The Body Created and Redeemed

Transcript (edited for readability).

Thank you very much for that warm welcome. I bring you greetings from the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Australia, John Henderson, and the principal of Luther Seminary, where I taught for many years, and James Winderley. It's a great joy for me to be here today and to speak on this topic.

The topic, as you see, is "Male and Female He Made Them: Christian Sexuality in a Decadent World." Now, I want to focus not on the decadent world, but on Christian sexuality — sex with a good conscience, feeling good about ourselves, our bodies, as men and women. If you don't take away anything else from this weekend, just think: sex with a good conscience, and you've got it all. Our bodies have been made by God in his image, and they are redeemed by Christ.

We all too often, as Christians, and modern Christians, ignore and belittle the body, even though society emphasizes bodies, bodily life. You don't need me to tell you that — you can see it every evening on television, every billboard out there. Two years ago, when I was here — I think I can put this away now — two years ago, when I was here, I saw a sticker at the back of a car, and that sticker read: "Your body may be a temple, but mine's an amusement park." Your body may be a temple, but mine's an amusement park, or playground, you could say.

Now — is this not working? Just put it there like that. Standing on it. Try. Okay. For me, that sums up what many people in our Western societies think about their bodies and think about themselves sexually: my body belongs to me, and nobody else. I can do what I like with my body — it's mine. So we have the common notion that we own our bodies. And the flip side of that is that God is a bit of a nuisance for us, because he claims us and our bodies. And worse than that, he makes it very difficult for us to enjoy ourselves, and particularly to enjoy sex, because of the restrictions that he puts on us, and that he gives us a bad conscience about sex.

So the common notion is that God is a sexual killjoy, rather than the creator of us as men and women, the creator of our sexuality, for our enjoyment. In 1 Timothy chapter 6, Paul says God has richly provided everything for us for our enjoyment. But we, in our society, think the opposite. And so we have had, ever since the fall, but most particularly in the last fifty years or so, a quest for guilt-free sexual enjoyment. And we think that we can feel good about ourselves sexually — we can have sex with a good conscience — if we reject God's law, because that's what makes us feel bad, feel guilty about ourselves. That's what messes with us sexually. If we reject God's law, and together with that, the Christian teaching on sexuality — if we can put that aside, then we can have sex with a good conscience. What an immense illusion. And every year, as every year passes, we can see, if we have eyes to see, how phony and fake that is. Yet it's still there.

People think that what I do with my body doesn't matter spiritually. My spirit and my body are disconnected, so I can do what I like with my body, and it doesn't affect my soul, my spirit. I can do what I like with my body, because my body belongs to me, and nobody else. You have the slogan here, for those who promote abortion on demand — you've seen it — "my body, my choice." That's the philosophy that predominates, and it creates such untold trouble and misery.

Now, in contrast to that slogan, "my body, my choice," you have the Christian teaching, which is really rather amazing and revolutionary: that my body is owned, not by another person, not by society, but my body is owned by Jesus. My body belongs to God. St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 to 20, says: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." You see, your body was given to you as a gift by God in creation. He gave it to you as a gift. He gave it to you for your enjoyment. That body belongs to him, and to your spouse. But that body, which fell into sin, and was ruined by sin, or damaged by sin, has been redeemed by Jesus, who became a flesh-and-blood human being to redeem you bodily, and to destine you to be raised to eternal life, bodily, with him.

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit — not just a temple of, Paul says, is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now what does that mean? That means that the Holy Spirit lives physically in your body. Wherever you go, you take the Holy Spirit with you. Your body is a walking, talking shrine. And whether you know it or not, every person who touches you in some way, every person whom you interact with, meets the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit meets with them. Shrines, temples, in the ancient world, were places where gods interacted with human beings and human beings with God. Remember too, in the Old Testament, the temple is the place where God comes down to earth and meets with his people here on earth. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now — wow — that changes everything.

And with that comes the Christian teaching: we've been called to live in an ordered way, in a way that's consistent with the fact that our bodies are special because they are shrines, they are temples of the Holy Spirit. And that means that we don't just do what we feel inclined to do or want to do sexually, but that our sexual life is ordered by God and his law. And God's law doesn't want to limit our sexual enjoyment. In fact, the purpose of God's law is to enhance, to increase, our sexual enjoyment. God's law protects his gift of sex and marriage. He protects our enjoyment of sex in marriage through his law. It's a fence around us, so that sexual intercourse is not defiled and desecrated.

Right, so that's the basic Christian teaching. The basic Christian teaching is, in short, that my body has been given to me by God in creation. My body, whether it's a male body or a female body, is a gift from God. And we see this already at the very beginning of human history, the beginning of the Bible. We read that God created human beings in his image, and the whole person, body and soul, was made in God's image, and it was made for life with God — life with God here on earth, and life with God forever in heaven.

Just listen once again to what Genesis says about our creation. Genesis chapter 1, verse 26: God says, "Let us" — notice that plural there — "let us make man," or mankind, "in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man," mankind, "in his image. In the image of God he created them." Notice that plural there. "Male and female he created them."

Now, there are three things I want to emphasize about our creation. First of all, that God created the whole person, body and soul, in his image. And that's a statement both about our first parents, Adam and Eve, and about all mankind, all humanity to the present day. To put it quite simply, both male and female were created in the image of God together, and singly. Now, in the ancient world, some people believed that kings, and some men, were created in the image of God, but that every man and every woman, and every man and woman together, in community, were made in the image of God — that was utterly revolutionary. And I would put it to you, it's just as revolutionary now as it ever was then. We are created in God's image, male and female, singly and together.

Now, we are created male and female in the image of God. This is very important in our present situation, which denies this. The terms male and female, both in Hebrew and in Greek, refer both to sex and gender. One of the modern dogmas, one of the modern teachings out there, and it's crept into the church, is that you must distinguish, and therefore separate, between sex, sexuality, and gender. Sexuality is given physically at birth — now, whether you have male organs, female organs, it's a matter of your chromosomes, okay, that's given. But gender is something that's determined by society and by you. It has to do with the role you play, it has to do with your identity. So we separate sex from gender. And with that comes part of the mess that we're in presently in the modern world. Gender is seen as something that is not given by nature, given by God, but is something that we determine for ourselves. It's an emotional, mental term for our sense of ourselves as men and women, or anything, and a term for the role that we play sexually in our society.

And so, one of the modern teachings is that whereas there are two sexes, there are many genders. There's the normal, natural gender classification, there's a bi-gender classification, there are agender classifications, and transgender classifications. Now, you need to be aware of these terms, because a lot of your children, grandchildren, and the people around you, basically accept this way out without question. So your gender can be — you can identify yourself as male or female, but you can also identify yourself as bi-gender, as both male and female. You can identify yourself as a person without any gender classification, and you can identify yourself in transgender terms — so even though biologically I'm male, I see myself and feel emotionally that I am female. That's my identity, even though my body is male.

Now, and then, if you follow this basic debate, the latest notion is that gender is not a matter of specific classifications, but is a spectrum. So you have a spectrum from, what would we say, normal male/female identification, to various kinds of queer identifications. Now, here, right at the beginning, God says that he creates human beings — how? As male and female. And that is not just male and female for reproduction, but male and female in terms of role and in terms of identity. That's how God has made us. God assigns us both our sex and our gender. We do not assign ourselves a particular gender. Okay, we could speak a lot about that, because that's where the front of the debate is at the moment — you can just Google "gender" and you can see the whole complicated debate.

Now, Genesis — God, in Genesis, teaches us that the whole person, body and soul, is made in his image. And to be made in this image means, quite simply, that in some way we human beings were made to resemble God — not in every respect, but in some respects. And there are two dimensions, or two aspects, in which we resemble God. First of all, we are like God in the fact that we human beings have the ability to procreate. Notice the term — create and procreate — that together with God, and like God, we create other human beings. That's the primary function of our sexual differentiation. We are like God in that through us, God creates new human beings. But we're also like God in that we rule over the world, and plants, and animals. So how does God rule over the earth? It's through us as human beings. How are we like God? We are like God in that we procreate, and that we take care of God's world together with God. We rule over the earth together with God.

Now, we haven't lost those two likenesses since the fall — it's still with us. On the other hand, in the Godward side, in relationship with God, we were originally made righteous and holy like God, but that's been lost since the fall. We are not righteous anymore, we're not holy, we do not resemble God's character. So we're like God in what we do, but in our character, we don't resemble God anymore. However, in Christ, who is the image of God, in Christ, who is God incarnate, the image of God is once again restored. He is the image of God, and in him we once again are fully restored in the image of God.

So first of all, Genesis teaches us that the whole person, body and soul, is made in the image of God. Secondly — and if I had time I'd like to speak more on this — it also teaches us that being male and female is part of the ecology, the ecological order that God has established for the transmission of life and blessing here on earth. We human beings are part of an intricate order that God establishes — you can see it in Genesis 1 — and that order is mapped out, and through this intricate order, God provides a cosmic habitat for us, and an ecological order for human life on earth. So part of that ecological order that God has established for life, and for blessing here on earth, is our creation as male and female in God's image. As male and female, we hand on the life that we've received from God to the next generation. As male and female, we receive blessing from God, and we hand on God's blessing not just to our children, but to other human beings and the whole of God's creation. And so, when God looks at the order that he's created — that order which is for human life, and for human blessing — he says, "It is very good." And that means that sex is not bad — it's not just good, but it's very good. And it is good within that context.

Thirdly, God didn't just create us as male and female in his image, and God didn't just create an order in which we function as male and female in his image, but he also created marriage, as his gift to human beings before the fall, not after the fall. God created Eve from Adam, for one-flesh union with him. You remember what God says: "It's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him." Originally, Adam was alone. He was an image of God, but he was alone. And so part of the human story is that originally, basically, you have human solitude, and that's not bad — that's good. Before you were married, you were single. Some of you, after your spouse dies, will be single again. So the single life is as much a creation of God as married life. Now, that needs to be said in our society, and particularly in the church, where single people very often feel that they get the rough end of the deal. God creates us singly, in his image, but he also creates marriage. That's the second thing. He creates human beings as male and female for human companionship, so that they are not alone, but also for sexual companionship.

Notice God's words again: "It is not good for Adam," mankind, "to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him." Just those two things — a helper means a coworker, a companion, somebody who works together with you, so that you don't have to do everything by yourself, but you can work together with another person in a common enterprise. But the most startling aspect of that is that God makes Eve, God creates marriage, to create a partner who's fit for him — they fit together, they are meant to complement each other. Now, in Hebrew, that term is as odd as it is in English. We are made to be complements. We are made to be over against each other. We are made to fit with each other. We are made to be counterparts of each other — not the same. There's some things that are the same, and yet there's other things that are different, and those differences are important — they give the dynamic in marriage. We are meant to complement each other in marriage, to complete each other, to round each other off, like two halves of a circle that come together and form a complete circle. So your spouse is meant to compliment you, and you are meant to compliment your spouse — in both senses of the word, by the way.

Now, you know that after God had determined that it wasn't good for Adam to be alone, he made Eve from Adam's rib — not so much a rib, but a rib cage. Now, that's rather strange, that Eve should be made out of Adam's rib cage. The rabbis reflected deeply and profoundly on this, and they summed it up as well as anybody has. They said: God didn't create Eve from Adam's feet, so that she should be under him. He didn't create Eve from his head, so that she should be over him. But he created Eve from his rib cage, so that she would be next to his heart, and that together they would be one in heart with each other — companionship.

Now, also, God gives a very interesting picture — not only does he create Eve from Adam's rib cage, but after he's created Eve, he brings Eve to Adam and presents her to him. The picture here is that God is the marriage celebrant. He not only creates the bride for Adam, but he presents Eve to Adam in the first marriage ceremony. And not just then, but in every marriage — who is the true marriage celebrant? God united you with your spouse in marriage. He's your marriage celebrant.

This is the emphasis that Jesus gives in Matthew 19, when he says — so they, that's male and female, he says — you know, God created human beings in this image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. And he says, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Remember that? And then Jesus says, "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."

Now, in that passage of Jesus, where Jesus picks up from Genesis, he talks about what constitutes marriage, and there are three sides to it. And this is rather telling. But let's just hear once again what Jesus says in Matthew 19, where he quotes Genesis chapter 2. Jesus says — this is in a context of divorce — "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female," and said, "therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast," or cleave, "to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

So there are three parts to marriage, and these three parts were utterly revolutionary — this teaching, in the ancient world, as they are to the present day. Now, what was the normal process of marriage in the ancient world? The wife, the woman, would leave her father and mother. The woman would be expected to cleave to her husband, and she would become one flesh with him and his whole family. Can I say that again? That's the natural order in the ancient world: the woman would leave her father and mother, and — we still have echoes of this custom — that women take on the family name of her husband. So: woman leaves father and mother, cleaves, or is committed, to her husband, and she becomes one flesh with him.

But notice here the unexpected thing. First of all, Jesus, God, says, "Therefore" — a man does what? A man leaves his father and mother. He leaves his parents, he leaves their house, he leaves their family, to establish a new unit, a new household, built around his wife, not his parents. "I say, therefore, a man leaves his father and mother, and cleaves to his wife." And the emphasis here of God and Jesus is not so much on the commitment of the wife, the spouse, to the husband, but the commitment of the husband to the wife — something that men find rather difficult to do. It's countercultural.

And then the third aspect of that — they become one flesh with each other. They don't become one flesh with either of the two families, but they become one flesh with each other, by virtue of marriage and sexual intimacy, and most particularly, if it's granted them by God, by the birth of children. They become one flesh. Profound, profound, wonderful.

So you have those three gifts from God in creation. God created human beings, male and female, in his image. He establishes the order for human sexuality and human life within creation, and he also creates marriage, as an institution for human life here on earth.

Now, taking all that together, you see that sex is something very good. It's very good — God creates it. And there's no reason for us to be ashamed of our sexuality or of our bodies that are given to us by God. Sexual guilt, sexual shame, is the result of our fall into sin. You know that part of the story, so I don't need to rehearse it.

Our bodies are not only created as sexual bodies in God's image, but they are also redeemed and made new by Jesus. He takes on our human body, to redeem our human body from the effects of the fall. And that has implications sexually too. You know the story — God transforms our human bodies by the incarnation of his Son, who redeems us body and soul. So the Christian teaching is that God's Son becomes incarnate, becomes a flesh-and-blood human being, to redeem — not just spiritually or mentally, not just to redeem our souls, but to redeem our bodies, to save our bodies, to restore our bodies.

He was conceived bodily, by Mary, without a human father. He was born bodily, of Mary, his mother. He conducted a bodily ministry in his three years here on earth, in which he engaged in ministry. He didn't just teach and preach, but he interacted with people physically, bodily, and he healed them bodily. He died bodily. He was raised bodily from the dead, and he ascended bodily into heaven. By means of his bodily incarnation, he purifies and sanctifies the whole human life cycle and the body, from the womb to the tomb. Can I repeat that again? Jesus became a human being, and he lived the whole human life cycle, from conception through to his ascension into heaven, so that he could redeem us bodily — from the womb to the tomb.

Listen to what Luther has to say about this wonderful work of Jesus. He says: "Christ has purified everything with his body, so that through him, nothing that belongs to our whole birth and this life damages us at all, but everything is considered to be as pure as his own body, because through baptism and faith I've been clothed with his birth and life. Therefore, everything I do is pleasing to God, and is called holy — walking, standing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and waking."

By "sleeping," he doesn't just mean sleeping — no, falling asleep — but he's also thinking sexually. So we could add that everything we do, including our sexual intercourse, is pleasing to God. "For each Christian, everything becomes completely holy, even though he still lives in the flesh and is quite impure in himself. Through faith, everything about him is pure. This, however, is an alien holiness — alien in the sense that it belongs to somebody else, it's a foreign holiness, and yet our own — because God does not want to see anything that we do in this life as impure in itself, but everything becomes holy, precious, and acceptable to him through this child, who makes the whole world holy through his life. So do you want to boast of something holy? Why don't you boast of the holy thing that Jesus Christ, God's Son, has touched with his body? What then has he touched? My living and dying, my going and standing, my suffering, trouble and temptation — all of which he has experienced, endured, and undergone."

So, through his becoming a human being, through his incarnation, Jesus purifies and sanctifies our whole life, our whole bodily life, from our conception through to our resurrection. And better than that, he engages with us now, physically as well as spiritually. He is bodily present with us in the church. The church is his temple, the place where he meets with us here on earth, the place where we meet with him. So he meets with us physically, in this place, in every church, and he engages with us and ministers to us physically, bodily, in the church.

I can just give a sketchy outline here of a wonderful, wonderful aspect of Christian teaching. He engages with you and me physically every Sunday, when you go to church, every time you have your personal devotions. Jesus' flesh, his body, his flesh, that he took on from Mary, that was crucified and died and was raised from the dead — his flesh is now the new and living way that we have into God's heavenly presence here on earth. It's the bridge between heaven and earth, his flesh. It's a two-way bridge. It's the bridge by which God the Father comes to us, where we are, physically, and it's the bridge by which we come physically, bodily, to him here on earth.

It's a bridge, and he uses physical means in the church to minister to us bodily, in the divine service. I don't know if you've ever thought about this — how everything that happens in a communion service is physical. It's spiritual, but it's also physical. He uses water, spoken words, and human hands in baptism. Through baptism, you were united bodily with the body of Jesus. You became one body with him, one flesh with him. He uses spoken words from the human mouth of a pastor to deliver his gifts to us, bodily, physically, in absolution, in proclamation, in instruction, and in benediction. So he communicates with us in body language. He doesn't have a kind of electronic means of communication to us mentally, but he engages with us. He delivers his gifts, he delivers his Holy Spirit to us through physical words. Words are just as physical as water, and any other physical thing.

And most wonderfully, he uses bread and wine, spoken human words, and human hands, in Holy Communion, to deliver himself to us. So in Holy Communion, Jesus comes and he delivers his sacrificed body and blood, his glorified body and blood, to us for the healing of our body and soul.

Have you ever had a close look, in your new service book, at the normal formula for dismissal after your reception of Holy Communion? Now, I don't know if I've got it exactly right, because I might be giving you the Australian version — "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and his holy, precious blood, strengthen and keep you," whole, "body and soul, to life eternal." Take note of that "body" side. Holy Communion, the divine service, is as much for your body as it is for your soul.

Luther has a wonderful term for the way Jesus engages with us in the divine service, through the pastors who lead us in worship — he speaks about the embodied word. Not just the spoken word, the enacted word, but that word, who is Jesus, is embodied for us, and comes to us, and engages with us bodily. So what we, as Lutherans, call the means of grace, are the means of the Holy Spirit. Through word and sacrament, the Holy Spirit is given to us physically, through physical means, for our bodily life. So Jesus says that his words are spirit and life — they give us the Holy Spirit. They give us eternal life for our bodies already, here and now, in a hidden way, which anticipates our bodily resurrection.

The Holy Spirit is given to us bodily in baptism. So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, "In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, and were all given one Spirit to drink." So, at the font, you were united bodily with Jesus. At the font you were given the Holy Spirit to drink — not just then, but for the whole of your Christian life, given to drink for your bodily life as Christians here on earth. But most wonderfully, in Holy Communion, Jesus gives his body and blood to you, as your spiritual food and your spiritual drink. Now, by "spiritual," Paul doesn't mean mental, or emotional, or psychological, but he means it's the food, the drink, that gives the Holy Spirit. So when you come to Holy Communion, you drink in the Holy Spirit, you eat the Holy Spirit, if I can put it as crudely as possible, and you do so physically.

There is no worship in Christian terms which doesn't involve you bodily, and doesn't involve Jesus interacting bodily with you. Luther sums it up, as usual, better than anybody else that I know. He says this about the bodily interaction of Jesus with us in our Christian life, but most particularly in the divine service: "God has given us baptism, the sacrament of the altar, and absolution, to bring Christ very close to us, so that we can have him not only in our heart, but also on our tongue, so that we can feel him, grasp him, touch him. He wants to come to you, plant himself before your very eyes, press himself into your hands, and say, 'Just listen to me and take hold of me. Give me eye and ear. There you have baptism and the sacrament of the altar. Open your mouth. Let me place my hand on your head. I give you this water, which I sprinkle over your head.'"

So Jesus took on a human body, so that he can come to you bodily, and he can engage with you bodily in worship. The Holy Spirit is given through physical means, and it's given to you in your bodies. So we participate bodily in the divine service. Now, that's something we need to emphasize as Christians, because the common slogan of young people — most young people under the age of about thirty-five — is "I'm spiritual, but not religious." Now, behind that lies a funny idea. There's a divorce of spirit and body, soul and body: my bodily life has nothing to do with God, it's only my mental, my spiritual life that has to do with that. And if you go down that road, then there's no place for any Lutheran church or the divine service. I am spiritual because I am religious — religious in the sense of participating in worship.

Paul says that we are to, by the mercies of God, present something rather amazing to God. I would expect that Paul — and most people — because, you know, we present our spirits to God, our souls to God, as a living sacrifice. But what does Paul say we're meant to do? "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship." Notice that apparent contradiction — what spiritual worship is bodily worship. You present yourselves bodily, which is your proper worship, and it's what pleases God.

And we are to present our bodies to God, in worship, so that he can purify them and sanctify them. He makes them clean, he makes them whole. So Paul says in Romans chapter 6, where he talks about the implications of baptism: "Just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification." Now, when he talks about "members," he's talking about parts of your body. As unbelievers — and all the Christians, probably most of the Christians at Rome were pagan people — they presented not only their bodies, but each part of their bodies, and that includes their sexual organs, to impurity, and that led to greater and greater lawlessness. So he says, just as you once presented your body, and the members of your body, to sin and unrighteousness, and you became enslaved in it — it didn't deliver what you hoped it would give, but it enslaved you, and deprived you of life — so now present your members, the parts of your body, for purification and sanctification to Jesus. You become pure, so that you can be sanctified. Pure members, holy members, pure sex, sanctified sex.

So, already now, we Christians participate in eternal life. Already now, we Christians participate in the resurrection of Jesus, in a hidden way. Paul says, "Our life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ appears, then your life too will appear." And then he goes on to say, "Therefore, what should you do? Therefore, put to death everything that's earthly in you," and he touches on all kinds of sexual misbehavior. Already now we participate in Christ's resurrection, already now, in a bodily way, we share in eternal life. We live heavenly lives, bodily, here on earth.

Let me sum up this aspect of the teaching in the words of Luther. He is talking about Holy Communion, and the strange effect, the reverse effect, of Holy Communion. Now, to understand this — and I've only extracted an excerpt from a larger passage — Luther says: okay, when you eat something, you turn that into you. So if I eat bread, my body doesn't become bread, but the bread becomes part of my body. If I eat beef, I don't become a bull or a cow, but my body turns that meat into my flesh, right? That's what happens naturally, normally, when we eat, when we drink — our body transforms those things into itself and uses it to build itself up.

Well, he says, in Holy Communion we have a reverse effect. Now listen to what he says: "Christ's flesh, in Holy Communion, is spiritual flesh, that does not let itself be transformed, but transforms those who eat it, and gives them the Spirit, and that is what this spiritual flesh does. When the body eats it physically, this food digests the body's flesh and transforms it, so that it becomes spiritual. It is as if a wolf devoured a sheep, and the sheep were such powerful food that it transformed the wolf and turned the wolf into a sheep." He's got a great sense of humor, doesn't he? So when we eat Christ's flesh, physically and spiritually, the food is so powerful that it transforms us into itself. It makes us spiritual, holy, living people, out of fleshly, sinful, mortal people.

Your bodies are far more important than you've ever imagined them to be. They are God's special gift to you, and each one of you has a different body, because God wants to do something different to you, give you something different, and do something different through you, for other people, for the whole world. Your bodies, which fell into sin, have now been cleansed by Christ, and are being sanctified by him. I'll have more to say about that next session. Bodies — important. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Amazing, wonderful, almost too good to be true. Thank you.