The body is a unique organism created by God in the beginning of the world to bring all the glory to Him. Over time, as a result of sin, diseases have continued to progress and death has become a reality over and over again. Yet, even through it all our God remains the same, sovereignly directing our lives.
The Bible instructs us that our bodies are temples of the living God. We read of this especially in Romans 12. In verse 1, we read, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” We must use our bodies to glorify God alone, not for our own advantage. In verse 5 of the same chapter we read, “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” We are called to use our bodies for the good of other members. We are part of a bigger body, the body of Christ. We belong to Him. Similarly, we read in I Corinthians 6:19,20, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Since we are temples of God, this indicates that we are not our own.
Our bodies belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 1, Question and Answer 1, we read that our only comfort in life and death is, “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.” No matter what may befall our bodies, we are able to know and trust that all of it is for our good. We know that our God sovereignly directs all things to an end, that is our salvation. The devil does not have control over us, and neither does he hold our salvation in his hands. Only God does! God gives us new mercies every morning in order to face whatever trials He may direct our way. We will most definitely deal with trials and troubles in our lives because sin entered into the world.
Our bodies are affected by sin. Because of sin, our bodies are subject to many different illnesses, pain, and ultimately we will die. We read in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” We are guilty of our first parents’ sins, leading to our passing down of original sin to our children. In Psalm 51:5 we read, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.¨ We know that we will endure many trials and tribulations in this life as a result of sin, but we can find comfort in the fact that Jesus endured the same things that we did.
Jesus had a body with the same flesh as us. He was just like we are except without sin. We read of this in Hebrews 4:15 where it says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.¨ We can be comforted in the fact that Christ went through all the same pain our bodies could ever go through. He even bore the wrath of God for us. No matter what, we are never alone. He is always with us and watches over both our physical as well as our spiritual health.
Throughout the Bible, we can learn many different truths that we can apply in our study of anatomy and physiology. From where the body originated to trials of the body and the picture of the spiritual body, there is so much in the Bible about the body. We see many different truths that can also help us understand spiritual concepts about the body of Christ. We can find much comfort in this.
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