04: The Body Sanctified

04

The Body Sanctified

Isaac Wofford | Roanoke, Illinois

In Western culture, we have a serious problem with the body. The problem begins with a modern form of ancient idolatry. The Greeks were fixated on the human body, particularly in athletics and art. Not much has changed in 2000 years. The modern obsession with sporting events is not new. But technology has allowed us to explore this fixation in new ways. In 2019, Google reported that Android users took more 93 million “selfies” per day. It seems reasonable to assume that this number has increased in the intervening years, especially with the proliferation of mobile devices and popular apps like Instagram that encourage people to tell their stories through images. This phenomenon is not limited to teenage girls. In actuality, men spend more time taking selfies than women. The principal point for this discussion is that this provides concrete evidence of what we already know – we are a culture that idolizes the body.

And so the worshiper comes to hate the object of his devotion, while becoming further enslaved to it.

Interestingly, however, these idols ultimately mock the worshiper. The ancient prophet Jeremiah understood this. With comic clarity, he describes how a man cuts down a tree from the forest and uses one end for firewood and the other to make the image of a god. (Jeremiah 2:1-5) Rather than saving the worshipper, the worshipper becomes more like his idol: deaf, dumb, and lame (Psalm 115). And so the worshiper comes to hate the object of his devotion, while becoming further enslaved to it. (cf. The Prodigal Son, Luke 15.11-32) It should not surprise us then that a prominent philosophy in the Classical world was Gnosticism. This ideology saw salvation as a rejection of the body and the material world it inhabits. In our modern context, research has demonstrated that taking a selfie, rather than boosting self-confidence, results in increased anxiety. At present few of us are satisfied with our bodies, and we all know they will completely fail us in the end. Our idols are betraying us and leading us into a hatred of our own bodies.

This paradoxical hatred is pronounced in our culture. While we worship the body, we increasingly treat it as an impediment to the realization of our idealized identity. Without wading into contemporary gender debates, we can see this expressed in many other areas of our culture. For example, in 2021, the US experienced a 23% growth in the tattoo industry. The point here is not that getting a tattoo is morally wrong. It simply reflects a belief in the body as having no particular sacred value. The explosive growth of the tattoo industry is not merely a fashion trend, it is the logical response to a culture that increasingly finds the natural human body inadequate.

While we worship the body, we increasingly treat it as an impediment to the realization of our idealized identity.

Unfortunately, many Western churches are not well positioned to deal with the crisis gripping our culture. The gnostic desire to escape into an otherworldly eternity makes any discussion of the body seem irrelevant. One professor laments that, even among children raised in church and attending Christian schools, “an overwhelming majority of these students do not believe in a bodily resurrection. While they trust in an afterlife of eternal bliss with God, most of them assume this will be disembodied bliss, in which the soul is finally free of its ‘meat suit.’”¹ This professor goes on to suggest that this unorthodox rejection of bodily resurrection springs in part from an overemphasis on the sins of bodily passion, without a broader understanding of the body as God’s primary means of redemption. As such, believers find themselves no better off than the broader society – hating a body that so often betrays them. This causes many to find common cause with the Greek Platonist and eastern Buddhist in seeking escape from God’s gift of the body.

...Christianity insists that we neither worship nor hate the body but revere it as set apart, holy, and created for immortality.

The idea of bodily resurrection offers a profound alternative. An alternative that is not based on theoretical speculation but on the historic claim of Christ’s own resurrection. The New Testament writers insisted on a literal physical re-embodiment, where the material body is not rejected for something non-physical but transformed into a renewed physicality. In short, Christianity insists that we neither worship nor hate the body but revere it as set apart, holy, and created for immortality. (cf. Genesis 1.31; Leviticus 19:28; 1 King 18:28; 1 Corinthians 15:19-20; 1 Timothy 4:1-5)

It may be that a rediscovery of resurrection can help address the crisis of the body in our culture today. It should at least give us food for thought on a number of subjects:

The Body Created and Recreated. The body is sacred, not because it is outwardly beautiful, but because it was created, and is being recreated, in the image of God. This is true regardless of outward beauty, mental capacity, or physical strength.
The Body as a Tent for the Spirit. Through his Spirit, God desires to dwell in us; body, soul and mind. This concept is no less radical now than when God chose to dwell in the womb of Mary in the person of Jesus. It pleases God to enter into human flesh, and we should be pleased to bear this flesh, taking joy and pleasure in our embodied existence.
The Body as the Hinge of Love: Love is ultimately defined by the gift of Christ’s own body on the cross. True love is revealed most fully in the flesh, not with mere words or tender sentiments. Our bodies are the primary instruments through which love is exercised and comes into the world.
The Body Immortal: We will carry this flesh, though transformed, eternally. The Bible describes a particularly strange detail, that Christ retained the marks of his crucifixion even after his body was raised up. Will others martyrs who suffer as well? Will we?

In light of the resurrection, I hope we learn to revere our bodies, neither worshiping or hating them. But instead pursue making them holy as God’s very good gift!

1 Abigail Rhine Favale, Evangelical Gnosticism, First Things, March 2018.