Everything happens in the body
Essay #1, Biblical Sexuality
TEMPLE 101, A LITTLE HISTORY
At the time Jesus was born, Herod the Great was more than halfway through rebuilding the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, a project that took decades. The glinting temple, embellished with gold, was the centerpiece of a massive complex called the temple mount.
All that remains today are the retaining walls, and their massive stones bear witness to the grandeur they once supported. One of the four walls is the Wailing Wall, and if you have stood beside it as I did more than 40 years ago, you were staggered by the size of its stones. Some weigh 80 tons; by comparison the largest African bush elephant weighs six to seven tons. Think of the density of rock, the engineering, and the complexity of cutting and moving stones of this size, including those in a foundation 100 feet deep. The Gospel writer Mark captures a disciple’s awe: “Teacher, look how big those stones are!” he exclaims to Jesus. “What beautiful buildings!” (Mark 13:1 ERV)
Jews brought their sacrifices and offerings to this busy and spectacular religious compound during the years our Lord visited Jerusalem. For a faithful Jew, participation in temple worship was unquestionable. We know that Jesus’s parents were among the faithful, for Luke records they went yearly for the Feast of Passover and also brought a sacrifice for purification after Jesus’s birth. For hundreds of years the Jews were accustomed to bringing animals to the temple as both offerings and sacrifices for personal sin.
CHRIST ENTERS A BODY PREPARED FOR SACRIFICE
With that background in mind, consider these enigmatic words of Christ: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but you have prepared a body for me.” (Hebrews 10:5 ERV)
I’ve thought a great deal about the phrase, “you have prepared a body for me.” The Father prepared a body for the Son. Christ would know exhaustion in that body; he would experience hunger and thirst. He would feel anger and grief. He would build carpentry projects with his hands, walk miles with his feet, and tell countless stories with his lips. He would resist every temptation we’ve succumbed to, for scripture says, “He was tempted in every way that we are, but he did not sin.” (Heb. 4:15 EXB) He would present his body to God the Father as the perfect sacrifice on our behalf. The long Jewish history of animal sacrifice would end with his last breath. The debt for sin was paid in full.
Our Lord would surrender his body in a ritual of worship to pay for what we’ve done in our bodies. Think of the parts of your body you’ve used to sin against God: the words your lips have shaped, what you’ve taken with your hands, the places you’ve directed your feet to take you, what you’ve watched with your eyes, and what you’ve willingly heard. No animal sacrifice could remove these decisions, these offenses. Only a human body that was perfectly controlled by an intelligent and intentional being could be an acceptable sacrifice. The innocent for the guilty; a perfect life for an irreparably-stained one.
THE BODY MAKES SIN A REALITY
In the beginning body and spirit were created for eternity. Adam broke union with God in his immortal body, first using his eyes and ears as he watched and listened to his wife’s conversation with the serpent. With his hand he took the fruit she offered, and with his mouth he tasted and ate. With his body he expressed his unbelief. When he was called to account, he used his mouth to lie and shift blame. By his words, he revealed the invisible state of his spirit.
God had warned him that if he ate the forbidden fruit, “on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” (Gen. 2:17 HCSB) Death is a strange visitor, as all of us know who grow flowers. When I cut roses and bring them inside, their fragrance and delicate beauty last for days. But then the petals brown on the edges. They fall in soft puddles around the vase. The water becomes murky as decaying plant matter separates from the stem. The sentence of death, which happened as soon as the roses were cut from the stalk, takes time to be seen. In a similar way, death entered Adam’s body with a decision, but more than 800 years passed before he physically died. The moment he withdrew his faith from God, evidenced by his actions, the process of decay began. Paul writes, “Sin came into the world because of what one man did. And with sin came death.” (Rom. 5:12 ERV) By trusting the serpent’s word and acting on it, Adam’s body showed what was in his heart.
A sort of reversal takes place for the Christian. By faith we use our bodies to undo our record of unbelief. Instead of withdrawing our faith from God, we place it in him. This change is plainly seen by our actions, just as Adam’s withdrawal was plainly seen by his actions. And like Adam, who waited hundreds of years before death caught up with him, we also wait–not for death, but for life. The resurrection will break us free. We will receive an immortal body, Paul says.
WE’LL BE JUDGED BY WHAT WE DID IN OUR BODIES
In this life, our bodies are the means by which we either glorify God or express our unbelief. Therefore, the Bible says, we’ll be judged by what we’ve done in our bodies.
It won’t be “the thought that counts,” but the action. As Paul told the Corinthians, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil.” (2 Cor. 5:10) The Complete Jewish Bible translates it this way: “for we must all appear before the Messiah’s court of judgment, where everyone will receive the good or bad consequences of what he did while he was in the body.”
Our Lord took the governance of the body seriously. In his most famous sermon, he said it was better to cut off one’s hand and to pull out one’s eye than to keep sinning with them. “For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matt. 5:30 ESV) As drastic as this sounds, it’s consistent with a high view of the body. The body carries out the values of the heart.
When we think of biblical laws governing the use of our bodies, we tend to focus on the most titillating passages: don’t commit adultery or don’t have sex before marriage. Yet the Bible counsels us to take the entire body seriously—to enlist all of its parts for good. Everything we are, head to toe, is sacred.
As Paul writes to the church in Rome, “I beg you to offer your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That’s the most sensible way to serve God.” (Rom. 12:1 CEV) The Living Bible translates it this way: “I plead with you to give your bodies to God.…. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?”
CONSIDER THE FEET
If we look at a single aspect of our bodies—let’s say our feet—we catch a glimpse of the connection between our physical body and our spiritual reality. There are many body parts we could study in scripture—our eyes, our hands, our legs or arms, and even our mouths and stomachs! However, looking at our lowest members, our feet, should answer two simple questions: Does it really matter how I use my body? Isn’t my heart what counts?
Our feet connect us to this world; they walk on the surface of our planet. No other part of our body feels the earth so consistently. I remember the first time I walked in a Maine forest, how the forest floor was springy and cushioned with moss. My feet wanted to jump and bounce. On August days at the beach, when the sand gets as hot as a skillet, I run to the water or my feet will be burned. These same feet, laced into boots, scramble over mountain rocks or traipse through a meadow. In their bare state, they know grass, wetness, and cold. They know the earth. My body is grounded by them.
Naked feet are vulnerable feet. When Moses stood at the burning bush, God said, “‘Do not come any closer. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’” (Ex. 3:5) Christ washed the disciples’ feet before his death (John 13); a short while later, his own feet were nailed firmly to a cross. There is something holy and yet earthy about our feet.
To position oneself at someone’s feet is an act of humility. Last year Pope Francis—who took his name from Francis of Assisi—prostrated himself before the president of South Sudan and kissed his feet at the end of a retreat for peace. Sick people were laid at the feet of Jesus, people desperate for a miracle fell at his feet, and those who wanted to be close to him sat at his feet.
The Bible says the feet of those who bring the Good News are beautiful. Paul takes this idea further, saying that we should wear the gospel of peace on our feet (Eph. 6:15).
Our emotions reach our feet. Fear drives us to run from trouble with them, and anger will prompt us to stomp them. Our feet take us to church and on errands of mercy. They carry us into all the places of our daily lives—the grocery store, gym, home, or a friend’s house. When we stumble, trip, or fall, our feet are abruptly taken out from under us.
Think of it: feet take us where we want to go. For this reason, Proverbs advises us to “carefully consider” the path we put them on (4:26) and to keep them “away from evil” (4:27).
Feet are part of our lore. Someone who puts off a decision has “cold feet.” An athlete who is fast has “wings on his feet,” a reference to the Roman god, Mercury. To “drag one’s feet” is to delay a task. To “think on your feet” is to figure out something quickly. To “shoot yourself in the foot” is to say something incriminating. We put our best foot forward, and sometimes we put our foot in our mouth. To step on someone’s toes is to offend them. To land on your feet is to recover from a setback.
I hope this short exercise convinces you that the body is wonderfully involved, in so many specific and particular ways, in how we live our lives. And this exercise gives the answers to our two questions rather quickly: yes, what I do with my body matters. And yes, although it’s what’s in the heart that counts, one doesn’t know the heart apart from the body that houses it.
THE BIBLE HAS A HIGH VIEW OF THE BODY
God prepared a body for each of us. Our bodies demonstrate who we are.
People learned who Jesus was by what he said and did; i.e., by how he used his body. And it was his physical body that died on a cross.
A few decades after the resurrection, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman troops. Surely this was part of God’s plan, for a temple was no longer necessary. Jesus had made the final, perfect sacrifice, ending the need for ritual sacrifice to atone for sins. But the ideas of a sacrifice and a temple remained in the early church, translated to a higher plane. “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,” Paul wrote the Christians in Rome, “this is your true and proper worship.” (Rom. 12:1) As the Holy Spirit came upon believers, they made the connection: they were the sacrifice. Since this took place wherever they went, their view of the temple changed, too. “Your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,” Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. (I Cor. 6:19 NIV) For this reason, he urged them to run like crazy from sexual sin. “All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” (verse 18)
The most intimate physical act we can engage in with another human is sexual in nature. The Bible has plenty to say on that subject, and we’ll explore some texts in future posts. In this first essay, we’ve established the fact that the body, though often maligned and neglected, is of eternal consequence. Scripture places a high value on the body.