“Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
If you hear a provocative statement enough times, it no longer sounds provocative; it begins to sound bland. The fact that all people have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was provocative when it was first written. Those were fighting words. Now no one bats an eye when you say it.
If you’ve grown up in the Reformed tradition, my guess is that you don’t find the following words provocative, ‘I am not my own but belong body and soul to Jesus.’
This sermon is a reminder that those words are provocative. You are declaring that your body belongs to someone else. If you were a guest on the Today show talking about contraceptive rights and you said that your body belongs to someone else, you would quickly discover that those words are fighting words. They are provocative.
If you are a Christian, your body belongs to Jesus. Your body belongs to God. If you don’t see the provocativeness of that statement, you don’t yet understand it. You might have memorized, “I am not my own but belong body and soul to Jesus…” but it is easy to memorize something without meaning it. Do you mean it when you say that your body belongs to Jesus?
Or, if you are finding out about Christianity, do you know why Christians confess their bodies belong to Jesus? You might find their claim offensive, but do you know why they gladly confess it?
If you belong to Jesus, your body belongs to Jesus. That is the claim of this sermon: if you belong to Jesus, your body belongs to Jesus.
We will see this in two points. First: being embodied. Second: your body is not your own.
First: being embodied. Why do you have a body? Everyone here has one. We don’t have any disembodied spirits with us this morning. Why do you have a body?
Evolutionary biology tells you that you don’t just have a body; you are your body. There is nothing more to you than your body. Whatever you think of as ‘you’ has no existence beyond your body. In fact, what you think of as ‘you’ is just electrical impulses in the part of the body called the brain. What you think of as ‘you’ will cease to exist the moment those electrical impulses cease.
Of course, no one who believes that lives that way. They all live as if they had free will. They all live as if they had minds to make up. They all live as souls even though they say we are only bodies.
The Bible has a more reasonable outlook as we will see over the next two weeks. The Bible tells us that we humans are embodied souls. We have bodies, but we are more than bodies. We are embodied souls. George MacDonald explains it well saying, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
You see the body and soul in Genesis 2:7. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Your body is formed out of the same stuff as creation and so you are a bodily creature; you have a body that can connect with creation. Your soul was formed from the very breath of God and so you are a spiritual creature; you are a soul who can connect with God. You are a soul with a body.
Why do you have this body? You have a body to enjoy creation. The product of the first six days of creation is for your enjoyment. When God said that it was very good, He wasn’t just talking about its perfection. He was saying that it was very good in the same way that you say a cut of prime rib is very good. It is enjoyable. You have a body so you can enjoy this creation. As Psalm 104:15 puts it, God gave, “wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.” Solomon saw the same thing. “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his work—this is God’s gift to man.” God gave you a body to enjoy what He made.
God also gave you a body to affect what He made. As Genesis 2:15 tells us, “the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” You aren’t just part of creation. You are the caretaker of creation. You have a body so that you turn a wilderness into a field. You have a body so that you can turn part of that field into a home. You have a body so that you can turn the raw materials that God has given us into something useful for humanity. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
God gave you a body so that you could connect with other people. You connect with other people using your mouth and your ears. You can’t be “quick to listen and slow to speak” without a body. You connect with other people using your arms to hold and your hands to bake. You can’t be hospitable or comforting without a body. You connect with other people by laughing and playing. “A feast is made for laughter,” says Ecclesiastes 10:19. You can’t laugh and play without a body. You connect with your spouse in all the bodily ways listed in Song of Solomon; “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.” You can’t kiss your wife without a body.
The Scriptures present this body as something good. That was unique in the Ancient Near East. Their creation accounts pictured the body a curse of some sort. The Babylonians thought that humans were given bodies to act as slaves for the gods. You see the sense that the body was a mistake in many of the religions of the world. Buddhism sees the body as an evil to escape.
The philosophy of Greece also saw the body as evil. They thought that we would be happier without our bodies with its lusts and emotions. That is one of the reasons the philosophers laughed at Paul in Athens when he argued for the resurrection of the body. They couldn’t fathom why anyone would want a body in the next life.
God says that the body is good. Do you think your body is good? We’ll talk about the aches and pains and diseases in a moment, but the question remains, ‘do you think your body is good?’ Many people hate their bodies. Are you one of them? Do you hate having a body?
The Son of God didn’t. The incarnation is the best argument to show that God delights in bodies. “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He “was pleased as man with men to dwell,” as the Christmas carol puts it. That would never happen if the Greek philosophers were right and the body was evil. If a body is good enough for the Son of God, it is good enough for me and you.
The Son of God is so content in his body that he will keep it for eternity. He didn’t take on flesh, complete his mission to die for your sin, and then happily shed his flesh like a CDC scientist happily shedding his hazmat suit after leaving an Ebola quarantine. Jesus still has a body. He doesn’t view it as something bad. When John saw him as recorded in Revelation, he looked like, “a lamb who had been slain.” In the new creation, Jesus will still be identified by the marks of the cross just as he was when he asked Thomas to put his fingers in those wounds. Think about it this way. You had no choice about being embodied. You had no choice to be born as a human. The Son of God did. He chose to take on flesh. Do you think he might know something essential about what it means to have a body that you might have missed?
Bodies are good, but they are fallen. When Adam and Eve fell, God was true to His warning, “you will surely die.” Death entered the world. Illness entered the world. Bodily pain entered the world. Toil and strained muscles entered the world. The reasons you might not like having a body might have nothing to do with the nature of the body; your reasons might have to do with the effects of the fall on your body. You might just groan at what sin has done to our bodies.
That is a Christian response. Paul said, we, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Bodies are good, but cancer isn’t. Bodies are good, but congestive heart failure isn’t. Bodies are good, but biochemical depression isn’t. There is nothing wrong with having a body, but our bodies have gone wrong.
In the new creation, your body will be put right. As Revelation 21:4 puts it, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
You will have a new body in the new creation. It will be better than this one. You will use it to enjoy the new creation. You will use it to affect the new creation. You will use it to connect with others in the new creation. It will be even better than this one has been. As Paul put it, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”
If you aren’t a Christian, my guess is that the best hope you have regarding the afterlife is some sort of disembodied existence. Or maybe you are logically consistent and if you don’t believe in a God at all you recognize that you have no real reason to believe in anything after death. You know that you should believe that you will just snuff out of existence altogether, but you can’t bring yourself to believe that. It just isn’t comfortable.
The Bible doesn’t tell you about this bodily afterlife just to make you comfortable. It tells you about it because it is certain. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”
Paul listed those eye- witnesses to tell the Corinthians, ‘if you’ve got questions about this resurrection from the dead, go ask these people.’ These early Christians didn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead because they wanted to believe it; they believed it for the same reason that you believe that whatever happened to you yesterday happened; you believe it because it happened.
And since it happened to Jesus, it will happen to you. The resurrection of Jesus is evidence for the resurrection of your body. That’s why Paul wrote, “if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith… But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…”
You can have more than uncertainties about what happens after you die. God sent His Son so that you could have more than uncertainties about what happens after you die.
Your body will be resurrected. You will be embodied forever. That is either good news for you or it is a warning. If you belong to Jesus, that is good news. If you don’t belong to Jesus, that is a warning. We see that in our second point: your body is not your own.
At the resurrection you will be judged for what you have done in the body. As Paul told the Corinthians, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Does that concern you? It should. If you are not a Christian, it should concern you because you have no reason to think that judgment will go well for you. If you are a Christian, it should concern you because you have no reason to think that judgment will go well for so many people in this world. That’s why Paul continued to speak about this judgment saying, “knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others… the love of Christ compels us…”
You have done shameful things in your body. So have I. If we were honest enough to share our most shameful secrets, we would find that we’ve done some pretty ugly deeds in these bodies of ours. The Father knows that, and the Father did something to help. He sent His Son in the flesh to die for what we’ve done in the flesh. He resurrected His Son in the flesh so that we could live new lives in the flesh. That’s why Paul continued saying, “we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
The Christian is the man who has accepted that Christ took on flesh to die for him and that now his body belongs to Christ. As Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That’s why the Catechism says, “I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
The Christian is no longer the master of his own body. His body belongs to Jesus. Here you see a massive difference between the church and the world. Today is a clear sign of that difference. Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday. It was established thirty-five years ago as witness against the evil of abortion. Abortion is just a symptom of our culture’s belief that your body is your own. The logic of the pro-choice movement says that no one can tell a woman what to do with her body. The logic of Christianity says, “my body belongs to Jesus and even if that baby were simply my body, which it isn’t, Jesus has every right to tell me what I can and can’t do with my body.”
It’s very possible some of us this morning have had an abortion or have been involved with the decision to have an abortion. Should you be here? Absolutely. Christ came to save sinners, which includes every one of us. The question for all of us is, ‘do you acknowledge your sin as sin?’ Christ came to save sinners and the saved now belong to him body and soul.
The fact that the Christian’s body belongs to Jesus is simply undeniable throughout Scripture. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” What gives Paul the right to command that in the name of Jesus? The Christian’s mouth belongs to Jesus. He must use it to bless. “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” What gives Paul the right to command that in the name of Jesus? The Christian’s body belongs to Jesus. She must use it with purity.
Do you call yourself a Christian? Do you believe Jesus has the right to tell what you can and can’t do with your body? You can’t say, ‘yes,’ to the first question and, ‘no,’ to the second question. You can’t belong to Jesus without your body belonging to Jesus.
If you are a Christian, your body belongs to God as a temple. As Paul told the Corinthians who had grown used to immorality, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” There is no clearer way to say that if you are a Christian, you belong body and soul to Jesus.
If you are not a Christian, your body is not a temple for the Holy Spirit. You were not bought a price. Your body is your own and you can do with it whatever you want. You will, of course, answer to God for doing whatever you want with your body, and it gets worse. Since you are not a temple of the Holy Spirit, you will not be changed by the Spirit. You will not grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here is what you will grow in: sensuality, jealousy, enmity, strife, and drunkenness. That’s the list that runs opposite the fruit of the Spirit. That is what your body belonging to you will get you. Maybe not all at once and maybe not all to the same extent, but to any sensible mind that second list certainly sounds less attractive than love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
If that is you can be a temple of the Holy Spirit, but you need must be bought. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” You need to be bought by the blood of Jesus. “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” You can belong to Jesus too.
Maybe you are a Christian, but you are realizing that you certainly aren’t living like one. You are living as if your body belonged to yourself. God’s word to you is clear, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Your body is now a present for God. As Paul told the Romans, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
After everything God has done for you, sending His Son to pay the penalty for your sins both gross and so prevalent, putting your heart in the right place by His Spirit, bringing your dead heart to life in the first place so you that you could see the good news of Jesus as good, after everything God has done for you, what could be more proper than using everything you are to please Him? That’s what it means to be a living offering.
How can you glorify God with your body? Use it to enjoy creation, affect creation, and connect others. Remember, this is the reason God gave you a body. I’m pleased when my children use and enjoy my gifts to them. The Father is far more pleased when we use and enjoy His gifts to us, and the pleasures and joys of the body are a gift.
Use your body for the good of others, not for your own sinful pleasure. Paul told Titus that Jesus, “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” Are you eager for sinful pleasure or eager to do good? If you are eager for sinful pleasure, pray that you might eager to do good. You have a body so you can do good.
Use your body to worship the Father. “I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.” Use your vocal cords. “I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.” Lift up your hands in worship if you want. Use your body. Taste and see that the Lord is good when you take communion. Your body belongs to Him. Worship Him with it.
Enjoy belonging to Him. You please God in the body by enjoying the fact that your body belongs to Him. Jesus did. He said, “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” As Hebrews puts it, ‘when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me…”’ The Father gave the Son a body to do His will and the Son was happy to do the Father’s will. He was happy to belong to the Father. He was happy that his body belonged to the Father. That was his reason for hope that he would resurrect.
Does your body belong to Jesus? That’s a timely question because probably sooner than you’d like to think your body will be pumped full of formaldehyde so it keeps for your funeral.
If your body doesn’t belong to Jesus now, it won’t belong to him then. You’ve got this dying body whether you like it or not and the only security you are going to find in life and in death is in belonging body and soul to Jesus. He knows that’s the only security for dying men and women. That’s why he came. Amen.