Introduction
The Biblical message regarding the physical, human body seems, prima facie, contradictory. The body is presented both as a sacred alter that accommodates our relationship with God, and as a sinful hindrance to that very relationship. I seek to dispel this false contradiction by showing the story of the body, which is one that essentially follows that of mankind – creation, fall, and reconciliation. This story is chronological, but is also one that occurs on a daily basis. The spiritual battle is one of reclaiming the original function of the body by accepting the spiritual-physical sacrifice of Jesus Christ, thereby rejecting the perversities that would otherwise contaminate our relationship with God.
The Purpose of the Body
The dualistic philosophy of Gnosticism maintains that everything physical, including our bodies, is evil. In this line of thought, Adam and Eve could not have been 'bodied' people before they sinned, but were rather disembodied, floating souls. But this is not the story of Genesis, which describes how the first humans were created from clay (earth itself), coming to perceive their bodies as evil only once their souls had chosen to sin, thus defiling themselves. In 1 Corinthians 15:46, Paul goes so far as to claim that "it is not the spiritual [body] that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual."
In fact, it seems plausible that in the beginning, there was no distinction between body, soul and spirit (these can be imperfectly compared, respectively, to the Son, the Father, and the Spirit). God walked with Adam and Eve in a way that seems simultaneously spiritual and physical. Indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully created in God’s tripartite image, knitted together in our mothers’ wombs (Genesis 1; Psalm 139). Hence, the physical body is inextricably tied to the original purpose that God created mankind – to project His glory. Our bodies are therefore “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). When two people are married, they become “one flesh”, because the physical and spiritual unions are indistinct, fully in tune with that original purpose.
The Gateway of the Soul
As temples, our bodies glorify God not only in their intricate designs, which “speak of His glory”. Equally importantly, they are gateways between our physical and spiritual existences, governing a bilateral flow between our souls and the world around us. On one hand, they are portals into the soul: “the eye is the lamp of the body” and determines whether our body is “full of light” or “full of darkness”. On the other hand, James tells us that the tongue is a gateway from the soul, spouting out both blessings and curses.
The brain is perhaps the most salient example of this bilateral ‘intermediary’ role, because it accommodates the mind, and “the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:6-8).
Conflict with the Soul
This last quote from Romans draws a tripartite distinction between the body (the flesh), the soul (the mind) and the spirit, which appears only to have surfaced after the Fall. The body is not necessarily the flesh: the latter represents the evil infiltration of Sin into our earthly bodies, as well as our souls, and even our spirits. It is for this reason that our bodies are fated for physical death – because the sinful flesh must pay the price of sin. So too, those who have not received the redeeming power of Jesus are spiritually "asleep" (i.e. temporarily dead), and their souls are not experienced the "abundant life" and joy available through Him.
Thus, Paul states that we can only achieve life and peace by recourse to THE Spirit – not A spirit or even OUR spirit. Because sin entails a spiritual death, we cannot rely on the natural coincidence of our spirits (which arguably are dead) with His; rather, we must choose (and by ‘choose’ I refer to the soul, which is what philosophers would identify as ‘the person’) to live by HIS Spirit. In a very real sense, then, if we are truly committing our whole selves to God, our identities become projections of God, which indeed is our original purpose; as it says in 1 Corinthians 6:17, "But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him".
The ‘fleshified’ body is therefore in conflict with the Holy Spirit, the two engaged in a tug-of-war for our souls, i.e. our minds, i.e. our wills (think of the cartoon picture of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ consciences sitting on your shoulders). As Paul states, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am...So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:21-25). And again in Galatians 5: 16-23, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” For this reason, it is essential that we are constantly "renewed by the spirit of our minds", casting off the old self and embracing our continuously ressurrected and renewed beings (Ephesians 4:20-4).
An interesting theme of the above quotations is that our choice, whether to serve the Flesh or the Spirit, whilst continual, is also a long-term commitment, because the two options represents laws, specifically “The law of God” and “the law of sin”. Interesting questions of free will arise here, because Paul does exactly what he claims to desire not to do. However, I would posit that, in light with the second quote, it is still the individual’s choice (“the inner man”) which path she chooses to traverse. There is an element of ‘path dependency’, as subscription to a Law will entail continuous pressure to stay en route. At the same time, even Paul (who is probably ‘walking by the Spirit’), faces constant pressure from the flesh. Hence, to ‘Walk by the Spirit” is both an immediate and a continuous choice, as is yielding to the flesh.
The dynamics of sin further demonstrate the intermediation of the body between physical and spiritual realities. Is it not physical and mental acts of sin that contain spiritual ramifications, which in turn entail the curse of both spiritual and physical death?
The Body of Christ
It may appear from the discussion thus far that the body is condemned to be a ‘Wicked Vessel’, which we must bear until death liberates our souls to pursue the Spirit wholeheartedly. However, if we return to the initial symbol of our bodies as “Temples”, we glean a very different picture. In fact, the Temple neatly follows the story of the body. Created by God, it was used and abused by its inhabitants. The original Temple, moreover, represented ‘the Old Covenant’, which allowed the Jews to access God by observing strict rituals related to circumcision, scripture, dietary laws and ceremonial washing, which dovetail between the physical temple and our bodies as temples. Throughout history, the temple was ransacked, destroyed and rebuilt, caught up in constant struggle between evil and good.
But what did Christ mean when he promised to destroy the Temple and rebuild it again in three days? Clearly, he was referring to His own body. In my opinion, the fact that we bodied people is the very reason that Christ himself had to make himself bodily to save us. In any case, what is clear in the Bible is that the act of sacrifice, which was a perpetual requirement in the Old Covenant, is simultaneously spiritual and physical; ipso facto, Christ’s physical sacrifice is not only symbolic of spiritual salvation but also constitutive of a very physical salvation. Our bodies, as "members of Christ", will therefore be raised accordingly (1 Corinthians 6:15).
The redemption of the body, however, requires a death of the flesh. By destroying the old Temple (breaking His body), and replacing it with a new one (resurrecting His body), we have the possibility of reclaiming the body for its original purpose; that is, to reject the sinful flesh. Christ says that “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:51). The physical act of Communion is representative of this reclamation process. Our bodies were designed for eternity, and not for the Law of Sin that leads to death. Hence Paul tells us that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:2-4). And again in Galatians 5:24-25, “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law…against [the fruits of the Spirit] there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires…If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Heavenly and Earthly Bodies
The same body might not be identified before and after this process of reclamation. After all, our bodies ‘break’ and ‘resurrect’ all the time, at a cellular level – although our genes remain intact, the cells the currently constitute your body are not the same as those that constituted your body a week ago (let alone at birth), and moreover not the same as those that will do so a week from now (let alone at death). Nevertheless, I do not think that in Heaven we will be merely ‘free from our bodies’; rather, we will possess a “spiritual body” unhampered by the sinful flesh.
The example comes from Jesus, whose body was raised from the dead and ascended to Heaven; and although it was of a different appearance to his initial body (the disciples did not recognise Him), it was not as if His soul 'left' His body - the tomb was empty! His body had been resurrected and transformed! Consider also that our own tri-partite nature (body, soul, and spirit) corresponds to that of God (Son, Father, and Holy Spirit). When Christ (the Body) died for our sins, he was temporarily estranged from the Father (the Soul). After He rose in His spiritual body, he left us the Holy Spirit. According to Paul, a similiar process occurs when our own earthly bodies die. Distinguishing between "heavenly" and "earthly" bodies, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:44-5 that “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, 'The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit'" (1 Corinthians 15:44-5). Whereas our current bodies "bear the image of the man of dust", our resurrected bodies "will bear the image of the man of heaven." (v49). Thus, whereas "sown body" is "perishable", "dishonored", and "weak", the "raised body" is "imperishable", "glorious", and "powerful". (v42-3).
If we were originally created as bodied people (notice I do not phrase it as ‘people with bodies’ but rather ‘bodied people’), why would our eternal destination not involve that original design? We were, after all, created from the clay - from the earth itself. Thus, along with "the whole creation", which "groans and suffers the pains of childbrith", "also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." Although we are already "new creations in Christ Jesus", the Word is quite clear that at the End of Days we will see a resurrection of the dead (along with the restoration of "all things"), as occurred briefly during Christ's crucifixion when many of "the Saints who had been sleeping" rose from their tombs, and not merely a departure of their souls, even if the new bodies are distinct from the old ones (1 Corinthians 15). It is also interesting to note that the Bible refers to the Church as the "Bride of Christ" (e.g. Ephesians 5), which will one day be united with Him just as a husband and a wife "become one flesh" (Revelation 19). We are then, in quite a literal sense, the "Body of Christ" (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12).
In the meantime, we should remember that Christ came to fulfil the law, not to do away with it; he came to reclaim the holiness of the original design, and not to replace it. Hence, although we may not need to be circumcised, to purify our bodies, or to avoid unclean foods, our bodies are now living sacrifices: “therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1). Indeed, Paul reminds us, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We must keep our Temples pure – as John the Baptist said, the Son of Man baptises by the Spirit and not with water; but there is still a baptism of sorts. Indeed, to be born again is more literal than normally assumed.
Dying to the self does not, therefore, mean neglecting the body; it means respecting its cycles of death and resurrection (work and rest, wakefulness and sleep, childhood and old age, etc.), rather than constantly living in a state of "life-in-death" (as Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes it in 'the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner'), in which we are always working but never at full capacity, always tired but not getting enough sleep, and growing older but not more mature. Just as the temple speaks of the glory of God, so too do our bodies, which are works of art created in His image. We can consider the Song of Solomon here, which contains almost erotic imagery, showing us that the physical body is part of God's divine design. Of course, we should never become too attached to our current form, keeping in mind that our current bodies are only shadows of our coming selves. It is worth remembering that when Jesus’ disciples were admiring the architecture of the temple, He told them that it would be replaced by Himself - a far more glorious vessel!
Indeed, the eventual resurrection and transformation of our body is part of Christ's covenant. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:51-56, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God,who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In this vein, we should keep in mind that, whilst we can fully partake of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ in a spiritual sense at this point in time (it is "in our midst"), our eternal destination will be a Kingdom in Heaven that may actually be more tangible - more physical - than our current relationship with God. Just as our souls are saved but still carry a sinful nature, and are living in eternal life but are not yet in Heaven, so too our bodies are redeemed but still diseased and mortal; one day we will be raised from the dead for eternity. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, " For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." This new relationship will involve our full being, including a new Heavenly body (and a new 'face'), which will be in line with its original purpose.
The new body must therefore be somehow disassociated from ‘the flesh’, and returned to its original position along with the soul and the spirit, in a unified, integration self, resembling that of the resurrected Christ. 1 John 3:2 tells us that "we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Paul also weighs in on the subject "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself" (Philippians 3:20).
Conclusion
The body is a complicated theme. To answer the question posed in the title of this post, ‘is the body a Wicked Vessel or a Holy Temple?’, I would favour the latter. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:13, "the body is...for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body." In other words, as John Piper once said, "The Lord is very 'pro-body'". It is the flesh that we must perpetually discard, by invoking Christ’s physical-spiritual sacrifice that reclaimed the body for its original purpose. In the current life, the struggle will be continuous, but when our ‘old temples’ are destroyed, our ‘new temples’ will be perfectly in line with “the inner man”.
The Biblical message regarding the physical, human body seems, prima facie, contradictory. The body is presented both as a sacred alter that accommodates our relationship with God, and as a sinful hindrance to that very relationship. I seek to dispel this false contradiction by showing the story of the body, which is one that essentially follows that of mankind – creation, fall, and reconciliation. This story is chronological, but is also one that occurs on a daily basis. The spiritual battle is one of reclaiming the original function of the body by accepting the spiritual-physical sacrifice of Jesus Christ, thereby rejecting the perversities that would otherwise contaminate our relationship with God.
The Purpose of the Body
The dualistic philosophy of Gnosticism maintains that everything physical, including our bodies, is evil. In this line of thought, Adam and Eve could not have been 'bodied' people before they sinned, but were rather disembodied, floating souls. But this is not the story of Genesis, which describes how the first humans were created from clay (earth itself), coming to perceive their bodies as evil only once their souls had chosen to sin, thus defiling themselves. In 1 Corinthians 15:46, Paul goes so far as to claim that "it is not the spiritual [body] that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual."
In fact, it seems plausible that in the beginning, there was no distinction between body, soul and spirit (these can be imperfectly compared, respectively, to the Son, the Father, and the Spirit). God walked with Adam and Eve in a way that seems simultaneously spiritual and physical. Indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully created in God’s tripartite image, knitted together in our mothers’ wombs (Genesis 1; Psalm 139). Hence, the physical body is inextricably tied to the original purpose that God created mankind – to project His glory. Our bodies are therefore “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). When two people are married, they become “one flesh”, because the physical and spiritual unions are indistinct, fully in tune with that original purpose.
The Gateway of the Soul
As temples, our bodies glorify God not only in their intricate designs, which “speak of His glory”. Equally importantly, they are gateways between our physical and spiritual existences, governing a bilateral flow between our souls and the world around us. On one hand, they are portals into the soul: “the eye is the lamp of the body” and determines whether our body is “full of light” or “full of darkness”. On the other hand, James tells us that the tongue is a gateway from the soul, spouting out both blessings and curses.
The brain is perhaps the most salient example of this bilateral ‘intermediary’ role, because it accommodates the mind, and “the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:6-8).
Conflict with the Soul
This last quote from Romans draws a tripartite distinction between the body (the flesh), the soul (the mind) and the spirit, which appears only to have surfaced after the Fall. The body is not necessarily the flesh: the latter represents the evil infiltration of Sin into our earthly bodies, as well as our souls, and even our spirits. It is for this reason that our bodies are fated for physical death – because the sinful flesh must pay the price of sin. So too, those who have not received the redeeming power of Jesus are spiritually "asleep" (i.e. temporarily dead), and their souls are not experienced the "abundant life" and joy available through Him.
Thus, Paul states that we can only achieve life and peace by recourse to THE Spirit – not A spirit or even OUR spirit. Because sin entails a spiritual death, we cannot rely on the natural coincidence of our spirits (which arguably are dead) with His; rather, we must choose (and by ‘choose’ I refer to the soul, which is what philosophers would identify as ‘the person’) to live by HIS Spirit. In a very real sense, then, if we are truly committing our whole selves to God, our identities become projections of God, which indeed is our original purpose; as it says in 1 Corinthians 6:17, "But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him".
The ‘fleshified’ body is therefore in conflict with the Holy Spirit, the two engaged in a tug-of-war for our souls, i.e. our minds, i.e. our wills (think of the cartoon picture of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ consciences sitting on your shoulders). As Paul states, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am...So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:21-25). And again in Galatians 5: 16-23, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” For this reason, it is essential that we are constantly "renewed by the spirit of our minds", casting off the old self and embracing our continuously ressurrected and renewed beings (Ephesians 4:20-4).
An interesting theme of the above quotations is that our choice, whether to serve the Flesh or the Spirit, whilst continual, is also a long-term commitment, because the two options represents laws, specifically “The law of God” and “the law of sin”. Interesting questions of free will arise here, because Paul does exactly what he claims to desire not to do. However, I would posit that, in light with the second quote, it is still the individual’s choice (“the inner man”) which path she chooses to traverse. There is an element of ‘path dependency’, as subscription to a Law will entail continuous pressure to stay en route. At the same time, even Paul (who is probably ‘walking by the Spirit’), faces constant pressure from the flesh. Hence, to ‘Walk by the Spirit” is both an immediate and a continuous choice, as is yielding to the flesh.
The dynamics of sin further demonstrate the intermediation of the body between physical and spiritual realities. Is it not physical and mental acts of sin that contain spiritual ramifications, which in turn entail the curse of both spiritual and physical death?
The Body of Christ
It may appear from the discussion thus far that the body is condemned to be a ‘Wicked Vessel’, which we must bear until death liberates our souls to pursue the Spirit wholeheartedly. However, if we return to the initial symbol of our bodies as “Temples”, we glean a very different picture. In fact, the Temple neatly follows the story of the body. Created by God, it was used and abused by its inhabitants. The original Temple, moreover, represented ‘the Old Covenant’, which allowed the Jews to access God by observing strict rituals related to circumcision, scripture, dietary laws and ceremonial washing, which dovetail between the physical temple and our bodies as temples. Throughout history, the temple was ransacked, destroyed and rebuilt, caught up in constant struggle between evil and good.
But what did Christ mean when he promised to destroy the Temple and rebuild it again in three days? Clearly, he was referring to His own body. In my opinion, the fact that we bodied people is the very reason that Christ himself had to make himself bodily to save us. In any case, what is clear in the Bible is that the act of sacrifice, which was a perpetual requirement in the Old Covenant, is simultaneously spiritual and physical; ipso facto, Christ’s physical sacrifice is not only symbolic of spiritual salvation but also constitutive of a very physical salvation. Our bodies, as "members of Christ", will therefore be raised accordingly (1 Corinthians 6:15).
The redemption of the body, however, requires a death of the flesh. By destroying the old Temple (breaking His body), and replacing it with a new one (resurrecting His body), we have the possibility of reclaiming the body for its original purpose; that is, to reject the sinful flesh. Christ says that “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:51). The physical act of Communion is representative of this reclamation process. Our bodies were designed for eternity, and not for the Law of Sin that leads to death. Hence Paul tells us that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:2-4). And again in Galatians 5:24-25, “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law…against [the fruits of the Spirit] there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires…If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Heavenly and Earthly Bodies
The same body might not be identified before and after this process of reclamation. After all, our bodies ‘break’ and ‘resurrect’ all the time, at a cellular level – although our genes remain intact, the cells the currently constitute your body are not the same as those that constituted your body a week ago (let alone at birth), and moreover not the same as those that will do so a week from now (let alone at death). Nevertheless, I do not think that in Heaven we will be merely ‘free from our bodies’; rather, we will possess a “spiritual body” unhampered by the sinful flesh.
The example comes from Jesus, whose body was raised from the dead and ascended to Heaven; and although it was of a different appearance to his initial body (the disciples did not recognise Him), it was not as if His soul 'left' His body - the tomb was empty! His body had been resurrected and transformed! Consider also that our own tri-partite nature (body, soul, and spirit) corresponds to that of God (Son, Father, and Holy Spirit). When Christ (the Body) died for our sins, he was temporarily estranged from the Father (the Soul). After He rose in His spiritual body, he left us the Holy Spirit. According to Paul, a similiar process occurs when our own earthly bodies die. Distinguishing between "heavenly" and "earthly" bodies, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:44-5 that “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, 'The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit'" (1 Corinthians 15:44-5). Whereas our current bodies "bear the image of the man of dust", our resurrected bodies "will bear the image of the man of heaven." (v49). Thus, whereas "sown body" is "perishable", "dishonored", and "weak", the "raised body" is "imperishable", "glorious", and "powerful". (v42-3).
If we were originally created as bodied people (notice I do not phrase it as ‘people with bodies’ but rather ‘bodied people’), why would our eternal destination not involve that original design? We were, after all, created from the clay - from the earth itself. Thus, along with "the whole creation", which "groans and suffers the pains of childbrith", "also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." Although we are already "new creations in Christ Jesus", the Word is quite clear that at the End of Days we will see a resurrection of the dead (along with the restoration of "all things"), as occurred briefly during Christ's crucifixion when many of "the Saints who had been sleeping" rose from their tombs, and not merely a departure of their souls, even if the new bodies are distinct from the old ones (1 Corinthians 15). It is also interesting to note that the Bible refers to the Church as the "Bride of Christ" (e.g. Ephesians 5), which will one day be united with Him just as a husband and a wife "become one flesh" (Revelation 19). We are then, in quite a literal sense, the "Body of Christ" (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12).
In the meantime, we should remember that Christ came to fulfil the law, not to do away with it; he came to reclaim the holiness of the original design, and not to replace it. Hence, although we may not need to be circumcised, to purify our bodies, or to avoid unclean foods, our bodies are now living sacrifices: “therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1). Indeed, Paul reminds us, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We must keep our Temples pure – as John the Baptist said, the Son of Man baptises by the Spirit and not with water; but there is still a baptism of sorts. Indeed, to be born again is more literal than normally assumed.
Dying to the self does not, therefore, mean neglecting the body; it means respecting its cycles of death and resurrection (work and rest, wakefulness and sleep, childhood and old age, etc.), rather than constantly living in a state of "life-in-death" (as Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes it in 'the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner'), in which we are always working but never at full capacity, always tired but not getting enough sleep, and growing older but not more mature. Just as the temple speaks of the glory of God, so too do our bodies, which are works of art created in His image. We can consider the Song of Solomon here, which contains almost erotic imagery, showing us that the physical body is part of God's divine design. Of course, we should never become too attached to our current form, keeping in mind that our current bodies are only shadows of our coming selves. It is worth remembering that when Jesus’ disciples were admiring the architecture of the temple, He told them that it would be replaced by Himself - a far more glorious vessel!
Indeed, the eventual resurrection and transformation of our body is part of Christ's covenant. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:51-56, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God,who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In this vein, we should keep in mind that, whilst we can fully partake of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ in a spiritual sense at this point in time (it is "in our midst"), our eternal destination will be a Kingdom in Heaven that may actually be more tangible - more physical - than our current relationship with God. Just as our souls are saved but still carry a sinful nature, and are living in eternal life but are not yet in Heaven, so too our bodies are redeemed but still diseased and mortal; one day we will be raised from the dead for eternity. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, " For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." This new relationship will involve our full being, including a new Heavenly body (and a new 'face'), which will be in line with its original purpose.
The new body must therefore be somehow disassociated from ‘the flesh’, and returned to its original position along with the soul and the spirit, in a unified, integration self, resembling that of the resurrected Christ. 1 John 3:2 tells us that "we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Paul also weighs in on the subject "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself" (Philippians 3:20).
Conclusion
The body is a complicated theme. To answer the question posed in the title of this post, ‘is the body a Wicked Vessel or a Holy Temple?’, I would favour the latter. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:13, "the body is...for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body." In other words, as John Piper once said, "The Lord is very 'pro-body'". It is the flesh that we must perpetually discard, by invoking Christ’s physical-spiritual sacrifice that reclaimed the body for its original purpose. In the current life, the struggle will be continuous, but when our ‘old temples’ are destroyed, our ‘new temples’ will be perfectly in line with “the inner man”.
