In the Image of God female. Lesson Five

In the Image of God female Lesson Five As we look into God s Word, see His plan for our lives, experience His unconditional love, we may regret how little we understood the body, soul and spirit connection in our past. In Genesis women and man were created by God to be a living beings both of the dust of the ground and the breath of life. We have both material and non-material aspects, and the Bible teaches they exist and belong together. John 3:6 says That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. That s why we must be born again. When we are born again our flesh which had been subjected to death and corruption is sanctified and designated for resurrection and eternal life. When we are united In Christ through the new birth, Christ owns us body, soul, and spirit. We have given ourselves entirely to the abiding Christ. Even as marriage represents a physical union, the spiritual marriage to Christ includes our body. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19- wrote: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;. To be the temple of the living God is to belong exclusively to God and to forsake all associations that would be incompatible with God's ownership. To drive home this point, Paul uses here the word naos which is the Holy of Holies. It's the dwelling place of God. It's a place of divine activity. It's not the hieron, the whole temple precinct. It's the naos, the inner sanctuary. Your body is the inner sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, which you have of God. You are not your own. Paul identifies this new mode of existence with being inhabited by the Spirit of Jesus, the glorified Christ lives in His followers by His Spirit. United with Christ is a yielding of ourselves body, soul and spirit to His participation in our life. The entwinement is like a vine and branches. When we give ourselves to Christ, we are asked to present our bodies to God. Women who have offered their bodies to Christ step away from the culture to follow the Scripture s teaching. Write out these scriptures. 1

Ephesians 2:10 1 Corinthians 6:20 Romans 12:1 Question: How should we view our bodies in light of the previous scriptures? Question: Why is it reasonable to present our bodies as living sacrifices? Question: The Greeks considered the body evil, what does the Scripture say about the sanctity of our bodies? In Greek though, the body was considered the receptacle containing the soul, but this was not the Hebraic concept, which viewed the human being as a unit. Thus Paul is not urging the dedication of the body as an entity distinct from the inner self; instead, he views the body as the vehicle that implements the desires and choices of the redeemed spirit. Through the body we serve God. "Holy" is a reminder of that necessity for the Christian, not in terms of rite or ritual but as renouncing the sins of the old life and being committed to a life of obedience to the divine will, The body is not evil in itself; if it were, God would not ask that it be offered to him. As an instrument, it is capable of expressing either sin or righteousness. If we do the latter, then we give an offering "pleasing to God." The word "living" may glance by way of contrast to the animal sacrifices of the OT, which, when offered, no longer possessed life. But it is also a reminder that spiritual life, received from God in the new birth, is the presupposition of a sacrifice acceptable to him. Christian sacrifice has in view a total life of service to God. In Israel, the whole burnt offering ascended to God and could never be reclaimed It belonged to God. Expositor s Bible Commentary 2

As members of Christ we view our bodies as instruments of God and respect them; we do not want to harm the temple of God. Women who offer their bodies believe God s intentions for the body, including conception and the womb are good. We are fearfully and wonderfully made ; we want to glorify God in our bodies, our bodies will be raised up at the resurrection. We believe in the sanctity of life ours and the unborn child. We study the scripture to see how to please God in all ours ways including romance, marriage, and children. Question: Does God have rights over your body? This includes giving reasonable service. Serving God and His people with our physical efforts is reasonable and evidence of our relationship with Christ. In a Godless worldview, women s bodies are treated with disrespect particularly concerning sex and reproduction. Eugenics, population control, and economics drive governmental powers to legalize and underwrite millions of abortions in the United States all in the name of women s health and pr0-choice. Around the world governments have a one child policy, or girls are to be aborted. Materialism is the religion of our times. Many in the Western world believe not only that human beings are merely very complex machines, but that all our mental processes can be explained purely with physics and biochemistry. What is the world really like? It is fermions and bosons [elementary particles] and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can t be made up of them. To put it more simply still, the world consists of nothing but molecules in motion Materialism believes all aspects of life not generally thought of in material terms must be reduced to whirling molecules, whether it be morality, free will or consciousness. Materialism accommodates evolution. This is a far lower view of human life than anything taught in Biblical Christianity. The body is denigrated to a subpersonal level, trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. This is an atheistic worldview that believes that everything, including the origin of life and the 3

universe itself, can be explained by random chance and natural processes. Such people look to physical matter to provide all their answers. They deny the existence of anything supernatural, or the soul and spirit of man. If our bodies are products of blind, material forces, therefore they would be considered morally neutral. The implication is what we do with our bodies has no moral significance. Dualism insists that everything that has to do with the flesh is evil. Lacerating the body is a common way of appeasing God and atoning for sins in some religious practice. When Elijah had his face-off with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, after their gods did not respond to their offering the prophets of Baal did this: So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. 29 And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention. 1 Kings 18:28-29 Disrespect for the body displays itself in self-flagellation, extreme fasting, penances, and possibly even scarification, the new tattoo trend which involves cutting deep into the skin, then tattooing into the scars. Israel was instructed in Deuteronomy 14:1 You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. This is not saying tattoos popular today are the mark of dualism or are the excessive facial and plastic surgery changes many women undergo, Are these manifestations of a love-hate relationship with our bodies? The body is not evil, or to be despised, but is to be bought out of slavery into freedom by salvation and uniting with Christ. The Apostle Paul had to teach the Greek Christians what they did in the body mattered, and much of the first part of 1 Corinthians is written to correct their views. God has a high view of the body to redeem it, cleanse it, make it holy, sanctify it, abide within it, resurrect it, bring it to heaven with Him eternally! In the cultural context the early church s claim of the incarnation that God himself took on human flesh. John 1:14 was an astounding concept. So was its claim that Jesus rose bodily from dead. These teachings so stunned the 1 st and 2 nd century Gnostic, they denied them altogether. They taught Jesus was an avatar from a higher spiritual plane which entered the physical world temporarily to bring enlightenment and then returned to a higher state of being. Belief in dualism or the two-story fragmentation of the human being affected their sexual practices and ours today. The idea of the upper story and the lower story is illustrated from a play by George Bernard Shaw, Too Good To Be True. The character said: When men and women pick one another up just for a bit of fun, they find they ve picked up more than they bargained for because men and woman have a top story as well as a ground floor. You can t have the one without the others. 4

Today we re reluctant to admit our sexual license has emotional and physical consequences. Young people are given sexual permission slips by schools who hand out condoms, birth control pills, instruction manuals, and abortion information in high schools without even a glaring warning sticker you would get with a pack of cigarettes. The non-biblical idea being promoted is what you do with the lower story doesn t matter, your mind and heart remain upper story or spiritual. A famous TV chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain, found dead recently from suicide had an interesting quote, Your body is not a temple it s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. How would our view of the body be affected if we did not believe in divine design, or intentional design or even that there IS a God?. What we think about God and the origin of life shapes our view of the body. Let s look at some scriptures how God views the body: 1 Thessalonians 5:22-23 Philippians 3:21 Romans 6:13 Question: What powerful words are used in these scripture to describe what God will supernaturally do with our bodies? Question: How might your thinking of your body change as your study these scriptures? The Greek converts were still visiting the pagan temple and engaging in sex with the temple prostitutes. They were infamous for their love of fornication trying to equate it with other 5

physical functions like eating and drinking. They wanted to prove the existence of the bodily appetite for fornication proved the lawfulness of their gratification Paul is teaching them it is not so. Paul said the body wasn t formed for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. It is making things to cross their intention and use. Here what Paul wrote, 1 Corinthians 6: 5-18 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, He says, shall become one flesh. 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Let s write out: Galatians 5:13 2 Peter 2:19. Romans 6:13 Question: Has your view of Biblical morality changed? Was there a period in your life when you held different views? What changed your thinking? Question: How should we view others caught up in the philosophies of the day? Question: If we believe our body is the naos or the holiest of holies how might that change our behavior? 6

Question: What are some of God s intentions for the construct of the female body? To give up the rule of the flesh over the rule of the spiritual life is a freedom not experienced by those who have not experienced it. Let s look up these scriptures and meditate on the plans God has for our bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:44 1 Corinthians 6:14 Psalm 100:3 7

Something to Ponder: Spend some time this week in private contemplation. Ask yourself what things in your own life may be bringing disharmony between your body, soul, and spirit and your relationship with the Lord? Pray to have the power to let go of them one by one with His help. 8