By Justin Rossow
Human beings are unique in all creation: God designed us to be physical and spiritual creatures. God gave us bodies and souls that belong together.
That’s one reason why death is such an affront to God’s glory and power and intention and design. You were not created to be a temporary, mortal body that momentarily houses an eternal soul; your immortal soul belongs in an immortal body. But what God designed to go together, sin now pulls asunder.
Death is the final, physical consequence of brokenness between God and humans and between humans and God’s perfect creation. And the Resurrection of the Dead is the final victory over that separation: God finally putting human bodies and souls back together the way they were designed in the first place.
The Bible can sometimes talk about the people of God collectively as a body or temple; but empty bodies and empty temples are no good for anything. A body needs a soul; a temple needs the very presence of God.
We are each individual stones in a massive edifice. We are being built together into a beautiful structure where heaven meets earth and the Spirit of God takes up residence.
We are each individual parts of a living, breathing, human body—the Body of Christ. Each of us has unique gifts and functions we bring to the whole as we, together, bring the life and activity of Jesus to the world. And the soul that enlivens the body is the same Spirit who fills the temple.
The Holy Spirit dwells in you as an individual; but the Spirit also resides in us, together, as the Body of Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:11–13 (NIV)
All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Ephesians 2:21–22 (ESV)
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
PRAYER
Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for arranging the members of the Body so carefully! Thank you for the variety of your gifts, and for the unique life you continue to give me to use for your glory.
Thank you for my friends and the gifts I see them using, especially …
Give us to drink again of the one Spirit that binds your people together. Give your Church one heart and one mind, that we may speak with one voice. Bring unity in our division, Lord, and give us your Spirit of Peace, for the sake of Jesus. Amen.
This devotion comes from Day 7 of Come, Holy Spirit: A Daily Discipleship Travel Log for Easter to Pentecost, available from Next Step Press.
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