Chapter II · The Upper Room — J. C. Ryle
— Colossians 4:141
THERE are two things in the title of this paper which I shall take for granted, and not dwell on them. One is, that Luke here mentioned is the same Luke who wrote the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and was the friend and companion of St. Paul. The other is, that Luke really was a physician of the body. On both these points the consent of learned men, who have a right to command our attention, is almost universal. I shall rigidly confine myself to two remarks which appear to grow out of the subject. For it is a significant fact, I think, that the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who was ever ministering to men’s souls, makes honourable mention of one who ministered to men’s bodies.
I. I remark then, for one thing, that one great feature of the Christian religion is the dignity and importance which it attaches to the human body.
Many readers of this paper need hardly be reminded that some of the schools of heathen philosophers regarded the body with contempt, as a hindrance and not a help, a clog and a drag and not an aid, to the soul. Even those nations which paid most attention to the burial of the body when dead, like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, knew nothing of a future existence of the body after death, even at the most distant period. The heroes described by Homer and Viral, in the Elysian Fields, the supposed place of happiness after death, were only ghosts and airy figures, with nothing material about them. When St. Paul, on Mars Hill, spoke of the “resurrection of the dead,” we are told that “some mocked” (Acts 17:32). Even Pliny, one of the most intelligent Latin writers, in his Natural History, says there were two things which were beyond the power of God,—one was to give immortality to mortals, and the other was to give bodily life again to the dead. (See Pearson on The Creed, vol. ii., p. 306, Oxford edition.)
Let us turn now to the Christian religion, and mark what a contrast it presents. Whether we look at its leading facts, or doctrines, or practical instructions for the present, or hopes for the future, the human body is continually brought to the front, and its importance magnified.
(a) Look, to begin with, at the great mysterious truth which lies at the foundation of our holy faith, the incarnation of Christ. When the Eternal Son of God came down into this sin-burdened world, to bring redemption, and change the whole condition of our fallen race, how did He come? Not as a mighty angel or a glorious spirit, as we might have expected. Nothing of the kind! He took on Him a bodily nature, just like our own, sin only excepted. He was born of a woman as an infant, and had a body that grew and increased in stature as our bodies do,—a body that could hunger and thirst, and be weary and need sleep, and feel pain, and groan in agony and suffering, like the body of any one who reads this paper. In that body He condescended to tabernacle for thirty-three years, its members daily fulfilling the Law of God perfectly, so that in His “flesh” Satan could find nothing failing or defective (John 14:30).
(b) Look, in the next place, at the great cardinal doctrine of Christ’s atonement. That wondrous distinctive verity of our faith, that solution of the problem, “how can sinful man have peace with God? “—is indissolubly bound up with Christ’s body. It was the death of that body on the cross which provided for fallen man a way of reconciliation with God. It was the precious lifeblood, which flowed from our Lord’s crucified body on Calvary, which purchased for us redemption from the curse of a broken law. In short, it is the blood of Christ’s body to which true Christians owe all their comfort while they live, and their hope when they die.
(c) Look, next, at the crowning facts of Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven. When our Lord came forth from the grave where Joseph and Nicodemus had laid Him, on the third day, He did not come forth as a spirit. To use the words of our Fourth Article, He “took again His body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature.” In that body He was seen and touched by His disciples. In that body He spoke, and ate, and drank like ourselves. And, finally, in that body He ascended into heaven, and there sits till He returns to judge all men at the last day. We have a priest and advocate with the Father who has a body.
(d) Look, next, at the practical precepts and exhortations which the Apostles are continually pressing on us in the New Testament. Mark how frequently they speak of the body and its members as “instruments of righteousness,” as a part of the Christian’s nature requiring his constant care, and as a means of exhibiting his sanctification and holiness. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.”—” Glorify God in body and spirit, which are His.”—” I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be preserved blameless.”----” Present your bodies a living sacrifice.”—Let “Christ be magnified in my body.”—Let the “life of Jesus be manifest in our mortal flesh.”—We shall “receive the things done in the body.”—Where, indeed, and how, could the graces of temperance, soberness, chastity, and self-denial be shown forth except in and through the body? (Rom. 6:13; 1 Cor. 6:19-20; 1 Thess. 5:23; Rom. 12:1; Phil. 1:20; 2 Cor. 4:11; 2 Cor. 5:10).