Tag Archives: body

Romans 12, How to Live Together, 5.3

15 Wednesday Dec 2021

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The Body as Evidence

In Matthew 9, a paralytic was brought to Jesus. Rather than immediately heal the man (which we assume the hope of the paralytic’s friends), Jesus says, “Take heart my son; your sins are forgiven.” Matt. 9:2.

This immediately provokes outrage in the scribes. How could Jesus claim to forgive sins?

Jesus then asks them a question, “For which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”

It all depends. If Jesus is a charlatan, then it is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” That spiritual status does not produce a bodily state which is immediately visible to all. Thus, if he is lying, the lie cannot be seen.

However, if Jesus is telling the truth, then the forgiveness is the more difficult status. God alone can forgive sins; and such forgiveness will be purchased by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (“Jesus our Lord, who delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Rom. 4:24-25)

Jesus heals the man, as a demonstration of his power over the effects of sin (since death and disease are the result of sin’s influence in the world). He does so without a prayer that God would work at his request, but upon his own command.

From that display of over the body, one can infer Jesus’ power over the unseen spiritual status of sin.

That parallel exists in the case our life in the church. We Christians so easily profess our love for one-another. Our pastors speak of the “beloved,” when addressing the congregation. We speak of the unmerited and free forgiveness of others, just as we have received ourselves. We say we believe that we will, “forgiv[e] each other, as the Lord has forgiven” us. Col. 3:13

But those ideas which we so praise so often fail to materialize in the body. We say these things, but we do another. We praise humility and say that we would never blow a trumpet that others would see our righteousness, and then proceed to make the world knows our pious intentions and thoughts.

It is easier to be a hypocrite in practice, to profess an unseeable spiritual state, than it is to enact in the body humility and love and forgiveness.

Actual life in the body, both our own bodies, and the Body of Christ is what Paul requires here in Romans 12. We are to enact and embody this humility and love and forgiveness in the most flesh-crossing manner.

The world will stand by like the scribes seeing the paralytic before Jesus. They will say, this is crazy, you do not really love your enemy. You can say that, but unless I see love in action, embodied love, blessing given against your best personal interest, we will not believe you.

But Romans says, your body must be the visible place of this work.

By fully considering the depth of what is meant by the “body,” we will see just how rich a display of God’s glorious work is meant here in Romans.

The Body as a Physical Location

The connection between “body” and “sacrifice” would be immediately known by any First Century reader in a visceral manner that eludes a modern reader. I have known gone to a temple with a garlanded goat and watched a priest slaughter the animal and then divide its body.

I one was taken on a tour of a then-empty slaughterhouse. The steps in dispatching the dismembering the animal were explained and the implements for each task were displayed, but the actual “rendering” of an animal I did not see.

My experience goes no further than cleaning a fish. But there is a fundamentally different experience in slaughtering a large mammal. And that is an experience which all people in Paul’s time would have immediate knowledge.

A sacrifice entails the presentation of a body for slaughter. And so, when Paul says we must “present our bodies,” it would come not with a metaphorical distance but with an immediate revulsion. The sensation to be understood is the ransacking of my skin and bones.

Paul qualifies his instruction with the oxymoronic “living”, a “living sacrifice”. But whatever else Paul is demanding of the Romans, it is a matter not of metaphor or idea, it is a matter of flesh and bones.

What does this matter for us? Whatever Paul commands in this passage is not something we can hold at arms-length. He is commanding that we be physically present in some painful process. The emphasis on the body is a recognition that this will entail more than just thought, but will entail the visceral reactions of the body, the churning of emotion. And when we think of the circumstances which Paul will present in these few verses, we can see this may be a disturbing thing.

In short, I am calling you to be there at the place of potential conflict, at the place of humility, in the place of these other believers. This is not a matter of idea, it is a matter of life.

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter 5.2

10 Friday Dec 2021

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Paul’s Use of the Image of “Body”

It is easy to fall into an error here, by simply considering our own association with the word “body.” However, my personal associations will tell something about me; but it may have nothing to do with Paul’s understanding of the word. Therefore, our work is to begin with Paul’s use of the term.

The first use of the term takes place here in this very sentence: a body is the object offered up to be sacrificed; a body is the thing offered in a sacrifice. For the people to whom Paul was writing, “sacrifice” was not metaphor or exaggeration for undergoing a difficulty, It was such a sacrifice to do this or that. For his original audience, a sacrifice meant slaughtering a living body. 

Second, in a related way, he uses the word “body” to refer to being physically present with someone:

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 

1 Corinthians 5:3. 

Third, Paul uses the image of the church as a body:

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 

Romans 12:4–5. 

Fourth, when Paul speaks of our individual bodies, he uses the same imagery of members and body to describe us:

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 

Romans 6:12–13.

Fifth, in 1 Corinthians 6 Paul joins these various pictures of the “body” to show how our even our individual bodily actions involve us in the life of the entire body of Christ, and underscores our relationship to Christ:

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 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 6:12–20. Here again, we can see Paul draw a connection between the life of our body and the body of Christ, although in this place, it is to the actual body of Christ which is then lived-out in the body as the Church:

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 

2 Corinthians 4:10.

Thus, by using the idea of presenting our bodies in the body of Christ as a sacrifice, Paul is drawing on a number of related concepts which draw together the individual creation in terms of one’s own body, the gathering of Christians as the Body of Christ, and the body of Christ in life and death which gives life to the individual and to the whole:

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. 

Ephesians 1:22–23

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter 5.1 “You are not your own”

07 Tuesday Dec 2021

Posted by in Church Conflict, Romans

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“Present your bodies”. Romans 12.1

When you come to a text there a number of questions you can ask in your effort to understand what the text “means.” There is the direct question of “what does is the proposition set forth here?” In our text, we have the obvious question of what does “body” mean:

Present your bodies 

Does he mean bones and blood as opposed to something else? And on this point, the commentators are agreed that body means the entire person:

It is consistent with this that he goes on to refer to your bodies; by ‘body’ (σῶμα) Paul means the whole human person, including its means of expressing itself in common life (cf. 6:6, 12)

C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans, Rev. ed., Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1991), 213. Or, as a translator’s handbook as it:

Yourselves is literally “your bodies,” but in such a context Paul is using “bodies” as a reference to one’s entire self (NEB “your very selves”). This is similar to the meaning in 6:13, 19.

Barclay Moon Newman and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1973), 233.

But there is a second question which is more interesting in this place. That question is why does Paul use the word “body” to refer to the entire person. Paul could have present your “heart” or your “mind” or your “soul” or your “self”; but instead he writes, present your body.

Paul is a remarkably precise writer, and so we must take the use of the word “body” seriously. What is the point of writing “body” in this place?  In the next sentence he will write about transforming our “mind”; why is it then our body we present?

On that question, fewer commentators have an observation; but the observations which they make are open up some useful questions:

The use of the term bodies is interesting, for Paul surely expected Christians to offer to God not only their bodies but their whole selves. Indeed, Leenhardt takes it here to mean “the human person in the concrete manifestation of his life”. Many others take up a similar position (NEB, “your very selves”). But we should bear in mind that the body is very important in the Christian understanding of things. Our bodies may be “implements of righteousness” (6:13) and “members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15). The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19); Paul can speak of being “holy both in body and in spirit” (1 Cor. 7:34). He knows that there are possibilities of evil in the body but that in the believer “the body of sin” has been brought to nothing (6:6); sin does not reign in the believer’s body (6:12). Grace affects the whole of life and is not some remote, ethereal affair.

Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 433–434. And so this comment tells us we should consider what else Paul has to say when uses the word “body” to describe our life. Calvin opens up some areas of consideration:

But there is throughout a great suitableness in the expressions. He says first, that our body ought to be offered a sacrifice to God; by which he implies that we are not our own, but have entirely passed over so as to become the property of God; which cannot be, except we renounce ourselves and thus deny ourselves.

John Calvin, Romans, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Ro 12:1. This observation comes from Paul’s other comments concerning our “body”. 

And, with the encouragement of these men, we will consider some of what else Paul has to say about the “body” in the hope that such consideration will help us understand what Paul is doing here in his effort to give encouragement and direction to the members of a church as to how we can possibly live together in love. As we will see, there is something irreplaceable in the presentation of our bodies in a sacrifice, holy, living, and acceptable to God. 

Although Thy Size & Years are Doubled

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Jonathan Swift

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This poem is the answer for those who wished to loved for the beauty of their mind and not body.

ON STELLA’S BIRTH-DAY

By Jonathan Swift

Stella this Day is thirty four,
(We won’t dispute a Year or more)
However Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy Size and Years are doubled,
Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen
The brightest Virgin of the Green,
So little is thy Form declin’d
Made up so largely in thy Mind.
Oh, would it please the Gods to split
Thy Beauty, Size, and Years, and Wit,
No Age could furnish out a Pair
Of Nymphs so gracefull, Wise and fair
With half the Lustre of Your Eyes,
With half thy Wit, thy Years and Size:
And then before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate,
(That either Nymph might have her Swain,)
To split my Worship too in twain.

Are We a Body, Soul & Spirit?

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in 1 Thessalonians, Anthropology

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I just got asked by a member of our congregation whether we are a body & soul, or a body, soul and spirit? She was aske by her daughter. This is a very brief answer — it is certainly much more complex and entails matters of the relation of the material and immaterial, et cetera.  So, remembering the circumstance, here is an answer:

Are human beings made up of body & soul or body, soul & spirit?

This is a very old question in the history of Christianity, and it has been answered both ways by sincere Christians.

We first start with the obvious proposition that human beings are composed of an inner & outer self, that which is material (our body) and that which is immaterial (our mind, if you will). We move about in the physical world; and we have thoughts, hopes, aspirations, memories which are not physical.

Some Christians would hold that we have a body and a soul – both of which we have in common with animals. However, being human, we also have a spirit which sets us above animals. There are a few variations on this thought, but it generally sounds like this. These people will often point to:

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)

That looks and sounds very convincing. But there are some problems with the argument. First, the Bible usually does not distinguish between one material and two immaterial aspects of human nature. Second, “spirit and soul” can also be understood as just a way of saying “all of you”[1]. Third, the words “spirit” and “soul” are used to describe an aspect of animals. Fourth, the word “soul” (the lesser word” is even used to describe God (Heb. 10:38, “my soul has no pleasure in him”). Fifth, “soul” is used to describe the continuous part of deceased Christians (see, e.g., Heb. 10:39, Rev. 6:9). Sixth, the word “soul” is used to describe the highest exercises of spiritual action (see, e.g. Mark 12:30—which describes a human as having 4 parts! – Luke 1:46, etc.). Seventh, to lose your “soul” is to lose everything (Mark 8:36-37).

This is certainly not everything which can be said about body, soul & spirit. There are complications here which delight philosophers and make everyone else blink in confusion[2].

So what do you say, body, soul, spirit?  As a general rule, it is best to speak of humans as having a material and immaterial aspect, an inner and outer person, a body & soul (but if you say body and spirit, it will be okay).

 

Footnotes:

[1]

These are partial parallels to the present terminology, but throw little light on its details: what the writers mean is, “May every part of you be kept entirely without fault.

 

F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, vol. 45, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 130. Calvin takes the phrase as referring to two aspects of one immaterial aspect:

 

We must notice, however, this division of the constituent parts of a man; for in some instances a man is said to consist simply of body and soul, and in that case the term soul denotes the immortal spirit, which resides in the body as in a dwelling. As the soul, however, has two principal faculties—the understanding and the will—the Scripture is accustomed in some cases to mention these two things separately, when designing to express the power and nature of the soul ; but in that case the term soul is employed to mean the seat of the affections, so that it is the part that is opposed to the spirit. Hence, when we find mention made here of the term spirit, let us understand it as denoting reason or intelligence, as on the other hand by the term soul, is meant the will and all the affections.

 

John Calvin, 1 Thessalonians, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), 1 Th 5:23.

[2] For those who really want extra credit:

It is precarious to try to construct a tripartite doctrine of human nature on the juxtaposition of the three nouns, πνεῦμα, ψυχή and σῶμα. The three together give further emphasis to the completeness of sanctification for which the writers pray, but the three together add but little to the sense of ὑμῶν τὰς καρδίας (“your hearts”) in 3:13. The distinction between the bodily and spiritual aspects of human nature is easily made, but to make a comparable distinction between “spirit” and “soul” is forced. Few would care to distinguish sharply among the four elements “heart” (καρδία), “soul” (ψυχή), “mind” (διάνοια) and “strength” (ἱσχύς) of Mark 12:30 (amplifying the threefold “heart, … soul, and … might” of Deut 6:5). The distinction made by Paul between ψυχή and πνεῦμα in 1 Cor 15:45 has no bearing on the present passage: there the distinction lies between the “living person” (ψυχὴ ζῶσα) which the first Adam became at his creation (Gen 2:7) and the “life-giving spirit” (πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν) which the second Adam has become in resurrection. It is the contrast between the two nouns in that sense that constitutes the contrast between the adjectives ψυχικός and πνευματικός in 1 Cor 15:44, 46 (ψυχικός means χοϊκός as πνευματικός means ἐπουράνιος). The contrast between ψυχικός and πνευματικός in 1 Cor 2:14, 15 depends on the contrast between the soul of man and the Spirit of God; the understanding of the ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος is confined to the capacity of “the spirit of man (τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) within him” (l Cor 2:11), and without the indwelling Spirit of God he cannot appreciate the πνευματικά, the “things of God” (1 Cor 2:11). In that context πνεῦμα is practically synonymous with νοῦς (cf. 1 Cor 2:16).

 

Plato speaks of the mind as being in the soul, and the soul in the body (νοῦν μὲν ἐν ψυχῇ, ψυχὴν δὲ ἐν σώματι, Tim. 30B), but for him the νοῦς was part of the ψυχή. Marcus Aurelius distinguishes σῶμα, ψυχή, νοῦς by saying that sensations belong to the body, impulses to the soul and opinions to the mind (σώματος αἰσθήσεις, ψυχῆς ὁρμαί, νοῦ δόγματα, Med. 3.16). MM (s.v. ὁλόκληρος) quote from the third-century magic P Lond 121, line 590, διαφύλασσέ μου τὸ σῶμα τὴν ψυχὴν ὁλόκληρον, “keep my body [and] my soul in sound health.” These are partial parallels to the present terminology, but throw little light on its details: what the writers mean is, “May every part of you be kept entirely without fault.” On the “complexive” aorist optative τηρηθείη cf. what is said on ἀγιάσαι earlier in the verse.

 

F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, vol. 45, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 130.

Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, Section 33: A Wife’s Honor

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Greek, New Testament Background, Plutarch

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The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/plutarchs-marriage-advice-section-32-a-quiet-wife/

When the wealthy or rulers give honor to philosophers, they at the same time honor themselves. But when philosophers pay homage to the rich; they do not give themselves any glory, but rather dishonor themselves.

It’s the same with wives.

Those wives who willingly give deference to their husbands make themselves praiseworthy. But if they determine to be in charge rather than to be directed, they bring disgrace upon themselves.

Now husbands, do not rule your wife as if she were property; rather, treat her as the soul does the body, in sympathy, growing together in goodwill – that is best. Just as the body is cared for without being enslaved to the body’s desires & passions; even so, wives should be governed in joy and grace.

 

Greek Text & Notes:

Section 33

οἱ πλούσιοι καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς τιμῶντες τοὺς φιλοσόφους αὑτούς τε, κοσμοῦσι κἀκείνους, οἱ δὲ φιλόσοφοι τοὺς πλουσίους θεραπεύοντες οὐκ ἐκείνους ποιοῦσιν ἐνδόξους ἀλλʼ αὑτοὺς ἀδοξοτέρους. τοῦτο συμβαίνει καὶ περὶ τὰς γυναῖκας. ὑποτάττουσαι μὲν γὰρ ἑαυτὰς τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἐπαινοῦνται, κρατεῖν δὲ βουλόμεναι μᾶλλον τῶν κρατουμένων ἀσχημονοῦσι. κρατεῖν δὲ τὸν ἄνδρα τῆς γυναικὸς οὐχ ὡς δεσπότην κτήματος ἀλλʼ ὡς ψυχὴν σώματος, συμπαθοῦντα καὶ συμπεφυκότα τῇ εὐνοίᾳ δίκαιόν ἑστιν. ὥσπερ οὖν σώματος ἔστι κήδεσθαι μὴ δουλεύοντα ταῖς ἡδοναῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις, οὕτω γυναικὸς ἄρχειν εὐφραίνοντα καὶ χαριζόμενον.

 

οἱ πλούσιοι καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς τιμῶντες τοὺς φιλοσόφους

The rich and the rulers when they honor philosophers

The participle timontes, indicates the situation in which the principle verb (adorn, make orderly). Honoring connotes honoring with wealth.

αὑτούς τε, κοσμοῦσι κἀκείνους

them and they honor themselves

they honor both them (the philosophers) and themselves

οἱ δὲ φιλόσοφοι τοὺς πλουσίους θεραπεύοντες

But when philosophers the rich pay homage

The participle again sets out circumstance in which the principle verb takes place. Therapeuein means to either heal or to pay homage as to a god. Thus, the wealthy honor with money; the philosopher honors with respect. Babbitt has “paying court” which currently has the feel of irony: it sounds like a sycophant, not one giving honest respect.

 

οὐκ ἐκείνους ποιοῦσιν ἐνδόξους ἀλλʼ αὑτοὺς ἀδοξοτέρους

do not them they do honor but to themselves they [make] more dishonored

Here, the word for “honor” is doxa, which derives ultimately from the concept of opinion. It is an honor not of money but of reputation: “glory”.

τοῦτο συμβαίνει καὶ περὶ τὰς γυναῖκας

This goes together with and concerns the women/wives

Idiomatic: It is the same with wives

ὑποτάττουσαι μὲν γὰρ ἑαυτὰς τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἐπαινοῦνται

For subjecting themselves to their own husbands they are to be praised

The first participle may be either conditional or a participle of means. “If they subject themselves” or “by means of subjecting themselves”. The second participle shows the result of such conduct.

The second verb along with the men throw the attention forward toward the “they disgrace themselves” at the end of the sentence. The entire reason for such conduct is to obtain praise rather than blame.  In a honor/shame society, such consideration would have great force.

κρατεῖν δὲ βουλόμεναι μᾶλλον τῶν κρατουμένων ἀσχημονοῦσι

But desiring to control/rule rather than being controlled/ruled they disgrace [themselves]

The first participle hereβουλόμεναι is again either conditional or means. The infinitive is supplementary, it answers the incomplete thought of desiring/determining what?

The “de” answers to the proceeding “men”.

Kraptein has the idea of exercising power. It can mean attain or control or even support. Plutarch has chosen a word with some ambiguity, therefore, he makes clear the nature of the control in the following clause.

κρατεῖν δὲ τὸν ἄνδρα τῆς γυναικὸς οὐχ ὡς δεσπότην κτήματος

But the husband should rule of his wife not as a despot [ruling] property

Ktematos means property, such as a field. Ktenos means a pack animal.

The infinitive seems to function as a imperative.

The accusatives marks “husband” as the subject of the infinitive verb.

ἀλλʼ ὡς ψυχὴν σώματος

rather as the soul [rules] the body.

The soul is accusative as the subject of the implied verb “to rule”. Somatos is genitive as the object of the verb.

συμπαθοῦντα καὶ συμπεφυκότα τῇ εὐνοίᾳ δίκαιόν ἑστιν

by means of sympathy and growing together in good will which is right/just

ὥσπερ οὖν σώματος ἔστι κήδεσθαι

therefore just as the body is to be cared for

μὴ δουλεύοντα ταῖς ἡδοναῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις

not being made a slave/enslaved to its pleasures and to strong desires/lusts.

The kai coordinates two equal phrases. Epithumia is generally a negative term in the NT.

οὕτω γυναικὸς ἄρχειν εὐφραίνοντα καὶ χαριζόμενον

Thus to govern a wife cheerfully and graciously.

Here is Goodwin’s translation of the passage:

 

SECTION 33

Princes and kings honor themselves in giving honor to philosophers and learned men. On the other side, great personages admired and courted by philosophers are no way honored by their flatteries, which are rather a prejudice and stain to the reputation of those that use them. Thus it is with women, who in honoring and submitting to their husbands win for themselves honor and respect, but when they strive to get the mastery, they become a greater reproach to themselves than to those that are so ignominiously henpecked. But then again, it behooves a husband to control his wife, not as a master does his vassal, but as the soul governs the body, with the gentle hand of mutual friendship and reciprocal affection. For as the soul commands the body, without being subject to its pleasures and inordinate desires, in like manner should a man so exercise his authority over his wife, as to soften it with complaisance and kind requital of her loving submission.
Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals., ed. Goodwin, vol. 2 (Medford, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874), 498.

 

Oswald Chambers, The Psychology of Redemption.3

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in 1 Corinthians, Anthropology, Biblical Counseling, Oswald Chambers

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The previous post in this series can be found here:https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/oswald-chamers-the-psychology-of-redemption-2/

Chambers rejects the contention that “flesh” or the body is the seat of corruption:

The first man is of the earth, earthy. (1 Corinthians 15:47)

This is man’s glory, not his shame, because it is in a creature made of the earth that God is going to manifest His glory. We are apt to think that being made of the earth is our humiliation, but it is the very point that is made much of in God’s word. In the Middle Ages it was taught that sin resided in the actual fleshly body, and that therefore the body was a clog and a hindrance. The Bible says that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, not a thing to be despised. Sin is not in having a body and a nature that needs to be sacrificed; sin is in refusing to sacrifice them at the call of God. Sin is a disposition which rules the body, and regeneration means not only that we need not obey the disposition of sin, but that we can be absolutely delivered from it (Romans 6:6).

This is no insignificant point. If one holds that the corruption or the continued corruption of the human being after conversion rests in the physical body (as do some now, and as has been common in the history of the world), one will look to subdue the physical body by mere regime, and then eventually to escape the body.

Yet, if, as Chambers has it, the trouble is in one’s disposition, the solution will require outside help. In the form where one merely has an unruly set of bones and muscles, there is still an “I” (thinking, willing) who is right and can thus correctly determine in opposition to my body. Yet, if the fault lies in my thinking and willing — if it lies in my heart — the trouble is significantly more serious. There is no autonomous “I” who can correctly chart a course.

Certain Schools in Stockholm

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Anthropology, Apologetics, Colossians

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In certain schools in Stockholm, teachers try not to use terms like “boys” or “girls.” In an effort to reach a greater level of gender equality, the country of Sweden is pushing for gender neutrality. Pronouns like “he and she” are replaced with “hen,” and children’s books have protagonists who are not clearly male or female.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2013/12/16/no-more-gender-a-look-into-swedens-social-experiment/

The article goes on to discuss how a Christian may and should interact with such a society (as it exists in Sweden and as it is coming to the rest of the Western world).

There are two related issues on the goodness of the human body which are not directly addressed in the article: 1) The irrationality of the move toward materialism and a genderless body. It makes no sense to argue that a human is merely a body and at the same time to argue that the body’s physiology means nothing. According to the article, the tension in Sweden is moving toward resolution in favor of a kind of feminism: “Feminism as the state religion is probably not all that off the mark although gender activists here still find plenty of things to campaign on.”

2) The human body is the space of the war of God against his enemies:

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,v10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Colossians 2:9-15

Now, I cannot begin to fathom everything which Paul covers in this passage; nor do I fully understand how an attack upon biological gender helps the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) in his efforts to blind human beings to the glory of God. Rather, these are things which Christians must ponder along with the practical effects of such move of state religion as is taking place in Sweden.

What it means to say, “The Church is the body.”

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Colossians, Ecclesiology, Thomas Manton

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Commenting on Colossians 1:18, “And he [Christ] is the head of the body, the church”, Thomas Manton writes:

[T]he church is the body. By the church is meant the church mystical, or all such as are called out of the world to be a peculiar people unto God. Now, these considered collectively or together, they are a body; but singly and separately, every believer is a member of that body: 1 Cor. 12:29, ‘Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.’ All the parts and members joined together are a spiritual body, but the several persons are members of that body. Yea, though there be many particular churches, yet they are not many bodies, but one body, so it is said, 1 Cor. 12:12, ‘As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.’ He is the head, and the many and divers members of the universal Christian church are but one body. The universal invisible church of real believers is one mystical body knit by faith to Christ, their head, and by love among themselves. And the visible universal church is one politic body, conjoined with Christ their head, and among themselves, by an external entering into covenant with God, and the serious profession of all saving truths. They have all the same king and head, the same laws—the word of God—the same sacraments of admission and nutrition, which visibly, at least, they subject themselves unto, and have a grant of the same common privileges in the gospel.

Thomas Manton collected works, volume 1, page 454, Christ’s Eternal Existence and Dignity of her Person, sermon v.

When the cares of my heart

03 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in 2 Corinthians, Augustine, Psalms, Romans

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Psalm 94:19:

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Christians often believe that the consolations of Christ and the peace wrought by the Spirit means that they will not experience troubles and trials as painful. Thus when they feel pain, they fear that have sinned and so become discouraged.

But here the Psalmist admits to his pain. He does not deny the pain, but sees that God offers a consolation in that pain.

While such consolation may be an immediate work of the Spirit, that is not the sole means used by God. Often that consolation comes from the Body of Christ in demonstrable acts of mercy and care:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

2 Cor. 1:3-6.

Paul supposes that the congregation will have tears and joy – which will be shared:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Rom. 12:15.

The world is troublesome, but such trouble exists to force us to seek comfort elsewhere. As Augustine wrote in the Confessions, Book IV:

Rest in Him, and ye shall be at rest. Whither go ye in rough ways? Whither go ye? The good that you love is from Him; but it is good and pleasant through reference to Him, and justly shall it be embittered, because unjustly is any thing loved which is from Him, if He be forsaken for it. To what end then would ye still and still walk these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest, where ye seek it. Seek what ye seek; but it is not there where ye seek. Ye seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not there. For how should there be a blessed life where life itself is not?