It Is Well, It Is Well with My…. Body

I plead with you to give your bodies to God… This is truly the way to worship him (Romans 12:1 NLT). 

Will we burp in heaven? 

You are probably rolling your eyes saying, “What’s Stan up to this time?” But bear with me. I’m actually asking a very serious question. I’ve chosen to ask it in a silly manner in order to get your attention. (See, it worked!) So, answer the question. Will we burp in heaven? Take your time. I’ll wait…

Your answer reveals, at least in part, whether you have an orthodox understanding of the body shaped by the Bible or a gnostic understanding shaped by pagan philosophy. In other words, when it comes to your beliefs about the human body, your answer indicates whether or not you are a Gnostic heretic. (Now, I really have your attention!). If you are offended because I suggested you might be a heretic, or if you are confused because you have no idea what Gnosticism even is, this reveals that my question about burping was well-chosen. It also indicates that you need to keep reading because this blog is written just for you. 

The members of Corinth Community Church (CCC) were fully devoted followers of Christ who were passionate about the gospel. They had invited Jesus into their hearts and knew that their souls had been gloriously saved. Their spirits had been awakened and their minds had been renewed. Paul, however, realized there was a serious flaw in both their doctrinal belief and their moral practice. Their faith related to their hearts, minds, souls, and spirits, but it didn’t seem to touch their bodies at all. Their spirituality was, for the most part, disembodied, emotive, and cognitive. So he wrote to remind them that redemption in Christ relates not only to the spirit. It has profound implications for the body as well!  

"You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead. Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." (I Cor. 6:13-20 NLT. Emphasis added).

A big part of the problem at CCC was philosophical. Living less than one hundred miles from Athens, these believers were shaped by a worldview rooted in Greek philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, etc.). Whether they were conscious of it or not, their thinking was influenced by a belief system broadly labeled as Gnosticism. Although their faith in Jesus was authentic, their worldview was still partially pagan, especially when it came to the human body. 

Gnosticism promotes a type of dualism that teaches the goodness of all things ‘spiritual’ and the badness (or irrelevancy) of all things ‘material’. In other words, for the gnostic, matter doesn’t really matter. It is the spirit, the soul, and the mind that have supreme importance. The body is a necessary evil, an encumbrance. Salvation is understood as the spirit being set free from all bodily restraints and limitations. With this brief introduction to Gnosticism, we can better understand why some of the members of CCC were not only involved in sexual immorality, but they saw no problem in doing so! They had a worldview that enabled them to worship God passionately with their spirits on Sunday and then live like the devil with their bodies the rest of the week. In their mind, their sexual freedom was not evidence of hypocrisy, disobedience, or falling from grace. No. They were simply living out the logical implications of their (heretical) theology.  

To the Corinthians, Paul’s words about the body must have sounded like he was from another planet! He was insisting that salvation in Christ had implications not only for our souls and spirits, but for our bodies! They are not to be used for sexual immorality, but for the Lord (v. 13). Because our bodies are parts of Christ’s body, to misuse them is to be guilty of a very serious sin (vv. 15-18). And because the Corinthians believed so strongly in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Paul reminded them that this meant that their very bodies were God’s temple (v. 19).

Perhaps most surprising of all, Paul tells the Corinthians that after death, their bodies will be raised, just as Jesus’ body was raised (v. 14). While Gnosticism had a robust belief in the immortality of the soul, it had no concept of the gospel’s proclamation of the resurrection of the body! Those influenced by gnostic philosophy tend to imagine that, after death, we will continue as disembodied spirits, floating around in heaven playing harps in an eternally long church service. 

So, yes, I humbly suggest that we will indeed burp in heaven (however, without any gastric discomfort or bad odors!). We will have bodies similar to Jesus’ glorified body (see Lk. 24:36-43). We will eat and drink in a new earth where we will forever enjoy a new and glorious physicality – burps and all.

While I have your attention, I need to add two final points. First, it is obvious that the  American evangelical church is full of gnostic Christians. Most of them don’t know it, so someone needs to tell them. Second, Gnosticism is a damnable heresy. Not only will it cause one to believe things that just ain’t so, when it enters someone’s heart and mind and begins to metastasize, it may just lead that person to hell.  

Dear brothers and sisters, as you go about your day today, don’t just glorify God with your spirit, mind, soul, and heart. Honor him with your body (v. 20).

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