“You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger,” the angel said to the shepherds on that first Christmas night (Luke 2:12). God had come to earth, as the baby Jesus. With a body like our bodies — mine, yours, your teen’s — he experienced every stage of development from childhood through puberty and adolescence to adulthood.
We talk at Christmas about the spiritual significance of the incarnation (the Word of God made flesh), but have you ever thought about the significance for our bodies of the fact that Jesus took on human form?
In a world that focuses on external appearance, with the media setting unrealistic standards of “beauty”, teens struggle with “body image”: weight, shape, skin, hair. Comparison with peers. Dieting, eating disorders. Maybe you do too.
How should I think about my body? What does the Bible teach us about our bodies — and about how we should use them?
What the Bible says about your body:
1. In coming to earth as a human being, Jesus told us that the body is something of great value. We should already know this from the tender, loving, personal way in which God created humans in the beginning: forming the first man “of dust from the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life,” then making a woman from a piece of bone and flesh taken from the side of the man (Genesis 2:7, 22). We should know it from other parts of the Bible that tell us that God has “engraved you on the palms of his hands” (Isaiah 49:16) and “knitted you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). Your body is a gift from God.
2. We know also that our bodies are valuable because they will one day be resurrected, as was Jesus’ body after the crucifixion ( 1 Corinthians 6:14).
3. Paul tells us that the body of the Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit: Christ lives in us through his Holy Spirit. This means that we take him with us into everything we do and it grieves him when we take him into sinful activities ( 1 Corinthians 6:15,16, 19). If we love Jesus, we will not want to do that, and if he lives in us we have the power to resist the temptation to sin ( Galatians 5:16-18).
4. We are not our own. We were bought at a great price, the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. You belong to God. You should glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:20).
* You should thank God for your body. You should respect it. You should accept yourself as God’s precious child, whether male or female.
How then should you use your body?
1. When Jesus came to earth as Immanuel (God with us) he chose not to hold on to a perfect life — life in heaven with his Father — but to give himself for us, in his life and in his death. We live through our bodies (obviously, since without them we wouldn’t be alive!) and we relate to others through our bodies. We are called to be like Jesus, giving ourselves to others, comforting and encouraging with words, hugs, smiles, and caresses. With one other person (our spouse), we give ourselves in the closest physical intimacy –sexual intercourse.
2. When God created Adam and Eve, we are told, they “were naked and felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25). They were not focused on their own bodies, but conscious of each other and of God. Adam was overwhelmed with the beauty of the woman God brought to him — perfect for him — and together they walked in the Garden with God. We should not focus on our bodies either, whether as a matter of pride in ourselves or as the essence of a relationship with another person. We should not flaunt our bodies in order to arouse sexual feelings in someone else.
3. A sexual relationship should have as its primary purpose the consummation of love between a husband and wife, giving pleasure to each other and making them one — not simply physical relief of sexual tension brought on oneself by pornography or other means of feeding lust.
4. You should be a good steward of your body — “nourishing it and cherishing it” (Ephesians 5:29).
5. Your body is to be a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship” ( Romans 12:1). You should “present the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:13).
* Your body is beautiful. It is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord ( 1 Corinthians 6:13).
Lord, prepare me
to be a sanctuary,
pure and holy,
tried and true.
With thanksgiving
I’ll be a living
sanctuary,
for you.
John W. Thompson and Randy Scroggs, Whole Armor c. 1982
For a wonderful in-depth Christian view of the body, read Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, by Matthew Lee Anderson. Two of the chapter titles are “The Body as Shaped by the World” and “Tattoos and the Meaning of Our Bodies.” In his final, “summing up”, chapter the author writes, “We are earthen vessels that are given the extraordinary privilege and honor of bearing the love of God himself in our eyes, our toes, and all the other members that make us up.”
