Your Body

Think of your own experiences as a human being: your body is not just a “shell” in which you dwell. Your body is not just a body. Your body is not just any body. Your body is somebody—you! Through the profound unity of your body and your soul, your body reveals or “makes visible” the invisible reality of your spiritual soul. The “you” that you are is not just a soul “in” a body.

Your body is not something you “have” or “own” alongside yourself. Your body is you. If someone broke your jaw in a fit of rage, you wouldn’t take him to court for “property damage” but for personal assault. What we do with our bodies, and what is done to our bodies, we do or is done to ourselves.

Once again, our bodies make visible what is invisible, the spiritual…and the divine. Aren’t we made in the image of God as male and female (see Gen. 1:27)? This means that the very design of our sexually differentiated bodies reveals something about the mystery of God. The phrase “theology of the body” is just another way of stating the bedrock biblical truth that man and woman image God.