New Thoughts: (11/15/15-11/19/15)
One in Essence (11/15/15-11/16/15)
It is astounding to me just how much weight depends upon so small a word as hen in this passage. One: One body with your sexual partner; one spirit with your god; one flesh with your mate. One translation: But, there are two words, hen and mian. At base, the distinction is one of gender. The first is neuter, and the last is feminine. Is this just a matter of matching the standard gender of the noun to which the terms are applied? Indeed not. For this term, gender becomes highly significant. We can include the third, masculine gender form of heis. Which gender gets used has impact on the significance of that unitary value. In the masculine, it is simple, numerical unity. In the neuter, it points to essential unity – one thing. Then, in the feminine, it returns to the numerical, but with perhaps a hint of order – first, or singularity – only.
Here, we twice encounter the neuter, essential unity, form. The first is when Paul reminds his readers that to be joined to a harlot is to be one body with her. That is one in essence. You become the same thing. The second encounter comes when He further reminds them that having been joined with Christ, the same applies to spirit. Spiritually, you have become of one essence with Christ. Now, don’t try and take that farther than it goes, and lay claim to possessing the godhead in yourself. You are indwelt by the Godhead, but you do not possess Him. Far better the truth! He possesses you. He purchased you and you are His.
But, the parallel Paul draws is clear. You join with a harlot, your body and hers become one and the same. You join with Christ, your spirit and His become one and the same. What, then, can be said of you if you do both? What can possibly be the result? But, let us save that for its place.
The feminine form, mian, is found in the quote from Genesis. One flesh: Singularity. It certainly echoes the essential oneness of body, but it amplifies it, to my thinking. There is no distinguishing. There’s only one body there. You may remain male and female, but there is nothing dividing you as two individuals any longer. You are one. That is amplified by the terminology of joining. The word Paul uses here, both in reference to the harlot and to Christ, is a term that speaks of gluing things together. Think Gorilla Glue ™. You have bonded so tightly, so permanently, that nothing is ever going to separate those two pieces again. You are more effectively one with this one you are glued to than you are with yourself. If you’ve ever attempted to break apart something thus glued together you know the truth of that. The glue will hold even when stone and wood have splintered.
So then: Shall you take your body, which is in a very real sense made one of Christ’s organs, and glue it to this harlot? The very thought should be so utterly reprehensible as to make us shudder. It is a shocking statement, and intentionally so. Would you glue Christ to your prostitute? Would you make Him a perpetual part of this act that you think so harmless? You know you wouldn’t. If you have any sense of religion at all you wouldn’t. If there is any least spark of the Spirit within your soul, you could never even imagine such a thing. You know full well that you wind up having to chase awareness of Him from your thoughts to go that route. Don’t. Remember the reality of what’s happening. You have the glue. What will you do?
Here is what you should do: “You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him and cling to Him” (Dt 10:20a). Indeed, this is the sum of Jesus’ prayer for us. “I pray they be one as You are in Me and I in You. Thus, may they likewise be in Us, so that the world can believe You sent Me. That glory You have given Me, I have given them, so that they can be one like We are. I in them: You in Me: Thus, may they be perfected in unity, so the world will know You sent Me, and that You loved them even as You loved Me” (Jn 17:21-23). There is a reason that God takes so strong an interest in the sanctity of marriage and of conjugal relations. Marriage is instituted to represent the one essence nature of the Godhead, as well as that particular relational bond that pertains between Christ and His Church.
That prayer was not just for the Apostles, or even for the larger body of disciples then extent. It was and is for the Church in all ages: To be one with Christ, one with the Father – so tightly associated as to be inseparable and indistinguishable. Now, clearly there shall always be an immense gulf between God in heaven and we who serve as His earthly representatives, yet we are called to represent. This holds particularly in regard to the relationship established in marriage. Here is a relationship that calls for a degree of fidelity to one’s partner far in excess of any other relationship you will ever know. It demands an openness and vulnerability far in excess of a parent/child relationship. It demands a transparency far in excess of friendship. Even the bonds of military service, strong though they are, do not compare.
Thus, Paul speaks of this mystery of Christ and the church, represented in that same passage he quotes from here: The two become one flesh (Eph 5:31-32). Christ is so closely wed to His church that He will permit nothing to separate Him from the church, nor the church from Him. He died to make it His own. The bride-price paid for you and I is infinite, having been paid out in the blood of Eternal God.
Would you have cause to honor your marriage, cause to be blessed to have been granted a share in this marvel? Your marriage is established to demonstrate the love of Christ to His Church. You are to model the fidelity He shows to His own. You are to stand together as a living parable of the unity of the Godhead, and of His covenanted commitment to those He has called His own. You are granted to experience in tangible fashion what may often seem intangible in our relationship to God. John, in his letter, writes of that one who claims to love God and yet hates his fellow Christian. “The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1Jn 4:20). And here, we have a bond that is closer still. The one who does not cherish his wife whom he sees daily cannot possibly cherish God whom he has never seen. The one who so cherishes God cannot but cherish the wife God has given him, and she him.
How, then, can we even contemplate infidelity? How can we even begin to suppose that the violation of the marriage bed by copulating with another, or by even so much as granting excessive emotional weight to another, is acceptable? We have been called into a one-flesh relationship. Now, there is certainly an aspect of that which requires us to work at it, but the reality is, as Paul stresses here, that relationship was established in the act that consummated the marriage. To entertain that same act with another is to enter into the same relationship. It is to become so closely identified with that other as you ought rightfully to be with only two: your spouse and your God. There is no such thing as casual sex. There is no such thing as ‘friends with benefits’, as the culture prefers to address the issue today. No. Sexual intercourse automatically moves things beyond the casual, beyond the friendly, and into the uniting of two into one flesh.
Paul amplifies this point further as he turns our attention towards our higher union, our union with Christ. The Message introduces the shift in perspective with these words. “Sex is as much a spiritual mystery as a physical fact.” Indeed. There’s a reason it has so great a pull on us. There was that old song back in ’76, “Love is the Drug”. Indeed. I cannot recommend the artist to you in good conscience, but the song is familiar enough, and it was popular because the sentiment it expresses is familiar enough. Love, which culture has wrongly equated with sex, is intoxicating. Scientists establish that sexual union produces certain chemical dependencies between those thus joined. We truly do develop a dependency upon our spouse, a physical need. That is as it should be, when it is properly maintained. But, to allow that same chemical, physical dependency to develop to one not your own? To take this most wonderfully blessed facet of being made in the image of God and pervert it, applying it to acts utterly anathema? Far be it from us! You have taken a spiritual mystery and made it a mockery and worse.
Look where Paul is heading with this. When you join in the physical act – whether with your spouse as is proper, or with a prostitute which is not – you become one flesh. Again: It is a simple fact of life. It has happened. Now: When you joined with the Lord – not that we ought to think of this in any way as some sort of sex act as so many of the pagan cults did – you became one spirit with Him. It goes deeper. It’s a unity beyond even that which you will know in marriage – or ought to know. It’s a union so thorough as to join heart to heart, soul to soul, mind to mind. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind” (Mt 22:37). That’s the foremost commandment. That’s the point the Westminster Catechism seeks to impart with its first question as to the chief end of man. We are designed for this. We are intended to know this depth of spiritual union with Christ that leaves us identifying entirely with Him. “It is no longer I that liveth, but Christ who liveth in me” (Gal 2:20)! One flesh, one spirit, one holy God worshiped by one holy Church. When you joined yourself to the Lord, it went deeper by far than that union of flesh. Recall that we are still talking about that hen oneness: One in essence; of one nature with Christ. That’s the high calling to which you are called.
That is the full force of the message Paul is delivering here. You are joined – essentially one – with Christ. How, then, can you allow yourself to be joined to another in so sinful an act? Do you not see that by becoming one flesh with this harlot, you are effectively causing Christ to become one flesh with her as well? Bear in mind what she represents, and Whom you represent. To seek to join those two is reprehensible. But, I will save further exploration of that particular point for a time, yet.
The Effect of Sin (11/17/15)
After telling us to flee immorality, Paul makes a rather curious assertion. “Every sin a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” The NASB inserts an ‘other’ in there, so as to render the message as a comparison between sexual sin and other sins. That would appear to be motivated by the inclusion of ean in Paul’s comment. Ean indicates a conditional statement, an ‘if so’. How that would come to be offered as ‘other’, I don’t know. I notice that most other translations more or less ignore the particle. Following an observation by the NET, however, it would seem that particle might be rather critical to understanding Paul’s point.
Consider the first clause of that statement. “Every sin that a man commits is outside the body.” Let us first recognize that sin, in this case, translates hamarteema, the ma ending indicating the effect of the act. The effects of sin, then are outside the body. I’ll just note that in the second clause, sin indicates the act itself rather than the effect of the act. But, stay on the first clause: The result or effect of a particular, individual act of sin is outside the body. Can that statement, standing as a statement of God’s truth, be squared with the rest of Scripture? I would say not. I would maintain, as a starting point, that such a perspective cannot be held consistent with the Sermon on the Mount.
Consider this case, which is very closely connected with Paul’s topic. “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with here already in his heart” (Mt 5:27-28). As Jesus lays out the case, both the act and its effect are entirely internal. The act is one of thought, purely internal, even admitting the involvement of the eyes looking outward. They take in a sight, and the thought life of the man acts upon it. The result, the ma, of that sin – and make no mistake, Jesus has clearly declared the act of sin complete in the thinking – is likewise internal. No outward action is taken. The object of this man’s lust may never know of his thoughts. It changes nothing. The sin is done, and its effect is felt. Where? In the man. His heart is hardened that little bit more. His conscience is seared that little bit more. The next sin has been made that much easier to contemplate.
Of course, we could account this a sexual sin, and find it simply confirming Paul’s thesis. But, what shall we say of the previous corrective. “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit murder.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty” (Mt 5:21-22). Here, again, the entire scope of action and effect remain internal. There has been no outward display as yet. Yes, Jesus moves on to the angry outburst, calling that brother a morally bankrupt fool. But, the charge stands prior to that outburst. The mere fact of anger, the state of mind, has already violated God’s Law. And anger, like lust, is habit-forming. Where it is not like lust is in its sexual nature.
The NET offers a comparison with gluttony, where the act may involve outward activities, like cutting the meat, or bringing fork to mouth, but the effect of overeating is internal. I would argue that this is a much weaker example. After all, the effects of overeating will tend to be outwardly manifest as well. But, the point is made: Paul’s statement, if taken at face value as presented in most translations, cannot stand with the rest of Scripture. The effects of sin are far more to be found inward than outward. The act may be outward. The effect is upon the soul – inward. The crime may be outward – against brother and against God – but the result is inward corruption. Thinking of it in those terms, I would have to say Paul cannot state this as truth and remain consistent even with what he has been saying in recent context. Think leaven. The whole point of the leaven of sin is that it works inwardly. It’s effects are spread inwardly, out of sight.
Come back to that little particle. Ean. With that in view, we may take the first clause as saying, “Even if every sin’s effect is outside the body.” Now, it becomes more reasonable to suppose that Paul is once more quoting a Corinthian perspective. After all, if salvation is strictly spiritual, and the effects of sin are purely physical, then what do the actions matter? The soul remains intact. This is in keeping with the ‘once saved, always saved’ perspective. I am saved, therefore I can do as I please. Of course, Paul will not stand for that! He denounces it most roundly, recognizing how readily our corrupt natures will latch hold of grace and make of it a basis for grater sins.
Now, connect the way he finishes this thought with the conclusion given in the first verse of this section. Here, he says, “the immoral man sins against his own body.” We are looking at the act itself now. You are sinning against yourself! You are doing violence to yourself! Paul applies this specifically to immorality, to coupling with prostitutes. But, lo! That body against which you are sinning is not your own! It is a member of Christ’s own body. That, I have to say, is a far more serious concern, isn’t it? Yes, it is, and Paul will return our attention to that crime momentarily. Here, though, hark back to verse 14. “God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.”
In fairness, I should have considered that verse in connection with the two preceding. “God will do away with both food and stomach”? No, but the body is for the Lord, and He will raise it up through His power! (1Co 6:13-14). This is no case of Paul agreeing and then amplifying. It is not, “Yes, but.” It is, “You are entirely mistaken!” The same holds here. You think the effects are outward, so the act doesn’t matter so much? You are entirely mistaken! It’s not even your body. It is Christ’s. In a very real sense, you are taking His body and causing it to have union with this prostitute you think of as nothing. How dare you! Make no mistake about this. There is no Manichean division of spirit as good, body as bad. “If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Messiah from the dead will also give life to your physical bodies through His Spirit indwelling” (Ro 8:11). Resurrection is no symbolic concept. Resurrection is not a matter of spirit only. Christ was raised physical, and we shall be likewise. How does that work? Why are you asking me? Does incineration render this impossible? Is anything impossible for God? If, as science indicates, the material components of man (an plant and animal for all that) are constantly being regurgitated through decomposition and recomposition, such that the same molecules that form my body have likely formed myriad other bodies down through the ages, who gets the parts in the resurrection? I don’t know. I do know that nothing is impossible for God. I do know that the result is pretty clearly declared. Can it be that He will supply new bodies? Absolutely. I would suppose that at least in part, this must be the case, for this mortal body is not fit for immortality any more than it is fit for immorality.
At the same time, though, the resurrected Jesus, when He revisited His disciples, was physically recognizable. He still bore the physical marks of His death. His body was at one and the same time manifestly the same and manifestly different. I have to suppose our own resurrection will be of a kind with His. We shall be recognizable for who we were/are. We may very well bear the marks of the life we have lived. But we shall be different. We shall be whole and holy. We don’t know yet what we shall be. But, we know that in that day we shall be like Him, because in that day we shall see Him as He is – in full (1Jn 3:2).
What then shall we do at present? “Flee immorality.” Run from every impurity of thought, word or deed as if your life depended on it. Remember whose you are. Remember Who dwells within you, that He has made you one with Him not merely in body, but in spirit. Recall that you and He are ‘like this’, as we like to say. Remember that He is necessarily with you in whatever it is you choose to do. He is with you in whatever it is you choose to think. Act accordingly.
The Temple of Christ (11/18/15)
I have been leading up to this point through the previous sections, and now we are arrived. “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” This comes on the heels of Paul calling upon his readers to flee immorality. Flee sexual sins, by which you assault your own body. Here is the reason. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. I have to say that this does not fully express Paul’s message. His particular choice of terms here, using naos rather than hieron indicates not just the temple, but that Holy Place where only the priests were permitted to go, or even the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest was permitted entrance, and that, only once a year.
That, of course, harks back to the Old Covenant system, so far as the restrictions are concerned. But, the fact that Paul speaks of this temple being ‘of the Holy Spirit who is in you’ leads me to think the second reference more accurate. It is the Holy of Holies, that place where God has taken up residence. In the Temple complex (hieron), this was that place where on occasion the Shekinah glory of God was found in occupancy, the smoke thick so as to prevent the eyes of sinful man from seeing Him in His glory. There, seated between the cherubim, He sat upon the mercy seat. Christ Jesus is spoken of as the mercy seat. The naos is where that seat is found, and it is where God resides in a most tangible sense. That is not to say He is somehow confined to that residence. That was a portion of Israel’s mistake, to make the location of equal significance to the God who declared it His dwelling place.
Your body is never to be given equal significance to the Spirit who dwells within. On the other hand, the fact of His indwelling presence must cause us to consider more carefully how we allow our bodies to be used. You are a walking, talking temple. You bear your God with you wherever you may go, whatever you may do, however much the fact may escape your mind.
Here, then, is the power of Paul’s argument. If you are, by your sinful ways, assaulting your own body, you are necessarily attacking the Holy of Holies. You are attacking God Himself. You have been joined to Christ, and that by holy wedlock. You may not have consummated that marriage as yet, but by the custom of marriage as it was practiced when this association was established, to be engaged was as binding as the marriage itself. You are already husband and wife. The marriage bed is already sacrosanct. You are already entered into that one flesh relationship – certainly so far as legal and religious considerations are concerned. You cannot, then, act with your own body without acting with His. Further, as Paul stresses, it’s not just a one flesh relationship. It’s a one spirit relationship. You cannot act so as to sear your own conscience without it having an impact on Christ.
I will not suggest that such an act sears His conscience, nor sullies His righteousness. And yet: And yet, He became sin, who knew no sin (2Co 5:21). If indeed His suffering was the necessary result of our sins both cumulatively and individually, then it cannot be but that my every sin adds to His suffering. If His suffering must atone for all my sins, then surely as each sin makes my all larger, so it makes His suffering greater. Now, I could similarly argue that if every individual sin, being a sin against eternal God, incurs an eternal penalty. If, then, the penalty for the first sin is already eternal death, how could any subsequent sin make it worse? Yet, I think the former logic holds. An increase in sin must needs require an increased grace, an increased atonement.
This ought, were we able to retain conscious thought of right and wrong for more than five minutes, to suffice to turn us aside from any sin! How could we willingly subject the One we love to greater torments? This thinking draws perilously close to the Medieval views on purgatory, and the abusive system of indulgences that became the catalyst for the Reformation. It was that appeal to guilt which proved so profitable. If you don’t buy indulgences for your loved one, you increase their time of torment in purgatory. You delay their arrival in heavenly bliss. How could you be so callous? But, this is different. You are dealing now not with your deceased loved one, but with your betrothed Bridegroom. You are dealing with the One who pays for your deliverance unto heaven by His own blood shed on your behalf. You are dealing with the One in whom you have discerned what love truly is. And yet, we find ourselves day by day adding to the weight of His sorrows at least as much as we add to the depths of His joys.
Oh, rest assured beloved. He will bring you home. His grace is sufficient for you, and His mercies never cease. But, as you travel that long road towards Home, how much sweeter the arrival is to consider if you can see that you have done your utmost to make His burden as light as you may. Yes, you will sin. Let no believer be so foolish as to suppose he will arrive at perfection in this life. Let now believer suppose himself so matured in his faith as to have lost the immediate need for his High Priest. It will never happen this side of heaven. But, let this knowledge not lead you into complacency. Let it not bring you to an slackening of effort in pursuit of that sanctification which He is accomplishing. Let us consider every thought and ask ourselves: Is this worthy of my Savior? Is this the thought I should think with Him? Or, is my every thought yet rebellious?
Show me, Lord, where I need to focus my thoughts and energies to preserve Your temple as holy unto Thee. Show me – I beg of You! – not my every sin, for they are too numerous to bear, and I should be utterly cast down. But, show me where You would have me working today; in this moment. Then, I pray Thee, work with me that I may taste of Your victory in that very thing. So work in me, O my Lord and King that I may take this ground back from Your enemy, and hold it in Your name and for Your name’s sake. You have bought me at too high a price for what You have of me. You have established this temple of flesh and declared it holy unto Yourself. Lord, let it be not just Your words and Your perceptions. Let it not be that I should bring shame to Your name. Help me to be mindful of Your presence within and beside me as I go through this day, through these circumstances. Be Thou my vision, my strength, and my shield.
As we look at this matter of being God’s temple, I note that this is not the first time Paul has reminded them of this reality. He’s already made the point once, and how severe the threatenings on that occasion! “Don’t you know that you are a temple of God? Don’t you know that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Well, then: If any man should destroy God’s temple, it is certain that God will destroy him! The temple of God is holy! And that’s what you are” (1Co 3:16-17). There, the matter at hand was factionalism and divisiveness in God’s family. Here, rather than attacking your brother, you’re attacking yourself, but the end result is the same. You assault the temple to destroy it. God will not sit idly by.
Being as we are considering our nature as His temple, it’s worthwhile to also recognize the nature of that prostitute that Paul prohibits. There’s a reason why harlotry and idolatry are so nearly synonymous in the thinking of the Bible. Think, for example, of the temple of Aphrodite which was dominant in Corinth. A major component in the rites of Aphrodite was the service of temple prostitutes. They were still sex for hire, but now with this added religious component. Indeed, the temple prostitution trade had proved singularly lucrative not just for the temple itself but for Corinth more generally. It was a fine revenue stream, and they sought far and wide to bring the best practitioners to the city. With all the maritime traffic coming to the city through two ports, there were plentiful customers to be had, however religious their intentions.
This was hardly unique to Aphrodite’s cult. It was the same fuel that powered Canaanite worship, and look where that led. Sex has always sold, and sex has always been sold for one particular purpose: It violates the temple. It is an assault on God. This is no innocent, victimless crime. It is a crime against the temple of God. To the degree you choose to participate in it, you are in reality a mere pawn in the devil’s game. That was the reality behind Canaanite worship. That was the reality behind Aphrodite. That is the reality behind the prevalence of pornography and sexual titillation today. The details may shift with the ages, but the fundamentals do not.
Neither, I have to say, is this restricted to matters of pornography. We could take in the obvious example of abortion, or Moloch worship. The two are synonymous, and both are just extreme variants of sex for pay. With the prostitute, you paid cash. With Moloch, you pay blood. Either way, it’s sex for pay, and either way, it’s an assault on the temple of God.
I would maintain that this holds particularly true for the one who calls him or herself a Christian. It should be utterly unthinkable that a Christian would participate in such things, and yet it is beyond doubt the case. What may be in doubt is whether said participant is a Christian, but that those who bear that name do such things is certain: And certainly to their shame. Be careful, though! Be careful of that rising thought that wants to say, “Thank God I’m not like that!” Really? Is it that you’re not like that in that you’d never contemplate it, or is it that you’re not like that in that you’re scared to act on the impulse? As Jesus taught, and as I’ve already reviewed here, the impulse is as guilty as the act.
Further, there are any number of ways in which we lay siege to the temple of God, we who truly do love Him and serve Him. Sexual sins may be the tip of the iceberg, but there’s plenty of berg underneath. This is just the plainest of examples. But, let us go towards something more seemingly benign. What of those who, for whatever reason and in whatever way, demonstrate a displeasure with the body God gave them? What of those (so that we can perhaps exclude ourselves) who mar their bodies with tattoos, piercings, stretchings, and other such distortions of His image? Or, that it may strike home, what of those who have an overweening concern for appearance, the dandy, the so-called metrosexual, or the woman who feels the need to inject silicon here, there, and everywhere?
Granted, some of the results become almost cartoonish, which ought to serve as a check for those who would contemplate such deeds. But, somehow we’re convinced we could maybe do a better job of it. On me, it would look good. We become all about outward appearances, and through it all, we are yelling at God because He manufactured us with some defect, so far as we’re concerned. Not good enough!
What of this current trend for sex changes, or sex ambiguity, or any of a myriad other attempts at denying the self that is? We have those who wish to be treated as opposite gender because that’s what they ‘identify with’. We have those who wish to be recognized as some race not their own for the same reason. We have those, to take the more extreme cases, who wish to be recognized as some species not their own, or as suffering some physical malady which they do not suffer. Sadder still, we have a full supply of those willing to gratify every insanity. You wish to be a parrot? Why sure! I’ll lop off your ears for you. You’ve always wanted to be blind, felt like you were? Toss me some green, and we can grant you that wish.
What is wrong with us? What is going on? Is it a collective insanity? Well, yes, but that’s only the symptom. The disease is a demonic assault on God by proxy. If we are created in His image, what could bring more malevolent glee to His enemies than to so defile that image as to make His beauty utterly impossible to discern? What could better amuse those most fallen of creatures than to make such a mockery of those who were created to glorify God? They seek to drag mankind down to their own level of corruption and deformity. By and large, it seems like they are succeeding in doing so, which ought not to surprise. The darkness must become darker in order that the Light may become more brilliant.
In the meantime, O Christian, recall who you are. Recall what you are, you temple of the Living God. Don’t think you can glorify God when you let your body out for sinful use. Don’t think you can rent His temple to demons. And don’t, for a moment, think you do anything other than that when you go chasing after your sinful desires. The practice of sin, whether sexual sin or any other, is inspired of demons intent on destroying God’s temple. God is intent on preserving its sanctity. Which side are you on?
To Glorify God (11/19/15)
We are arrived at the closing command in this chapter. “Therefore glorify God in your body.” What does this mean? What does it look like? Is Paul telling us to head to the gym, to do those things that will render us buff or beautiful? The answer must be no on many counts. First, there is the outward focus of any such action. It would make of the man or woman an idol in their own right. Think back to Isaiah 44:13. He speaks of the manufacturing of idols, describing the workman involved. He shapes, he measures, he outlines and planes, doing all to form that thing ‘like the beauty of man’. Those who would sculpt their bodies are, at the very least in danger of doing the same task. They are seeking to make themselves objects of desire, which is to say, objects of idolatry.
This cannot be what God is looking for. We can fold in the concern Jesus expresses when confronting the practices of the Pharisees. These, He said, were as whitewashed tombs, outwardly beautiful but inwardly dead. “Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Mt 23:27-28). There are many other such examples to indicate that the beauty of appearance, the glorification of the physical body, cannot be what Paul has in view.
Let us consider the context as well, which indeed is a first consideration. Were Paul to be promoting such a polishing of physical image, it would but increase the temptation to those very sins he is opposing. It may not lead to harlotry, but it certainly presents a temptation to sexual sins, doesn’t it? One needn’t think too hard to see the problem. Those who would come to church dressed to their seductive finest have not come to honor God, but to promote the flesh. They present themselves as a temptation to their fellow believer, and then have the audacity to take offense should somebody point out the problematic nature of their choices. Why, if they can’t handle the imagery I present, that’s their problem, their sin! Well, to be sure, it is. But, if you have so little concern for your brother’s or sister’s spiritual well-being, that is just as surely your sin. Care for that weaker one. Care by not causing weakness.
No, to glorify God in your body is something different. Let’s start with this: If we are indeed the Holy of Holies, there is only One who can enter by right, and that would be Christ Jesus our High Priest. God alone is granted entrance to His own abode. Surely, then, we demonstrate our own sense of God’s glory, our own esteem for Him and honoring of Him if we do our utmost to see to it that this place is indeed kept exclusively His own. We ought to be as guards at the entryway denying access to any other who would come. After all, any other who would come does so to rob, kill, and destroy (Jn 10:10).
Far from bringing shame to the name of our God and King, we ought to so maintain and use our bodies (which are His by right) as to adorn His greatness. We cannot, by our deeds, ever hope to render God excellent, or improve upon His glory. He is perfect. What shall we add? We are utterly imperfect. How could we but detract? If we are to make Him renowned, I am sure it is not by the flexing of muscle, or the strutting of our stuff. There is, however, one particular definition of this matter of glorifying that I think particularly apt. To glorify, says Thayer, is “To cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged.” If we truly honor God in our own estimation, can there be any greater call upon us than to seek to do this very thing? Ought this not to be our breath, our lifeblood, to cause His worth to be manifest and acknowledged?
We do not do this, as some do, by force. We do not demand acknowledgement at the end of a blade. We seek as best we may to demonstrate His worth by our willing submission to His rule. We seek to demonstrate His worth by living the lives of those who have experienced His inward work of sanctification. We seek, as best we may, to be as we ought. We seek to demonstrate His compassion and mercy in our own actions. We seek to reflect His goodness by our own words, our own gentle spirit. We seek to live in such a fashion as will require men to acknowledge that God is indeed great.
Those who knew us when should see us now in such a light as leaves no doubt of the change wrought upon us. That’s not the product of being able to show off our guns, or present our curves or what have you. It’s not going to be the product of fine grooming and a good tailor, either. It’s the product of the Spirit indwelling, the power of God working within to remake and remodel this temple of flesh to His liking. It is the fruit of the Spirit made evident in a changed life.
How it hurt, this last week, to hear a relatively casual acquaintance at work offer the perspective that I seemed like one who could be easily annoyed. It hurt, in particular, because it remains true of me, and I would that it were not so. It oughtn’t to be so. I like to think I’ve made great strides in that area, or that God has done so in me, and yet it seems too often to be made clear to me that I have not. Perhaps God has found other issues that needed more immediate attention in this particular temple of flesh. To be sure, I’ve given Him enough to work on. But, that assessment, offered so casually from so occasional an acquaintance, is a warning shot. Things are not as they ought, Jeff. In this regard, at the very least, you are not yet glorifying God. You are not yet causing His worth and dignity to be manifest in your own actions.
And yet, here I am attempting to shepherd a whole flock of equally imperfect beings. Here I am, elder over a church of God, appointed as an under-shepherd of God. Let me hear again the instruction. “Guard yourselves and guard the flock among which the Holy Spirit has set you as overseer. Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Ac 20:28). I must remain mindful that step one in this is ‘guard yourselves’. Don’t become proud and haughty. Don’t put yourself out there as more advanced than you are. And, by no means let this convince you that you’ve arrived, that you’ve made it. You, sir shepherd, remain a sheep, and as strongly in need of your Shepherd as any other. You are as prone to wander as any, and don’t you forget it! Guard yourself!
Guard yourself, for as shepherd, if you allow your own fall, the damage to other sheep is greater. You cannot guard the flock by letting yourself be taken out. You cannot guard the flock by setting an example of sloth and presumption. You cannot be perfect, but you can be humble in the midst of failure as well as success. You cannot be perfect, but you can learn to stumble gracefully, and to seek not only God’s forgiveness, but the forgiveness of your charges when your stumbling does them injury. That injury may not be evident to the eye. Remember this, as well. It may be buried inwardly to fester. Do your best to first present no cause for stumbling, and second to leave no least trace of sin’s leaven to fester in your brother or sister. If there be the least possibility of offense caused by you, see to it that the offense is addressed and corrected lest you, by your negligence, become the means to your brother’s fall.
Lord, help me to heed this call. Help me to guard myself. Help me to be as I ought, that I may indeed cause Your magnificence, Your power, Your holiness to be acknowledged by the manifest change You have wrought in me. Help me to guard what You have purchased, to labor to the uttermost to preserve what You have achieved already; increasing in my own sanctification, aiding in the maturation of those you have set me amongst, and adding to Your kingdom those to whom You have asked me to serve as a lamp of Your goodness.
