WHAT GOD HAS TO SAY ABOUT OUR BODIES:
How the gospel is good news for our physical selves
By Sam Allberry
Crossway, 208 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 433 570 155
Sam Allberry has produced another excellent book on a very timely issue which has often been neglected by evangelicals – our bodies.
God created us as physical beings. Our bodies are not merely vehicles for our minds, but part of who we are. A useful application is the importance of physical presence with others after an excess of virtual meetings during lockdown.
The body is not everything, but it is not nothing either. The ‘real person’ is not found in the mind and then applied to the body. This view of mankind is revolutionary when compared with current views of sex and gender. Maleness and femaleness are embodied, binary and part of us bearing God’s image (Gen.1:26-27). Men and women should complement each other but are not interchangeable. At the same time, Christians should avoid over-applying the Bible to enforce what are actually gender stereotypes.
Our bodies can cause us to experience illness and shame. It is a result of the sin that our bodies contain and commit, which means that our bodies are dying. Allberry reminds us that Jesus taking up a human body provides the remedy by the means of His atoning death. This frees our bodies to become sanctified temples of the Holy Spirit, to be offered as worship following Christ’s example of serving love, and to benefit from future resurrection.
So, this book will help readers in thinking through the implications of having a body, something we take for granted. It provides a Christian critique for the rise of transgender ideology, which many will find useful. Read it and use your body for God’s glory.
