Holiness and the Body.
'The temple of God is _holy_, which temple ye are. _The body_ is
for the Lord, and the Lord for _the body_. Know ye not that your
_body_ is the temple of _the Holy Ghost_ which is in you;
therefore glorify God in your _body_.'--1 Cor. iii. 16, vi. 13,
19.
'She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, that
she may be _holy_ both _in body_ and spirit.'--1 Cor. vii. 34.
'Present your _bodies_ a living sacrifice, _holy_, acceptable to
God.'--Rom. xii. 1.
Coming into the world, our Blessed Lord spake: '_A body_ didst Thou
prepare for me; lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.' Leaving this world
again, it was in His own _body_ that He bore our sins upon the tree. So
it was in the body, no less than in soul and spirit, that He did the
will of God. And therefore it is said, 'By which will we have been
sanctified through the offering _of the body_ of Jesus Christ once for
all.'
When praying for the Thessalonians and their sanctification, Paul says,
'And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit
and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame, at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ.' Of himself he had spoken as 'always bearing
about _in the body_ the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may
be manifested _in our body_. For we which live are always delivered unto
death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested _in
our mortal flesh_.' His earnest expectation and hope was, 'that Christ
be magnified _in my body_, whether by life or by death.' The relation
between body and spirit is so intimate, the power of sin in the spirit
comes so much through the body, the body is so distinctly the object
both of Christ's redemption and the Holy Spirit's renewal, that our
study of holiness will be seriously defective if we do not take in the
teaching of Scripture on holiness in the body.
It has been well said that the body is, to the soul and spirit dwelling
and acting within it, like the walls of the city. Through them the enemy
enters in. In time of war, everything yields to the defence of the
walls. It is often because the believer does not know the importance of
keeping the walls defended, keeping the body sanctified, that he fails
in having the soul and spirit preserved blameless. Or it is because he
does not understand that the guarding and sanctifying of the body in all
its parts must be as distinctly a work of faith, and as directly through
the mighty power of Jesus and the indwelling of the Spirit, as the
renewing of the inner life, that progress in holiness is so feeble. The
rule of the city we entrust to Jesus: but the defence of the walls we
keep in our own hands; the King does not keep us as we expected, and we
cannot discover the secret of failure. It is the God of peace _Himself_,
who sanctifies wholly, who must preserve spirit and soul _and body_
entire and without blame. The tabernacle with its wood, the temple with
its stone, were as holy as all included within their walls: God's holy
ones need the body to be holy.
To realize the full meaning of this, let us remember how it was through
the body sin entered. 'The woman saw that the tree was good for food,'
this was the temptation in the flesh; through this the soul was reached,
'it was a delight to the eyes;' through the soul it then passed into the
spirit, 'and to be desired to make one wise.' In John's description of
what is in the world (1 John ii. 15), we find the same threefold
division, 'the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life.' And the three temptations of Jesus by Satan correspond exactly:
he first sought to reach Him through the body, in the suggestion to
satisfy His hunger by making bread; the second (see Luke iv.) appealed
to the soul, in the vision of the kingdoms of this world and their
glory; the third to the spirit, in the call to assert and prove His
Divine Sonship by casting Himself down. Even to the Son of God the first
temptation came, as to Adam and all in the world, as lust of the flesh,
the desire to gratify the natural and lawful appetite of hunger. We
cannot note too carefully that it was on a question of eating what
appeared good for food that man's first sin was committed, and that that
same question of eating to satisfy hunger was the battleground on which
the Redeemer's first encounter with Satan took place. It is on the
question of eating and drinking what is good and lawful that more
Christians than are aware of it are foiled by Satan. To have every
appetite of the body under the rule and regulation of the Holy Spirit
appears to some needless, to others too difficult. And yet it must be,
if the body is to be holy, as God's temple, and we are to glorify Him in
our body and our spirit. The first approaches of sin are made through
the body: in the body the complete victory will be gained.
What Scripture teaches as to the intimacy of the connection between the
body and spirit, physiology confirms. What appear at first merely
physical transgressions leave a stain and have a degrading influence on
the soul, and through it drag down the spirit. And on the other side,
spiritual sins, sins of thought and imagination and disposition, pass
through the soul into the body, fix themselves in the nervous
constitution, and express themselves even in the countenance and the
habits or tendencies of the body. Sin must be combated not only in the
region of the spirit: if we are to perfect holiness, we must cleanse
ourselves from all defilement of flesh _and_ spirit. 'If through the
Spirit ye do make dead the deeds of _the body_, ye shall live.' If we
are indeed to be cleansed from sin and made holy unto God, the body, as
the outworks, must very specially be secured from the power of Satan
and of sin.
And how is this to be done? God has made very special provision for
this. Holy Scripture speaks so explicitly of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
that communicates holiness, in connection with the body. At first sight
it looks as if the word, your bodies, were simply used as equivalent to,
your persons, yourselves. But as the deeper insight into the power of
sin in the body, and the need of a deliverance specially there, quickens
our perception, we see what is meant by the body being the temple of the
Holy Spirit. We notice how very specially it is of sins in the body that
Paul speaks as defiling God's holy temple; and how it is through the
power of the Holy Ghost in the body that he would have us glorify God.
'Know ye not that _your body_ is the temple of the Holy Ghost: glorify
God therefore, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in _your body_.' The
Holy Spirit must not only exercise a restraining and regulating
influence on the appetites of the body and their gratification, so that
they be in moderation and temperance,--this is only the negative
side,--but there must be a positively spiritual element, making the
exercise of natural functions a service of holy joy and liberty to the
glory of God; no longer a threatened hindrance to the life of obedience
and fellowship, but a means of grace, a real help to the spiritual life.
It is only in a body that is full of the holy life, very entirely
possessed of God's Spirit, that this will be the case.
And how can this be obtained? In the true Christian life, self-denial is
the path to enjoyment, renunciation to possession, death to life. As
long as there is ought that we think we have liberty and power to use or
enjoy aright, if we but do so in moderation, we have not yet seen or
confessed our own unholiness, or the need of the entire renewing of the
Holy Spirit. It is not enough to say, 'Every creature of God is good, if
it be received with thanksgiving;' we must remember the addition, 'for
it is sanctified by the word and by prayer.' This sanctifying of every
creature and its use is a thing as real and solemn as the sanctifying of
ourselves. And this will only be where, if need be, we sacrifice the
gift and the liberty to use it, until God gives us the power truly to
use it to His glory alone. Of one of the most sacred of Divine
institutions, marriage, Paul, who so denounces those who would forbid to
marry, says distinctly that there may be cases in which a voluntary
celibacy may be the surest and acceptable way of being 'holy both in
body and spirit.' When to be holy as God is holy indeed becomes the
great desire and aim of life, everything will be cherished or given up
as it promotes the chief end. The actual and active presence of the Holy
Spirit in the life of the body will be the fire that is kept burning
continually on the altar.
And how is this to be attained? Of the body as of the spirit it is God,
God in Christ, who is our Keeper and our Sanctifier. The guarding of
the walls of the city must be entrusted to Him who rules within. 'I am
persuaded that He is able to guard my deposit,' to keep that which I
have committed to Him, must become as definitely true of the body, and
of each of its functions of which we are conscious that it is the
occasion of doubt or of stumbling, as it has been of the soul we
entrusted to Him for salvation. A fixed deposit in a bank is money given
away out of my hands to be kept there: the body or any part of it that
needs to be made holy must be a deposit with Jesus. Faith must trust His
acceptance and guarding of it; prayer and praise must daily afresh renew
the assurance, must confirm the committal of the deposit, and maintain
the fellowship with Jesus. Abiding thus in Him and His Holiness, we
shall receive, in a life of trust and joy, the power to prove, even in
the body, how fully and wholly we are in Him who is made unto us
sanctification, how real and true the Holiness of God is in His people.