When I Don't Love My Body

Truths to remind myself.

Some days I look at my body and think of it as a prison to my soul. I have so many aspirations, desires, dreams, ambitions—what could I do if it were not for this rusty cage I’m waiting to break free from? It has stretch marks, the hair on my head has thinned while new hair appears on my chin. This body restricts me, embarrasses me, deceives me, becomes ill, and causes me sorrow for which there is no cause other than misfiring neurons in my head. It must endure slaps and gets splattered with vomit. When I’m at my best, it suddenly forms a headache. 

In the Fall, both soul and body were broken by sin. Our bodies became plagued by sicknesses and diseases, and ultimately death. Our bodies would be pushed and worked hard in order to survive. What was created to live with God in a perfect relationship forever would now return to the dust it came from—but not without enduring physical hardships. But before this, when God formed us, he declared the whole of us as good—not just the soul. Both are created by God, both are created to glorify him, and both will be redeemed by God.

When God created man and woman, he called them good (Gen. 1:26–31). David wrote, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well” (Ps. 139:13–14 NASB). Jesus even reassures us of God’s care for our bodies by saying every hair on our heads is numbered by him (Luke 12:7), that he will clothe us as he clothes the flowers (Matt. 6:28–30), and that he will nourish us as he does the birds of the field (Matt. 6:26). 

Not just our souls but our entire selves were bought by Christ when he bore the wrath of God that we deserved on the cross. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). God calls us to love him in united wholeness—with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). As those who love God, we should seek to glorify him in all that we do with our hands (1 Cor. 10:31) and to care not just for the spiritual needs but for the physical needs of one another (Luke 12:7; Jas. 2:14–17).

God’s perfect hands crafted and sculpted our physical bodies, and because of that, they are wonderful and good. Though sin corrupts them, makes them sick, and leads them to death, that doesn’t change the fact that God made this body good. God made our bodies with each freckle and stray baby hair. What you look at in the mirror and despise, God declared good and wonderful. As Michael Horton writes,

The soul is not an emanation of divinity entombed in a physical body; it is a natural but nonphysical aspect of our creatureliness. The soul is not divine, nor is the body demonic or evil; full humanity is a psychosomatic (body-soul) unity. We do not have a body (as if our soul were our real selves); we are created as a psychosomatic (soul-body) whole, as persons.¹

Redemption, then, isn’t just the release of my soul to eternal life. It is the redemption of both my soul and body. “Immortality is not an attribute of the soul any more than of the body; it is God's gift of resurrection-glorification in Jesus Christ. To put it more simply, Platonism sees embodiment as a curse, while Christianity understands disembodiment to be the curse.”²

These bodies, though broken and sick, will be freed from the curse of sin with our souls. When Jesus returns to gather his saints, he will raise our broken bodies to newness. “It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42b–44a). What a hope! We can sing with the Psalmist, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55–57). Jesus, when he rose from the dead, conquered sin’s greatest blow for both our bodies and our souls. 

How, then, do we care for these bodies that were created by God to glorify him and be redeemed by him? How do we steward and honour them as temples of the Holy Spirit? It’s not by despising and criticizing our physical selves every chance we get. At the same time, we must guard ourselves against idolizing these bodies and loving them more than our neighbour or more than God. We must hold them in their proper place—we care for them in order to love God and our neighbour. Eating well, exercising, resting, sleeping, and practicing good hygiene are not selfish endeavours but important and necessary pieces of stewarding what God has given us. If our bodies aren’t cared for, how will we be able to serve and help to our best capacity? As Matthew Henry wrote,

“There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a self-love which is the rule of the greatest duty: we must have a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves.”³

I don’t have a formula for how this should play out in the life of each person, but it is something that with wisdom and community we can discern as we remember: our bodies are not prisons or the fault part of us awaiting to be destroyed. It is something we are to care for, something to be redeemed, something God cares for—all to his glory.

1. Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 120.

2. Horton, 121.

3. Matthew Henry, Zondervan NIV Matthew Henry Commentary In One Volume, ed. Leslie F. Church and Gerald W. Peterman (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 119.