Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
August 20, 2023
INTRO
Good morning! We are continuing our series called “Summer Seminars” and we’ve been examining some foundational biblical truths about the Christian life. Today we are going to talk about a unique topic that I don’t think is well understood by many of us, and is certainly misunderstood in our culture.
Let’s start with a question: What are our bodies for? Why do we have bodies? Why do I inhabit this complex network of organs and vessels and neurons and muscles and bones that can do amazing things, and yet also gets tired, needs food, gets sick, and eventually decays and dies?
Who are we really? Am I my body? Or are we merely souls who temporarily live in a body and then are released to some spiritual existence after death? Is there some deeper reason that we have bodies, some purpose, or some goal?
What are we supposed to do with our bodies? Whose body is it? Who gets to set the course of events when it comes to our bodies? Is my body a possession or some kind of personal property? Will I have a body in heaven? What will it be like?
Friends, these questions just scratch the surface when it comes to understanding our physical bodies. We need to seek a Biblical Perspective on Embodiment and see with greater clarity the glorious reality that we are created in the image of God with bodies that are designed to glorify him.
ILLUST — Theologian Gregg Allison, who recently wrote a book on embodiment, says it this way: (SLIDE 2) “Embodiment is the proper state of human existence. God’s design for his image bearers is that we are embodied people.”
And yet our culture has a twisted and deficient view of what it means to have a body.
We either elevate too high our bodily existence, seeking pleasure or experiences, idolizing health and wellness, making body-image a marker of success, or adopting an “its my body and I’ll do what I want” attitude.
Or we neglect our bodies, not caring at all about our physical health, treating our bodies as merely a housing for the soul, taking on an “its all going to burn anyway” attitude.
Or we denigrate our bodies, treating our body as mere matter to be manipulated, surgically altered, abused, or treated as a blank canvas for self expression, rather than a holy temple to be stewarded for God’s glory. (SLIDE 3, title)
We need to think carefully about this. One of the unique aspects of humanity is that we are a unity of body and soul. We have a material part and an immaterial part that are united together as one. ILLUST — If I were to ask you, “Which is more important? The body or the soul?” What would you say?
ILLUST — Theologian Carl Trueman wrote about this question, “Our bodies are an integral part of who we are. And I do not ‘occupy’ my body as I might occupy a house or a space suit or a deck chair at the beach. On the contrary, it is an integral part of me, inseparable from who I am.”
KEY: You are not designed primarily as a soul who happens to have a body for a while. Rather, having a body is integral to what it means to be human. I like to say, “You are an ensouled body and an embodied soul.”
And this is why we need to think deeply about our bodily existence. We need to consider how we bring our very bodies under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, knowing that we are whole people, and through the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is hope for our bodies as well as our souls.
ORG SENT — Here’s what we are going to do this morning. We are going to take a few minutes up front to trace out a biblical theology of embodiment. Then we will take what we learned and zoom in on a specific situation in the Corinthian church where the Apostle Paul applies a theology of embodiment to correct a misunderstanding of the gospel.
MAIN 1 — Biblical Theology of Embodiment. (SLIDE 4a)
Let’s jump right in to see what the Scriptures say about our embodied existence. I’m going to move pretty fast, so let’s go!
(SLIDE 4b) Embodiment (as male and female) was created to be very good (Genesis 1:26, 27, 31).
Genesis 1:26-27 describe how we are made in the image of God, male and female. Adam and Eve are made as material beings that have a spiritual nature. They are embodied people with a special design, a special relationship to God, and a special job to do.
As the Genesis account unfolds, a few critical truths stick out about what it means to be an embodied person who bears the image of God:
FIRST — (SLIDE 4c) Humanity is relational on purpose. We need each other. We are made male and female, complementary, designed to work together to steward God’s creation.
SECOND — (SLIDE 4d) Humanity is embodied on purpose. We have limits because of this embodiment. We need to rest, we need to eat, we can’t do everything. God sets boundaries for our thriving, even giving a command in Genesis 2 to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as an opportunity to trust in God.
THIRD — (SLIDE 4e) Our maleness or femaleness is connected to our bodies. Apologist Sam Allberry writes, “Being embodied is a fundamental part of what makes us human. You cannot fully be you without a body. You cannot fully be you without your body. It is a gift. It is part of your calling.”
Yet our culture would like to separate your body from your gender and give you to power to change this God-ordained design. Our culture would like to obliterate the beautiful difference between male and female, making it a social construct instead of a deeper eternal reality.
But friends, the biblical message is clear: You are made male or female by God’s good purpose and plan.
Yet sometimes our culture challenges us to question these realities. Or sometimes we may doubt God’s purpose in making us the way he made us, or why he gave us this particular body that we have.
ILLUST — Just this last week, one of my daughters came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Daddy, did you wish you had boys instead of girls?”
I got down on one knee and looked her straight in the eye and I said, “Oh sweetheart, I could never wish that you were someone different. Do you know who made you a girl? God did! And he loves us and he doesn’t do anything on accident, and I am so happy that you are a girl. I wouldn’t want it any other way!”
Now, she wasn’t telling me she wanted to be a boy, she was just wondering if I was disappointed that she was a girl. How could I be? You see, fundamental to her existence is her womanhood. She wouldn’t be herself without living in the beautiful fullness of being female. Anything different would not be authenticity, but falsity! It would be living a lie! It would be telling God he doesn’t know what he’s doing!
You see, we live in a broken world where our understanding of our embodied existence is warped by the curse of sin.
(SLIDE 5a) Embodiment is cursed because of sin (Gen. 3:16-19 and Romans 8:22-25)
Genesis 3:16-19 describe the curse in very physical terms: pain, toil, strife, sweat, and dust.
And then in Romans 8:22-25, Paul describes the groaning of creation and the brokenness and decay of our bodies. Many of us know exactly what that feels like:
Some of us have illness or disease and failure of our bodies.
Some of us have shame or body-image issues.
Some of us have experienced abuse from others or treated our own bodies with contempt or neglect.
Some of us struggle with temptations or chafe against the limitations of our bodies.
In so many ways, sin has affected our bodies and therefore our souls.
But there is hope…
(SLIDE 5b) Embodiment is affirmed and redeemed by Jesus (John 1:14; 2 Cor. 4-5)
Listen to these earth-shattering words from John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Do you realize what John is communicating here? The eternal, almighty, sovereign Son of God took on the fullness of human nature. He came into the material realm, not in merely a spiritual sense, but with skin and bones, flesh and blood! He had to sleep, he had to eat, he had to go to the bathroom! He laughed, he cried, and when they cut him, he bled!
Jesus knows the limits and realities of being embodied. Jesus was tempted. Jesus experienced physical pain. Jesus was abused and mocked. Jesus experienced shame and was laid bare before the crowds, naked on the cross.
And through his incarnation and his fully human (embodied!) nature, he was able to be our substitute and sacrifice for sin, redeeming us as whole people through spiritual rebirth now and the physical resurrection to come.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4-5, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” This is the “already” of our redemption, and the “not-yet” is that we live in an earthy tent that longs to be clothed with our resurrection body,
(SLIDE 5c) Embodiment will be our eternal existence in the new heavens and new earth (1 Cor. 15; Rev. 20-22)
If we trust in Christ for salvation, our bodies will be raised in power to be like Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 15).
And we will live eternally in a bodily existence on the new earth (Revelation 20:6).
Ok, now that we’ve traced out a biblical theology of embodiment, how are we supposed to understand our calling in the “already/not-yet” reality of our bodily existence? I want to look at a case study of a particular problem in the Corinthian church that is very similar to problems we have in our culture today.
MAIN 2 — Case Study on Embodiment (1 Corinthians 6:12-20). (SLIDE 6a)
This example from Paul’s letter to the church in the ancient Roman city of Corinth is so applicable today because the primary problem facing the Corinthian church was that many of the Roman converts to Christianity thought they could do whatever they wanted with their bodies because it wouldn’t affect them spiritually. (SLIDE 6b)
This not too different from the radical autonomy and expressive individualism of today. In today’s culture our bodies are often viewed as a blank canvas for self expression, rather than a holy temple to be stewarded for God’s glory. We’ve been told that we can do whatever we like. We’ve severed the connection between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, not realizing that our bodily actions affect our souls.
KEY: Disconnecting these two parts of what it means to be human is often the logical grounds for moral relativism. Outward actions lose their moral constraints when they are merely the pleasures of us highly evolved animals, and there’s not some deeper design and purpose to our humanity.
So, listen to this situation in the Corinthian church where Paul is addressing how they view their bodies when it relates to human sexuality, an issue that is at the forefront of our culture also. READ 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.
We need to understand the background of Roman culture at this moment: The Romans normalized the gratification of sexual desire and even encouraged married men to sleep with servants and other women. There was also evidence of prostitution in some temple cults in Roman cities. This was a culture where the Christian view of limiting sexual activity to marriage was a radical thing. Sound familiar?
The other thing that was going on was a radical indulgence of food. ILLUST — The Roman love of food is reflected in the cookbooks that have survived from antiquity. One example is a man named Apicius who wrote a cookbook with recipes for “Numidian chicken,” “rabbit with fruit sauce,” “liver sausage,” “anchovy delight without the anchovies,” and “sweet and sour pork.” Not too different from our day, food could be an indulgence and a vice.
Here’s how Paul goes after these problems:
He uses their own slogans against them (vv. 12-17). (SLIDE 6c)
Verses 12-13 were likely popular slogans among the Corinthian Christians, and Paul turns their argument on its head: The question is not whether something is “permissible,” but whether something is “beneficial.” In other words, a Christian cannot merely think about what is allowable, but must think about what is good.
They had the wrong idea about “freedom”: (SLIDE 6d)
Two key words: (SLIDE 6e) “right/lawful” and “mastered/dominated” — these come from the same root word that refers to the “power, authority” to exercise your will. It is often used of governors or magistrates as they have authority over their dominion.
Paul is doing a play-on-words here: He is saying, “If you claim to have the authority to do whatever you want, be careful! Because what you choose to do can gain authority over you.” In other words, your “freedom” to do whatever you want can become your “master” and you’ll find yourself enslaved to sin. (SLIDE 6f)
KEY: This is why Paul goes on to speak so bluntly about the unconscionable thought that a Christian would visit the brothel down at the local Roman temple simply because they thought that what they do with their body doesn’t really affect them spiritually.
APPLY: This is the same logic that pervades our culture today. We are told that drugs are just “recreational”, that drinking can help us cope with stress, that consuming endless hours of entertainment won’t affect us, or that we’re free to do what we want with our bodies because they are our bodies after all.
But Paul points out something critical that we need to grasp, especially in a culture where we have such a twisted and self-serving notion of what it means to have a body: (SLIDE 7a) In the gospel, your body now belongs to the Lord. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit!
Friends, a temple is a holy place. If you allow your body to be devoted to any other source of satisfaction or fulfillment, you will find yourself enslaved to it and polluted by it in your very soul.
Rather, what our world needs to see, as a living witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, is a church family who understands that the Holy Spirit of God is dwelling within us and that how we live bodily today can be radically different from the world around us. (SLIDE 7b) We need to reconnect the reality that we are whole people, body and soul, who were bought at a price, and that we need to honor God with our bodies. As Paul writes elsewhere in Romans 12:1, (SLIDE 7c) “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
In this way, we can live in ways that point ahead to the future hope we have in the resurrection, even as we wait in these earthly tents that cry out for our final redemption.
Questions
What is the “image of God”?
In what ways does our culture misunderstand the nature and purpose of humanity?
Give examples of how “design” and “limits” help things thrive. Can you think of examples where violating a design or limit results in harm or dysfunction?
How can we redeem our understanding of our bodies as “temples of the Holy Spirit”? How does this point ahead to the new heavens and new earth?
Resources
Embodied: Living As Whole People in a Fractured World – Gregg Allison
What God Has To Say About Our Bodies – Sam Allberry
Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality– Nancy Pearcey
You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News – Kelly M. Kapic
Known By God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity – Brian S. Rosner