Theology of the body: why does it matter?

Defining the way that Christians think about their bodies is more important now than ever. The reason? Our culture’s confusing messages about the body, obsessing over in it some ways and dismissing it in others. If believers don’t know or affirm what God’s Word declares about the body, how can we encourage others and lead them in the truth?

The culture claims…

• that one’s outward, physical appearance is all that matters
• that biological distinctions are malleable
• that a baby’s developing body is detached from personhood
• that value is found in attaining certain measurements, weight, and musculature
• that the complementary nature of male and female bodies is inconsequential
• that normalizes objectifying another’s body for one’s own bodily pleasure
• that gender can be defined apart from the body

For these reasons and more, the church needs to know how the Bible addresses the body. Christians must affirm that the body is valuable and that God has ultimate authority over it. By standing on a biblical understanding of the body, we can build a theology of the body from Scripture. Equipped with this understanding, we can confidently address some of the most pressing issues of our day.

What is a theology of the body?

Christians look to God’s Word to define what we believe about our faith. So, we take various topics in the Bible like creation, sin, Jesus, the church, etc and compile what is said about them. In doing so, we build theologies to categorize and summarize important beliefs. This means a theology of the body reflects what Scripture teaches about the body.

The best starting point for a theology of the body is to see how our Triune God is involved with the body. This method reflects what the Apostle Paul does in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. The Corinthian believers were very influenced by Gnostic and Platonic dualists around them. Viewing the material world as evil, the physical realm was considered bad while the spiritual realm was good. As a result, the Corinthians elevated immaterial things over material things, specifically spiritual matters over physical ones. In this way, they became opposed to the body and were downright anti-body. This thinking fueled their licentious behavior and allowed them to justify all types of sinful activities. Because they believed that the body did not matter, they did whatever they wanted with it – sound familiar to our culture’s take on the body?

So, how does Paul handle these anti-body Corinthians?

To combat their ungodly actions and immoral bodily activities, he corrects their thinking. He confronts the way they thought about their bodies by changing whwat they believed about them. The only way they could honor God in their bodily actions was to believe that their bodies, and what they did with them, matters to him.

To convince the Corinthians, Paul argues for the body’s value and God’s authority over it by explaining Trinitarian involvement with the body—the ways in which Father, Son, and Spirit participate in and with the human body. Paul specifically highlights resurrection (v.14), redemption (v.20), and indwelling (v.19) to show that the body was not insignificant or sinful. Instead, it is given a distinct worth because God is involved with it in specific ways.  

The body’s value

We see from Paul that the body is valued in our future resurrection and re-embodiment (v. 14), a promise that believes in the creation of embodied men and women made in God’s image. If the body is to be resurrected and the imago Dei fully realized, then the eschatological experience of re-embodied eternal existence in the New Heavens and Earth holds meaning for the body now. Also, the reality that we were bought (body and soul) by Christ’s atoning work of redemption (v. 20), and that our bodies are joined to him as his body (vv. 15-17) signifies a definite worth to our material existence. Even more, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in our body confirms it as his temple and specifically affirms its sanctity (v. 19).

God’s authority over the body

Paul also shows God’s authority over the body by highlighting Trinitarian involvement with the body when he mentions resurrection, redemption, and indwelling. These realities mean that God’s children are accountable for their bodies. Each of these divine interactions with the body teach God’s authoritative claim over our physical form. You are not your own; your body belongs to God (v. 19). His authority is clear in resurrecting us from the dead (v. 14). Life belongs, body and soul, to the one who possesses power over the grave. Likewise, Christ’s sacrifice redeemed our embodied existence, which should be fully submitted to him (v. 20). The Holy Spirit also claims the believer’s body as his temple, demanding recognition of and respect for his ownership (v. 19). By mentioning each of these truths, Paul calls on the Corinthians to stop living by their own desires and submit to God as the sole authority over the body. Each of these Trinitarian works guides what Christians believe about and do with their bodies.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Paul commands believers to glorify God in their bodies (v. 20), which plays out in the ways we think about (body image) and treat our bodies (body stewardship). This closing instruction makes clear that God is to be honored in every area of life, proper bodily actions that flow from right beliefs about the body. When Christians agree that the body has value and God holds authority over it, their lifestyles will be set apart in a body-idolizing and body-ignoring culture.

Why does a theology of the body matter?

Christians today, like the Corinthians, sometimes operate out of a low or even anti-body philosophy. The consequence devalues the body to the soul, which is the Corinthian error. Here are some diagnostic questions that may show you are influenced by this mindset.

Do you:

• believe the body and what you do with is inconsequential to your faith
• forget the promise of bodily resurrection
• view the body as a sinful hindrance to the sinless soul
• think salvation is fully experienced when the soul is released from body
• hold that the body must be bridled for advancement of the soul
• or believe the soul to be the real you apart from your body

Whether intentional or unintentional, these conclusions that elevate the soul and devalue the body will affect other areas of life. Just as Paul warned the Corinthians, believers cannot propagate a low view of the body if we want to impact the world around us. Whether it’s an obsession with physical fitness, addiction to pornography, rejection of the bodily realities as in transgenderism, participation in an eating disorder, neglect of physical health, etc., we will never treat our bodies rightly until we begin to think about them accurately.

So, before the church can speak to these cultural issues regarding physical existence, we must confront our own bias toward the body.

Once we do that, we will be equipped to speak to the culture on a whole host of issues, because after all, our theological beliefs should lead to practical application.

With a proper theology of the body, Christians will be able to:

• Address gender issues that devalue our created bodies
• Help those with self-harming behaviors to understand the body’s value
• Promote stewarding our bodies with reasonable health habits
• Teach those with disabilities that their bodies are wonderfully and purposefully made
• Recognize embodiment and the essential reality of existence as spiritual and physical beings
• Affirm a developing child’s personhood whose body God designed
• Reject euthanasia with a recognition of God’s authority over end of life
• Defend biological, physical realities that establish gender as God’s good gift
• Contend for God’s design for men and women in marriage and childbearing in a sexually confused age
• Fight the pornographic push to objectify humans and separate sex from marriage
• Understand the psychosomatic connection between mental health and physical health

The list could go on. Clearly, believers can address a host of cultural issues, and any others that should arise, through a robust theology of the body. In the end, we value physical existence and recognize it as belonging to our God who promises bodily resurrection, became embodied to secure our redemption, and indwells our bodies as his temple. As the church, we aim to glorify God with our bodies because we are not our own, for we were bought at the highest price (1 Cor. 6:20). 

*Original post  entitled “Do you rightly value your body” with the ERLC on June 09, 2022* To learn more about a theology of the body and living it out, check out my online programs. Through this December, the combination of Understand Healthy and The Bible and Your Body.