So glorify God in your body. 
— 1 Corinthians 6:20 —

Last night our church discussed the book Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality by Nancy Pearcey. I cannot stress how important this book is.

In a room of 30 church-going men and women, few could remember a time when a pastor or church had taught a series on the body. Most instead reflected on the way churches have focused on the soul/spirit to the neglect of the body. Though Scripture has much to say about creation and God’s view of the body, many in the church have been fed a diet of Gnostic wisdom.

Gnosticism is the ancient philosophy that denigrated the material world and the body. It valued the spirit, the mind, the soul; it rejected the material as impure and unholy. Probably more by accident than intention, evangelicals have followed this way of thinking. We have not done a good job teaching a positive view of the body, and we must look to Pope John Paul II to find a robust theology of the body.

In a hyper-confused world that denies the significance of the body, Christians need to give attention to the body. This is why Love Thy Body is so needed, as it tackles all sorts of subjects related to the body. It gives a grid (Francis Schaeffer’s Upper Story and Lower Story House) for understanding why so many hate the body. And it helps Christians to embrace a unified worldview that appreciates the material and immaterial part of mankind. For all these reasons, I would recommend Pearcey’s book.

I would also encouraged believers to arm themselves with Scripture that speaks about the body. To that end, I share this four-fold list. Following the pattern of creation-fall-redemption-resurrection, it gives a number of key texts for appreciating what Scripture says about the body.

Take time to read these verses and what they mean for your body. I am not including any commentary on the verses, but let me encourage you to think about how they give us a realistic and comprehensive view of the body.

A Biblical View of the Body

1. God creates and knits the body and soul together in the womb.

Genesis 2:7

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.

Exodus 4:11

¹¹ Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

Job 10:8–12

⁸ Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. ⁹ Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? ¹⁰ Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? ¹¹ You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. ¹² You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

Job 31:15

¹⁵ Did not he who made me in the womb make him?
And did not one fashion us in the womb?

Psalm 119:73

⁷³ Your hands have made and fashioned me;
give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.

Psalm 139:13–16

¹³ For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

2. Humanity’s whole person (body, will, emotion) is fallen and cursed by sin.

Genesis 3:16–19

¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” ¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

Romans 3:12–18

¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” ¹³ “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” ¹⁴ “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” ¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ in their paths are ruin and misery, ¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.” ¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 8:6–7, 19–23

⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. . . . ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Ephesians 2:1–3; 4:18

¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  . . .^4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

James 1:13–15

¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 

1 John 2:15–16

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 

3. Christ took on a full human nature.

Luke 1:35–38 (cf. Matthew 1:18–25)

³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

John 1:14

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 20:20, 27

²⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. . . .  ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

Colossians 1:19; 2:9

¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, . . .

⁹ For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

Hebrews 10:5–10

⁵ Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; ⁶ in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. ⁷ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”

⁸ When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), ⁹ then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

1 John 1:1–3

¹ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

4. Christ made us alive and raised us to live with him.

Romans 6:3–4

³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Ephesians 2:5–6 (cf. 1:20–21)

⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Colossians 3:1–4

¹ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. ³ For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Romans 8:13

¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20

¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰ for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

1 Corinthians 15:20–26 

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

We could say much more, because Scripture says more about the body. But this is a start. May the Lord teach us to love the body and to glorify God with bodies he’s given us.

Soli Deo Gloria, ds