1. The Body in Biblical Terms Major David Noakes

2. The status of the body in Christian ethics has long been an ambivalent and debated one. A stark and hierarchical dualism between body and soul or between flesh and spirit is popularly assumed to provide a sound biblical basis for dealing harshly with the realities of embodiment and physicality. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the reductive materialism of empiricist science would reduce human existence to bodily existence, denying the human being as a spiritual creature in relationship to God… the witness of scripture in relation to questions about human bodies is far less facile than assumptions of dualism or materialism would suggest. 1 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

3. Beginning in the patristic age the view that the human body is inherently or essentially evil began to permeate Christian thought, even though the view was more Hellenistic and Gnostic than Christian. 2 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

4. The Old Testament especially contains many references to human beings as ‘dust’……. Some Christians have been tempted to view ‘dust’ and ‘flesh’ as evil containers or mere vessels of true humanity…… This is closer to the ancient Greek view of humanity than to Hebrew, biblical anthropology. To the Hebrews and early Christians the physical aspect of humanity is a good creation of God- a gift -even if one that has fallen into corruption due to sin. 3 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

5. His life cannot be described as though it belonged to just one partition of reality. There is no corner of human experience from which he is absent….. If Christ is not raised in bodily form, then he would remain foreign to embodied human experience. It is Christ’s resurrection that secures Christ’s relevance to our lives here and now. 4 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

6. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. 5 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

7. The resurrection is a fleshy thing. The risen Jesus seems to walk through doors, but also he eats fish and carries the mark of his crucifixion. The resurrection of Jesus is the model of Christian hope. It is the model for what human beings might hope for the body to be. This means that salvation always includes the body. 6 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

8. The body therefore is: a temple of the Holy Spirit. 7 the location or context in which God is glorified. 8 the location for the life and death of Jesus to be made evident. 9 to be kept sound and blameless. 10 for God and to be kept disciplined. 11 to carry the marks of Jesus. 12 to be offered as living sacrifices. 13 not meant for sexual immorality. 14 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

9. Man’s physical being is neither intrinsically evil nor inseparably connected with sin. While the term ‘flesh’ (basar, sarx) in both testaments may denote man in his frailty as distinguished from the divine essence, nowhere does scripture suggest that the body of man in itself is evil, imprisoning the soul and dragging it into sin. 17 Honour God with Your Body A Christian View of Human Sexuality Major David Noakes

10. QUESTIONS TO GO FURTHER WITH… Does it matter how the human body is imagined and spoken of? Do Christians differ in how we think of the human body? If, as Major Noakes suggests, we carry the marks of Christ and the body of Christ is resurrected wounded, in what ways could this image of the body challenge how we think of ourselves and others?