The Eternal Importance of Our Earthly Bodies
Physical Resurrection
One of the great things the Bible says—and we sometimes overlook this—is that we will be raised physically. Jesus's resurrection body wasn't just kind of a stunt to show that God was satisfied with his death. Jesus's resurrection body is the foretaste of what is going to happen to all of us. We will all be raised to new physical life.
What God Has to Say about Our Bodies
Sam Allberry
The Bible has a lot to say about the body. Organized around three categories—creation, fall, redemption—this book by Sam Allberry provides readers with a balanced theology of the body as they seek to glorify God in everything they do.
Now, we might think that and think, Well, therefore, it doesn't matter what I do now. If I'm going to get a new body, then that I can kind of trash this one. In my second year at university, I was in a hall of residence and we were told at the start of the academic year that the hall was going to be demolished with the end of the academic year. So you can imagine what that did to the care with which we took the building. We knew it was going to get demolished anyway, so we didn't really care about how much we made a mess of it and damaged it.
Jesus’s resurrection body is the foretaste of what is going to happen to all of us.
The fact that we are going to get new bodies now doesn't mean we demean our present body; it doesn't mean that we trash our present body or that we neglect to care for it. Actually, the fact that it will be raised gives it dignity now. It means it is not irrelevant to God; it is not something he has no interest in.
We are told in 1 Corinthians 6 that the Lord is for the body and the body is for the Lord. The Lord is for the body in that he purposed it, he made it, it matters to him. And the body is for the Lord in that it's been created to honor him and to serve him. All of that is shown by the fact that we will be raised from the dead, and the fact that we will be raised from the dead further affirms the importance of treating our bodies now with the dignity that they should be treated with.
Sam Allberry is the author of What God Has to Say about Our Bodies.
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