Ethics of Embodiment - Episode 093

Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and this week, we are going to kind of continue on with what we started last week, which was opening up the conversation surrounding human sexuality and interrelationships.

[00:00:30] So, again, listener discretion is advised on this one, though honestly, this is likely to be more setting up the framework of human embodiment and physicality more than anything else. I'm not going to get explicit, but I might be forthright. We might not even get super far into the actual nitty grittiness of sexuality, though, even in this episode, simply because I think it's that important to lay a foundation for how important our physical existence and bodies are.

[00:01:03] If you haven't listened to last week, that's okay. You don't necessarily need that one before you listen here. But I did talk about the concept of gender as a modern construct and how that came to be, and I discussed the book The Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale. Dr. Favale suggests a Genesis paradigm for understanding our sexual distinctions and the importance of them.

[00:01:31] And because I really think there is so much more to say about that, we're going to continue where we left off. Though, again, you can always catch up later on that episode if you've not listened yet. In addition to that, I'll mention another book today that you might want to check out, and that's called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman.

[00:01:55] I think it parallels much of what Favale talks about, so you can see she's not just making things up, but this other book goes into a broader, historical and philosophical scope of how the modern concept of self has developed. We could say the idea of self is synonymous with personhood. And so I think Trueman's book shows how that's been divorced from physicality and this change of concept has really taken hundreds of years to happen. Dr. Favale's book is history with a major dose of theology, and Trueman's book is more history and philosophy with maybe some undertones of theology. So there's a very different purpose to each book.

[00:02:41] I was thinking I'd go through some of the stuff in Trueman's book to fill out that picture we got from Favale last week, but I'm not sure if we'll get to that in this episode or not. As I said, I think there's a whole lot more to say from where I left it last week. Because I only just barely laid out Favale's conclusion.

[00:03:01] And what I'm going to say today is, I believe, connected to her thesis. But basically, I want to give you my own rundown of what I see and what I'm thinking. And I think this stems from both Favale's work as well as the wider construct of an Old Testament Hebraic kind of mindset on embodiment and community.

[00:03:25] Because, again, Like so much of this stuff in trying to get our minds into the minds of the ancient person, on the surface, it's not necessarily complex. But I do think it's different from the way that we think, which means some conversation is needed to draw out those nuances. So, I'm sorry if this episode might feel a bit rambly. I don't know. I hope I'll get my point across, though. One thing I think might be helpful from this is to show just how studying the mindset of the ancient person, even though it's different from our own, it can really help us in our modern day application. It doesn't have to be against our thinking, even though it's so very different.

[00:04:10] And I say that because sometimes when I lay this kind of stuff out in, like, online forums or personal conversations with people, there's a kind of reaction that I see. And I'm not trying to put down this reaction, necessarily. It's coming from an honest perspective, and a viewpoint that many people have, especially in Protestant evangelicalism. Which, by that, I just mean those traditions and theologies and ideas that find their roots in the Reformation. But not all Protestant traditions are the same, either. However, a major core of what I'm talking about is how we view things like sacraments, particularly, the Lord's Table.

[00:04:55] And another thread alongside that is how we view physical creation. Sacrament and creation were put together by Dr. Favale in the Genesis of Gender. and I don't think I had enough time last week to do an adequate presentation on why that is. So that's what I'm going to be focused on here today.

[00:05:18] I think our views of sacrament and our views of physical creation itself are very related on a deep level, and it's possibly a little bit surprising. So here's two questions. Do you think the sacraments are just symbolic? And, second question, do you think that creation was cursed in the Fall? My hypothesis is that there is quite often a connection between seeing creation as being cursed and having a "symbolic only" view of ritual and sacrament.

[00:05:59] Now, if you said yes to those questions, I'm not trying to put down those views, but I am saying that if you think of sacrament and ritual as only symbolic, it might be difficult to understand the connection that Dr. Favale is making. And this is just an idea I have, but I'm wondering if having a view of fallen and cursed creation makes that even more difficult.

[00:06:25] So again, I'm not trying to put those ideas down. I'm just curious if setting these ideas aside might be useful for a paradigm shift into accepting how key our human physicality is. You might not think that those two questions have much to do with sexuality and how we see ourselves as people, but as I think you can see if you follow that thread of ideas that I talked about last week that led us to where we are today in identity politics, you can really see something glaringly obvious with the connection here.

[00:06:59] Having what we might call a more negative view of physical creation doesn't have to lead to what we see now. I'm not talking about a slippery slope where we necessarily have to end up where we are now. But you can see how if we aren't connected and cohesive in our bodies, in who we are, in our physical selves, if we are really just a spirit and this body is just a temporary thing to be discarded later, then we can see our bodies as things that can be used or discarded or traded for something different even just in this life.

[00:07:39] You can see that idea of, oops, I just ended up in the wrong body. And just like having an idea that the Earth is temporary, and all we have to do is wait for the real thing to come along, like the right body to come at some point in time. If we have to wait for that, well, let's just go ahead and do what we can do to change it right now in our own perspectives.

[00:08:00] Aside from sexuality, I see other implications to this as well. Like a baby is a parasite to a woman instead of having its own embodied existence. because without the ability to speak and to project a personality, maybe we can be convinced that it doesn't feel like the baby is even a real person. Unborn babies can't do anything. But of course they really do. But remember, our definition of valuable action can vary. Just like the existentialist feminist who says that if women don't work outside the home, then they aren't valuable.

[00:08:36] Then you have people with disabilities or illnesses or those who are getting up there in years and their bodies are starting to show those effects of age. Anytime we might feel like this physical state of ours is an inconvenience or it causes us pain, we don't want to accept that physical existence as part of our existence of who we are.

[00:09:00] Instead of enduring the consequences of all of that, we want to escape it. Well, of course we do. No one likes being in pain, or being inconvenienced, or feeling like you're incapacitated or incapable in some way. No one wants to be uncomfortable in their body. We want medical miracles to make these things go away.

[00:09:22] I'm not trying to be overly critical here, I'm just trying to be honest. These are all natural conditions that we're all going to experience on some level, even feeling like we're not the right weight. But we don't usually see the underlying similarities in all of those things, right? is there really a connection between feeling like you need to go on a diet and having gender dysphoria or same sex attraction?

[00:09:48] I mean, not necessarily, though possibly.

[00:09:53] But all those things are aspects of how people relate antagonistically to their physical bodies. And there is at least a potential for the feeling that you are disconnected from your body, which might heighten this idea that you don't want anything to do with it, really. You'd rather be something that doesn't relate to what your body is, and further, how it might relate to other people, which I think is also key, because even though we think we are only ourselves, that we're only individuals, Really, none of us exist as mere individuals.

[00:10:30] Not a single one of us exists without meaning, and our meaning is encoded in relation to one another. We function in relation to one another. Even if you believe you can create your own reality, and you can use language and performance to do that, the only reason you believe that is because you believe in a functional creation, in meaning that is embedded in what we do. And it's also related to each other, because language is a communal thing.

[00:11:02] So, that's a place we can land with a good bit of agreement with the postmodernists, actually. There's a connection between meaning and function, and what's being done. But what I propose is that we can live into what we are in essence, Or, we can live into something other than that. This is like how Isaiah describes idol makers as being like their mute and deaf and blind and unmoving idols.

[00:11:29] And by living into something other than what we are, we twist and change reality in a very real way. We are becoming something as we do things. But if we're becoming something that is against our nature, we're not fully becoming that thing. It's not possible for us to completely switch our nature. We cannot turn a horse into a bat, but we can invite it into the house and pretend it's a dog.

[00:11:57] So, we can do something like that, but again, the question is one of wholeness. Do you want to be whole or fragmented? And more than that, the essence of who we are can't ignore our physicality. And it can't ignore community either, since community forms some of the most important aspects of who we are. You can hide away from community, you can not interact with people, but you will always be impacted by it. You are part of it, and it is part of who you are.

[00:12:33] And this is where the interesting element of rebellion comes into play. I have always been so curious how much rebellion against one's culture and community is actually a modern phenomenon, or whether it's really embedded into human existence. I mean, I think it's always been common throughout history to chafe against restrictions and limitations, especially for some personality types.

[00:13:00] I think that's a human trait. But likely, it's really been since the 1960s where this is really taken off in a big way and the splintering of ways in which one can rebel has proliferated since then. I wonder how much there's a core of sexual undertones in all of that rebellion. Like it's not always a part of it but I think it often is because sexual desire is one of our most profound types of desire.

[00:13:32] Growing up in the cultural moment that I did, it had already become to feel normal that teenagers and young people should be expected to rebel. At least many of them would. But I saw it as usually something that was anti institutional. I think of underground movements. But as generations continue forward, and we have politics and people in positions of power and influence who are intentionally working to drift things one way or another, it's really fascinating to me to see how things have actually switched.

[00:14:11] What used to be an underground movement 30 or 40 years ago might now be in support of one side or the other of the political institution. Anyway, I think about that, and I think that maybe this is part of that trickle down academia that Dr. Favale talked about. The students who were in the underground movements have now become the ones who are no longer students.

[00:14:36] All right, but wasn't I just talking about physical reality a moment ago? I was, and I was connecting that with community. Rebellion can certainly be done alone, but it's done effectively when you have a group that you're moving into. A teenager might rebel against his parents, but he's not going to see himself as happy until he finds somewhere else to fit in.

[00:15:02] And I'd say likely he cannot rebel without another place to land. The narrative in that new group might even be something like promoting one's individuality. But that individuality is going to be expressed in a way that fits the mores of that new group. There's still a story and a function and a physicality to it all.

[00:15:26] Have you ever been out to a restaurant and there's a big group at another table and you notice how similar everyone at the table is? They're dressed to the same standards. Maybe they have the same hairstyles. Even if you see a group that, like, rocks the local stereotypes, the group members are often more similar to one another than not.

[00:15:47] Humans are such social creatures, even when we rebel, or maybe I shouldn't even put it like that exactly, when we choose not to fit the typical social molds, we want to do so in community still. We want to know there are others like us. Of course, there's always exceptions. And when you stop to get to know real individuals, there's always a beautiful variety.

[00:16:15] But we always have a longing to fit in somewhere with like minded people. When we're fitting into a reality that isn't our physical reality or our essence, then we might have found a solution for the discomfort that we felt. But there are going to be other discomforts that will crop up. It's inevitable if you're not aligned with your essential nature and core of who you are.

[00:16:38] People are good at accepting discomfort that they choose, though. Paraphrasing something Jordan Peterson said, We think that we strive to be happy, but really, we strive to be comfortable. And sometimes that means we are most comfortable in the unhappiness that we're used to, or that we choose to be in. And we definitely search for ways to explain that.

[00:17:05] Part of a good community like the church, though, for instance, well, we're hoping that a church community is a good one, is that a good community will help people grow into what they're meant to be. And sometimes that does mean challenging our comforts and things that we accept that we shouldn't accept. Things that fracture our nature out of wholeness. Community can help keep us whole in some sense.

[00:17:34] This is how exile is such a formative thing. Because exile bonds groups together in a crisis where they have to form a cohesive identity. This is also why embodied ritual is such a big deal.

[00:17:49] So I had started talking about how we see things in physical creation and how we view things like the Lord's Supper. Again, what I mean about how we see physical creation is I'm primarily talking about the idea that creation is cursed and it's going to pass away. So to a large degree, we don't need to worry too much about it, since it's all temporary and seemingly unimportant. This isn't to the level of seeing physical creation as evil or bad, exactly, but I wonder how far from that idea it is sometimes. Creation might not be a bad thing, but it's at its heart a broken thing, in this line of thought. And it's so broken, in fact, that we're just going to do away with it entirely, eventually.

[00:18:36] I've talked before about this idea of cursed creation, quite a bit in previous episodes, actually. Genesis 3 only says that the serpent and the ground are cursed, and yes, there are effects to humanity. And some might claim that it's splitting hairs to say we're not cursed. But, look, we can't insert ideas that aren't there. That's eisegesis, not exegesis. That's not taking meaning out of the text itself.

[00:19:08] Okay, well, what about creation groaning in Romans 8. 22? I've gone over this passage before as well, but it's so highly relevant to this that it bears bringing it out again. This is the passage that people go to primarily to show that, hey, creation is cursed. And even more, that there's some sort of spiritual reality that is better than the physical flesh that we have.

[00:19:35] But we don't want to proof text it, so we're gonna need to look at the passage in as wide a context as we can. Previous to chapter 8 of Romans, Paul talks a lot about the law, and sin, and death. Just picking up in chapter 5, verses 19 through 21, I'm gonna be reading from the NASB today.

[00:19:59] It says, for as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous. the law came in so that the transgression would increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[00:20:27] Okay. There's no change of nature mentioned here in humanity, but we are all made sinners. And how? Through transgression of the law, and I have a whole episode about how Paul talks about sin reigning in death as if it's kind of spiritual power itself. Transgression increased not because we have a worse and worse human nature, but because of the law.

[00:20:54] There was a command in the garden, but as we continue reading through our Bibles, we see more commands, and more and more transgression when people break those commands.

[00:21:05] Okay, let's skip up to chapter 6, verse 8, which says, Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

[00:21:39] Okay, so, we're dead to sin, but alive to God, because we've died and been raised with Christ. But, we're not all dead. Paul was certainly not dead when he wrote these words. He was quite alive, and yet he speaks of having already died. He continues to talk about being a slave to sin and how this is or should not be our state.

[00:22:06] Then in verse 22, he says, But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life.

[00:22:19] And now that famous verse, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[00:22:29] Okay, there's two suggestions for this that I'll make. One is that the wages of sin there is not something that we are owed, but something that is owed to sin as the ruler of death. Because we are freed from sin, but sin is still paid its wages. Sin itself dies.

[00:22:51] The other suggestion for how to read that verse, though, is that even if we are owed a death because we sinned, we can be said to have already paid that debt when we died in Christ, when we participated in Christ's death, in other words. Note that here, Jesus isn't presented as a substitute, but as the firstfruits, and we then come after. We are participating in the death of Jesus. But if we participate in his death, we also participate in his resurrection.

[00:23:29] Okay, so then Paul switches to talking about the law as being like a marriage. Now remember again, Paul is still alive. The Romans are still alive, we are still alive, but chapter 7, verse 5 says, For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

[00:24:07] Oh, wait, we're now serving in the newness of the Spirit? But Paul is still alive. He hasn't died and been resurrected yet. And yet he can talk about the flesh as if it's an old thing that's been done away with. Because we have died and been reborn. We haven't even gotten to Romans 8. 22 yet, but this is how Paul is talking about spirit and flesh.

[00:24:33] When he gets to the end of chapter 7 in verse 24, it says, Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Well, we know the answer. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[00:24:50] Jesus sets us free, not by taking things on that we don't, but by taking on death so that we can be joined with him and also die and be reborn.

[00:25:03] And Paul is honest with the struggle we still have here when he continues with, So then, on the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin.

[00:25:19] And that's where we enter into Chapter 8, with its Therefore. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh. But those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

[00:26:14] Skipping to verse 9, it says, However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

[00:26:23] Then down to the end of verse 11, He will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

[00:26:34] Okay, so why did I read all of that? Because I want it to be clear that flesh and spirit are not some ontological thing here. I mean, yes, we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us, but it's not a flesh versus spirit, like we no longer have anything to do with earthly flesh. Life and death are not solely connected to physical death, and then spiritual life after the physical death.

[00:27:02] We now have already died, but we're still here alive, pre death and resurrection. But we're now living lives according to the spirit. And that's happening in our mortal physical bodies. And it's the Spirit's indwelling that is making us live in this way, making us in some sense capable of resisting the flesh that leads to death.

[00:27:28] Verse 13, it says, For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

[00:27:40] Okay, so then verse 14 is crucial to the core of Romans 8. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

[00:27:54] Verse 15 says we've received a spirit of adoption.

[00:27:58] Down to verse 17. We are heirs of God, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

[00:28:08] Okay, so here's the suffering aspect of the following verses. We are suffering not just because we suffer, but again, as a participation with Jesus.

[00:28:20] Verse 18, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

[00:28:30] What's that glory? The glory we have with Jesus. So now here's the part about creation. And remember, even though I've already set up all of this to show that the point up to now has not been that Paul is saying we're looking forward to leaving flesh behind, but we've already left flesh behind because we're living according to the Spirit. Even though I've already set all of that up, still, the most common commentary on this next passage is that it's describing the curse of creation. But Paul's already dealt with all of that previous to this, when he talked about sin and death and how they're not with power anymore. Death has been given as wages to sin, or else we've already died and we are now free to live in the newness of the Spirit.

[00:29:21] These are present realities. Now Paul will also say they're future realities, but we can't jump to that as if he didn't say all of the stuff that he said before. Okay, but if we just started here at verse 19, it sure sounds like physical creation has a problem, doesn't it? For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation, was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

[00:30:04] Okay, so we're going to stop here at the end of verse 21 for a moment. Creation was subjected to futility. This is where we can see at least the idea of creation being cursed. But note that it's entirely related to the glory of the children of God. And remember that death is defeated in Christ. There are different verbs used throughout. We have been saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.

[00:30:34] And it's not just one of those, but all of them together. If this is a present reality that is being worked out as we live in the newness of the Spirit, then there still remains an ultimate hope. But as I said, we can't just look at that ultimate hope and forget the present reality still exists. And our sufferings as a participation with Christ, our sufferings aren't a net negative.

[00:31:02] They are part of this glorification. So it's not like, gosh darn it, it's too bad there's suffering. Just be patient because eventually it will end. I mean, yes, it will end, and it is a tragic thing to be suffering. But the suffering itself is... well, it's not really a negative thing, all told.

[00:31:25] We see death defeated, and sin defeated, and we participate in those, but it's the participation in suffering that's connected to glory here. And that's fascinating to me, and it's a hard lesson. Our suffering, just like an exile, that's part of our formation. It's living into the newness of the Spirit. It's not entirely a bad thing.

[00:31:51] So whenever we're feeling discomfort and something that we're disconnected to, that is something that should be growing us and forming us into the people we should be in Christ. I know that's not a message we want to hear, though, is it? And I think this may be why we want to choose our own suffering and our own discomfort, because at least we're familiar with that. If we choose to accept a different kind of suffering, or suffering we just don't want, we don't know how bad that might end up feeling.

[00:32:25] But let's keep going in our reading of Romans 8, because we just barely got to verse 22 here. For we know that the whole creation groans, and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

[00:32:54] Okay, now we've got all that context of the previous chapters in our heads. Is creation groaning in verse 22 because it's cursed? I mean, we've been talking about suffering, so we could see it that way. Suffering as a curse. But the groans here aren't groans of pain just from random suffering, but groans of childbirth. And childbirth is a positive thing. It's the opposite of being cursed.

[00:33:28] We don't talk about childbirth as something that's going to happen if something's cursed. Being cursed is the opposite of being able to bear anything fruitfully, but creation is bringing forth something, so it's not cursed. And what is creation birthing? Us, the sons of God.

[00:33:50] In verse 23, it says that we too groan as we await this.

[00:33:55] Again, we have the already but not yet language here. We are adopted sons, but we're still waiting for it. So the question we come to now is, can we say at all that creation is cursed? There's the sense where that could be correct, right?

[00:34:15] There can be a curse that leads to life afterwards, that leads to formation. And things are not yet consummated. We are still participating with Christ in suffering, rather than reigning in glory with Him fully. So, there's a sense of this thing that's going on here, and I don't want to say that those who say that creation is cursed are entirely wrong, because we haven't yet received the fulfillment of the purposes of creation through Jesus.

[00:34:42] But I still think that our modern approach of creation, fall, and curse, and wait around for redemption when we all die, and really will be alive in heaven, is not the correct way to see all of that. Because it's missing our current state that Paul is talking about over and over and over here.

[00:35:04] If we are being formed and developed, and if creation is helping to give birth to this reality, well, it's the very opposite of being cursed. That's fruitfulness. And in our current state, we still have our supposedly broken mortal bodies. We are living in the newness of the Spirit, and the Spirit isn't some thing that we get in which we escape physical creation.

[00:35:32] Physical creation isn't dying in hopes of being killed off to end its pain. It's in pain, just as we are, as we are being formed into what we're meant to be. These are growing pains, not pain from lack of fruitfulness or death. Yes, there is the hope of the redemption of our body. But that's connected to our adoption as sons.

[00:35:57] We have the first fruits of the Spirit. That's why we're able to walk in this newness we have. And we're doing that here, now, in our physical bodies. There's not some description of physical creation needing to first be eliminated or perfected in order for us to live out our spiritual reality. And don't miss this. It talks about the redemption of our bodies. Not the destruction and we get to start over with a new body.

[00:36:28] Alright, so to continue our train of thought, let's flip over to 1 Corinthians 15 now to see what that says in relation to physical bodies.

[00:36:40] The first part of the chapter is one of the most popular passages to go to for the message of the gospel. Sometimes it's the only one people know about, though there are definitely others. But let's read verses 3 through 8 because Jesus' physical body being raised is a key aspect of this gospel message.

[00:37:01] 1 Corinthians 15, 3 8 says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.

[00:37:45] Okay, so Jesus died for our sins, was buried, was raised, and appeared to people. Now there's plenty of people out there who want to say that Jesus's glorified body was not his physical body, but he was buried and raised.

[00:38:06] I just don't know how much clearer that can be, that this is a physical reality. I mean, let's look at the account of the resurrection.

[00:38:16] In Matthew 28, Now after the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Behold, I have told you.

[00:39:11] All right, he is not here, for he has risen. He's not there. They found no body. Why? Because it wasn't there to be found. Because he'd been raised. He didn't leave his physical body behind in favor of a different, non physical one. I mean, we can say all we want that he's got a glorified body, and it's not the same as his mortal body. Okay. Great. And that's something we'll get into here in a little bit some more.

[00:39:44] But his physical body was gone, and it's not like we should imagine it to have disintegrated or something. The whole narrative with the guards being afraid that someone stole his body and all that. There's just no suggestion we're to see anything having happened to Jesus aside from being literally raised from the dead physically.

[00:40:05] He has his physical body. I know I'm kind of belaboring the point, but I really think that if you want to see this as a non physical resurrection, we've got problems. And I think that if we are seeing Jesus as the teleos and fulfillment of creation, then this really matters.

[00:40:25] Now, again, does this mean there was no change in Jesus body? We'll keep reading in 1 Corinthians to see that there is definitely a change. But this isn't negating the physical, and we'll see how Paul puts it here in a minute. But okay, so the Resurrection is core to the Gospel message. If you want to see just how core it is to the Gospel message, go and read the Book of Acts, and pay attention to how often the Resurrection is mentioned .

[00:40:56] Like, we tend to think, oh yeah, we need to understand who God is, and the Gospel's often wrapped around the nature of God. And, okay, fair enough, because this all couldn't have happened without Jesus being God. But the message being preached was the resurrection of Jesus as core to everything that's going on there. Everything.

[00:41:21] Okay, so let's go back to 1 Corinthians 15. So much of this is relevant, so we're going to be reading a lot of it. Let's continue from verse 12, which starts with referencing the preaching of the gospel. Now, if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain. Your faith also is in vain. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if, in fact, the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

[00:42:23] Stopping there for a moment, that was verse 18. Note that the concern here is that people who have died would still be in their sins if Christ wasn't raised. And their perishing is not just from the fact that they've physically died, but they've died in their sins, or maybe that their sins have somehow affected their destiny after they've died.

[00:42:50] So, does that mean we're not talking about physicality? Well, Christ's resurrection is key to our resurrection, which is how the dead have actually not perished. And if Christ has been physically raised, then we also should have that hope to be raised physically.

[00:43:12] Okay, continuing to verse 19, which emphasizes that even though we have our hope now, our hope is not limited to this life, though it does include this life, since he says only. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, after that, those who are Christ's at his coming.

[00:43:58] Okay, pausing again. If we all die in Adam, and we're all made alive in Christ, then is the death that we die in Adam only the spiritual death? It might be that in part. But most of us are going to say that we die physical deaths because of Adam.

[00:44:17] Verse 24. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

[00:44:37] What death is abolished? Only spiritual? Or do we think that physical death will at some point have its end?

[00:44:45] In a few verses we'll get to that confusing part about being baptized for the dead. And there's a few ways to see that. Well, okay, many more than a few ways. And I know this isn't the episode to get into all of those details, but it's annoying to say that and then not say anything at all about it.

[00:45:01] So briefly, one option for the baptizing for the dead is that it is about proxy baptism, about being baptized for someone who has previously died, who wasn't baptized. Paul could be referencing the practice of proxy baptism that may have been happening in Corinth, and he's actually not giving legitimacy to it, but saying, why would they do this if they don't also believe in a resurrection?

[00:45:30] But as I said, there's lots of interpretations for this verse, and we just don't have enough clear information. Another good option is that it could be that they are being baptized in some sort of solidarity with others, or to honor others who have gone before them in belief, and who have died. Like those who have died have done something that is important enough that you want to honor them with your baptism as well.

[00:45:57] And this is a good option because we just don't have a lot of context for proxy baptism in the ancient world. We don't have other mentions of it. We have nothing in the context of Corinth that they were actually doing this. It's just this wide, vacant hole. We don't have any information to fit into the idea of proxy baptism.

[00:46:20] But no matter how you look at this, Paul's point is focused on the resurrection and how crucial it is to believe in it. He's not trying to teach some doctrine about proxy baptism here, in other words.

[00:46:33] But let's go ahead and read this whole passage here, starting in verse 27. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says, all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he has excepted who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Why are we also in danger every hour?

[00:47:16] That verse gets me every time. We are in danger. It's such a cryptic thing to say right there. But probably the original audience had more particular context. We know there were some tough situations that Paul and others went through. I think this is also about how deep the community ran and that idea of suffering and enduring together. But also, this phrase could just connect to what Paul is saying in the larger framework. If we say there is no resurrection, we put ourselves in danger of not preaching the gospel or something along those lines.

[00:47:55] All right, let's continue reading to verse 31. I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die daily. If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Become sober minded as you ought, and stop sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. But someone will say, how are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?

[00:48:37] Alright, here we are to the big question itself now. What kind of body do the dead have? Paul is going to use a metaphor for us to understand this. A metaphor is just a way to use language. Describing something metaphorically doesn't mean it's not real. You're just describing one thing in relation to another thing.

[00:49:00] Verse 36, Paul says, You fool, that which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives a body just as he wished, and to each the seeds a body of its own.

[00:49:23] All right, so our physical bodies are like seeds, and a seed dies, but then the life that comes is not unrelated to the seed, first of all. And then Paul talks about different kinds of flesh.

[00:49:37] This is where I think the metaphor becomes a bit confusing. Because I think we take this part of the passage and we end up switching ideas around in a way that I don't think Paul is actually doing. Let me try to explain what I mean.

[00:49:53] Verse 39 says, All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.

[00:50:04] Okay, so human flesh and beasts and birds and fish, they're all different. I don't think Paul is speaking against evolution here. There might be some Greek ideas he's talking about. But anyway, verse 40 is where we then switch gears mentally. Because so far, we're thinking, okay, the physical body is like the seed, then the body dies, and we picture the growing plant, right?

[00:50:31] Okay, but verse 40 then says, there are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.

[00:50:43] Alright, heavenly bodies versus earthly bodies. Is Paul talking about a spiritual body that we get after our earthly body? Because I think that's what a lot of people think that he's talking about here.

[00:50:58] But Paul continues, and we can see he's not yet talking here about any kind of a spiritual body. He's referring to something else. The heavenly bodies are those things that are up there in the sky. The sun, the moon, and the stars.

[00:51:13] Verse 41. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For star differs from star in glory.

[00:51:24] Okay, he's talking about light. We have different kinds of earthly bodies. We have heavenly bodies that are also different from one another. But they're greater in glory, and this makes sense. They're up there in the sky, putting out all that light where so many people can see them, and they have the functions of keeping time, and season, and festival. And also keep in mind that glory is about reflecting God.

[00:51:51] Those things up in the sky do that as they keep things ordered, and as they even provide signs in proper time. And so, although Paul doesn't come right out to say this here, I think the biblical idea of glory is that anything that gets to be closer to God, that reflects God more, will have more glory. And to Paul's point, anything that gets to be more like God will have more glory.

[00:52:20] Verse 42, So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body. It is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor. 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

[00:52:45] All right, here's another key point. Now we have Paul talking about a spiritual body, but is that necessarily the opposite of a physical body? The opposite given isn't physical, but here the word is natural, and that is, of course, our English translation. I could go into the complexities and details of the Greek, not that I know any Greek, but I can read other people who do explain this well, but it's also very dense and grammatical.

[00:53:19] So let me pull this quote that I think is straightforward enough to explain it, though it does kind of tip the whole thing off of what I'm saying here. This is from the Lexham Context Commentary, and it says, quote, Here Paul states that the earthly body is physical, while the resurrection body will be spiritual. This has led some to assume that the resurrection body will not have any physical component at all, that is, that the resurrection body will be a spirit, or, like a ghost. This is incorrect, because Paul uses the term body here, describing it as spiritual. That is, totally under the influence of the Spirit of God. Paul means that the resurrection body will be totally holy due to the total influence of the Spirit. It will be a totally spiritual body. There will be no influence of the flesh or fallen nature on it. Flesh and spirit are often contrasted in Paul. End quote.

[00:54:25] Alright, on to verse 45, which is another contested verse for these ideas. So, also, it is written the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last, Adam, became a life giving spirit.

[00:54:40] So we say, aha! Jesus has become a life giving spirit. Okay, I mean, are we going to say that Jesus wasn't a spirit before? I think, again, we might be looking at it through preconceived ideas if we want to say that Jesus became something other than physical. But let's continue.

[00:55:02] Again, in verse 46, Paul is talking about spiritual versus natural. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthly. The second man is from heaven. As is the earthly, so also are those who are earthly. And as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable and this mortal must put on the immortality.

[00:56:03] Okay, so now we see that Paul has switched metaphors. He's now using a clothing metaphor. We've changed clothes. Now, I've seen this to be maybe the strongest case to be made for taking off a physical reality, putting on a spiritual one, as if we're switching bodies. As if our bodies are just our clothes.

[00:56:24] But I think that's pressing the metaphor too far. Just because a metaphor is being used doesn't mean you can map everything about the concept from one concept to the other, right? Everything that can be said about clothes cannot be said about our bodies. And switching bodies is not actually what Paul is saying.

[00:56:45] We're not switching bodies. We're switching perishability to imperishability. Mortality to immortality. Not switching bodies. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom because flesh and blood will die. Of course our physical bodies die. That's what they do. And there's definitely a change that goes on with that.

[00:57:06] No one's denying a change. But I think it's really easy, because Paul keeps switching the way he's talking about this, to think there's a discarding of the physical. It's not discarded. It's changed. And while you might think that's a semantic difference, I don't agree that it's just a semantic difference. There's obviously something that needs to be done to make us immortal.

[00:57:31] Verse 54. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the , knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

[00:58:09] So again, the clothing being spoken about here isn't a new body discarding the old one, but rather immortality. We take off our ability to die. Why does it mention flesh and blood? Isn't that just a reference to physicality? Maybe it's a reference to mortality. Life is in the blood, and the life we get through Jesus is through His blood. Flesh is used for negative things through Paul's letters, for sin, for passion. It's not always, or even I dare say usually, a reference to actual physical flesh. It's connected to sin and death. And of course sin and death have no status with our true life in Christ.

[00:58:52] We are living souls, like the first Adam. But the second Adam gives us life through the Spirit. Like, literally through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We've seen this is an inheritance we get now, even if it's not yet consummated, because our bodies have not yet been sown in death. But once they are, they will be raised, and in that process they're changed. When Jesus comes back, the people who are still alive will be changed without having to first be sown in death.

[00:59:22] so maybe a lot of that is painfully obvious for some, and for others you're still gonna disagree with me. Which is fine, but I wanted to draw out in detail how I really don't see that the physical world and existence itself is something that's inherently bad. The flesh is a metaphor for sin and death. Again, it's just a way of talking about it.

[00:59:45] So, what does all of this have to do with sacrament? Well, Jesus is the lens, right? So, we go to Luke 22, Matthew 26, Mark 14 and 1st Corinthians 11, all those passages about the Lord's Supper and the bread and wine are described as Jesus's body and blood.

[01:00:05] Are they really? How can they be when Jesus was right there talking to his disciples?

[01:00:11] One of these days, I'll do an episode about eating and food, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of all of that. But for the moment, at least, we can take a moment to pause and say, wait. The Gospel's proclamation has the idea of the risen Christ, and our remembrance of Him at the Lord's table is related intimately to this.

[01:00:31] As 1 Corinthians 11. 26 says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And that hadn't happened when Jesus was first doing it, and yet it was still something that Jesus was saying as a present reality to the disciples. So there's a very deep connection between Jesus's body and his death.

[01:00:57] The remembrance of him in our proclamation of his death does not preclude his resurrection. I think it's actually a part of it. God remembering is associated time and time again in Scripture with the giving of life. So as we remember Him in His giving us His life, we are partaking of the life of the One who defeated death.

[01:01:19] And however you want to view the elements of the Lord's Table, as Dr. Favale said in her book, the visible displays the invisible. The visible bread and wine display the spiritual reality. What we have in Christ is not an ineffective or unreal reality. We're not just waiting for something to happen, but something is actually happening now.

[01:01:44] Just like Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 10 20 that he does not wish us to be partakers with demons, like there's two levels to what we have before us and we should take those layers as the basis for our lives and how we live in relation to our physical lives. and the spiritual realm.

[01:02:05] All of that, I think, describes the integrated reality that people understood at the time of the Bible. It's not either physical or spiritual, but a both and concept of layered reality. At least that's what we have once physical creation came into being. And sure, physical creation isn't perfect, It needs to have that mortality taken off and immortality put on, which is done through Christ.

[01:02:35] And importantly, if the Lord's Table is part of that visible reality of the invisible, then we can also see how related community is in all of this. It's through community that we access ritual and sacrament, and that we need that diverse body of Christ to be whole.

[01:02:55] In episode 27, when I talked about Jordan Peterson, I mentioned that proper ritual is embodied truth. And I also said that discipleship is embodied living. You can disciple yourself to the way, the truth, and the life, or you are discipling yourself to something that is not that. It's through our bodies and through the church that we can know God.

[01:03:19] It's in and through physical creation that the fullness of God came to dwell with us. And it's in community that we have identity as well. Carl Trueman's book that I mentioned earlier, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, goes through a lot of that. We are defined in relation to others because it's only by interacting with others that we can really see ourselves and place ourselves within a meaningful construct.

[01:03:46] I have this biblical theology monograph called Identity and Idolatry. And I'll be honest with you, I don't particularly care for it. I think it gets really close to talking about the image of God in good ways, but I think the author tries to make it, well, too metaphorical, as if the image of God doesn't speak to an essential reality.

[01:04:10] He says that the image of God is in no way ontological, but only theological, that it's our identity and not our nature. Somehow, we're supposed to take meaning and significance, but there's no sense of attribute or nature or essence. And that bugs me. Not that I think the image of God is a set of attributes, because it's not.

[01:04:33] The attributes we have are how we display what we are, and how we live out our reality. But I don't think you can separate these things for the reasons I hope I've made clear. I don't think the ancient person would have seen the image of God as only being a theological construct. Our essence or nature doesn't have to map onto our functionality or actualization of living it out, but if we want to be integrated in wholeness, then our living out our lives should be related to the essence of who we are, and should be that living out in function of it.

[01:05:10] If it's not, then we're living a fractured existence. Maybe I've already made that clear just last week, but I hope you can see how Jesus is that teleos of creation. The one who brings it all together in unity and glory, and we do that in participation with him and with other humans. Our embodied reality matters and displays our spiritual reality, not in the sense that we're just spirits trapped in physical bodies.

[01:05:39] So, I don't know if I'll be going through Trueman's book later or not, but his description of how we've now defined our modern selves in psychological ways rather than physical or communal ways, I think that's really helpful to the discussion. He says that our modern selves are defined by being focused inward instead of outward to community, so that our inward psychology has become paramount.

[01:06:06] And it's easy to imagine our inner psychology as being some sort of spiritual reality that's disconnected from our physical reality. But it's not. And as I said earlier, if we're in some state where we feel that disconnect, or we're unhappy or uncomfortable with our physical selves, then it's easy to keep that gaze turned inward and think that maybe our prayer life is what connects us to God and nothing else.

[01:06:33] Which, I mean, sure, our prayer life does do that. But so does fellowship and communion that we do with other people. Of course, that also reminds me, I was talking to someone recently, I can't remember how this came up, but she said she was trying to hear how other people related to God, and so many of the answers were about their church attendance.

[01:06:54] But that wasn't her intended question. She wanted to know how people related to God on a personal level. So, I don't know, it's interesting and complex on both sides. How much do our simple, physical rote movements connect us to God? Honestly, I think they do a lot, but I'm not trying to discount that psychological level as well.

[01:07:17] You can go somewhere again and again and remain closed off to the change that should be occurring within you. We still have that choice and intentionality to what we're doing.

[01:07:28] All right, well, here we are at the end of another episode. So, I hope that kind of helps to explain what I'm saying about this intersection of physicality and spiritualism and sacraments, and how all of those things have to be wrapped up into one thing.

[01:07:46] Thanks for listening to this episode, and I appreciate hearing what you guys think. There will be more to come about this whole concept of sexuality and how that is displayed in our physical lives. If you're enjoying what you hear, I'd appreciate a review wherever you listen. You can also leave me a review or a voice message or an email from my website at genesismarksthespot. com where you can find episode lists, guest profiles, blog posts, and more. You can also find out where and how to support me financially, and I greatly and deeply appreciate those of you who are doing that as you're able. Thanks to those of you who give me questions and feedback as well. And I've got some fun

[01:08:34] things coming up with some giveaways that I'm really excited about. Still working out how I want to do that, but you'll want to be signed up for my newsletter for sure. I'll likely announce things first on Facebook, just because that's usually where I hang out most, but my newsletter and Instagram are also places to be hooked up. At any rate, that is it for this week. I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.