Our Body: A Sacred Temple
Mark 16
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
What an incredible statement, “the Lord for the Body,” made by Apostle Paul. He also said, “The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord.” (I Corinthians 6:13). In eight verses Paul identified our “bodies” as Jesus’ temples and declares beyond all question that the Son of God came to redeem our bodies and purchase them for Himself as His purpose and place for all redemption. This passage of redemption revelation is beautiful. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (I Corinthians 6:13-20).
Why Healing and Miracles Are Important in Church
- They honor God who created this temple we live in.
- Miracles from God show the helplessness of our flesh without God.
- When men see miracles and wonders, they understand the supernatural powers of the cross of Christ.
- There is a spirit in man that longs to be released and to connect with higher powers.
- Wonders from God cause the sinner to fill conviction for sin.
- When God and Christ are manifested in miracles it inspires love for our Holy and True God.
- When men see the contrast between Satan and his destructive deception and the wonderful love of God it exposes Satan for what he is.
The mystery of Christ’s death is more fully revealed right here than in any other single passage of Scripture. Eight times Apostle Paul speaks of the body in this great picture. The Creator made man to be His own joy and placed him in His own created world to live out a special fellowship with his God. This creation was made in a unique likeness to the Creator and was given a great measure of freedom to love God and be His pleasure forever. In some strange way, one of God’s prior creations from His Heavenly host became jealous and haughty. He led a rebellion among the angels and then led a rebellion with Adam and Eve on earth. Satan was cast out of Heaven and with the disobedience of Adam and Eve, he became the god of this earth. Man and all that God had made for man to enjoy were corrupted. The only things that were defiled in this rebellion were Satan, his followers, and the world of Adam and Eve. Heaven was protected because Satan and his cohorts were cast out and down to the earth and earth’s environment of the heavens above the earth. Satan and those angels he deceived cannot be redeemed because they are reserved in darkness for the coming judgment. Hell was created for their future abode.
But, our God and Creator had a different plan for His fallen race of man. He had created Him for His pleasure and He immediately declared His intent to provide a redemption plan. He even provided a covering so that Adam and Eve could come out of hiding. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21). The Words of God also declared that in some unexplained way He, the Creator, would use women in providing a future redemption and defeat of Satan. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15). Since woman had been the first to be deceived by Satan, she would be required to provide the means of Satan’s final defeat and man’s redemption.
Acts 5
12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
13 And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them.
14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
“The Lord For The Body”
The one reason that the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth, born of woman, was to redeem the body of a fallen race and the environment created for that race to enjoy. So, then, when Apostle Paul said, “the Lord for the body,” he was speaking of the total purpose of redemption. The holy angels, the Heaven where our God dwells, and all that constitutes the possessions of the Godhead has no need of redemption because His dwelling place is undefiled. Man and his world are the locations of all that is defiled and Jesus Christ came to redeem it back to its original purity. The body that God created for Adam and Even, in which we are partakers, was to be, and has now been, redeemed from sin and will soon experience full redemption from the consequence of sin. The apostle spoke of that glory soon to be revealed. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:22-23). The ultimate of all redemption is the body and its environment or dwelling place.
We must look at how our God preserved a bloodline of women for 4,000 years to provide a body for the Eternal Son to make His sacrifice of redemption. The Father twice reached into the pagan world, chose and redeemed Gentile women to be part of the “seed of woman.” When Abraham took Sarah into Egypt and out of fear lied about her identity, the Father, by His Spirit, smote the heart of the Pharaoh less he defile God’s seed. But, when the “fullness of time was come,” the Father “sent forth His Son, made of a woman,” (Galatians 4:4). The redemption of the body required a body for the “Redeemer.”
When the failure of sacrifices and offerings by flesh was clearly evident, our Creator orchestrated the perfect answer to man’s dilemma. The Spirit said, as recorded to the Hebrews, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a Body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:4-7). God the Father, by the Holy Ghost, provided a body for His only Begotten Son. In his Psalms, David had prophesied of this truth as recorded in the Book of Hebrews. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son and the Eternal Word, spoke in the present tense in this prophecy of David hundreds of years before its fulfillment. “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:7-8). Notice carefully that His coming was in the “volume or totality of the Book.” His birth of woman was not a secondary scheme or an afterthought of God. It was the one and only plan and was a fulfillment of total truth and revelation.
The death of Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood provided the sacrifice required to redeem mankind. It was not His greatness as the Eternal Son of God that redeemed us. He offered His body, “sanctified and sent into the world,” (John 10:36) as a spotless offering for sin’s atonement. There are many efforts in this last generation to provide redemption without the blood offering of the very body of the Son of Man/Son of God. Every effort will fail and truth will prevail. The sacrifice of His “Body” as an offering to God was the Father’s only plan from the foundation of the world. “… in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8b).
In that great passage to the Hebrews the Holy Ghost plainly said, “A body has Thou prepared me.” As the writer continued, He says, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “For by one offering (His Body) he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:10,14). We must never forget that “His Body” was God’s offering for sin’s penalty. It was “His Body” that was “striped” for our healing and “His Body” that was “smitten, stricken, and afflicted of God” for our righteousness and deliverance.” (Isaiah 53:4-5).
The Apostle Paul goes even further in his letter to the Hebrew believers. We now have a High Priest at the right hand of God that is our advocate and intercessor. He is there in the glorified Body that was smitten and wounded. The marks of His sacrifice are forever and indelibly written in His “Body” that sits at the right hand of God. Listen to this. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh (body); And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:19-22). His flesh or body is the veil, which stands between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. When you pray, your only doorway to the Father’s glory is the wounded body of the Son of God. If you forget the cross and the sacrifice of His body and blood, prayer is a waste of time. There is no other door or veil into the sanctuary of His wonderful presence. We either enter by that veil or we do not enter.
Healing Is By The Stripes On His “Body”
When Apostle Paul said, the Lord for the body, he knew whereof he spoke. The early church was a church full of miracles and supernatural powers of the Holy Ghost. The Son of God’s death was witnessed by a multitude. Slaying His body on the cross started a sovereign move of revival and glorious conversions. Miracles were commonplace because the people either saw His body mutilated or probably knew someone who did. There was a powerful anointing that shook this great company of people after His great sacrificial death and resurrection. By the thousands, people were saved and many people were healed just by the shadow of some of these blessed saints. The crucifixion of the Son of God “opened a fountain in the House of David for sin and uncleanness.” (Zechariah 13:1).
That fountain is still open. Apostle Peter stated, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree (cross), that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (I Peter 2:24). The wounds inflicted on His back are vicarious wounds. They have in them supernatural powers to heal the sick and make the afflicted “every whit whole.” You cannot utterly trust the victory of those wounds without receiving the triumph they represent for the human body. His body was wounded, His sinless, perfect body, without Adam’s nature, was smitten with a Roman whip in our place and stead. Sickness was totally absent in His sinless body. His body was without guile and He did nothing to deserve His wounds. Instead, these stripes and wounds were a sacrificial offering for every trusting soul. “By His stripes we were healed.” It is finished.
Acts 13
9 Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him.
10 And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?
11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.
Our Bodies, Temples of the Holy Ghost
Every “born again” believer has been chosen to be a temple of the Holy Ghost. The body of every believer has been set aside, purified, and justified. We are not our own, but bought with a price. Holiness of lifestyle and separation from the world is absolutely normal for any believer that has been transformed by the power of God. Religious people of many different pagan religions make a determined effort to look and dress like their faith teaches. Fundamental Muslims dress like Muslims. The same is true of Hindus and other distinct religious groups.
Most of the church world has attacked and denigrated any idea of separation among “born again” believers in today’s modern church. The result is that the church has lost its sense of Godliness. The world and the church look alike, dress alike, and do the same worldly activities. No wonder the church has had to turn to secular humanism and self-help schemes to try to heal their wounded. There is power in a Godly and pure lifestyle. To claim Godliness without the sanctification of the body is totally contrary to Holy Scripture. God will not put His approval on such disobedience.
The message to the Saints of God is simple. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (II Corinthians 6:17-18).
John said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (I John 2:15-17). Our bodies have been delivered from the world of fleshly living. We do not need legalism to deliver the truly “born again.” Their new life repulses the old life and it is unclean to them.
We have been called unto “holiness.” Our dress will be a reflection of our desire to present our “bodies” in a Godly light. Women will desire to be pure and feminine and men will follow after a Godly masculine demeanor. It is natural to be what God has made us to be when our bodies have been set-aside as the temple of the Holy Ghost. When God made our bodies in His image, He made us and beautified us to honor the likeness of Himself. When a person tries to change the beauty that is natural into an unnatural appearance, something is wrong in the soul. We have been called unto holiness. “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.” (I Thessalonians 4:7).
The Body Will Soon Be Glorified
Our “bodies” in their present form, must die. Sin is the fatal flaw, but in the life of the redeemed person, sin has been put to death itself, so that the body can be a temple to the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost in us renders sin powerless day by day that we might live victoriously. “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” (Romans 8:10-11).
As we await our coming change, the Spirit quickens our mortal bodies. This is the very lesson Jesus taught Mary and Martha before they reached the tomb of Lazarus. Martha stated, “… I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” (John 11:24-27).
We are living in a spiritual resurrection as we await a bodily resurrection. This life of the Holy Ghost in us is our guarantee of our future hope. It is the Spirit of God that shall provide the very life of our coming resurrection. Paul said, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:22-23).
The presence of the Holy Spirit renewing and sanctifying us daily is that firstfruit of our coming glory. No wonder the five foolish virgins were left, because the oil (Holy Spirit) was absent in their lamps. (Matthew 25:1-10).
The Glory Of Our New Bodies
Jesus ascended bodily and will return to reign on this earth bodily. When He was resurrected, He came forth out of death and the grave with His eternal body. It was no longer flesh and blood to return again to death, but a spiritual body. He was the firstfruits of the First Resurrection, according to the Apostle Paul. Speaking by the Spirit, he said, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (I Corinthians 15:20,23).
The Apostle Paul also clarified that there is a distinction between the earthly body and the spiritual body. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” (I Corinthians 15:42-45).
When we see Him, we shall be like Him. The glory of His spiritual body is an example in which we shall share. While there will always be a distinction between the Son of God and His redeemed saints, we will have a likeness to Him; beautiful to behold. It will be an image of Him, not an equality with Him. “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” (I Corinthians 15:49).
The letter to the Philippians adds measurably to this truth. “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” (Philippians 3:20-21).
Romans 15
18 For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed,
19 Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
Redemption Is For The Body
It is exciting to see how intimately the body is emphasized in the entire scheme of redemption. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” (I Corinthians 6:13). The body is where sin was and is manifest and the body is what Jesus came to redeem and then inhabit by His Holy Spirit. The sanctified bodies of His saints now reveal the Lord Himself, by His Spirit to this world. We are His ambassadors and messengers. He has committed unto His redeemed saints the glorious gospel to proclaim. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” (II Corinthians 5:19-20).
No wonder the devil hates Godly living and righteousness of lifestyle. Satan wants to remake the believers in Christ into an image tainted by the world and its Hollywood styles. The more like the world we look, the less like the image of Christ we project. No wonder the Spirit said, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2).
Conclusion
Remember, the great statement made in the Spirit by the Apostle Paul. “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” (I Corinthians 15:49). This great truth places great responsibility on the saints. But, even greater are the joys and hope of being His temple in this world and sharing His Resurrection in the world to come. His great redemption plan is not just an exercise of the mind or intellect leaving the body in the quagmire of unclean living. We are transformed and sanctified “body, soul, and spirit” and “preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Thessalonians 5:23).