Question
How should we view our physical bodies?
Response
Modern society is obsessed with the physical body and everything associated with it. People think, read and talk about our bodies all the time. At the beginning of the 1990’s the ‘body business’ in the United States included a $33-billion-a-year diet industry, a $20-billion cosmetics industry, a $300-million cosmetic surgery industry, and a $7-billion pornography industry.¹. I have no doubt that these have all dramatically increased since then.
It is therefore vitally important that we as Christians know what we think about the body, and more importantly, what God thinks.
Sometimes as Christians, we limit our understanding of the body to a handful of verses from across the Bible. There’s the verse in Psalm 139 about how God saw the psalmist whilst in the womb – we often draw from that verse God’s affirmation of our bodies and the value of unborn life. Then there’s 1 Corinthians 6:19, which talks about our bodies being ‘temples of the Holy Spirit.’ That passage talks about sexual immorality, and how important it is to honour God with our bodies.
Often that is as far as our theology of the body goes. But, surely God must have further views on the body, being that it is such an important part of our human existence?
The best way to receive a fuller understanding of the body is to take one step backwards and explore what is means to be human. Instead of picking individual verses that have anything to do with humans it helps to focus on a couple of narratives, or stories, that are crucial for understanding humanity. The two I will mention are the creation and incarnation narratives.
In the creation narrative, the first thing we find out about humans is that they are created in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). This has many implications for our understanding of what it means to be human, among them the inherent goodness in each human and also the assumption of relationship with the Creator. In the commands given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:16-17 we learn that there are limitations to humanity. Although we are created in God’s image, we are not God; we are not invincible. A great affirmation of humanity, however, comes in Genesis 1:31, where God proclaims us to be ‘very good’.
God’s approval of humanity was then reiterated in the incarnation narrative. Because God himself chose to become human, our form of existence has been affirmed in a very tangible way. Christ incarnate also shows us what it means to be truly human: in being the ‘second Adam’ (Romans. 5, 1 Corinthians 15) he fulfilled the commands and warnings of Genesis 3, and demonstrated to us the proper relationship, one of obedience and holiness, between the human and God the Father.
There is no way to be a human being without having a body. 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 indicates that we’ll have ‘new’ bodies in eternity, and we can therefore conclude that the above affirmations about humanity also apply to the human body: it is ‘very good’. By Christ being fully human, which includes having a body, we can know that the body can never be called evil simply by its nature. Unfortunately, the church has often fallen into the Gnostic ditch and believed that the mind and the spirit is all that counts, while the body is our sinful selves. This set of beliefs is harmful for the church, in that it degrades the bodies which God affirms, and it is heretical within Christian theology, as one of its consequences must be that Jesus was not fully human.
¹Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (London, Vintage, 1991), p17
Key Bible Passages
Genesis 1-3
John 1:14
Romans 5:12-15
Philippians 2:6-11
‘...if God has himself become man
in the Incarnation, he has sealed
human nature with a certificate of
value whose validity cannot be disputed.’ (E.L. Mascall)
This response was written by Sara Hargreaves (Youth Ministry Co-ordinator, Ascension Balham Hill). Copyright © July 2006.
The following ideas are designed to help you discuss this subject.
- Look through magazines together. Pull out articles or pictures that affirm a Christian view of the body, and also those that oppose it. Try to explain why you disagree with those in the second category.
- What does a Christian theology of the body say about: keeping fit, body building, healthy eating and cosmetic surgery and make up? Don’t just give your automatic answer, but back it up with a Biblical perspective.
- Does the way we live as Christians demonstrate God’s view of our bodies? If not, how can we change?
Ray S. Anderson, On Being Human (Grand Rapids, Eerdman, 1982)
House of Bishops, Some Issues in Human Sexuality (London, Church House Publishing, 2003)
E.L. Mascall, The Importance of Being Human (New York, Columbia University Press; 1958)
FAQ Disclaimer:
FAQ responses are designed to promote clear biblical thinking about subjects that are often difficult and confusing. The responses are all considered to be compatible with the Evangelical Alliance’s basis of faith but beyond that should not be assumed to represent the Evangelical Alliance’s ‘official standpoint’ on any particular doctrine or issue.
