make a huge difference for our daily life, and for the life beyond! That’s why we need to think carefully about a Christian view of the body. For when our ideas about the body go wrong, a lot of related Christian beliefs can also be affected.
For example, in the early centuries of the Christian church there were some religious groups called Gnostics. Their name derived from the Greek term gnosis which means “knowledge,” because they thought that salvation came through secret knowledge. In their view, reality consisted of two primary components: matter (which was evil) and spirit (which was good).{1} Since matter was evil, the human body was likewise viewed as “intrinsically degenerate.”{2}
The Gnostics’ negative beliefs about the human body influenced their thinking in other areas as well. Their ideas about the incarnation, the afterlife, and human sexuality, were all affected. Consider the incarnation. Christians believe that God the Son became a real human being with a real human body. But this view was repulsive to some of the Gnostics. While some believed that the divine Christ temporarily assumed a human body, they did not think this state was permanent. And others denied that Jesus had a physical body at all. They believed that Jesus only appeared to be human.{3} In reality, he was a completely spiritual being. This was especially true after his resurrection, which Gnostics generally held to be a purely spiritual (and not physical) event.{4}
The Gnostic view of the afterlife was similar. After death, Gnostics believed, they would be reunited with God in the spiritual realm. Unlike Christians, they had no desire for the resurrection of the body. The body was a prison from which they would gratefully escape at death.
Consider finally their views about human sexuality. Although some Gnostics may have lived a sexually immoral lifestyle, the majority seem to have rather been ascetics.{5} They treated the body harshly and rejected sexual activity and procreation as earthly, physical, and unspiritual. Such activities kept one in bondage to this evil material world.
Unfortunately, these Gnostic beliefs about the body influenced Christianity to some degree. But if we look at what the Bible teaches, what we find is much more interesting and exciting.
The Goodness of the Human Body
What do you believe about your body? Is it something good—or evil?
In striking contrast to the Gnostics, who believed both the material world and human body were intrinsically evil, the biblical writers present a positive conception of both.
The first verse of Genesis declares, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). A few verses later we learn that God created human beings in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). And at the end of chapter one we’re told that everything God made “was very good” (Gen. 1:31). So unlike the Gnostics, who believed the material world was the work of an evil, inferior deity, the biblical writers viewed the physical universe and human body as part of the good creative work of the one true God.
Moreover, in the biblical view humanity occupies a very special place in the created order. Having been made in God’s image, men and women are viewed as the crown of creation. But what does it mean to say that we are made in God’s image? As one might expect, this is a question that has been given extensive consideration throughout the history of the church.
On the one hand, we probably shouldn’t think of the divine image primarily in physical terms, for God is a spiritual being. Still, it’s probably also a mistake to think that our bodies aren’t in any sense made in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 says that God created man in His image. Reflecting on this statement, some scholars have noted that it’s “not some part of a human or some faculty of a human, but a human in his or her wholeness [that] is the image of God. The biblical concept is not that the image is in man and woman, but that man and woman are the image of God.”{6} Since God created man in His image as an embodied personal being, it seems quite natural to suppose that the material (as well as immaterial) aspects of our being are both included in what it means to be made in God’s image.
In Genesis 2 we have a more detailed account of the creation of man and woman. In verse 7 we read that “the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” This verse indicates that there are both material and immaterial components of man’s being—and each in some sense bears God’s image. This is why in the Christian view human beings have inherent worth and dignity. It’s also why in contrast to the Gnostics we believe in the goodness of the human body.
The Importance of the Incarnation
Did you know that your beliefs about the human body can affect your view of Jesus and why He came? As we’ve seen, the biblical writers saw the human body as God’s good creation (Gen. 1-2). Naturally enough, such radically different views of the body influenced how Gnostics and Christians understood the doctrine of the incarnation as well.
The term “incarnation” means “‘to enter into or become flesh.’ It refers to the Christian doctrine that the pre-existent Son of God became man in Jesus.”{7} Our first hint that something like this would happen comes shortly after man’s fall into sin. In Genesis 3:15 God tells the serpent, the agent of temptation in the story, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” The verse promises a coming Champion or Deliverer, who would be born of a woman, and who would deliver the decisive death-blow to Satan. Later we learn that this Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, redeems humanity from the tragic consequences of sin and death by giving His own life as a substitute in our place (1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10). The death of God’s Son for the sins of the world was possible because of the incarnation. By becoming a real man, with a real body, He experienced a real death on the cross.
One of the clearest statements of the incarnation is found in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (1:1, 14). This Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, told His followers that He had come “to give His life a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). While Gnostics generally regarded the death of Jesus as irrelevant for salvation, Christians see it as absolutely essential.
In Revelation 5:9 a song is sung in praise of Christ, who through His death “purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” In the early church, some theologians said that what Christ did not assume, neither did He redeem. They meant that if Christ did not really have a human body, then neither did He redeem our bodies. This is why the incarnation is so important. By becoming fully human and dying for our sins, Christ secured the complete redemption of all who put their trust in Him.
Human Sexuality
Those unfamiliar with the Bible might be surprised to learn how much it has to say about sex. And what it says is neither prudish nor out of date. On the contrary, its counsel is both supremely wise and eminently practical. {8}
In fact, unlike the ancient Gnostics, the Bible has a very positive view of human sexuality. An entire book of the Bible, the Song of Solomon, is largely devoted to extolling the beauty and wonder of sexual love within the God-ordained covenant of marriage. Sex was God’s idea and is rooted in His original creation of man and woman as sexual beings (Gen. 1:27). While one of God’s purposes in creating us this way was for procreation (Gen. 1:28), it certainly wasn’t His only purpose. God also intended sex to be a pleasurable and meaningful expression of intimacy and love between husband and wife (Prov. 5:18-19).
According to Jesus, the biblical ideal of marriage is a lifelong, exclusive commitment of one man to one woman (Mk. 10:2-9). Citing the Genesis creation account He says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Mk. 10:7-8; cf. Gen. 2:24). As one writer has observed, “Here we have a blueprint for human sexual love: through the sexual act the man and woman have a wonderful new kind of intimacy. This is called being ‘one flesh,’ and it is designed to be exclusive and faithful.”{9}
Unfortunately, man’s fall into sin brought about the misuse and abuse of God’s good gift. And as one might expect, the Bible doesn’t shy away from addressing such things. Essentially, the biblical view is that sex is to be fully enjoyed as a wonderful gift from God, but only within the sacred bonds of marriage between one man and one woman. Every other kind of sexual activity is lumped into the category of “sexual immorality.” And this we are told to flee, for as Paul told the Corinthians, “he who sins sexually sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18).
But Paul then went even further. He called the believer’s body “a temple of the Holy Spirit.” He said that Christians have been “bought at a price” and should “honor God” with their bodies (1 Cor. 6:19-20). This reveals something of the value which God places upon the human body. And He encourages us to do the same.
Bodily Death and Resurrection
Did you know that your view of the human body affects your view of eternity?
Throughout history humanity has entertained a variety of ideas about what happens after death. Some think that physical death is the end of our personal, conscious existence. While we might “live on” in people’s memories, we don’t live on in any other sense. Others believe that while the body dies, the human soul or spirit continues to exist—perhaps on a higher spiritual plane, perhaps in a spiritual heaven or hell, or perhaps somewhere else. According to this view, our bodily existence is only temporary. Once we die our bodies are discarded, but our souls go on living forever.
In the early years of the church, many Gnostics believed that people would experience different fates at death. Some would just cease to exist. For them, death was the end. Others could enjoy some sort of afterlife through faith and good works. From a Gnostic perspective, these people were the Christians. Only a few, however, namely, the Gnostics themselves, could expect a truly fantastic afterlife in which they would be reunited with God in the divine realm.{10} In other words, the Gnostics anticipated being liberated from this evil material world, including their bodies, and being reunited with God in a completely spiritual existence. Interestingly, although there are differences, many Christians seem to expect an afterlife that’s very similar to that envisioned by the Gnostics.
But what the Bible teaches is really quite different. Although it comforts Christians with the reminder that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8), this is not the believer’s final state. Instead, we’re told to eagerly await the resurrection of our bodies, which will be modeled after Jesus’ resurrected body (1 Cor. 15:20-23, 42-49). As Christians, we don’t look forward to a purely spiritual (in the sense of non-physical) afterlife. Instead, we await a bodily existence in a new heaven and new earth which is completely free from the presence and power of sin (2 Pet. 3:10-13)! Just as Christ was raised physically from the dead, so one day He will likewise raise all men from the dead. Some will enjoy His presence forever; others will be shut out from His presence forever (Matt. 25:46; Jn. 5:28-29). Which experience shall be ours depends entirely upon our relationship to Christ (Jn. 3:36; 2 Thess. 1:8-10). So why not put your trust in Him and enjoy forever the new heavens and new earth in a new, resurrected body? You’re invited, you know (Rev. 22:17).
Notes
1. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles Over Authentication, Course Guidebook, Pt. 1 (Chantilly, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2002), 20.
2. Mary Timothy Prokes, Toward a Theology of the Body (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 9.
3. J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2006), 200.
4. Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 29.
5. Ibid., 21.
6. Tyndale Bible Dictionary, eds. Walter A. Elwell and Philip Wesley Comfort (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), s.v. “Image of God.”
7. Harper’s Bible Dictionary (1st ed.), ed. Paul J. Achtemeier (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), s.v. “Incarnation” by Frank J. Matera.
8. A number of ideas in this section were informed by the article “Sex, Sexuality,” in Tyndale Bible Dictionary.
9. Amy Orr-Ewing, Is the Bible Intolerant? (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 113.
10. Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 21.
© 2007 Probe Ministries