The Christian hope is a hope with skin on it. From the moment He left the tomb, Jesus took pains to prove that the resurrection He underwent was bodily in nature. “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself!” Jesus told the disciples in Luke 24:39. “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Why did Jesus do that?

The bodily resurrection of Jesus is proof not only of Jesus’ continued life but of the important role of the body in God’s plan for redeemed humanity. Jesus’ resurrected body is the guarantee that our physical bodies will one day be resurrected. This means that Christian spirituality is embodied spirituality. God’s plan for the body in the life to come underscores the importance of the body in the present. Some of the Corinthian believers felt that the body was incidental to their spiritual lives. They believed they could do whatever they pleased with it because it was only a body. Paul captures their philosophy with two of their own slogans. One was an extreme view of liberty: “I have the right to do anything” (v. 12). The other denied the moral importance of bodily behavior: “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both” (v. 13).

The apostle corrected both errors by pointing to the body’s future destiny and what that implies about its present use. The body is meant “for the Lord” and even now functions as His temple through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (vv. 13, 19). The indwelling Holy Spirit is a mark of God’s ownership. Those who are in Christ have been united to Christ by the Spirit. Their body belongs to Him. Our freedom is the freedom to obey and not do whatever we want.

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