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christian counseling today
VOL. 22 NO. 1
43
b
Image of God
The astounding claim of Christianity is that the invisible
God has made Himself visible
through the human body
.
For in Christ, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”
(Colossians 2:9). John Paul’s thesis statement proclaims that
“only the body is capable of making visible what is invisible:
the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer
into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from
eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.”
This mystery refers to inner life of the Trinity and our
privileged invitation in Christ to share in it. As Dennis
Kinlaw, past President and Chancellor of Asbury College,
observes: “Salvation is a gift of the Father through the Son
and by the Spirit to bring [us], not just to forgiveness and
reconciliation with God but, into participation in the very
communion that the three persons of the triune Godhead
know [among] themselves.”
In chapter 5 of Ephesians, Paul reveals that this “mystery”
isn’t far from us. It is as plain to us as the bodies God gave
us when He created us male and female and called the two
to become “one flesh.” Furthermore, in the normal course of
events, the union of the “two” leads to a “third.” Here, in a
way, we see a Trinitarian image. Thus, John Paul concludes
that we image God not only as individuals, but also through
the union of man and woman. Of course, God Himself is
not sexual, but our sexuality, by way of analogy, hints at His
Trinitarian life.
Beyond “Sin Management”
On this side of the Fall, men and women are blind to the
deepest truth about their bodies and plagued in their unions
with all kinds of tensions and conflicts. John Paul reminds
us of Christ’s words that, “in the beginning it was not so”
(Matthew 19:8). And the “good news” is that Christ came
into the world to restore creation to the purity of its origins.
This is what the “new wine” of Cana is symbolically speaking
about.
In the beginning, man and woman were “naked without
shame” because they experienced sexual desire as God created
it: as the power to love as He loves. The entrance of shame
indicates the dawn of lust, of erotic desire cut off from God’s
love. We cover our bodies in a fallen world not because they
are bad, but to protect their inherent goodness from the
degradation of lust, even a “lustful look.”
Christ’s words are severe in this regard. He insists that
if we look lustfully at others, we have already committed
adultery in our hearts (see Matthew 5:28). John Paul asks
whether we should fear Christ’s words or have confidence
in their power to save us. To use Christian theologian and
philosopher Dallas Willard’s expression, Christ did not die
on a cross and rise from the dead to give us a program of “sin
management.” Christ died and rose to save us from sin so that
we, too, could live a new life (see Romans 6:4). This means
our sexual desires can be effectively
transformed
through the
“redemption of the body” (Romans 8:23).
Of course, on this side of heaven we will always be able to
recognize a battle in our hearts between love and lust. Only
in eternity will the battle cease, as will marriage as we know
it today. However, when Christ said we will no longer marry
in the resurrection (see Matthew 22:30), this does not mean
our longing for union will be obliterated. It means it will be
fulfilled
in the “Marriage of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:7).
That
is the union we truly crave.
As we said at the start, the union of the sexes here on
earth is only an
icon
that is meant to point us to heaven.
When we get there, the temporal icon will give way to the
eternal reality.
Winning the Battle
It is no mere coincidence that Paul follows his presentation of
the “great mystery” of sexuality with a call to take up arms in
the spiritual battle. The first thing he says we must do is “gird
our loins with the truth” (Ephesians 6:14). Hmmm.
We are not fighting flesh and blood. Rather, powerful
spiritual forces are at work that do not want us to see the
“great mystery” revealed through our bodies. Pornography, we
must be clear, is a hellish mockery of a heavenly reality. We
will be liberated from the culture’s pornographic vision of the
body only in as much as we reclaim the Bible’s iconographic
vision of the body.
✠
CHRISTOPHER WEST, M.T.S.,
is President of
The Cor Project, a global membership and outreach
organization helping others learn, live, and share
the Theology of the Body. He also serves as Senior
Lecturer at the Theology of the Body Institute and
his courses there attract students from around the
world. Christopher is the best-selling author of multiple books and video
programs, and his work has been featured in the
New York Times
, on
ABC News, Fox News, MSNBC, and countless Catholic and Protestant
media outlets.
... the union of the sexes here on earth is only an
icon
that is meant to point us to
heaven. When we get there, the temporal icon will give way to the eternal reality.