Human Body
“We must never forget that Christ was Himself the Word of God, in the sense that He was expressive wisdom itself, whose expressions carried the force of actions. His utterances were at one and the same time word and action. The activity of His body was the direct consequence of the activity of His mind.” (Matthew the Poor)
“A true and faithful practice of the Christian faith should be grounded in the body and in the givenness of life. Biology is not our enemy nor is it something to be overcome. It is the vehicle of our existence. Our hope of the resurrection is not something lived apart from the body, but sees the biological raised and transformed to the dignity of eternity. In the Incarnation, God has made us “blood brothers.” We are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Our humanity, in the most concrete and literal form, has been united irrevocably with Him.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Jesus goes out of his way in Mark’s Gospel to show His disciples that He is incarnate after His death and resurrection. His death and resurrection have not undone the incarnation. Jesus has a body, he eats to prove his physicality. He is not a ghost. He did not become incarnate only then to become a spirit. His body and our bodies are resurrected and given eternal life. His body and our bodies are included in salvation. His body underwent some kind of transformation as ours will, but the body is included in salvation.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“The Lord’s resurrection reveals the great dignity of the human body, which is destined for heavenly glory. Salvation is not an escape from the physical dimensions of our lives but requires our purification and fulfillment as whole persons united to Christ. True faith in the Savior demands that we offer every aspect of our existence to Him for healing and transformation, holding nothing back. Even as He healed the sick and fed the hungry, the most obvious practices of faithfulness involve caring for people in their bodily weaknesses and infirmities. By showing tangible signs of mercy for our neighbors, we also touch the wounds of Christ, for He is present to us in everyone in need.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Beauty is Jesus, and that is who we’re asked to follow, to work with in the midst of darkness. Beauty is the feeding of the hungry and the shelter of the fragile. It’s supremely practical and ever idealistic. Beauty is a garden planted not as a refusal to deal with the vagaries of the modern world, but the means by which to feed and heal them. Beauty is a story told not as an escape from conflict, but the means by which narrate ourselves into the acts of kindness, of care, of bravery we might otherwise struggle to offer. Beauty is our refusal to believe in the worthlessness of anyone, to cherish the tender, God-made gift of each human body, each human soul, to challenge the impulse to disdain even in ourselves.” (Sarah Clarkson)
“The tendency toward dualism in Greek and Persian philosophy was rooted in a worldview that pits the highest, spiritual reality against the lowest, physical reality. As such, the human body would be more akin to evil because it is material, and the soul more akin to goodness because it is immaterial. In such a schema, God represents the top of the hierarchy and must be shielded from direct contact with all those levels of existence beneath Him. Dualism directly contradicts biblical revelation. The dualist sees the human soul alone as capable of purity while they consider the body vile and unredeemable.” (Fr. Joseph Lucas)
“In the Church, nothing is only spiritual, because everything presupposes the participation of the human body.” (Anestis Keselopoulos)
“So much of the thrust of the Church teachings have to do with encouraging us to overcome worldly lusts. So much of our culture’s media is designed to do the opposite: To convince us that what the Bible and Jesus Christ warn against is in fact natural…For sure, Christianity is not saying that the human body is evil—but that it can be used in ways that are evil. Our flesh has its urges, and they can be contrary to our best interests. Within every believer are certain cravings, and they can cause us great problems because they contradict the purity of our whole beings and eventually destroy what is intended for godliness. We should not be discouraged or think we are sinful when we are tempted, because as long as we are alive we shall be dealing with challenges from our bodies—in Greek sarx, meaning flesh. But the Holy Spirit leads us to conquest over the flesh.” (Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky)
“One of the ways that resurrection makes a profound difference in our thinking about the body is by addressing the twin errors of idealization and contempt. Both these errors are widespread in our culture and feed off each other symbiotically. When we idealize the body, we end up fixating on the purely physical aspects of ourselves, which leads us to treat our own body, and the bodies of others, as mere objects. This, in turn, feeds passions like pride, lust, immodesty, comparison, and the cult of youth. Idealization of the body lies behind the images that assault us in advertising and the media, with their restrictive stereotypes for what constitutes beauty, strength, and desirability.” (Robin Phillips)
“Before Christ, there were two main points of view on the human body. The first one saw it solely as a source of pleasure. The other, on the contrary, denied the body altogether, claiming that the body was a source of impurity and vice, a prison for the soul, from which a wise person must certainly break free. The dispute between these two opinions went on for many centuries. The issue was resolved only when God Himself, having been incarnated and become a man, appeared in our world. Christians believe that not only the souls, but also the bodies of righteous people will enter the Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, the body is understood as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, our bodily nature was corrupted because of Adam’s fall; but Christ came to earth precisely to restore the original dignity of human nature, and He truly restored it with His Incarnation, sacrifice on the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension. Thus, the Ascension became the most important link in the salvation and glorification of fallen man. Christ ascended bodily and took His equal place next to God the Father, thereby confirming the same possibility for the entire human race.” (Hieromonk Laurus Arkhipov)
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