Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 03:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: Is My Body Me? An Excerpt From What God Has To Say About Our Bodies
Author: Sam Allberry

Eikon 3.1 (Spring 2021) p. 96

Is My Body Me? An Excerpt From What God Has To Say About Our Bodies

Sam Allberry

An Excerpt from What God Has To Say About Our Bodies (Crossway, June 2021)

Sam Allberry is a pastor, apologist and author, and is based at Immanuel Nashville. He is the author of Seven Myths About Singleness, Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?

It is not a question we might have considered even just 15 years ago, but rest assured it is increasingly being asked by a younger generation today.

Here are three foundational truths the Bible shows us about identity and our bodies.

1. You Don’t Just Have A Body; You Are A Body.

Consider the creation of Adam:

The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Gen. 2:5–7)

This is the opposite of how many people today view themselves. God doesn’t make a soul called Adam first, and then look around for something physical to put that soul into, as though the soul is the real Adam, and his body is like Tupperware container to store it in. No. God actually starts with matter. He forms a body from the ground which is then brought to life. Your body is not fundamentally a soul that’s been shoved into the nearest lump of flesh, as if any body would do.

Or take these words of Paul to the Corinthians:

Or 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 at a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:18–20)

Notice how this passage reinforces the importance of the body. Paul uses “you” and “your body” interchangeably here:

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 at a price. So glorify God in your body.

However much we might privilege the mind or soul over the body as the “real” us, we know deep down that the body is an essential part of who we truly are. When someone hurts your body, we know that they have not just damaged some of your property; they have violated you. What you do to someone’s body, you do to a person, not just to some flesh. We cannot escape our embodied-ness.

Eikon 3.1 (Spring 2021) p. 97

2. Your Body Is Not Everything

In the account of creation, we see that Adam is not just a body. God made him, but then had to breat...