Just How Important Is the Body?

by David Gibson

The body: present and future

In this life, we who are Christians are “at home in the body” (II Corinthians 5:6). At death, our spirit is separated from our body (James 2:26). After death, we are “absent from the body” and are “present with the Lord” (II Corinthians 5:8).

When Christ returns, He “will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory . . .” (Philippians 3:21; see I Corinthians 15:42-58).

In this life we dwell in a body that is mortal (capable of dying). After the resurrection we will be given an immortal body (untouchable by death). Amazing!

The proper use and abuse of the body

“Or do you not know,” Paul writes, “that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit . . . and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (I Corinthians 6:19-20).

Paul urges believers to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1 KJV).

How then could we let sin reign in our bodies or use our eyes, ears, hands, feet, tongue, etc. as “instruments of unrighteousness” (Romans 6:12-13 KJV)? “. . the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (I Corinthians 6:13 KJV).

The body in view of eternity

Someday each of us will be “recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (II Corinthians 5:10). So what we do with our bodies is of eternal consequence!

Paul prayed that “your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thessalonians 5:23 KJV).