From The River of God by Kim Cimio — Part IV. Destiny, Chapter 10
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:20)
Why the body matters to God: body, soul and spirit, the resurrection body, the difference between body and flesh, the errors of Gnosticism and Platonism, and why salvation is less like Dunkirk and more like Normandy.
How can a Christian serve God through an ordinary profession like medicine?
Imagine a doctor asks how he can serve God as a doctor. We suggest becoming a medical missionary, giving to God’s work, sharing the gospel with patients, or starting a Christian group at the hospital. All good advice, but none of it answers his question. We’ve told him how to serve as a missionary, donor, evangelist or group leader, not as a doctor. If a pastor asked the same question, we’d say everything he does as a pastor serves God. But not for a doctor, a farmer or an engineer. Deep down we believe that work connected with the body, like fixing bodies, is spiritually insignificant. This idea has a long history, but it is profoundly mistaken, and until we overcome it our Christian worldview remains incomplete.
How does the Bible describe the relationship between body, soul and spirit?
The Bible describes a human as body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). In Genesis 2:7, God formed man from dust (the body) and breathed into him the breath of life (the spirit), and he became a living creature, in Hebrew a “living soul.” The soul is the whole person, which is why Acts 2:41 counts converts as “souls.” Think of a computer: the hardware is the body, the power is the spirit, and the software you interact with is the soul. “The body apart from the spirit is dead” (James 2:26); at death Jesus “yielded up his spirit.” This differs from Plato, who saw the body as the soul’s prison and death as liberation. The Bible calls the body a tent, “our earthly home” (2 Corinthians 5:1). As God dwelt in the tabernacle and later the temple, we dwell in our bodies now and one day in “a building from God,” the resurrection body.
What will our resurrection bodies be like?
Paul says, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). The “natural” body is literally a “soulish” body animated by the soul; the resurrection body is animated and empowered by the spirit. Our present life in the body is good, and life in the resurrection body will be even better. The risen Jesus shows us more. People often didn’t recognize him at first; Mary thought he was the gardener, and on the mountain “some doubted” (Matthew 28:17). He likely looked different; as Bultmann put it, “it is he, and yet it is not he.” They recognized him intuitively, as when John said, “It is the Lord!” He passed through locked doors and vanished from sight. Yet he had flesh and bones and ate broiled fish (Luke 24:39–43). If we will eat, there will be farmers, chefs and food, and since food is always cultural, cultures will persist in the new Jerusalem.
Why is the body so important in 1 Corinthians?
Many read 1 Corinthians 15 as an unrelated add-on, but Karl Barth called it the interpretive key and secret nerve of the whole letter. The Greek word for body, soma, appears 46 times in 1 Corinthians and only 96 times in the rest of the New Testament. Corinth was so notorious that the Greek verb korinthiazo, “to live like a Corinthian,” meant to engage in prostitution. Even Christians there struggled with sexual immorality, prostitution and incest (1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:16, 18). Such behavior comes easily when people hold a low view of the body: if the body is temporary and meaningless, what you do with it doesn’t matter. When we understand that we will have a body forever, even in eternity, we treat it with honor, care and responsibility.
What is the difference between “body” and “flesh” in the Bible?
Many Christians confuse them, and then every verse against the flesh seems to condemn the body. But the body is our physical part and is largely neutral in Scripture. The flesh is the fallen human nature we inherit from our parents: “the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption” (Galatians 6:8). Jesus came “in the flesh,” but being conceived by the Holy Spirit, he received human nature without corruption. We are not called to improve the flesh but to crucify it (Galatians 5:24). And the flesh isn’t limited to the body. Many works of the flesh, like jealousy, anger, rivalries, divisions and envy (Galatians 5:19–21), come from the soul. So tormenting the body can’t remove sin. Medieval hairshirts and self-flagellation were rejected by the Reformers, and Paul warns against those who “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods,” because “everything created by God is good” (1 Timothy 4:1–5).
What was Gnosticism, and how does it still influence Christians?
Gnosticism was a syncretic movement that blended Christianity with philosophies and religions and claimed special, secret knowledge (gnosis). Paul warned against “what is falsely called ‘knowledge’” (1 Timothy 6:20). Believing the body evil, Gnostics struggled to accept that Jesus had a real body, so Paul insisted, “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Colossians 2:18 describes their traits: asceticism, worship of angels, visions and being puffed up. John made confessing “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” the test of true spirits (1 John 4:2). Because they rejected the body, they rejected bodily resurrection, which is why the Apostles’ Creed says “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” Some even taught that an evil god made the physical world. Many Christians today unknowingly echo Gnosticism when they devalue the physical and claim superiority by valuing only the spiritual.
What is the “Platonic gospel,” and how does it differ from the biblical view?
Unlike Gnosticism, Platonism has been compatible with faith; Augustine said none are closer to Christians than the Platonists, and C.S. Lewis admired Socrates. But it has weaknesses. Lewis struggled to see literature’s value unless it led to salvation. I’d answer like Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire: “when I run, I feel his pleasure.” God delights in human flourishing of body and soul. Platonism splits the real world of Ideas from the physical world, and when Christians absorb this they form a Platonic gospel: the physical world is evil and will vanish; only the soul is saved; we should focus on heaven and do only “spiritual” things. The Bible says otherwise. God created the physical world and called it very good (Genesis 1:31); creation longs for redemption (Romans 8:19–21); God will make a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21); Jesus will return; and the meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).
How should Christians use their bodies?
In the biblical worldview we don’t reject the material world or our bodies; we use them to please God on earth. Paul says, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but… your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:13). In a materialistic world, people often use their bodies for pleasure in eating, drinking and sex without regard for God’s will. We are called to use our bodies for what is right and good. In Romans 12:1–2, Paul urges us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice… which is your spiritual worship.” This challenges the spiritualizing tendency of Platonism, influential in Rome at the time. Being “transformed by the renewal of your mind” means changing our thinking from worldly, often Platonic, ideas, so that we see our bodies as God’s good creation and a medium of worship.
Is salvation more like the Dunkirk evacuation or the Normandy landings?
Many Christians see salvation as an evacuation, like Dunkirk in 1940, when British ships and civilian boats rescued trapped Allied troops. On this view, Jesus is the ship taking us to heaven and life’s meaning is to escape this world. But that would mean God’s plan to rule the earth through his image-bearers failed and he has given up on the world. And even the Dunkirk troops were regrouped and sent back to the continent. We are saved not to escape the world but to be sent into it. Jesus’ coming is more like Normandy. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies secured a beachhead, and within a year the Third Reich was gone. Without a beachhead, America’s vast resources couldn’t reach Europe. Without Jesus, heaven’s resources could do little on earth, which lay under sin and death. Jesus secured heaven’s beachhead, and the kingdom continues to advance through his followers.
What does it mean that Christians are a colony of heaven?
In the Roman Empire, a colony was a settlement of Romans living by Roman customs among conquered peoples, to spread Roman civilization. Cities like Lyon, Valencia and Cologne (from colonia) began this way. Philippi was one (Acts 16:12); its citizens insisted they were Romans (16:21). Colonies existed to radiate Rome’s light; the Celts only abandoned human sacrifice through the influence of Romans living among them. Likewise, the world needs Christians living among them to learn God’s ways: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Paul told the Philippians, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Like them, we have dual citizenship: we live in the world, but by heaven’s culture. We must be in the world but not of it (John 17:15–16). If we withdraw, we can’t do God’s will; if we lose our identity, we can’t shine his light.
Source: Kim Cimio, The River of God (Vision & Logic, 2025), chapter 10, “Normandy and Dunkirk.” Answers are condensed from the book in the author’s words.
Leave a Reply