Body
Body
1. The term.-In English Version body represents 3 different terms in the original. Once (Act 19:12) it renders , which properly denotes the skin or the surface of the body. Thrice (Rev 11:8-9) dead body is the equivalent of , which corresponds to Lat. cadaver, Eng. carcase. In all other cases body stands for in the Gr. text. Occasionally is used of a dead body, whether of man (Act 9:40, Jud 1:9) or beast (Heb 13:11), but ordinarily it denotes the living body of animals (Jam 3:3) or of men (1Co 6:15 etc.). When distinguished from (English Version flesh), which applies to the material or substance of the living body (2Co 12:7), designates the body as an organic whole, a union of related pads (1Co 12:12); but and are sometimes used in connexions which make them practically synonymous (cf. 1Co 5:3 with Col 2:5, 2Co 4:10 with 2Co 4:11). In Rev 18:13 is rendered by slaves (marg. [Note: margin.] bodies), the body only of the slave being taken into account by ancient law. From the literal meaning of as an organism made up of interrelated parts comes its figurative employment to describe the Christian Church as a social whole, the one body with many members (Rom 12:5, 1Co 12:12 ff.m 1Co 12:27 etc.). Symbolically the broad of the Lords Supper is designated as the body of Christ (1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:24; 1Co 11:27; 1Co 11:29).
2. The doctrine.-Outside of the Pauline Epistles the references to the body are few in number, and do not furnish materials for separate doctrinal treatment. It is almost wholly with St. Paul that we have to do in considering the doctrinal applications of the word. His use of it is threefold-a literal use in connexion with his doctrine of man, a figurative or mystical use in his doctrine of the Church, a symbolic use in his doctrine of the Lords Supper.
(1) The literal body.-The assumption is frequently made that St. Pauls doctrine of man was formed under Hellenistic influences, and that he sets up a rigid dualism between body and soul, matter and spirit (cf. Holtzmann, NT Theol. ii. 14f.). It is true that he makes use of the contrasted terms flesh and spirit, body and soul, which had become general among the Jews through familiarity with the Septuagint , and were thus indirectly due to contact with the Greek world. But, notwithstanding his use of these terms, St. Pauls doctrine of man was firmly rooted in the soil of OT teaching, and anything like the Greek dualistic antithesis between body and soul was far from his thoughts. For him, as for the OT writers, the psycho-physical unity of the human personality was the fundamental feature in the conception of man. The body, no less than the soul, was essential to human nature in its completeness, though the body, as the part that links man to Nature, held a lower place than the soul or spirit by which he came into relation with God. These two strands of thought-the essentiality of the body to a complete human nature, and its subordination to the soul-run through all the Apostles anthropological teaching, and come into clear view in his teaching on the subjects of sin, death, sanctification, and the future life.
(a) The body and sin.-It is here that the argument for a positive dualism in the Pauline teaching regarding the body finds its strongest support. It must be admitted that St. Paul often speaks of the body and its members not only as instruments of sin, but as the seat of its power (e.g. Rom 6:12; Rom 6:19; Rom 7:5; Rom 7:23 f.). But it has been further alleged that be saw in the body the very source and principle of sin (Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, Leipzig, 1890, p. 53ff.). The argument depends on the interpretation given to the word flesh () in those passages where it is employed in on ethical sense in contrast with spirit (). It is assumed by Pfleiderer and others that in such cases simply denotes the physical or sensuous port of man, in which the Apostle finds a substance essentially antagonistic to the life of the spirit, making sin inevitable. But the objections to this view seem insuperable. In St. Pauls category of the works of the flesh (Gal 5:19 ff.) most of the sins he enumerates are spiritual, not physical, in their character. When he charges the Corinthians with being carnal (1Co 3:3), he is condemning, not sensuality, but jealousy and strife. His doctrines of the sanctification of the body (1Co 6:15; 1Co 6:19) and of the absolute sinlessness (2Co 5:21) of one born of a woman (Gal 4:4) would have been impossible if he had regarded the principle of sin as lying in mans corporeal nature. The antithesis of flesh and spirit, then, cannot be interpreted as amounting to a dualistic opposition between mans body and his soul. It is a contrast rather between the earthly and the heavenly, the natural and the supernatural, what is evolved from below and what is bestowed from above. The carnal man, with his mind of the flesh at enmity with God (Rom 8:7), is the same as the natural man who receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (1Co 2:14), and so is to be distinguished from the spiritual man in whom a supernatural and Divine principle is already at work (1Co 2:13 ff.; cf. 1Co 3:1; 1Co 3:3).
But while the Apostle does not find in the body the very principle of sin, he does regard it as a lurking-place of evil and a constant source of liability to fall (Rom 6:6; Rom 7:23-24). Hence his determination to bring the body into subjection (1Co 9:27), and his summons to others to mortify its deeds (Rom 8:13; cf. Col 3:5).
(b) The body and death.-In his teaching about death, St. Paul lends no support to the doctrine of these Greek philosophers who saw in it a liberation of the soul from bondage to the body as such (cf. Plato, Phaedo, 64ff.). The emphasis he lays on the inner and spiritual side of personality enables him, it is true, to conceive of existence, and even a blessed existence, in the disembodied state (2Co 5:8). His sense, too, of the weakness of the flesh and its subjection to the forces of evil leads him to describe the present body as a tabernacle in which we groan, being burdened. But in the same passage he expresses his confidence that the house not made with hands will take the place of the present tabernacle, and that those who have heretofore been burdened will be so clothed upon, that what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life (2Co 5:1-4). He longs not for deliverance from the body, but for its complete redemption and transformation, so that it may be perfectly adapted to the life of the spirit. In his view, death was not a liberation of the soul from bondage, but an interruption, due to sin (Rom 6:23), of the natural solidarity of the two component parts of human nature. But as Christ by His Spirit dwelling in ns can subdue the power of sin, so also can He gain the victory over death-the culminating proof of sins power (1Co 15:26). In Christ the promise is given of a body not only raided from the grave, but redeemed from the power of evil, and thus capable of being transformed from a natural body into a spiritual body (1Co 15:44; cf. Php 3:21).
(c) The body and sanctification.-St. Pauls view of the body as an essential part of the human personality appears further in his doctrine of the bodily holiness of a Christian man. In Corinth the perverted notion had grown up that since the body was not a part of the true personality, bodily acts were morally indifferent things (1Co 6:13 ff.). To this the Apostle opposes the doctrine that the body of a Christian belongs to the Lord, that it is a member of Christ Himself and a sanctuary of the Holy Ghost-thus making the personal life which unites us to Christ inseparable from those other manifestations of the same personal life which find expression in the bodily members. Yet this view of the communion of the body in mans spiritual life and its participation in the sanctifying powers of the Divine Spirit did not blind him to the fact that the body, as we know it, is weak and tainted, ever ready to become the instrument of temptation and an occasion of stumbling (Rom 6:19, 1Co 9:27). And so, side by side with the truth that the body is a Divine sanctuary, he sets the demand that sin should not be allowed to reign in our mortal bodies, that we should obey it in the lusts thereof (Rom 6:12).
(d) The body and the future life.-Here, again, the same two familiar lines of thought emerge. On the one hand, we have an overwhelming sense of the worth of the body for the human personality; on the other, a clear recognition of its present limitations and unfitness in its earthly form to be a perfect spiritual instrument. The proof of the first is seen in St. Pauls attitude to the idea of a bodily resurrection. To him the resurrection of Christ was a fact of the most absolute certainty (Rom 1:4, 1Co 15:3 ff.); and that fact carried with it the assurance that the dead are raised (1Co 15:15 ff.). Had he thought of the body as something essentially evil, had he not been persuaded of its absolute worth, his hopes for the future life must have centred in a bare doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and not, as they actually did, in the resurrection of the body. But while he clung passionately to the hope of the resurrection, he did not believe in the resurrection of the present body of flesh and blood (1Co 15:50). He looked for a body in which corruption had given place to incorruption (1Co 15:42-43) and humiliation had been changed into glory (Php 3:21). His doctrine of the resurrection includes the assurance that when the dead in Christ are raised (he has little to say of the physical resurrection of others), it will not be in the old bodies of their earthly experience, but in new ones adapted to heavenly conditions (1Co 15:47 ff.), bodies that are no longer psychical merely, i.e. moving on the plane of mans natural experience in the world, but pneumatical (1Co 15:44 ff.), because redeemed from every taint of evil and fitted to be the worthy and adequate organs of a spiritual and heavenly life.
(2) The figurative or mystical body.-In 1Co 12:12 ff. (cf. Rom 12:5), St. Paul describes the relations in which Christians stand to Christ and to one another under the figure of a body and its members; and towards the end of the chapter (1Co 12:27) he says of the Corinthian Church quite expressly, Now ye are a body of Christ ( ), and members in particular. In ancient classical literature the figure was frequently applied to the body politic; and the Apostle here transfers it to the Church with the view of impressing upon his readers the need for unity and mutual helpfulness. As yet, however, the figure is plastic, and the anarthrous suggests that it is the Church of Corinth only which St. Paul has immediately in view. This may be regarded, accordingly, as the preliminary sketch of that elaborated conception of the Church as Christs mystical body which is found in two later Epistles. In Ephesians (Eph 1:22 f.; Eph 4:12) and Colossians (Col 1:18; Col 1:24) the body of Christ ( ) has become a fixed designation of the universal and ideal Church. Moreover, this further distinction is to be observed, that whereas in Rom. and 1 Cor. Christ is conceived of as the whole body of which individual Christians are members in particular, in Eph. and Col. the Church has become the body of which Christ as the head is ruler, saviour, and nourisher (Eph 5:23 f., Col 2:19). In its later form the figure suggests not only the unity of the Church as the mystical body of Christ, but its absolute dependence upon Him who is the Head for its strength and growth and very existence.
(3) The symbolic body.-The words, This is my body, applied by Jesus to the broken bread of the Supper (Mat 26:26, Mar 14:22, Luk 22:19), are repeated by St. Paul in his narrative of the institution (1Co 11:24). And the Apostle not only repeats the Lords words in their historical connexion, but himself describes the sacramental bread as being Christs body. The bread which we break, he writes, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? (1Co 10:16). In like manner he says that whosoever shall eat the bread of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body of the Lord (1Co 11:27), and that a participant of the Supper eats and drinks judgment unto himself if he discern not the body (1Co 11:29). There are wide differences of opinion among Christians as to the full significance of this identification of the bread of the Lords Supper with the body of the Lord Himself. But whatever further meanings may be seen in it, and even under theories of a Real Presence, which is something other and more than a purely spiritual presence, the bread which Jesus broke at the Last Supper was, in the first place, a symbol of His own body of flesh and blood which was yielded to death in a sacrifice of love.
Literature.-H. Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lex.3, Edinburgh, 1880, s.v.; relevant sections in J. Laidlaw, Bible Doct. of Man, do. 1879; F. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychology, Eng. translation , do. 1867; end the NT Theologies of Holtzmann [Tbingen, 1911], Weiss [Eng.translation , Edinburgh, 1882-83], and Beyschlag [Eng. translation , do. 1895], See, further. W. P. Dickson, St. Pauls Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, Glasgow, 1883; H. H. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1892, i. 156; H. W. Robinson, Heb. Psychology in relation in Pauline Anthropology, in Mansfield College Essays, London, 1909: F. Paget, Spirit of Discipline, do, 1891, p. 80ff.
J. C. Lambert.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Body
(represented by numerous Heb. terms; Gr. , the animal frame of man as distinguished from his spiritual nature. Body is represented as opposed to shadow or figure (Colossiana 2:17). The ceremonies of the law are figures and shadows realized in Christ and the Christian religion. ‘” The body of sin” (Rom 6:6), called also “the body of this death” (Rom 7:24), is to be understood of the system and habit of sin before conversion, and which is afterward viewed as a loathsome burden. The apostle speaks of a spiritual body in opposition to the animal (1Co 15:44). The term also indicates a society; the Church with its different members (1Co 12:20-27).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Body (2)
(represented by numerous Heb. terms; Gr. , the animal frame of man as distinguished from his spiritual nature. Body is represented as opposed to shadow or figure (Colossiana 2:17). The ceremonies of the law are figures and shadows realized in Christ and the Christian religion. ‘” The body of sin” (Rom 6:6), called also “the body of this death” (Rom 7:24), is to be understood of the system and habit of sin before conversion, and which is afterward viewed as a loathsome burden. The apostle speaks of a spiritual body in opposition to the animal (1Co 15:44). The term also indicates a society; the Church with its different members (1Co 12:20-27).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
BODY
Although the Bible may speak of the body as being distinct from a persons spirit, soul, or mind (Mic 6:7; Mat 10:28; Rom 7:23-25), it also speaks of the body as representing the person (Neh 9:37; Rom 12:1; 1Co 13:3). This is because the Bible regards a human being as a unified whole, not as something that can be divided into separate independent parts.
Part of a unified whole
Each human being, as created in Gods image, exists in a living body (Gen 1:27). For this reason the Christians hope is not for the endless life of the spirit or soul in a bodiless existence, because a person without a body is not a complete person. What Christians look forward to is the resurrection of the body to full and eternal life (2Co 5:1-5; see HUMANITY, HUMANKIND). They do not yet know the exact nature of this resurrection body, but they know at least that it will be imperishable, beautiful, strong, suited to the life of the age to come, and patterned on Christs glorious body (1Co 15:35-54; Php 3:20-21; 1Jn 3:2; see RESURRECTION).
Since the whole person is created in Gods image and the whole person is destined for eternal glory, Christians should not despise the body. They should not consider it something evil. They may be ashamed of the wrong things they do through the body, but this is all the more reason why they must exercise discipline over it (Mat 5:27-30; Rom 6:12-13; Rom 8:13; 1Co 9:27; 1Th 5:23; Jam 3:3-5; see FLESH). Another reason to exercise such discipline is that the body is Gods temple, Gods dwelling place within each individual believer (1Co 6:12-20). (Concerning the church as the body of Christ see CHURCH.)
Likewise in their dealings with unbelievers Christians must remember that it is the whole person, not just the spirit or soul, that is made in the image of God. They should therefore do what they can to meet the bodily needs as well as the spiritual needs of their fellows human beings (Jam 2:15-16; 1Jn 3:17-18). In this they will be following the example of Jesus Christ (Mat 14:14-16; Mar 1:40-42); though like Jesus Christ they will realize that life is more than food and the body more than clothing (Mat 6:25).
A wrong view
In the church of the first and second centuries a kind of false teaching developed which asserted that the body, being material, was evil. This produced extremes of behaviour, from strict self-denial to unrestrained immorality. The false teachers claimed to have a special knowledge in relation to the world of matter and the world of spirit. Their knowledge, however, was false and its outcome was wrong behaviour (Col 2:23; 1Jn 1:8; 1Jn 3:10). (For further discussion see COLOSSIANS, LETTER TO THE; JOHN, LETTERS OF; KNOWLEDGE, sub-heading Knowledge and morality.)
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Body
BODY
i. The Human Body generally.Body in the Gospels invariably represents in the original. Always in Homer and frequently in Attic Greek = a dead body; and in this sense the word is occasionally used in the Gospels (Mat 27:52; Mat 27:58-59 || Luk 17:37). The usual meaning, however, here as in the rest of the NT and in ordinary Greek usage, is the living body, and in particular the body of a living man (Mat 6:22; Mat 26:12, Mar 5:29). In the records of our Lords life, teaching, and whole revelation, we find the dignity and claims of the body as an integral part of human nature constantly recognized. This meets us in the very fact of the Incarnation (Joh 1:14), in the most solemn utterances of Jesus (Mat 25:35; Mat 25:42), in His tender regard for the bodily needs and pains of those around HimHis feeding of the hungry and healing of the sick; but above all in the narratives of His Resurrection and Ascension, which show that the Incarnation was not a temporary expedient of His earthly mission, but a permanent enfolding of our human nature, body as well as soul, within the essential life of the Godhead.
The Gospels give no support to the philosophic tendency, so often reflected in certain types of religious teaching, to treat the body with disparagement. Jesus accords full rights to the corporeal side of our being. He was neither an ascetic nor a preacher of asceticismthe Son of Man came eating and drinking (Mat 11:18-19). At the same time, we find in His teaching a clear recognition of a duality in human naturea distinction drawn between body and soul, flesh and spirit (Mat 6:25; Mat 26:41). Moreover, He lays strong emphasis on the antithesis between the body as the lower part of a man, and the soul as the higher. Though the body is a true part of our humanity, its value is not to be compared for a moment with that of the spiritual part (Mat 10:28). Those who follow Jesus must be prepared, if need be, to surrender their bodies to the sword and the cross (Mat 23:34); but What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Mat 16:26).
In the teaching of Jesus the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which had gradually taken root in the Jewish mind, is everywhere presupposed (as in His references to the Future Judgment), and at times is expressly proclaimed (Luk 14:14; Luk 20:35, Joh 5:28-29). And by the grave of His friend Lazarus our Lord gave utterance to that profound saying, I am the resurrection and the life (Joh 11:25), which reveals the ultimate ground of Christian faith in the resurrection of the body, and at the same time invites us to find in the nature of the risen Christ Himself the type, as well as the pledge, of that new and higher corporeal life to which He is able to raise His people.
ii. The Body of Christ.
(1) Christs natural body.As the man Christ Jesus, our Lord was possessed of a true body as well as of a reasonable soul. When the time was come in the counsels of God for the redemption of mankind, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took upon Him human flesh by the operation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Mat 1:18, cf. Gal 4:4). In due time, according to the laws of human life, He was born at Bethlehem (Luk 2:5; Luk 2:7). The child thus born was seen in His infancy by the shepherds and the wise men, and, when He was eight days old, by Simeon and Anna (Luk 2:25; Luk 2:36). From His conception and birth His body developed in the manner usual to human beings. The child grew, we are told (Luk 2:40); arrived at twelve years old; and still increased in stature (Luk 2:42; Luk 2:52).
After He had arrived at mans estate, we find Him living under the conditions to which the bodies of men in ordinary life are subject. We learn that He suffered hunger (Mat 4:2); that He was wearied with journeying (Joh 4:6); that He experienced pain (Mat 27:26); and that He underwent death (Mat 27:50). In healing sickness He frequently used common bodily action, and His power of motion, with one miraculous exception (Mat 14:25 ||), was limited to that which men in general possess. After death, His body, nowise different from that of an ordinary man, was delivered by Pilate to Joseph of Arimathaea, who wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb (Mat 27:58 f.), where it rested till the moment of the Resurrection. Down to that moment, then, the Lords body had been a human body with the powers, qualities, and capacities of the body of an ordinary man.
(2) Christs body after the Resurrection.It was the same body as before His death. The grave was left empty, because the very body which Joseph of Arimathaea laid there had risen and departed. Moreover, it had in most respects the same appearance. His disciples might doubt and hesitate at first (Luk 24:16; Luk 24:37, Joh 20:14), but they did not fail to recognize Him (Luk 24:31; Luk 24:52, Joh 20:16; Joh 20:20; Joh 20:28; Joh 21:7; Joh 21:12, Act 1:3; Act 2:32). We find Him eating and drinking as a man (Luk 24:42), making use of the natural process of breathing (Joh 20:22), declaring to His disciples that He had flesh and bones (Luk 24:39), showing them His hands and His feet (Luk 24:40), and giving them the assurance that His body was the identical body which they had seen stretched upon the cross, by inviting the disciple who doubted, to put his finger into the print of the nails and thrust his hand into the wound in His side (Joh 20:27).
On the other hand, our Lords resurrection body was freed from previous material conditions and possessed of altogether new capacities. It seems to be implied that it could pass at will through material objects (Joh 20:26); and it does not appear to have been subject as before to the laws of movement (Luk 24:36), or visibility (Luk 24:31), or gravitation (Mar 16:19, Luk 24:51). These new powers constituted the difference between His pre-resurrection and His glorified body. It was in His glorified body, thus differentiated, that He ascended into heaven; and in that same glorified body He is to be expected at His final coming (Act 1:9; Act 1:11).
There is little ground for the idea of Olshausen (Gospels and Acts, iv. 259260) and others, revived by Dr. Newman Smyth (Old Faiths in New Light, ch. viii.), that the transformation of Christs body from the natural to the glorified condition was a process which went on gradually during the Forty Days, and was not completed till the Ascension. Rather, it must be said that on the very day of His Resurrection the spirituality of His risen body was as clearly shown as in the case of that much later manifestation by the Sea of Tiberias (cf. Luk 24:31; Luk 24:36, Joh 21:4 ff.). We are not to think of the body of Jesus during this period as in a transition state with regard to its substancepartly of earth and partly of heaven. It was with a spiritual body that He rose, that glorified body of which His Transfiguration had been both a prophecy and a foretaste; and if we see Him moving for a time along the borders of two worlds, that was because, for the sake of His disciples and the future Church, He made use of the natural in order to the revelation of the spiritual. It is in this way that we must explain His asking and receiving food (Luk 24:41 ff., Act 10:41). He cannot have depended upon this food for His bodily support. His purpose in taking it was to convince His disciples that He was still a living man, in body as well as in spirit,that same Jesus who had so often in past days partaken with them of their simple meals.
In respect of His body the risen Jesus now belonged to the mysterious regions of the invisible world, and it was only when He chose to reveal Himself that His disciples were aware of His presence. It is to be noticed that St. John describes His appearances as manifestations: He manifested Himself, was manifested, to the disciples (Joh 21:1; Joh 21:14). His resurrection body was a spiritual body, but it had the power of materializing itself to the natural senses, and Jesus made use of this power from time to time in order to convince His disciples, by the actual evidence of sight and sound and touch, that the victory of His whole human personality over death and the grave was real and complete. And when this work was accomplished, He parted from them for the last time, and went up to the right hand of the Father in a kind of royal state which not only proclaimed His own lordship over both worlds, but became a prophecy of the truth regarding the divinely appointed destiny of those whom He is not ashamed to call His brethren. In the body of Christs glory both St. Paul and St. John find the type after which the believers body of humiliation is to be fashioned at last (Php 3:21, 1Jn 3:2). We are to be like our Lord in the possession of a human nature in which the corporeal has been so fully interpenetrated by the spiritual that the natural body has been transformed into a spiritual body (1Co 15:42-49).
There is no ground to suppose that our Lords entrance upon the state of exaltation implies any further change in His bodily nature. Certainly no new quality could be developed which would be inconsistent with the essential characteristics of a body. One of these characteristics is the impossibility of being in two places at the same moment. As long as He was on earth His body could not be in heaven, though He was there by His Spirit; and as long as He is in heaven His body cannot be on earth, although He is present by His Spirit, according to His promise to be with His followers where they are gathered together in His name (Mat 18:20; cf. Mat 28:20). St. Peter preached that the heavens must receive Him until the times of restoration of all things (Act 3:21); and Christ Himself taught the Apostles that it was expedient for them that in bodily form He should leave them, so that the Comforter might take His place in the midst of the Church (Joh 16:7).
(3) Christs mystical body.In 1Co 12:12 ff. (cf. Rom 12:5) St. Paul uses the figure of a body and its members to describe the relations of Christian people to Christ and to one another, and then in 1Co 12:27 he definitely applies the expression a body of Christ ( ) to the Corinthian Church. With reference to the body politic the figure was a familiar one in both Greek and Latin literature, and the Apostle transfers it to the Church for the purpose of emphasizing his exhortations to Church unity and a sense of mutual dependence among the people of Christ. As yet, however, the figure is quite plastic, while the anarthrous suggests that it is the local Church which is immediately in view. Here, accordingly, we have in their first draft the Apostles grand conceptions on the subject of the Lords mystical body. When we come to Ephesians (Eph 1:22-23; Eph 4:12) and Colossians (Col 1:18; Col 1:24) we find that his ideas have been elaborated, and that the body of Christ ( ) has become a fixed title of the Church not as local merely, but as universal, nor simply as empiric, but as an ideal magnitude. We notice this further distinction, that in the earlier Epistles Christ is conceived of as the whole body, of which individual Christians are the particular members; while in Ephesians and Colossians He becomes the head of the Church which is His body (Eph 5:23-24, Col 2:19)the vital and organic centre of the whole. The idea of this striking figure is similar to that presented by our Lord Himself in the allegory of the Vine and the Branches (Joh 15:1-8). The lesson of the figure, as of the allegory, is not only that in Christ all believers are bound together into the unity of the Church, but that the spiritual vitality, indeed the very existence, of individual Christians and Christian communities depends upon the closeness of their relations with Jesus Christ who is their head.
(4) Christs symbolic body.On the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus, in instituting the sacrament of the Supper, said of the bread which He took and broke and gave to His disciples, This is my body ( : Mat 26:26, Mar 14:22, Luk 22:19, 1Co 11:24). Similarly St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says of the bread which is broken at the Supper, Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1Co 10:16); while in the same Epistle he describes the person who eats the sacramental bread unworthily as guilty of the body of the Lord (1Co 11:27), and says that a man eats and drinks judgment unto himself if he discern not the body (1Co 11:29). Opinions have differed greatly in the Church as to the full significance of this language, whether on the lips of Jesus or of St. Paul. But whatever its further meanings may be, there can be little doubt that primarily the broken bread of the Supper is a symbol of the crucified body of Christ. With this symbolic use of the word body many have sought to identify the words of the Lord in the Fourth Gospel about eating the flesh of the Son of Man (Joh 6:53-63). But as the word denotes the body as an organism, while flesh () applies only to the substance of the body, and as is never employed elsewhere in the NT to describe the sacramental bread, it is unlikely either that Jesus would use with this intention, or that the author of the Gospel would have failed to use , the ordinary sacramental term, if it had been his intention to represent our Lord as furnishing in the Capernaum discourse a prophetic announcement of the institution of the Supper. See art. Lords Supper.
Literature.Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v.; Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon, s.v.; Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of Man, s.v.; Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, s.v. Resurrection; Lange, Life of Christ, vol. v. p. 126 ff.; Forrest, Christ of History, PP. 150 ff., 411 ff.; Expositors Greek Testament, passim; arts. Resurrection and Ascension in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible .
F. Meyrick and J. C. Lambert.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Body
BODY in OT represents various Heb. words, especially that for flesh. In Exo 24:10 it means, by a common idiom, the framework of heaven; there is no personification. In NT, though the body may be the seat of sin and death (Rom 6:6; Rom 7:24), it is never treated with contempt (Rom 12:1, 1Co 6:13; 1Co 6:19); Php 3:21 is a well-known mistranslation. Accordingly it could be used metaphorically of the Church, Christ being sometimes the Head, sometimes the Body itself.
C. W. Emmet.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Body
In the language of Scripture, somewhat more is meant than the mere animal life, when speaking of the body. The whole church of Christ is his body. And the Holy Ghost, by his servant the apostle Paul, saith, “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” (1Co 15:44) So that the term is variously used.
But I should not have thought it necessary on this account to have made any pause at the word body, it not been in reference to a subject of an infinitely higher nature; I mean, in relation to the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. The wonderful condescension of the Son of God in taking upon him our nature, and assuming a body, such as ours, in all points like as we are, yet without sin; makes it a most interesting subject, and comes home recommended to our tenderest affections, that it is impossible ever to pass by it, or to regard it with coolness and indifference. I would beg the reader’s indulgence for a few moments on the occasion.
The Scripture account of this mysterious work is not more marvellous than it is endearing. It became necessary, it seems, in the accomplishment of redemption, that the great and almighty Author of it should be man, yea, perfect man, as well as perfect God. The relation which God the Holy Ghost hath given, concerning the Son of God becoming incarnate, is said to the church in so many sweet and blessed words, that the soul of the believer, methinks, would chime upon them for ever. “Wherefore (he saith) in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” Hence, therefore, the Son of God passed by the nature of angels, for an angel’s nature would not have suited his purpose, nor ours. He was to be in all points like those he redeemed, sin only excepted; and, therefore, a body he assumes for the accomplishment of this great end. (See Heb ii throughout, but particularly Heb 2:14-18.)
This, therefore, being determined on in the council of peace, that He who undertook to redeem our nature, should partake of the same nature as those he redeemed; the next enquiry is, What saith the Scripture concerning the Son of God resuming our nature, and how was it wrought?
The Scriptures, with matchless grace and condescension, have shewn this, and in a way, considering the dulness of our faculties in apprehension, so plain and circumstantial, that under the blessed Spirit teaching, the humblest follower of the Lord, taught by the Holy Ghost, can clearly apprehend the wonderful subject. Under the spirit of prophecy, Jesus declared, ages before his incarnation, JEHOVAH had provided a body for his assumption. “Sacrifice and offering (said the Lord,) thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” (See Psa 40:6 with Heb 10:5, etc.) But how was the Son of God to assume this body? The Holy Ghost takes up the blessed subject, and by his servant the Evangelist Luke, records the whole particular’s of a conference which took place between an angel and a Virgin Called Mary, whose womb, by his miraculous impregnation, and without the intervention of a human father, was to bring forth this glorious Holy One, as the great Saviour of his people. The Holy Ghost (said the angel to Mary,)”shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” I beg the reader to turn to the wonderful account, and read the whole. (Luk 1:26-53) And I would farther beg him to turn to the Scriptures of the prophets, who, with one voice, pointed to this great event in all their ministrations, (Isa 7:14; Isa 9:6; Mic 5:2) And when the reader hath gone over all these Scriptures of the Old Testament, I request him to finish the enquiry in reading the history of the facts themselves, as they are recorded in the New, and bless God for his grace and condescension in bringing the church acquainted with such an event, in the interest of which our present and everlasting happiness is so intimately concerned.
In speaking, therefore, or having a right conception of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ; this is the point of view in which the Scriptures of God teach us to regard that holy body. The Son of God as God, assuming this holy thing, so expressly called by the angel, underived from our fallen nature, and as to any shadow of imperfection, unconnected with it; becomes a suited Saviour for all the purposes of redemption, and being by this sacred and mysterious union, God and man in one person, formed one Christ: he, and he only, becomes the proper Redeemer and Mediator, the God-man Christ Jesus. And hence the plain and obvious meaning of all these Scriptures. God in Christ. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily.” (2Co 5:19; Col 2:9; 1Ti 3:16; Joh 1:14) and Joh 17:1-26 throughout.
I must not enlarge. Neither ought I to dismiss the subject without first adding, to what I have said, one observation more; that by virtue of this union of our nature with the Son of God, his church is brought into an intimate union and oneness with him. And while we are taught to behold Christ as taking upon him our nature, we are no less taught, to consider every regenerated believer as a “member of his body, his flesh, and his bones.” (Eph 5:23-33.) And it is a matter of holy joy and rapture, never to be lost sight of by the humblest and poorest of his redeemed people, that the hand of God the Father is in all these glorious concerns, “who gave his dear Son to be the Head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” (Eph 1:22-23)
See Mary
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Body
bodi:
I. Philological
Generally speaking, the Old Testament language employs no fixed term for the human body as an entire organism in exact opposition to soul or spirit. Various terms were employed, each of which denotes only one part or element of the physical nature, such as trunk, bones, belly, bowels, reins, flesh, these parts being used, by synecdoche, for the whole: , ecem = bone, or skeleton, hence, body, is found in Exo 24:10 the King James Version; Lam 4:7; , nephesh = living organism ( Lev 21:11; Num 6:6, Num 6:7, Num 6:11; Num 19:11, Num 19:13, Num 19:16; Hag 2:13); , nebhelah = a flabby thing, carcass (Deu 21:23; Isa 26:19; Jer 26:23; Jer 36:30); , beten = womb (Deu 28:4, Deu 28:11, Deu 28:18, Deu 28:53; Deu 30:9; Job 19:17 the King James Version; Psa 132:11; Mic 6:7); , yarekh = thigh, generative parts, body (Jdg 8:30); , gewyah = a body, whether alive or dead (1Sa 31:10, 1Sa 31:12; 2Ki 8:5 the King James Version; Dan 10:6); , mem, body (Son 5:14); , guphah = corpse (1Ch 10:12); , gewah = the back, i.e. (by extension) person (Job 20:25); , she’er = flesh, as living or for food, body (Eze 10:12); , geshem = a hard shower of rain hence, a body (Dan 4:33; Dan 5:21; Dan 7:11); , ndhneh = a sheath, hence, the receptacle of the soul, body (Dan 7:15).
The Greek word which is used almost exclusively for body in the New Testament is , soma, Latin corpus (Mat 5:29, Mat 5:30; Mat 6:22, Mat 6:23, Mat 6:25; Mat 26:26; Joh 2:21; Act 9:40; 1Co 15:35, 1Co 15:37, 1Co 15:38, 1Co 15:44; Eph 1:23; Eph 2:16; Eph 4:4, Eph 4:12, Eph 4:16; Eph 5:23, Eph 5:30). , chros, signifying primarily the surface or skin, occurs in Act 19:12. A compound word with soma, as its base, , sussomos = a member of the same body, occurs in Eph 3:6. From the above, it appears that the New Testament places the body as a whole into opposition to the spirit or the invisible nature. Paul, of course, employs the term also to designate the sublimated substance with which we are to be clothed after the resurrection when he speaks of the spiritual body (1Co 15:44).
II. General
1. In the Old Testament
, soma, Latin corpus: The term body is not found in the Hebrew of the Old Testament in the sense in which it occurs in the Greek The Hebrew word for ‘body’ is , gewyah, which is sometimes used for the ‘living’ body (Eze 1:11), ‘bodies of the cherubim’ (Gen 47:18; Neh 9:37), but usually for the dead body or carcass. Properly speaking the Hebrew has no term for ‘body.’ The Hebrew term around which questions relating to the body must gather is flesh (Davidson, Old Testament Theology, 188). Various terms are used in the Old Testament to indicate certain elements or component parts of the body, such as flesh, bones, bowels, belly, etc., some of which have received a new meaning in the New Testament. Thus the Old Testament belly (Hebrew beten, Greek koila), Our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly cleaveth unto the earth (Psa 44:25 the King James Version) – as the seat of carnal appetite – has its counterpart in the New Testament: They serve … their own belly (Rom 16:18). So also the word translated bowels (mem, rahamm) in the sense of compassion, as in Jer 31:20, King James Version: Therefore my bowels are troubled for him, is found in more than one place in the New Testament. Thus in Phi 1:8 the King James Version, I long after you all in the bowels (splagchna) of Christ, and again, if there be any bowels (splagchna) and mercies (Phi 2:1 the King James Version).
2. In the New Testament
Body in the New Testament is largely used in a figurative sense, either as indicating the whole man (Rom 6:12; Heb 10:5), or as that which is morally corrupt – the body of this death (Rom 6:6; Rom 7:24). Hence, the expression, buffet my body (1Co 9:27, hupopiazo, a word adopted from the prize-ring, palaestra), the body being considered as the lurking-place and instrument of evil. (Compare Rom 8:13 the King James Version Mortify the deeds of the body.)
3. Other Meanings
Between these two the various other meanings seem to range. On the one hand we find the church called the body of Christ (Eph 4:16; 1Co 12:13), with diversity of gifts, enjoying the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. On the other we read of a spiritual, incorruptible body, a resurrection-body as opposed to the natural body, which is doomed to corruption in death (1Co 15:44). Not only do we find these meanings in the word itself, but also in some of its combinations. On the one hand we read in Eph 3:6 of the Gentiles as partakers of the promise in Christ as fellow-heirs, and of the same body (sussoma) in corporate union with all who put their trust in the Redeemer of mankind; on the other, we read of mere bodily (somatic) exercises, which are not profitable. (1Ti 4:8) – where body evidently is contrasted with spirit. And again, we read of the Holy Ghost descending in bodily (somatic) shape upon the Son of God (Luk 3:22), in whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily (somatically) (Col 2:9). So, too, the body is called a temple of the Holy Ghost: Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? (1Co 6:19).
4. The Body and Sin
From all this it is apparent that the body in itself is not necessarily evil, a doctrine which is taught in Greek philosophy, but nowhere in the Old Testament and New Testament. The rigid and harsh dualism met with in Plato is absent from Paul’s writings, and is utterly foreign to the whole of Scripture. Here we are distinctly taught, on the one hand, that the body is subordinated to the soul, but on the other, with equal clearness, that the human body has a dignity, originally conferred upon it by the Creator, who shaped it out of earth, and glorified it by the incarnation of Christ, the sinless One, though born of a woman. Julius Mller has well said: Paul denies the presence of evil in Christ, who was partaker of our fleshly nature (Gal 4:4), and he recognizes it in spirits who are not partakers thereof (Eph 6:12 the King James Version, ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’). Is it not therefore in the highest degree probable that according to him evil does not necessarily pertain to man’s sensuous nature, and that sarx (say body) denotes something different from this? (The Christian Doctrine of Sin, I, 321, English edition). He further shows that the derivation of sin from sense is utterly irreconcilable with the central principle of the apostle’s doctrine as to the perfect holiness of the Redeemer, and that the doctrine of the future resurrection – even taking into account the distinction between the soma psuchikon and the soma pneumatikon (1Co 15:44) – is clearly at variance with the doctrine that sin springs from the corporal nature as its source (318).
5. The First Sin
The very first sin was spiritual in its origin – an act of rebellion against God – the will of the creature in opposition to the will of the Creator (Gen 3). It was conceived in doubt – Hath God said?; it was born in desire – The tree was good for food; it was stimulated by a rebellious hankering after equality with God: Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil; it was introduced from without, from the spiritual world, through the agency of a mysterious, supernatural being, employing a beast of the field more subtle than any which Yahweh God had made. That the serpent in the Old Testament is not identified with Satan, and that the clearest utterance in pre-Christian times on the subject is to be found in the Book of The Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 (by the envy of the devil death entered into the world), may be true. That the narrative of the Fall is figurative or symbolical may also be granted. But the whole tendency of the early narrative is to connect the first human sin with a superhuman being, employing an agent known to man, and making that agent its representative in the subtlety of the great temptation as a prelude to the mighty fall. The New Testament is clear on this point (Joh 8:44; Joh 16:11; 2Co 11:3; 1Ti 2:14; Heb 2:14; Rev 12:9). Great historic truths are imbedded in that narrative, whatever we may think of the form which that narrative has assumed. There can be no doubt that the oldest and truest traditions of the human race are to be found there. It is not denied that sin has desecrated the temple of the liv ing God, which is the body. That body indeed has become defiled and polluted by sin. Paul recognizes an abnormal development of the sensuous in fallen man, and regards sin as having in a special manner entrenched itself in the body, which becomes liable to death on this very account (Rom 6:23; Rom 7:24) (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I, 761). But we may safely say that theory which connects sin with the physical body, and gives it a purely sensuous origin, is alien to the whole spirit and letter of revelation.
III. Figurative
In the New Testament (, soma, the body both of men and animals) the word has a rich figurative and spiritual use: (1) The temporary home of the soul (2Co 5:6); (2) the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Co 6:19); (3) temple (Joh 2:21); (4) the old man, the flesh as the servant of sin or the sphere in which moral evil comes to outward expression (Rom 6:6; Rom 7:7; compare Paul’s use of sarx, flesh); (5) The church as Christ’s body, the organism through which He manifests His life and in which H is spirit dwells (Eph 1:23; Col 1:24); (6) The spiritual unity of believers, one redeemed society or organism (Eph 2:16; a corpus mysticum, Eph 4:4); (7) substance (spiritual reality or life in Christ) versus shadow (Col 2:17); (8) The ascended and glorified body of Jesus (Phi 3:21); (9) The resurrection or spiritual (v. natural) body of the redeemed in heaven (1Co 15:44); (10) the whole personality, e.g. the spiritual presence, power and sacrificial work of Christ, the mystical meaning of the body and the blood symbolized in the bread and cup of the sacrament (1Co 11:27). The term body is exceptionally rich in connection with the selfgiving, sacrificial, atoning work of Christ. It was the outward sphere or manifestation of His suffering. Through the physical He revealed the extent of His redeeming and sacrificial love. He bare our sins in his body upon the tree (1Pe 2:24), Thus forever displacing all the ceaseless and costly sacrifices of the old dispensation (Heb 9:24-28). Special terms, body of his flesh (Col 1:22); body of sin (Rom 6:6); body of this death (Rom 7:24); body of his glory (Phi 3:21).
, ptoma, used only of fallen, i.e. dead bodies (Rev 11:8, Rev 11:9).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Body
Called House
2Co 5:1
Called House of Clay
Job 4:19
Called The Temple of God
1Co 3:16; 1Co 6:3; 1Co 6:15; 1Co 6:19
Corruptible
Job 17:14; 1Co 15:53-54
Resurrection of
1Co 15:19-54 Resurrection
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Body
Here taken in the sense of the material organized substance of man contrasted with the mind, soul or spirit, thus leading to the problem of the relation between body and mind, one of the most persistent problems of philosophy. Of course, any theory which identifies body and mind, or does not adequately distinguish the psychical from the physical, regarding both as aspects of the same reality, eludes some of the difficulties presented by the problem. Both materialism and idealism may be considered as forms of psycho-physical monism. Materialism by denying the real existence of spiritual beings and reducing mind to a function of matter, and spiritualism, or that species called idealism, which regards bodies simply as contents of consciousness, really evade the main issue. All those, however, who frankly acknowledge the empirically given duality of mind and organism, are obliged to struggle with the problem of the relation between them. The two most noted rival theories attempting an answer are interactionism and parallelism. The first considers both body and mind as substantial beings, influencing each other, hence causally related. The second holds that physical processes and mental processes accompany each other without any interaction or interference whatsoever, consequently they cannot be causally related. The Scholastics advance the doctrine of the human composite consisting of body and soul united into one substance and nature, constituting the human person or self, to whom all actions of which man is capable must be ascribed. There can be no interaction, since there is but one agent, formed of two component elements. This theory, like interactionism, makes provision for survival, even immortality, while parallelism definitely precludes it. No known theory can meet all objections and prove entirely satisfactory; the problem still persists. See Descartes, Spinoza, Mind. — J.J.R.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Body
Joh 2:21 (a) In this passage, the body of the Lord JESUS is represented as a temple in which GOD dwells.
Rom 6:6 (b) Here the word is used as though sin itself owned the body as, in fact, it does in some instances. The entire body, from head to foot, is used by some to serve sin.
Rom 12:5 (a) All the Christians bound together by the Holy Spirit are referred to here as forming the body of CHRIST. The believers on earth are called His very body because they are so precious to Him, and because of His utmost care for them. His life indwells all His church.
Eph 1:23 (a) The body is used here in the sense that all the members of the body of CHRIST, those who are saved by grace, belong to one another. As the parts of the body belong to one another and are made to serve one another, so each member of the body of CHRIST serves each other member. No part of the body is independent of any of the rest of the body and so it is among true believers.