The Gift of the Human Body

Intro:

How do you response to gifts this Christmas?

Thankfulness

Care

How does the giver feel when you don’t take care of the hard earned, well thought out gifts that have been given?

Context: Paul is continuing to address sin in the Corinthian church and he is trying to pastor the hearts of the people in relationship with the culture around them. The culture is always hammering the church with philosophies and practices that are anti-gospel and anti-god. Pastors and elders must constantly be aware of the culture influences and be prepared to weigh those influence against the culture so that God’s people continue to walk in holiness.

For the Corinthians, we have already seen how the Greek influences of the lust for knowledge and wisdom had a major impact on the church. Paul had to address these issues in the first few chapters of first Corinthians in order to apply God's word and lead the people in Corinth to holiness instead of cultural appropriateness. Now Paul deals with another cultural issue in the church as he continues the subject of sexual sin. It was common for the Corinthian people to devalue the body, and, therefore think that the body itself made up of them of organic material alone should have its desires met, but those desires did not pose any moral or ethical problem. An example would be as Paul states that just as food is given to the body for nourishment, so sexual gratification was just another way to satisfy the hunger of the material flesh neither eating, nor in morality were considered a problem since they were just organic issues.

As Paul addresses the sexual sin, in chapter 5, he returns to address the temptation for Christian believers in Corinth to think in similar terms about the body. It is clear from these verses that these Christians would claim Christian liberty to do whatever pleases them and their bodies, and to justify that action by devaluing the body itself. Paul wants them to consider the gift that the body is to us all as humans and the purposes that the Lord has for our bodies in the context of marriage and beyond. Our focus today and next week will be to see how the Lord desires for his people to look at the body differently than the surrounding culture, and Paul’s day and today.

1. His Purpose

We will spend our time look at verse 12-14 and considering the purposes of the human body that the Lord intended when he made humans from a biological perspective that is related to the spiritual realm. God did not create humans to be spirits alone. He also did not just make us a animated matter. He actually created us with a spirit and with a body, both functioning in unison to make the whole man/woman.

Psalm 139:13–14 NASB95

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

Job 10:9–12 NASB95

‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again? ‘Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese; Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? ‘You have granted me life and lovingkindness; And Your care has preserved my spirit.

These passages are a clear testament to the importance of the human body and the design of that body that God has gifted each person. That gift of life and the vessel of the body for that life should be appreciated as a gift from God, used according to His design...which is for the supreme glory of God.

Isaiah 43:7 NASB95

Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

We can understand that man and woman were created by God’s design, in his image, in order to be in relationship with Him and display his glory across the earth. Adam and Eve were given their bodies and those bodies were initially ordained to have specific function both as serving one another in marriage and serving the Lord by tending the garden and ruling over his created order. They were called to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and rule over it.(Gen 1:28). He also placed them in the garden and commanded them to “cultivate the garden and guard it” (Gen 2:15).

Both examples are duties that God placed on mankind that must be accomplished for the glory of God and with the bodies that he designed for us. All that God made was good and therefore are bodies are equipped to handle that which God called us to accomplish. However, we must accomplish those bodies goals according to His design, not contrary to it.

The Problem

The culture today is that our bodies are our own possession to do what we wish with them. We can mutilate them, enhance them, and preserve them by our own design and with our own scientific discoveries but all such acts are contrary to what God designed for us. Much of our culture today has one of two views about the body: It is our god or it is an obstacle to true fulfillment in life.

The body as god

I touched on this in the last two sermons, but the body is considered a god to many people. There are great measures taken to look a certain way in order to gain approval in the world. The fitness industry took a hit in 2020 but quickly rebounded in 2021 to 173 billion dollar industry. It is expected to grow by 2028 to a staggering 434 billion industry. Many but not all of those people in the fitness are pushing weight and staying active in order to look a certain way as a means of acceptance and approval in society.

Barry Cooper, who writes for Ligonier Ministries wrote, “we celebrate physical beauty as if it were a moral virtue, and the gym becomes our church.”

The body as evil

On the other hand, the culture around us have adopted a gnostic view of the body.

Gnostics believed that all matter was evil and only the spirit or soul of a man was important. To shed the physical body was the true goal of one’s life because it was simply an anchor dragging on the bottom of the sea floor of life, holding us back from truly experiencing that to which we were created to be.

Gnostics therefore believed that Jesus only put on a physical body temporarily but shed that body at his death paving the way for all believers in Jesus to follow. Gnostic theology about the body leads to many crucially evil practices in our culture today.

In an article entitled, Biblical Integration in Anatomy and Physiology: A Design Approach, Elizabeth Sled writes

“Contemporary gnostic liberalism provides the foundation for the practices of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and the use and destruction of human embryos for biomedical stem-cell research. Furthermore, body-soul dualism has led to the rejection of marriage as a male-female union, the redefinition of marriage, and transgenderism”

https://answersresearchjournal.org/biblical-integration-anatomy-physiology/

But the body is a gift from God, with purposes and design in the body, that is redeemed by Christ in his death and bodily resurrection. If God gives us bodies to use for his glory, sends his Son as 100% God and 100% bodily male, and raises his Son with a glorified body that walked, and ate food, and had flesh and bones for his disciples to see and touch, then the body is important to God purpose in this world.

Barry Cooper again writes,

"So Christians, unlike Gnostics, believe in feasting and joy. We don’t view physical things with disapproval. The senses we have—taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing—and the body itself are not in themselves things that the triune God is embarrassed by or wants us to somehow grow out of. He made these things and He promises to redeem them.”

https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/simply-put/gnosticism

Paul writes to the Corinthians to have a proper view of the body that God had given them and to not use their bodies in sinful ways, while claiming to follow and worship Christ in holiness.

Let us look at verses 12-14,

1 Corinthians 6:12 NASB95

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

Paul begins with addressing in v 12 a “motto” that had circulated around the church about Christian liberty, “all things are lawful for me.” In verse 12, he quotes it twice while adding his commentary after both phrases are used. It is unclear as to where this phrase came from, perhaps in Paul’s other teachings about Christian liberty. But what it became was Christian’s expressing their liberty in Christ as a license to sin.

Paul responds to these phrases with some clarity about the body and its uses.

All things are lawful for me …but not all things are profitable. First he addresses the selfishness in this thought process. These Christians were saying “all things are profitable FOR ME”, notice the emphasis of FOR ME. They would state that Christ had given them freedom in Him and when you mix up a little gnostic views of the body, then Christian freedom and gnostic bodily devaluation means that immorality of the body does not affect the whole man. Do what you wish!

Paul responds with “but not all profitable” and he leaves off “for me.” This points to the truth that while a Christian is free in Christ, his freedom is not freedom to offend those around them.

Kistemaker writes,

“instead of living as forgiven, holy, and righteous believers, they indulged in sexual and social sins. Instead of submitting to the rule of Christ, they condoned sin in the name of freedom granted to them in Christ. Instead of serving Christ and their neighbor in genuine Christian love, they served themselves.”

Kistemaker, 1 Cor NTC, pg 193

What we can learn from this is that Christ gives us a body and he was raised with a body to show us that our bodies also serve a purpose in his redemptive plan. His resurrection proves that our bodies will be redeemed and until then, can still by the power of Christ be used to gratify the desires of our Lord and not our lusts. To serve our own bodies by gratifying their lusts, without self control is contrary to the Spirit’s work in persons life. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit and his body under control is a practice of that spiritual life in Christ.

Not only should self-control be practiced while serving the Lord with our bodies, but serving others should be our main goal because Christ was a servant and not a master to all. Therefore, Paul states that while we might be granted freedom in Christ, our actions should consider what is beneficial for others more than ourselves.

For example, flowers are beautiful ornaments for the kitchen table and a desire for flowers is strong in our household. But many of us in the Pellegra family are allergic to those colorful, pollen-infused instruments of torture. My wife has been gracious to not go and buy flowers to display in our house, as an act of kindness to those she loves. Even though she appreciates the beauty of flowers and has liberty to buy them, her consideration for others overrules her desire to satisfy herself. This is true Christian love!

Calvin comments then,

Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (Chapter 6)

every one has liberty inwardly in the sight of God on this condition, that all must restrict the use of their liberty with a view to mutual edification

Paul’s second statement is similar. Again he quotes the familiar phrase and this time comments,

“ but I will not be mastered by anything.”

Again, Paul is stating this use of Christian freedom in order to sin only shows that these certain persons are mastered by their body instead of free in Christ. When we celebrate freedom in Christ, we are not celebrating freedom from his Lordship or his commands. Instead, we find freedom in his commands, in His rule over our lives.

We consider a wild mustang who roams the prairie to have the greatest freedom but his freedom has not afforded him love and care. His so called freedom cannot remove the fear of the predator or the safety from a storm. He is actually enslaved to the unknowns of the wild.

But a horse inside the boundaries of a paddock experiences a far greater freedom under the care of his owner. Love and care offer that greater freedom in Christ when we know what he has accomplished for us and how he commands us to live in this world. His guidance according to his word is greater freedom because they are given to us for our good.

Secondly, our freedom in Christ is a freedom from the bondage of earning our salvation. For the Jewish religious leadership, earning salvation by good deeds was a great burden upon the backs. The laws grew and expanded to such a degree that people were prisoners to the law. When Jesus said,

Matthew 11:28–30 NASB95

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

If you wake up everyday and serve your body, organizing your day around practices that serve it and not the Lord, then your body is your master. Hair appointments, nail appointments, spray tans, photo shoots, multiple visits to the gym, nutritional goal obsession…these are just some of the things that by themselves, are not sinful, but yet could be if we are serving our bodies and finding identity in beauty, strength, and looks instead of using our body daily to serve the Lord.

If you belief your physical religious actions, your church attendance, your bible reading, Scripture memory, family devotions are all chips that you are going to cash in one day so that God will be pleased with your religious performance, then you are not resting in grace. You are using your body as a means to earn your salvation, and you are enslaved…you just don’t know it.

Instead Paul wants them to see that freedom in Christ is understanding that Christ has redeemed his people and in his redemption, has a purpose for the body as well as the soul. Again, quoting the belief of the Corinthians, they believed,

“food for the stomach and stomach for the food, but God will do away with both of them.” This is the devaluing of the body and the failure to see the importance of the body in the overall plan of God. Freedom in Christ is seeing that the body is going to be redeemed when Christ returns just as the spirit was redeemed at his first coming. Until then, our bodies are used for his service and his work because of his design and purpose for it from the beginning.

The hands, the feet, the mind, the strength, and the heart of man has always been designed to be used for God’s glory and a genuine believer sets his life to honor Christ with all those faculties because....

1 Corinthians 6:13 NASB95

Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

The unrighteous in this world might misuse their God-given faculties to honor Christ with them, but the redeemed have been changed in order to do so. You and I as God’s chosen people have been empowered.

With our bodies, we must do as Paul tells the Romans

Romans 12:1–2 NASB95

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Your bodies are the whole man, all our faculties presented to God as a sacrifice to be used by Him in worship. This means that all of you should be engaged in worship of Him. Think of how that is played out throughout the week:

We listen and learn with our ears and our minds to the preaching of God’s word, to Scripture reading and to prayer

We sing with our mouths to the Lord songs that reflect his glory We also encourage and pray for one another with our mouths.

We use our hands, feet, and our mouth to spread the good news of Christ

Romans 6:12–14 NASB95

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Paul is commanding the Romans and the Corinthians to see their bodies as vessels of God’s gift of grace to be used not for wickedness but for righteousness. The proof of such a work in us and command for us is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:14 NASB95

Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.

The body is not meaningless. The body is not evil. The body is not eternal. The body must be redeemed by Christ. Just as he gives us a new heart in regeneration when we are saved, so he will give us a new body when he returns in glory. His power manifested in his own bodily resurrection in the guarantee that we too will have new bodies. Until then, he resurrection ensures that we are empowered to do with our bodies what is unnatural. When we seek out to understand the Scriptures, when we serve others more than ourselves, when we organize our time to commune with Christ, when we preach the gospel, when we love our wives like Christ loved the church, when we raise our children in the instruction of the Lord, when we encourage one another....these are all supernatural works of the Spirit of God in us reflecting a change in our affections and a change in our bodies that look forward to a perfected body in eternity.