It may seem
unusual to speak of a spirituality of the body. After all, many Christians have
believed that spirituality is being free from the body and its impulses. The
spiritual life is understood as saying yes to the Spirit’s work in our spirit
and saying no to the “flesh,” which is often perceived to be related to the
human body. Moreover, our body often gives us fits. We are not sure what to do
with its urges, failures, and pain. Thus, many perceive the human body to be an
enemy of true spirituality.
But true
spirituality is not a disembodied faith. We live within the body God has given
to us, and God calls us to lives of holiness and spirituality within and
through our bodies.
Role of the Body in Christianity
The starting point for a spirituality of the body is to understand its role in
Christian theology. Some theologians have suggested that Christianity is the most
physical or material religion in the world. By this they do not mean a love of
money or a fixation on material things. Rather, in contrast to many religions
and philosophies that find the body and material reality to be problematic,
biblical faith strongly affirms the material world, including the human body.
Christian spirituality is not a freedom from the body, but a freedom within the
body. Spiritual maturity comes not by negating our physical dimension, but by
harnessing its capacities and impulses for the glory of God through the power
of the Holy Spirit.
The significance of the body and material reality is grounded in several
biblical doctrines. First, a theology of creation incorporates a strong
affirmation of the material world with God’s pronouncement of its goodness
(Gen. 1). Genesis 2:9 notes that “out of the ground the Lord God made to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”
When
God created humans in his image, “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27),
clearly implying that the biological and physiological side of life is significant.
After God made this physical world and embodied humans, he looked at all he had
made and pronounced it “very good.”
Second, the body is affirmed in the incarnation: God taking on human flesh in
his Son, Jesus Christ. That “the word became flesh and lived among” (Jn. 1:14)
is a clear sign that the body in and of itself is not evil. Some early Christians
had problems with the incarnation, believing that the physical realm is so evil
that God could never take up residence in a real physical body. This view,
called docetism, said that Jesus only appeared to have a material body. The
Church condemned this view as heresy, declaring that Jesus was fully divine and
fully human. All of this means that if God can come in a human body, it is
evidence that the body itself is not our primary spiritual foe. Rather, the
incarnation is a model for our own lives.
Third, the physiological side of life is avowed through the future resurrection
of the body. In our final abode we will not exist as disembodied souls, but as
resurrected bodies. Such a notion would be foreign to a worldview in which the
body is intrinsically evil or the primary barrier to goodness. Life in eternity
with a body is an affirmation of its significance.
Of course the body, like mind and heart, bears the marks of the fall, and as
such is prone to lead us
to sin. But God has created us to be in bodies. We might say that we are
embodied souls, or ensouled bodies. Our bodies in and of themselves are not
evil. They are a significant part of who we are and even
have a role in influencing our thinking and the affections and emotions of our
hearts. As Dallas Willard puts it, “My body is the original and primary place
of my dominion and my responsibility. It is only through it that I have a world
in which to live. That is why it, and not other physical objects in my world,
is part of who I am and is essential to my identity. My life experiences come
to me through or
in conjunction with my body” (Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart,
p. 161).
Whenever
we act within the world we do so in our bodies; we can never act apart from
them. Our interaction with other people and the world in which God has placed
us is always in and through our physical existence.
The Body and Sin
Though the body is not inherently evil, it is fallen and thus is often the
locus and impetus for unrighteousness, injustice, and moral failure. In Romans
6, in the context of clarifying freedom in Christ, Paul writes: “Do not let sin
exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No
longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present
yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and
present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (vs. 12-13). Sin
often reflects itself in bodily actions and through various parts of the human
body, what Paul calls our members. These bodily actions certainly reflect our
thinking and our passions, but the body also has its own impulses and
tendencies.
For
example, James speaks of the deadly role of the tongue:
The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How
great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The
tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole
body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell…. No
one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison (3:5-8).
The
tongue, as James points out, has great potential for good such as worshipping
God, speaking the truth and encouraging other people. But in its fallen state this
good divine gift also has a propensity for great damage and evil.
We can further understand the role of the body in sin when we think about
sexual immorality. God has created our bodies good and that includes our sexual
parts as well. Yet, in our fallen state the sexual parts can be misused. In I
Corinthians 6 Paul reminds us that our “body is not meant for fornication but
for the Lord” (vs.14). The body meant for the Lord includes the sexual dimension
when it is utilized for God’s glory, within the purposes and designs of God in
creation. Even bodily pleasure in sex can be for the glory of God, for the
physical parts that bring pleasure are gifts of God’s good creation. But sexual
immorality is a misuse of the bodily gift, forgetting “that our bodies are
members of Christ” (v.16). Thus, in sexual immorality (sexual intimacy outside
God’s designs), “the fornicator sins against the body itself” (v.18).
We
live in a time when the right to control our own bodies is deemed to be an
absolute right. The judicial system in the United States (and in many countries
of the world) has extended bodily control to the right to terminate another
human life growing in one’s own body. In a few countries and jurisdictions the
right over one’s body has been extended to ending one’s own life when faced
with extreme pain or physical debilitations. Euthanasia, or its narrower
version of physician assisted suicide, is really an extension of the ethos that
we have an absolute right over our own body.
These kinds of sentiments are certainly understandable within a naturalistic
world view in which
the body and material reality are the only givens. But solid reasoning,
observation, and historic experience can help us see the dead-end street to
which this can lead. We are never isolated beings, and thus
what we do with our bodies always impacts others and society. And Paul writes,
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
which you have from God, and that you are
not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your
body” (I Cor. 6:19-20).
The Body and Righteousness
Though our fallen bodies have a propensity for sin and injustice, the believer
is called to use his or her body for good. Our hands, face, eyes, feet,
stomach, and genitals can be the instruments of evil but also instruments of righteousness,
love and justice. The very same tongue that through slander, lies, and
cursing can cause so much pain to another person is the same tongue that can
bring comfort and encouragement to another and adoration to God. The bodily
parts that fornicate and even rape are the same parts that can express love to
a spouse and generate the beginning of new human life. The key is that our
bodies need to be brought under the lordship of Christ and the power of the
Holy Spirit. Just as our thinking and inner affections must experience the ongoing
work of God’s grace and transformation, so too must the body. Thus, Paul writes,
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is
your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Here the focus is on commitment of our
bodies as acts of worship to God through what we do in them. Not only are we to
refrain from letting our bodies be under the domain of sin, but we are to
“present [our] membersto God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom 6:14).
This
means that God’s work within us will be demonstrated not only by what we
refrain from doing, but even more significantly, by what we do in and through
our physical body. Our actions in every day life are the real test of our faith
and commitment to Christ. In one sense they are the natural overflow of minds and
hearts shaped by the work of God, and certainly good bodily actions will never
develop without a transformation of these dimensions. But we must also give
attention to the body in the process. The body too must be made holy (i.e.
sanctified in traditional language) so that we act for the glory
to God.
Conclusion
True, vibrant spirituality is not a freedom from our bodies. The body is not
intrinsically evil. It is a good gift of God, and though fallen, it is the
physical reality through which we are called to live our lives for the glory of
God. We face a host of problems in and through our bodies: physical lust,
eating disorders, rejection of our bodies, idolatry of the body, addictions to
certain physical impulses, and the list could go on. The real issue in all of
the problems is not our physical body any more than our soul. The real issue is
that our good, but fallen body, like our soul or spirit, needs the renovation
of the Holy Spirit to bring our total being into the image of Jesus Christ. Our
calling is to glorify God in our body—in the physical world— the place to which
God has called us. And even that final place to which God has called us, presence
with Him in heaven, will likely turn out to be more physical than we ever
imagined.
