By Pastor Stephen Hess –
This fall we have been exploring what the Bible says about our bodies. We have been seeing how all the major turning points in the storyline of Scripture—creation, fall, redemption, and the new creation—have major implications for understanding how God created our bodies and how he designed us to use them.
One of the doctrines that we often overlook when thinking about our bodies is the doctrine of the incarnation. Each December we remember that the “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). When the Son of God came to this earth he didn’t just put on a human costume. Instead, he became truly human. Hebrews 2:17 says, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” It was only by taking on a human body and becoming one of us that Jesus could die for our sins, rise to new life, and reconcile us to God.
One of the lessons of the incarnation is that our bodies are valuable to God. Sam Allberry writes, “Jesus’s incarnation is the highest compliment the human body has ever been paid. God not only thought our bodies up and enjoyed putting several billion of them together; he made one for himself. And not just for the Christmas season…His body was for life. And for far more than that. After his death he was raised bodily. And after his resurrection he returned to his Father in heaven, also bodily…Becoming human at Christmas was not meant to be reversible. It was permanent. There is now a human body sitting at the right hand of God the Father at the very center of heaven.” Allberry concludes, “That his body matters is proof that mine and yours do too. He became what he valued enough to redeem. He couldn’t come for people without coming for their flesh and without coming as flesh.”
We live in a world that all too often devalues, demeans, and dehumanizes the body. The examples are endless: Abortion and assisted suicide are widely accepted because the bodies of the unborn and the elderly are not seen as inherently valuable. Hookup culture and pornography are rampant because sex is viewed as a recreational pleasure rather than a sacred union. Homosexuality and transgenderism are widely practiced because our bodies are seen as obstacles to be overcome rather than gifts to be embraced. Author Nancy Pearcey writes that in the modern worldview “the body is reduced to a clump of matter—a collection of atoms and molecules, not essentially different from any other chance configuration of matter. It is raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve the human agenda, like any other natural resource.”
The Christian worldview, however, presents a much higher view of the body. Scripture says that human beings were created in God’s image as embodied creatures. This means that our bodies have inherent dignity and worth. The fact that the Son of God was himself willing to take on a body to redeem our broken and sinful bodies shows just how much God values our bodies. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty and our energy.”
As we celebrate the incarnation each Christmas, we have an important truth to proclaim to the world: The Son of God cares about our bodies! He cares about them so much that he was willing to take on a body to redeem us from slavery to sin, reconcile us to himself, and restore us to the Creator’s design. This is truly good news that the world needs to hear!