By Mike Goheen

Body and self esteem

How are Christians to think about issues surrounding bodily health? Everyday issues like fitness, exercise and nutrition? How are we to respond to the growing number of psychological disorders associated with body image and self esteem when we may, for instance, be chronically overweight?

Unfortunately, there is a common misunderstanding which can be detrimental – a kind of  background  belief. It is the assumption that there are two parts to human beings: a physical body and a spiritual soul.

Since the soul is spiritual, it is this part of humanity which is “made in the image of God.” (Genesis 1:27)

The body is simply the dwelling place of the soul. The soul is what matters. Thus, activities associated with the soul are considered more important; activities associated with the body are diminished.

This leaves one open for two opposite tendencies. ‘Spiritual people’ devalue the body whereas the culture falls into an obsession with the body.

Christians can take scripture out of context to support the unimportance of the body. “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8)

Specifically, what does it mean to be created in the image of God? As it is stated in Genesis 1: 26–28: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”

It has been recognized for centuries that this passage is critical to Christians understanding themselves. But just what does it mean? In the rest of the Bible there is not much about the ‘image of God.’ What did the author of Genesis mean in its original context?

Throughout the history of the church such questions have been mainly discussed by theologians. Only in the last century have Old Testament scholars looked at the original ancient near eastern culture and context and helped us try and understand this foundational passage about ourselves.

Plato was a pagan philosopher who divided the world in two: a spiritual and physical world. He also divided human beings in two: a spiritual soul and physical body.

The rational soul belongs to the spiritual realm which is good; the body belongs to the physical realm which is bad. The body is a prison house for the soul. Salvation will come when the soul is released from this prison to return to a spiritual realm.

In the first centuries of the church, this ‘platonic’ view of humanity was adopted, so Christians tended to think it was the soul that was considered to be the image of God.

God’s good creation was considered inferior. It didn’t matter that he had said it was ‘very good.’ According to Plato, it was at best inferior.

This pagan view devaluing the body has corrupted much Christian thinking, right to the present day.  

Thinking our bodies are not important should be questioned:

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• There is no body-soul distinction anywhere in the Old Testament. This was imported into the Bible from pagan philosophy.

• Hebrew words used in Genesis 1:26-28 for ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ have precisely to do with visibility! That is, the body is essential in what it means to image God. As Paul Schrotenboer, in Man in God’s World put it, “The customary view . . . tends to downgrade the role of man’s body in the idea of the image. The more’s the pity, for it is precisely in the body where the imaging occurs. There the invisible God takes on visible form.”

Further reasons for de-emphasizing the physical

Two other views influence our thinking about ourselves.

About the middle of the 20th century, under the influence of German theologian Karl Barth, the emphasis was put on the relationship humans had with God.

He emphasized that is not how humanity is actually like God; rather it is how humanity lives coram Deo – in God’s presence, in response to God. Anything to do with the physical was again de-emphasized.

In recent decades, biblical scholars have looked for parallels in ancient cultures. They have noted that the Babylonians and Egyptians understood the word ‘image’ primarily in terms of having a role to play.

Both Babylon and Egypt used the word to describe the king as in the image of God because he was considered to be like the gods, having a special relationship to the gods, and having a special task to carry out on their behalf.

These empires were two of the super-powers of the time. Somewhat like the United States and the English language, they affected the thinking of all the peoples around them. Israel was in constant contact with these empires.

 They stressed the authoritative task that the image of God had to play. The king represented God on earth.

Not just kings

 The Bible’s teaching that all human beings, not just kings, were made in God’s image would have been quite startling to the original hearers.

All humans, male and female were like God: finite and creaturely reflections of the infinite Creator. All were in relation to God. All had a task and were responsible to God. All!

Norman Habel, an Old Testament scholar, brings these things together and defines the image as that special character and relationship of man to God which enables him to represent God as ruler of the earth. Note that all three interpretations are present.

• Special character: Human beings are like God.

• Relationship of man to God: Human beings are in relation to God.

• Both of these enable humanity to represent God as ruler of the earth.

It’s all within a body!

If something like this is what it means to be created in the image of God, then our bodies are far from secondary. It is precisely in our bodily lives that we reflect, know and represent God. In the whole of our creaturely life, as bodily creatures, we image God.

Our activities cannot be divided into those things that are associated with the soul and are more important, and those associated with the body that are less so.

The body matters because it is in our bodies that we image God. No wonder Paul exhorts us to offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1).

Mike Goheen, PhD, is the Geneva Chair in Reformational Worldview Studies at Trinity Western University.

October 2007