When I was 25 years old, I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease. Which means my immune system attacks healthy cells within my body as if they were harmful. Up until that point, I was still under the puerile delusion that I was invincible. Upon the autoimmune diagnosis, however, my mortality became real. Mercifully, my condition is mild, but it has led to a secondary complication. Ten years after the initial diagnosis, I was told I am in stage 3 kidney failure. As a father of young children, I recognized, if I’m going to be around for my children’s graduations, I need to take better care of my physical health. At the time, I was about 40 pounds overweight, and horribly out of shape. That’s when I started running.
What happens with the body impacts the soul and what happens with the soul impacts the body.
Running not only helped improve my health, but it helped my mental state as well. When one runs, the body releases endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and other chemicals that help alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression—all of which are known to improve one’s overall mood. It was at this point I realized the interconnected nature of the physical body and the nonphysical soul. Not in the sense that physical health dictates spiritual health or vice versa, but in the sense that we are a compilation of body and soul. What happens with the body impacts the soul and what happens with the soul impacts the body. And learning this truth has changed how I engage with my spiritual growth.
Love Your Body (because God Does)
So, how are both body and soul involved in one’s spiritual life? In 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul writes, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” There is no denying that Paul sees the body as closely bonded to the soul. One implication from this passage is that your body is not an ancillary, superfluous add-on to who you are. While the soul is the essence of who we are, the body is not a pointless meat-suit that is irrelevant to our personhood. When God created mankind, He created us as embodied souls. In the course of worshiping God, our bodies are instrumental tools to be used for the glory and honor of God.
In fact, though worship begins as an internal submission of the heart, true worship generally manifests itself in physical ways. For example, when praying to the Lord, we bow our heads and close our eyes. During baptism, we are immersed into the water in the name of our triune God. When singing to the Lord, we use our lungs, lips, and tongues to make a joyful noise. When partaking of the Supper of our Lord, we eat and drink the elements. Not only is sacred Scripture ripe with physical expressions of worship (dancing, leaping, clapping, shouting, singing, bowing, weeping), but most Christians participate (consciously or subconsciously) in some sort of religious act that requires bodily participation. In other words, spiritual worship is not merely a spiritual exercise, because the body is busily involved, as well. Our bodies are essential to our being and valuable to God.
You Are Body AND Soul
The greatest expression of bodily value is none other than the incarnation of the eternally begotten Son of God. If God intended to merely redeem our souls, it seems unnecessary to condescend to take human form. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as true God and true man emphasizes the worth and import of our material bodies. To save the whole of a human person, Jesus took on a human body and a human soul. Such an act would be bizarre if the human body were insignificant. God does not simply redeem our souls; He redeems the whole person. All orthodox Christians worldwide believe Jesus will one day return and resurrect these mortal bodies to a state of glorious immortality. To be sure, much of the mechanics behind this process are a mystery, and the reality of what we will be is not fully known. We do know, though, that we will continue to exist as embodied souls, not bodiless wraiths (Phil. 3:21).
Thus, to think of the spiritual life as merely a nonphysical function is both to confuse proper anthropology and to misunderstand the Christological significance of the incarnation. Our lives are spiritual, but they are not only spiritual. As the saying goes: Matter matters. What one does with his or her body matters. How one uses or misuses his or her body matters. As C.S. Lewis writes, “God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature … [God] likes matter. He invented it” (Mere Christianity, Book 2, Chapter 5). A faith that does not take into account the holistic nature of a human being is a faith that is handicapped from a full and accurate expression of worship and devotion. Thus, understanding how the body contributes to Christian growth is important.
Work Out (Your Body & Your Salvation)
To be clear, I am not supporting some kind of legalism or pharisaicism. I am referencing neither regeneration nor justification here. We should not assume that we gain (or lose!) salvation through any kind of ascetic discipline or exercise regimen. My focus is sanctification (specifically, progressive sanctification). In the order of salvation, sanctification is the act of growing in one’s holiness, becoming more like the Christ we’ve chosen to follow. Sanctification takes place after one becomes a follower of Jesus Christ. Regeneration and justification are complete and total works of God. Sanctification, however, is a stage in which we cooperate with God’s grace to grow in our faith. In Philippians 2:12, Paul tells the Christians at Philippi to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” The work Paul commands does not mean our adoption into the family of God must be earned or achieved. Paul is guiding the believers to walk in the redemption they have already been given—to exercise, if you will, the muscles they already have.
Physical exertion is a herald to the soul that one cannot separate the body from the spiritual disciplines.
Physical exertion is a herald to the soul that one cannot separate the body from the spiritual disciplines. Every time I head out for a run, I’m reminded that my body is a good gift and great responsibility from God, a companion on my journey toward Christlikeness. In the same way that physical health cannot be achieved through mere passive acceptance of one’s bodily disposition (“Ah, well, my body type is lazy, therefore no exercise for me”), so spiritual growth does not come through passive indifference to the work of God. Sanctification, if nothing else, is a grace-filled participation in the salvation one has received. And though sanctification is an internal reality, it is frequently demonstrated through physical expression. We show our faith, after all, by what we do (James 2:18)! Whether we like it or not, our bodies and souls are tethered together in this life in an intimate and intricate way. In general, any type of spiritual exercise will involve the physical body.
I am an 80-year-old man living in a 46-year-old body. I have always had a bit of an “old soul.” The intimate connection between body and soul in the process of spiritual growth is really important for old curmudgeons like myself. A proper biblical expression of the heart is a dance between disordered charismatic anarchy and stuck-up puritanical prudishness. In between these two is the correct aim for holiness. It is a disciplined pursuit paved by our Lord. It is a holy calling fueled by grace. It is a Spirit-led race of both body and soul.
