Only spiritual?

I had the opportunity to preach this past Sunday. In one part of my message I briefly touched on the phrase, obeying the truth through the Spirit, and said that baptism is a vital part of our response to the Gospel (repentance, faith, baptism). At the close of my message we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. I believe the Bible is very clear: both of these physical acts are means of spiritual grace; that is, when I am baptized in water and when I eat the bread and drink the fruit of the vine, I receive a spiritual benefit.

I got to thinking about this. Christianity is a spiritual faith. The Law dealt with meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances. By carnal he means physical, external. The people, the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the worship were all carnal - they all dealt with physical things. The gospel tells us there has been a great change - we are a spiritual people; the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the worship are all spiritual. And yet . . .

And yet what? How in the world can water baptism impart anything spiritual? How can eating bread and drinking the fruit of the vine be a means of receiving Christ and his grace? Because even though the gospel deals with spiritual realities, God has not abandoned the physical part of life.

Think about it. One of the pillars of the New Testament, one of the foundations of the Gospel itself is a physical act, the Incarnation, And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Further, He was born of a Jewish woman, of the family of David, in the city of Bethlehem. If any one of these fleshly things are not true, He is not the Messiah and we are yet in our sins! The other pillar of the Gospel is also fleshly – this Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of man, was crucified, died and was buried, then God raised that body from the dead! This resurrection was not a spiritual event, it was a carnal event - His flesh was brought back to life and glorified. Again, if it did not happen this way we have no hope, no certainty that death has been defeated and we can have eternal life.

God made us spirit, soul, and body. And He saves us spirit, soul, and body. Much of Christendom has reduced our blessed hope down to “die and go to heaven”, yet Jesus promises to raise our fleshly bodies from the grave and give us, the whole us, eternal life: because I live, ye shall live also; For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Amen!

Salvation is not only a future resurrection of the flesh, but we live for Christ in this body. With our bodies we pray and worship, with our bodies we fast, with our bodies we suffer for Him. He sanctifies us so that our physical acts, what we do in the body, can become spiritual acts and a means of glorifying Him – eating, sleeping, working, marrying, making love to your spouse, bearing children, all of these physical or fleshly activities can become spiritual. The problem with the flesh (body), is not it’s desires, the problem is when the fulfillment of these desires rule us and are fulfilled outside of his will. Putting it plainly: eating is not unspiritual, gluttony is; sleeping is not unspiritual, laziness is (what the Bible calls being a “sluggard”); sex is not unspiritual, sex outside of marriage is (fornication, adultery, uncleanness), Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

The salvation of Christ is forgiveness of sins, but it is also deliverance from the tyranny of the flesh. Whereas I once lived according to philosophy (human wisdom, what my soul thought was reasonable), and according to the flesh (living to satisfy the desires of the flesh, “if it feels good, do it”), now my mind and my flesh are ruled by the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit enables me to bring my desires and passions under His control.

Amen! But haven’t I gone far afield from my original question about baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Not at all. Christ sanctifies us spirit, soul, and body, and he uses physical activities to minister His grace to us. What exactly happens when I am baptized and partake of the Lord’s Supper is beyond the scope of this post, my point is simply that something happens; they are not merely symbols of something else, grace is offered and received through these physical acts. And this is not unusual. In my message I also pointed out when a brother or sister is hungry, we should feed them, if they are thirsty we are to give them something to drink, if they are naked, clothe them, if they have nowhere to live, provide housing, if they are sick or in prison we should visit them. Each of these is a physical need, and the spiritual response is to meet that need.

As I said at the beginning, I got to thinking about that. And I say in my email signature, “I think more thoughts than will fit in my head, so I write them down.” And that’s what happened here!