Your Body Matters
Broken, Bought, and Bound for Resurrection
There is a quiet but widespread misunderstanding in the church: that our bodies are temporary, disposable, or spiritually irrelevant. We talk about “saving souls” as if the body were just packaging—something to be tolerated now and discarded later. But Scripture tells a very different story.
From the opening pages of Genesis to the empty tomb of Jesus, God insists that bodies matter. Not just souls. Not just hearts. Bodies. The Christian hope is not escape from physical existence, but the redemption of it. And yet, most of us live at war with our own flesh—frustrated by its limits, embarrassed by its weaknesses, or exhausted by its pain.
If we are honest, many of us don’t just long for our bodies to be healed—we sometimes long to be free from having bodies at all. But the gospel does not teach us to despise embodiment. It teaches us to hope for resurrection.
Your Body Is Eternal
Your body was created with the intention of never dying. Death is an intruder, not a design feature (Genesis 2; Romans 5). The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration that bodies matter—and that they will be restored.
Christian hope is not the abandonment of the body, but its renewal. The empty tomb does not point us away from creation, but toward a redeemed one.
Our Bodies Are Broken
I have spent hours looking at medical images and reading numbers and figures surrounding the brokenness of my son’s body. I have read genetic reports showing missing material in his chromosomes—deficiencies that lead to physical abnormalities and lifelong complications.
I feel that brokenness in myself too. After a rough night with little sleep, my body reminds me of its limits. Last year, I had to receive a cortisone shot to manage pain in my back. Many have endured far worse than I have, but the reminder is the same: our bodies fail us.
Jesus Himself felt the limitations of the human body. After being beaten to within an inch of His life by Roman guards, He endured the sting of every lash of the cat-o’-nine-tails as it tore the skin from His back. He collapsed beneath the weight of the crossbeam as He walked up the hill to be nailed to the cross.
We live in a fallen world. And many long not just for healed bodies, but for freedom from embodied existence itself. Some experience deep dissatisfaction with their appearance, their gender, their abilities, and much more.
We Are Dissatisfied With Our Bodies
Every January, people across the country resolve to reshape their bodies into what they wish they were. According to recent reports, gym memberships spike by roughly 12% at the beginning of the year. We want our bodies to be different. We want them to match the image we have constructed in our minds of the “ideal” body.
In the last decade, there has been a noticeable rise in eating disorders, body dysmorphia, hormone therapy, and cosmetic or elective surgeries. While the desire to be healthy and strong is a good and godly desire, dissatisfaction—when left unchecked—can morph into something destructive.
This dissatisfaction is rooted in a deeper reality: our bodies are broken. We are not who we were originally created to be. With each passing day, our bodies deteriorate further. Sickness intrudes. Strength fades.
Dissatisfaction itself is not sinful, because it is honest. Something truly is wrong. But brokenness does not negate value.
With three little boys in my house, things break often. Toys crack. Books tear. Furniture gets damaged. Each time, we ask the same question: Is this worth repairing? Is this worth saving? If not, it’s thrown away. If it is, we do whatever it takes to restore it.
Your Body Is Part of the Image of God
When God created humanity, He made us male and female in His image. No matter your gender, skin color, size, or ability, your body was created to reflect something true about God (Genesis 1:27).
When Jesus walked the earth, He took upon Himself this veil of flesh and dust. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). He breathed the same air we breathe. He drank water like you and me. He felt hunger and thirst. He experienced the full weight of human frailty, limitation, pain, and exhaustion.
The value of our bodies was put on full display when God Himself stepped out of heaven and entered one.
You can buy a baseball today—nearly identical to the ones used by professionals—for about six dollars. Yet in 2024, the most expensive baseball ever sold at auction was Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball from his historic season, selling for $4.39 million. The ball itself isn’t different in material. Its value comes from who touched it and what moment it was part of. It costs only a few dollars to manufacture a baseball—yet this one sold for over four million because it was connected to greatness. In the same way, our bodies have value because God created them—but their worth was magnified when God Himself chose to inhabit one just like yours.
Your Body Was Purchased by Jesus and United with the Spirit
Your specific body was purchased by Jesus. You do not belong to yourself. “You were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
Your body is not merely something you have—it is something God has chosen to dwell in (1 Corinthians 6:19). Even in its weakness, even in its brokenness, your body is sacred ground.
So What?
These truths shape far more than abstract theology—they reshape how we live in our own skin.
The Christian hope is not a disembodied spiritual existence floating on heavenly clouds, but an embodied life in a restored creation (Romans 8:18–25; 1 Corinthians 15). Resurrection, not escape, is the end of the story.
That means our differences matter. Skin color, hair color, voice, sex, and bodily form are not accidents or mistakes. They are part of how God made us. Yes, we live in a fallen world, and our bodies bear the weight and wounds of that curse. But the core of who you are is not a defect to be corrected.
Some of us will be larger, some smaller. Some lighter, some darker. Some strong, some frail. But our worth does not come from any of these things. Our worth comes from this: God made us, God entered one of us, and God intends to raise us.