Genesis 2:7. then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
This verse offers the most specific yet succinct definition of a human being. Who am I? I am spirit. I am soul. I am body.
The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground. The word formed used here is the Hebrew word yasar. This is the same word used of a potter forming clay into a beautiful vessel with his own two hands. God is the master craftsman, shaping the body of the man from the clay of the earth. This is God’s first creative act that is not ex nihilo or by fiat (see Day 6). This is God rolling up his sleeves, scooping up the ground, the adama, in order to handcraft the adam.
Make no mistake, our bodies are important to God and essential to who we are. In a very real sense we are our bodies. If you were to harm my body in some way, I would consider that you harmed me, my personhood. As much as our current culture may want to separate our bodies from our “true selves,” this is not a distinction that God will allow.
Consider Christ’s incarnation. God the Son took upon himself a human body, a body formed for him by God, just as Adam’s was. Jesus prayed Psalm 139. A body you have prepared for me. Like the rest of humanity, Jesus’ body was fearfully and wonderfully made. His inward parts were formed by the Spirit. He was knit together in his mother’s womb. Jesus’ physical form was not random or inconsequential. And neither is yours. Your body has been shaped by the Potter. Formed by the Artist. You are his masterpiece.
Consider also the resurrection of Christ. Did Jesus shed his “animal body” at his resurrection? Make no mistake, Jesus is still in his same body. The one God made for him. The same body that went into the grave walked out of the grave. And so will yours.
Over the years, mankind has gotten our understanding of the body very wrong. For Plato, the body was a jail that imprisoned the soul. Descartes considered us to be ghosts in a machine. “I think therefore I am.” Our body is just the carrying case for the mind – the real self. Today the “body-self divide” continues. The true self is only the inner person, the soul, the authentic self. The body is just a disposable thing. This low view of the body has influenced how we think about everything from abortion, to transgenderism, to doctor assisted suicide. Why is my sexuality everything while sex is nothing? Because the body is separated from who I really am. But the Bible teaches us that we are not only embodied souls, we are ensouled bodies. Christian, your body is you. I can’t meet you without meeting your body. I can’t love you and hate your body.
Our body is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation. The human body alone images THE Image, God the Son, the Son of Man. The second person of the Trinity who appears with a body throughout redemptive history. And what about our place in redemptive history. We are the body of Christ. Our bodies form his body in the world. We are the physical manifestation of God’s goodness and glory on Earth. Your body is not a prison; it is your door into the presence of God. A holy temple where God dwells among us.
To live is Christ is not a disembodied experience. It is a life lived presently as the Body of Christ, and one day with the resurrected embodied Jesus. We will see his face, touch his wounds, embrace his body, experience his love in and through our glorified bodies in his kingdom forever.
Questions: Do you ever see your body as a prison? What would change if you stopped separating your soul and body? What if you saw your body as being formed into Christ just as much as your soul?
To Live is Christ 