Our Body is Good?
Have you ever been confused about the word “the flesh” when used in church (or various other Christian contexts)? I thought about it recently, and realized that the way I have heard the word “flesh” used in the church usually refers to the sinful nature that is within each of us because of the fall. Although this definition of “the flesh” doesn’t necessarily include our physical bodies, it does seem to me to imply a relationship between the two… and what does that mean to us in everyday life?
I’ve noticed that tying together our sinful nature with our physical flesh tends to send the message that there is something intrinsically wrong about our bodies, even something dirty and wrong about them. We may not say this message is true, but do we live like it?
I know this topic is a sensitive one. It certainly is with me! I’ve only recently come to understand how this unintended message has affected my thinking. I don’t want to give the enemy too much credit, but I think this is one crucial battle strategy he has been very successful in: He has managed to convince many of us that our physical bodies aren’t fully good and holy.
This should not be a surprise! After all, John warns us of our enemy in chapter eight of his letter,
“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44).
He is not a dumb enemy- he knows how to get into our hearts and heads and convince us that the lies are the truth. I think one great example of this is a broad religious movement that began about two centuries after Jesus’ ascension, which we call Gnosticism. If you’re like me, you might remember briefly learning about it during high school history or religious studies, but the beliefs of Gnosticism seem to continue to subtly influence the church today.
According to one online source, one key belief of gnostic thinking was dualism: “Gnostics believed that the world was divided into the physical and spiritual realms. The created, material world (matter) is evil, and therefore in opposition to the world of the spirit, and only the spirit is good.”
Hmm. The physical things were seen as bad, the spiritual things were seen as good. The human body was seen as a “shell” of a person, the vessel that holds their spirit- and little more. The body was viewed as something separate from who we truly are.
Although I am not sure where it first crept in, I see now how I have believed this overall message that says my body isn’t good and holy, but rather something rather dirty that I have to tolerate, but it isn’t important. But this message is so disjointed from my daily reality! My body- and all of its needs, desires, and feelings- are the most real things I experience on any given day. My body feels like one of the most “real” parts of who I am! So then how could it be “bad”?
Now, I don’t mean to imply this is what the church teaches. I don’t believe it has. But I have seen in my own life this unhealthy undercurrent, and I don’t think I’m alone. I know I am not alone. So if you feel you too have believed this lie, take heart- the Bible has something very different to say about the good, beautiful, holy thing God has made!
Let’s start at the very beginning… What did God create in the beginning, after He created the universe, the earth, the lands and seas and skies; after the plants, animals, and organisms of all kinds? He created human beings. Not “human spirits”. Creatures like Him with physical bodies. That was no mistake! So if God created our bodies, our physical nature (try to separate this from the Church-ism “the flesh” in your mind), and “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” then certainly our bodies are very good!
Genesis 3:27-31 documents God’s creation of man and woman. When I read this passage, I feel a deep, hopeful excitement. Everything in the words of this section of scripture radiates a holy poetry of the intersecting of the spiritual with the physical, the seen and known with the unseen and holy.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. …” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
We were created with good, physical bodies made to work, touch, walk, dance, jump, rest, embrace… They were perfect before the fall, but our physical-ness didn’t come after Adam and Eve sinned. It existed long before that, when all was still perfect and complete.
Notice what this passage says in the second sentence: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” There is so much richness in this statement! But we don’t have time for all of it. What I want you to notice is that it says that God created man in His own image. In other words, in the same style and design as He is. We know God is triune, three persons in one. And so are we! We have a spirit, a mind, and… a body. We are not whole without our physicality. We would not be a complete creation, the way God designed us from the beginning before sin became a part of the story, if we didn’t have a body. Praise God for His beautiful, intricate design!
Although the quote I heard was correct in saying that our sinful (“flesh”) isn’t coming into eternity with us- flesh in the physical sense is! But not our physical skin and bones as it is now- but in a renewed, perfect, glorified body:
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Philippians 3:20-21)
Although there is much to feel frustrated and disappointed about in the physical aspect of our beings, let’s take a moment to praise God for His handiwork in our bodies. We are beautifully and wonderfully made! We reflect the artistry of our beautiful and wonderful God. If He calls His craftsmanship in our bodies very good, then that is the Truth, and we also ought to speak about our bodies with a mindset of truth.