Created Male And Female: Westminster Confession Chapter 4

If someone told you your body is just optional hardware and the “real you” is whatever you feel inside, would you have the words to answer back with clarity and compassion? We open Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 4 and take up a deceptively simple claim with massive consequences: God created the world, and after making all other creatures, he created mankind male and female with body and soul. That confession is not a dusty line from church history. It is a direct challenge to the modern scramble over identity, gender, and what it means to be human. 

We talk about creation in the space of six days and why the Westminster divines focused on what Scripture emphasizes: God’s deliberate work and the verdict that creation is very good. Then we move into the pressure points Christians feel right now, where the debate has shifted from timing to anthropology. We contrast Genesis 1:27 with rival stories, including Plato’s myth of the androgyne and its modern echoes in arguments that sexual difference is merely constructed, oppressive, or endlessly flexible. 

From there we tackle transhumanism, the vision of the body as rearrangeable “meat Lego,” and why that logic shows up everywhere from life extension fantasies to everyday tech habits. Finally, we re-center on a biblical theology of the body: the incarnation as God’s ultimate endorsement of embodied life, the resurrection of the body, and a real new heaven and new earth. Along the way we touch practical ethics, mercy ministry, and why Christians care about physical suffering without reducing the mission of the church to social work. Subscribe, share this with a friend who is asking hard questions about identity. 

Transcript

Welcome And A Youth Group Story

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome to Catechizing Conversations. We're glad that you tuned in to this podcast, which is focused on theology, theology in the church, the creeds, the confessions of the faith, and primarily and specifically what we've been talking about over the past several podcasts, the Westminster Confession of Faith. My name is Sisko Victa, pastor at Lebanon Valley Presbyterian Church here in Lebanon County. If you live in Lebanon County, we'd love to have you come out and join us for Lord's Day Worship at 10 a.m. Check us out on the website. And I'm here with Drew Brackville this afternoon. Drew, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Thank you, Sisko.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

How's it been going?

SPEAKER_03 1:12

I've had better months.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, I was almost fearful to ask that question.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Yeah, no, it's yeah, it's you know, it it God is is is showing his providence and and and we've been very blessed by the outpouring of love from the church in this kind of series of like difficulties and struggles that we're going through. So thank you and thank everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, well we're we're glad that uh the family's doing well, getting back on their feet. And uh, do have a funny story. Uh Drew, for the listeners uh that may not know, Drew leads our youth group, which meets every other uh Friday, and uh with Drew bring it being out because beautiful new baby and various things going on. I was filling in one Friday, and so we went through the lesson, and at the end I took prayer requests from all the young people, went around the table, and I get to this one young man and he says, Pray that Drew comes back. I love it. I mean, I just had the laughs because it's it's great. It's great because I just felt like, oh yeah, it's great about youth. You know, they're gonna tell you what they think. So uh pray that Drew comes back. I mean, that that was his assessment of my Bible study.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Well, yeah, I don't I don't I'm it's that's that's kind of touching in a way.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Uh well the the youth do appreciate you and uh yeah, we're we're thankful to be able to step in to help with the youth, thankful for the youth of our church, and we're thankful that you're here listening

Reading Westminster On Creation

SPEAKER_00 2:50

to this podcast. Today we're working through what the confession says about creation. This is the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter four, and specifically what it means that God made us, male and female, body and soul. These are not abstract categories, they have enormous implications for how we think about gender, the body, even what heaven is going to be like. So uh let's dig in. I'll I'll read here the first point of chapter four, Westminster Confession of Faith of Creation. It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness in the beginning to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image, having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it, and yet under the possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Besides this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

What Does Six Days Mean

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Well, it sort of sort of harkens back to something we discussed, maybe it was during the Trinity episode, about how you know John talks about the Son being present at creation, and that's how we know that they're co-eternal. So, like it, you know, here they're reiterating that that God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were all actively involved in creation.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And it and it's all for his glory. Yeah. We we could look at the space of six days, and I know that opens up a can of worms. I was just looking at Van Dixhorn's wonderful commentary on Confessing the Faith, and he says, and I was gonna say suggest, but I think he's probably an expert on the uh confession. I think he's the expert.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

You had him on your podcast too. Congratulations on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

But like I can't believe you had Chad Ben Dixhorn on here and like coming back to me.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

And there should be like 10,000 uh visons on it, but people don't like value.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Wow, I've been very rarefied air up there.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Anyway, he states that some of the members of the assembly preferred to say this more precisely that God made the world in six twenty-four-hour days. But it's it's been hard to consider how long a day is, what a day means without the presence of a sun and moon. And so he seems to indicate he's not sure why, but the Westminster Assembly decided not to elaborate on the words of Scripture. Um, some members of the Assembly were more explicit in their own writings how long these days were, but they did choose to highlight the conclusion of Scripture, and that is all God's creation was very good.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

And I mean the conclusion of Scripture is that the world was made in six days. You know, whatever you think a day means. Right. But I mean, even some of the patristic sources had questions about that. Like, well, what I mean there wasn't a rising and a setting of the sun so until the sun was created, so but I also think that that issue of you know, old earth versus young earth creationism and this this debate is kind of like fading from the center of the cultural consciousness. And like this when I was growing up, that was the debate, you know. Even like the intra-Christian debate was are you a young earther? Are you an old earther? And I remember I had a friend in from church when I was a kid, and I found out his family were like old earth creationists, and I was like, You're

Why Male And Female Matters Today

SPEAKER_03 7:05

not a Christian, but like it compared to like the kind of stuff we're dealing with now that like pertains to the section two of this chapter, right? Like, it feels like the debate has moved on. It's not as though there's no debate over God over creation, it's just like we've moved from did God create the world in six days to well, did God really create male and female? So I that's probably where there's more fertile ground for education, given the just the context of the current social climate.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Uh yeah, uh certainly all Christians would affirm God created in the space of six days what exactly that means. I know in our own denomination there's room for various interpretations, nevertheless, not evolution or anything of that sort. But you're right, the the main issues we're facing, or some of the main issues that we're facing in our culture today, is identity and what it means to be male and female. And did God in indeed create male and female? And and this chapter addresses that.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yeah, and I think obviously the implication that God created man, mankind, I should say, in both male and female, has tremendous import for the social issues of today. And I think b beyond just like the Bible's the scriptural evidence for biological essentialism, which is the idea that like yes, actually male and female are real things. Which if if I were a a college professor, I could be fired for thinking that. But aside from that, it it also means that our physical bodies are an indelible part of our eternal identity, right? Like the God's creation ordinance is give people physical bodies, and and that's part of who we are. The theology of the body that arises out of God having created us, male and female, is something we don't talk about that much. There's a really excellent book by an author named, I think, Nancy Pearcy. It's called Love Thy Body, which I would highly recommend everybody to read that deals with these issues of gender, you know, and it's it's from a Protestant perspective. And the Catholics, of course, have JP2 with his theology of the body, which has has grounded them fairly well in this on this topic for a long time. But you know, I think that the there is a dearth to some degree of discussion in our churches and in our tradition about like what is the like what does the Bible say about our bodies? What is our theology of the body and the sort of alternative that this presents to the transgenderist and transhumanist narrative in society? But also like we're fighting through this battle over complementarianism in our church right now, and several other churches recently, like the Southern Baptists have fought this battle recently over what is the proper role of male and female within the church and within the body of Christ. So I think not only does it have sociological implications, but it also like has implications on how we relate as Christians to one another. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, and what seems so simple has become so complicated. At least mankind has made it complicated. I mean, Genesis 127 is is simple. It's something that our children are taught very early in Sunday school and being catechized, and that is God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him, male and female, he created them. And I was reading Dutch theologian Jay Duma, and he was speaking or writing about how as soon as mankind appeared, you have individuals appear as man or woman, and that's the datum of creation. Again, seemingly so simple, and it's confirmed with the experience of every new birth. And and yet it has mushroomed into this very complicated and and uh vast implications of what that means. And not everybody agrees, right, that God created man and male and female he created them. And many of the philosophies that we see dominating our society, and as you made mention of, it really also coming into the church, and and now we're having to

Plato’s Androgyne And Modern Echoes

SPEAKER_00 11:55

struggle with this, is that not everyone agrees that there's sexual difference between man and woman from the beginning. And uh, one thing Duma brings out is Greek philosopher Plato had this mythical being, and I'm gonna ask you to pronounce this for me. Plato's myth of the androgyne. Androgyne, yeah, it sounds like some some kind of science fiction movie, and and really it is a science fiction type uh well view here.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

I've I mean, yeah, it's it's it's a classic Platonism thing. It's like like the you give you got the myth of the metals, you know, you've got the all kinds of different like plato's analogies are are very myth of you know, the cave, the analogy of the cave. This like the the androgyne is a classic Plato thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So this androgyne perfectly embodies the unity of the masculine and feminine elements. But the punishment of the gods fell upon this androgyne and it divided into two. Now a person is either a man or woman. And so ever since this division, there's this restless human love that has been consumed in an endless search for this lost unity. So this is a pagan view.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Well, and it's it's a what it's a particularly Platonist view. It's like m one of So when I was in college, I you know, had a lecturer who I professor that I really liked, who once described sort of Plato's view of everything as being about fundamentally about like loves or attractions. So like when a we drop a pen and the pen hits the floor, we would say, Well, the gravity pulled the pen to the floor. But Plato or Aristotle, his student, would have said, No, the pen loves the floor and wants to wants to be with it. So, you know, for Plato to explain why men and women are drawn to each other, he's he's come up with this like arguably rational, but very kind of you know, a little bit goofy and outlandish idea that like at one point man and woman were a single united entity and then they got split apart, and so now they're always that's why they're trying to find each other. Yeah, which is I mean, uh you know, not to give too much credit to paganism, is beautiful in its own way. I guess it could be, but yeah, I I certainly can see that. It's not Christian, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

But I I could see that. But the idea is that there's a brokenness.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

So contrary to Genesis 1.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Which actually, I mean, the Genesis narrative is that actually oneness is not good. And it's not good to be alone. It is not good that man should be alone. So therefore, you know, God takes Adam's rib and makes Eve out of it, and and only then is is it is it very good, you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah, I I I just wonder how much aberrant philosophy and theology has come out of, you know, not just this, but of other pagan views that reject the Genesis 1 narrative of male and female, and that it was good that there's a distinction.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

I mean, how the question is, how much aberrant theology has come out of Plato a lot?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

If this is true, then we should view the duality of man and woman as brokenness. In our love, according to this construction, we are constantly searching for the original love's restlessness finds rest in the unity wherein man and woman totally encompass each other. This perspective, which Plato cast in the form of a myth, a story about the gods, enjoys acceptance even today. Consider the French author, Elizabeth Bannenter, who wrote the title The One is the Other, and she divides history into three phases. The first phase was the one and the other, that in ancient times men and women were each other's complement, with women exercising the greater influence. That was a rather happy time compared with the one that followed, when men became the boss and women became oppressed, and so patriarchy meant the one without the other. The Bible, along with its creation story, fits into this phase according to Beneter. There is no place for the goddess, since the absolute ruler is the masculine God, who is the Almighty Father. It later seemed that Mary, as the mother of Jesus, would bring about a change in this view, but in spite of this development, the church remained a masculine domain. Today we live in the third phase, according to Beneter, a phase more and more governed by differences between men and women. The one is the other. The one is the other. Homosexuality and bisexuality demonstrate how sexuality is not as fixed as the Bible and other books would have us believe. So the fact that we act like a man or a woman is not the result of an innate direction, but a question of nurture. People teach their children to behave as male or female. They are not one or the other, but they become one or the other. So this ancient myth of the antrogynius, man, is echoed in various modern feminist arguments. If people nowadays address God with feminine terms, so that he must be a he. At the same time, the conclusion derives not from biblical exegesis, but rather from a premise nurtured in the world of this Platonic thinking.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Yeah, I there was a video I watched of a sermon given in, I think it was a UMC church, where you know the female pastor addressed God with this like very strange effort, like many-breasted God of nursing mothers. And I was like, what? Yeah, it it you really get into some exceptionally strange conceptions when you're trying to introduce a concept of the divine femme to the Christian God. It's very, very weird.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Of course, our ethical reflection depends on scripture, and that's the well from which we draw. So again, we're going back to Genesis 127, and we see a distinction between man and woman to be one that God has willed. It is not a kind of punishment of the fall or source of misery. When God created man as male and female, on the sixth day, he looked back on that day and he pronounced this judgment. Indeed, it was very good.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yeah, so when God creates man as male and and and woman as woman, it's creation is not very good until God has created this sexual dichotomy. So we know that the male-female distinction is divinely ordained. It's not a social construct, like Batenter would say, right? It's not a form of brokenness, like Plato would suggest. It's how God wanted it to be, right? I mean, may perhaps there's some discussion to be had there about like, well, you know, why didn't he create Eve until after he had created Adam and Adam was clearly lonely, and did God change his mind? Like, was God going to create a monogendered race of human beings, and then he was like, actually, there should be women. You know, uh, who knows? But I think that the the c the the plain view of scripture is that God's creative work wasn't done until he had created man and women. And that then he looked at it and said, Yes, this is good. So I think scripture has to be the authoritative framework when Christians are looking at questions of gender and sexuality. And what explains the conflict between the genders is not, you know, per se a patriarchal oppression that's you know built into the f the the creation, it's like the fall, right? The fall created this sinful enmity between men and women. I think Duma suggests that that the the the creation ordinance was for Adam and Eve to exercise dominion together, right? And then, you know, only after the curse of sin is man going to rule over the woman. But regardless, we know that redemption in Christ is is supposed to restore the and ultimately glorification is supposed to restore ourselves to the this this state of innocence, and we can expect that in heaven they they will no longer marry nor be given in marriage, right? So the the gender distinction in heaven is going to be different than it is on earth. And I think that there's an imp implication there that there won't be contention or you know, sexual tension and and the the battle of the sexes won't happen in heaven.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

And and it didn't happen there prior to the fall. No, and and the divines are recognizing that when they said they were happy in their communion with God, that there's not the entrance of sin, and and so that happiness and communion with God would have also been happiness with one another.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

So we just want to be clear that's then marriage is not created by a caveman to try to oppress women. It's divinely ordered by cavemen.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

If cavemen created marriage, you know, like I have a bone to pick with caveman. I'm kidding. Okay. So I love you, Captain. Please cut that part out.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

So, what are some of the prevailing ideologies today, however, that are in contrast to what we just read both in the confession and this

Transhumanism And The Body As Plastic

SPEAKER_00 21:45

one verse of Genesis 127?

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Yeah. So I think one of the prevailing ideologies that we encounter about the body, right? Probably the prevailing ideology is what we would call transhumanism. Which is fundamentally the idea that like our humanness is not particularly connected to our physical form, that if you, you know, if you were to replace every meat neuron in a human being's brain piece by piece with metal neurons that fulfill the same exact function, you know, the resulting metal-brained man would still be human afterwards. You know, at what point does, as you're replacing neurons in this man's brain, does he stop being human? The transhumanist supposition is never. He's human all the way, even once he has no more meat left in his body. Which is creepy. But I think it's it's this this idea has taken root in many niches and corners in our culture. There's a writer named Mary Harrington in in Britain, who's kind of like, I guess I would describe her as almost a reverse feminist, but she thinks that like actually the sort of traditional gender norms and roles were beneficial for women, and probably it was a mistake to throw them off. But she she describes transhumanism with this catchphrase that she calls the meat Lego matrix, which is such a like catchy term. And so just as a quote from her, she says, In this worldview, human bodies are not sacred, let alone inseparable from consciousness. They're inert meat, we're entitled to enclose for profit, instrumentalize at will, and rearrange like toy building blocks to suit our sense of self. And so if man is not created male and female, if man is instead some kind of free-floating noose, you know, free-floating spirit, which is is merely incidentally contained in a in a shell of meat, which is the transhumanist orthodoxy right now, then there's not really any reason why we shouldn't commoditize our individual body parts and mix and remix to suit a conception of ourselves that's kind of cooked up by this true internal self, the inner self, the self of mind. But if man is created male and female, which we believe, it means that the biological realities of our specific bodies are not mere incidents of random genetic chance, but key to the existence which God has providentially decreed that each of us should face. And now you have a friend that's written a book on this. Yeah, and I promised him I would give him a shout-out in our podcast. His name is Grayson, Grayson Quay. He has written a really excellent book called The Transhumanist Temptation, which I highly recommend. That's sort of accurately and succinctly in like 300-ish pages summarizes the this issue, all the different places in which we find we're beset by transhumanism, and I think offers some interesting ideas on how we can how we can fight back against it. Like one of the things he identifies that one of the really pernicious transhumanist things is cell phones. Cell phones have completely rewritten our techno-cultural norm. We we walk around every day. Here I am picking up my cell phone. If we were on YouTube, you could see that. We are living in a future in which human beings are completely unshackled by this device which can tell us anything and everything with tremendous ease.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

So what are some other fractal implications of this transhumanist ideology?

SPEAKER_03 25:44

I mean, like tr transgenderism is a is a part of it, but like one of the other major outgrowths of transhumanism is like the life extension movement, like billionaires that never want to die. Okay. They're like trying to gain immortality, freezing their bodies, yeah, freezing themselves and and like you know, injecting themselves with like youthful blood cells and stuff. And that's reflects a an insecurity about death that everybody feels, but like Christians have an answer to that as well. You know, the tr the the transhumanist desire is aimed at some of the same insecurities that everyone feels. It's just their answer is completely godless. Like their answer is, well, we'll just strap other parts onto ourselves until we're completely unrecognizable, and then we'll never die. There's nothing in there of the the of the spirit.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

So it's like AI on steroids, basically. Yeah. I mean, the use of AI in a language model is let me get that information that's available at my fingertips and and just tape it to myself. But this is actual, this is going deeper than even that.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

Well, I mean, I also think with the advent of LLMs and AI, I think that this problem is only gonna get worse because the magnitude of the issue is larger, you know? So I could talk at length about what I would describe as the epistemic crisis, like how hard it is to discern falsehood from truth, and AI has made that infinitely worse because it will just it will just tell you whatever it is that you want to hear, and it will do so confidently, and it's like having a buddy who like knows a little bit about almost everything in with you all the time to like give you confidently false assessments of any situation. It's really bad. Yeah, but I think one of you know, to to return to the to the to the point, one of the reasons why transhumanism has gained so much of a foothold everywhere is because it's an outgrowth of a kind of Gnostic dualism that I think almost every Christian in modernity like tacitly accepts. And that's this idea that the spirit and the flesh are not just two distinct things, because we think they are distinct, but that in some way our flesh is more fallen or more evil than our spirits, and therefore it's less authentically us, like less authentically truly me, right? Like, probably this is I think it's probably down to bad catechesis. I also think maybe some of it's Christian science. I know I know you've like talked before about how you don't like to say passed away because it's like as much as I I said that from the pulpit, there's times that I still it it slips through my tongue.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yeah. Instead of saying they died.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah. Which is like something Mary Barker Eddie Baker Eddie Eddie came up with. Because she doesn't believe that people actually die. The body is an illusion, and this only the spirit is real.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Right. Christians shouldn't talk like that.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Yeah. I think that the the Christian scientists were much more influential in the past. Like there's not that many of them left. I mean, I don't know that I would say that.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

It is Zaparin theology, though, because then again, that yeah, maybe Christian science is not dominant, but there still is that idea that the body is bad, bad body, good spirit, and I need to escape this body, and that getting closer to God is doing just that, putting the body down, and my spirit in some way is free.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Yeah. And also, I mean, like in the secular mainstream, you know, people who aren't really Christians. I think probably like Emmanuel Kant is probably to blame for this idea. I don't know. Do I want to go into Kantian metaphysics? And I mean, basically, Kant had this idea that that the the true and the spiritual self and then the physical self are so different from one another that that that there's like an unbridgeable gap between them. And that's that's kind of was one of Kant's major contributions to philosophy. So, but regardless of of where it came from, this idea is really pervasive in our culture, especially when you ask people like, what do you think heaven is gonna be like? And they'll say, like, well, you know, I'm I imagine I'll be up on a cloud and I'm gonna have angel wings and I'm just gonna be flying around. And like this is I I honestly think the average Christian probably draws more of their idea of heaven like more from the Simpsons than from Scripture. Like it's like that's how the Simpsons depicts heaven. It's like God is a big grandfatherly figure in the sky, and like you're floating around with a harp. And that's I don't, you know, what we know of heaven from scripture is that our earthly bodies are going to be resurrected and glorified, and then we're going to live in a new heaven and a new earth. It will probably be vocational. There will probably be work, and you know, yes, we'll be present with and praising God, but probably we will be called to some

Heaven Bodily Resurrection And Cremation

SPEAKER_03 31:10

kind of vocation even in the next life.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So a lot of this has come from a very either warped view of the body or a lack of a strong theology of the body that we've lacked in the Protestant tradition, if if we're gonna own up to that.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Well, I f I mean yeah, uh maybe I'm uh ever knock Protestantism because I I am one, but like I do think that some of the other like the the Catholics have the theology of the body from John Paul II, who you know wrote this long treatise about this and and and the Eastern Orthodox, for example, like they they don't even cremate their their dead. And in in Protestant circles until like the eight mid-18th century, it was unthinkable that you would cremate the dead. But now we do. Why? When did we decide that the body doesn't matter, that the symbol that the body represents isn't important enough to specially honor? Like Christians never historically, like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, none of them would have been like, Yeah, cremate me. Like they they would have been horrified by that, and yet some somebody in the 1800s was like, eh, it's more efficient. Like and it doesn't say not to do it in the Bible, so I guess we'll just start cremating each other now. Like the Eastern Orthodox are horrified by that because they have this, they have they're they're still teaching this idea that human beings are spirit and body, and that respecting the body part because it's God's creation and it's his design is like a big part of maintaining human dignity.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

And just to be clear for our listeners, we are saying that there is no biblical command requiring burial or prohibiting cremation. And there is difference of opinion among Christians on this topic. Nevertheless, as Drew was saying, it is true that burial dominates the narratives of the Old Testament, of the scripture.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

I think there's only one example of a Jewish person in the Old Testament being cremated. And I think it was Saul and his sons being burned after, I think they were burned by the Philistines, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

So which would have been made sense because ancient pagan practices favored cremation. Yeah, I should double check that, but yeah. Well, the idea is that the body is a piece of meat and corrupt and disposable. Yeah, which isn't actually what the Bible teaches. No, no, God created the body good and one day we'll raise it, whether in the grave or ashes. But yeah, I I think you can make a strong argument that burial honors the high view that scripture gives of the body and cremation historically did not.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Yeah. Well, and it's for what it's worth, we're not to suggest that you know God couldn't resurrect you from a pile of ashes. Like obviously God can and will do whatsoever he pleaseth, but the reason why Christians historically never performed cremation is because they thought that the body being interred in a relatively intact way was symbolic of the coming resurrection, right? It's it was a symbol.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

But just going back to the incarnation,

Incarnation Dignity And Mercy With Bodies

SPEAKER_00 34:50

which is God's ultimate endorsement of the physical body. Yeah, the incarnation reshapes Christian anthropology. And so instead of viewing the body as inherently corrupt, or as the body as a prison from which the soul longs to escape, uh, redemption encompasses our humanness, all of it. And uh, when Jesus comes to this earth with a body, it is the focal point of God's redemptive work in the world, and that's not mis mis simply or it's not symbolic. The word became flesh, he became physically human with a body, and this is something the church has affirmed from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, it's true. I mean, like, you know, yeah, we could mention uh Athanasius again. It's not like we can't, you know, Protestants can't read on the incarnation. Like I would encourage everybody to read it. But, you know, I I do think we we, especially Puritans and people that are descended from the Puritan tradition, get stuck with this idea that we're like somehow like bloodless, uh like unenthusiastic about existence. And like, I don't think that's fair to the Puritans. Like it's certainly not fair to us, like and the historical Christian tradition is that like we embrace the physic the physical world. Like we we recognize that the material world has genuine significance. We're hoping for a new earth, right? We're not just hoping for a spiritual heaven where we want God to remake the world, and that's that's what we we we look forward to, a bodily resurrection in the life of the world to come. You know, we know that Christianity is a is a a faith that does not scorn the body, and it never has, and and it's in contrast, maybe we'll talk about this in you know episode two on this theme, but like it's in contrast to how the Greeks and many of the pagans look at at the duality of of the material and the immaterial world, right? Like they would say they would say this Manichaean idea that that the flesh is evil. We don't believe that, we don't agree with that. You know, we think that both body and soul are tainted by sin, but God made them good. So we we live in a good, ultimately a cre a creation that was made good for us to enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Yeah, and that this sounds very simple, but the practical implications of this are that it's the reason why we take care of our bodies, we're supposed to take care of our bodies. We're called the temple of the Holy Spirit, we're supposed to be concerned about the well-being of our neighbors, physically as well as spiritually. We're to resist sinning with our bodies, and particularly sinning sexually with our bodies. And we don't treat people as if they're disembodied spirits, and and that's what James was speaking of, right? You know, just saying to someone, be blessed. But no, clothe them if they need clothes, and you have the clothes, feed them if they need to be fed. So even our theology of mercy comes from this understanding of the physical body.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

That's true. Yeah, that's and that's one of the things that also distinguishes us from so many other religious traditions, is that you know, we have this ethic of caring for the absolute most broken people. And I would say like the Christian perspective is like you I think you've said this before. I I think I've said it like the mercy ministry is is important, but also like you have to give them the gospel. You do need to have both.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Sure. Yeah, I mean, it comes from the gospel of Mark that Jesus preached the gospel. Yeah, he was the gospel. And he could have stayed and kept healing every single sick person on the face of the earth at that moment, but his mission primarily was the gospel, but he did go about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, and and that would have been speaking of the effects of both the body and the soul.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Yeah, like he could have fed the five thousand a second time, but refused. Yeah, and and instead gave them, you know, he said, Eat my flesh and drink my blood, and they were wigged out by that. He gave them a spiritual truth and a challenging spiritual truth instead of a second loaf and a second fish.

Next Time The Soul And Closing Invite

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Well, only two points in chapter four, and yet so much can be said.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Yeah, um so maybe we we can break it off here because I think we've already talked for 45 minutes. I just looked at the clock, it's like 45 minutes. And so we talked about the body, and maybe next time we'll talk about the the points in the confession that that refer to the soul, right? The that God has created us with reasonable and immortal souls. You know, what do we what is what and can we infer from that? So I'd say join us maybe in two weeks for more talk about the soul.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Well, thank you for joining us today. And again, if you live in Lebanon County, we'd love to meet you in person, real, alive in the body. But thank you for listening and the Lord bless you.