Did Jesus Come to Save My Body or Soul?
I thought that my body is mortal, and my soul and spirit are immortal (Jesus came to save my soul). I heard recently that our body and soul are one, and that Jesus came to save our bodies. Thoughts?
First of all, it’s not quite true that our bodies are mortal. It’s mostly true. The Bible says that there is a connection between this mortal body and the resurrection body that believers will receive. So, it is true that this body I have is mortal and, unless Jesus comes first, this body will die.
The resurrection body which I receive will have some connection to this body. They won’t be entirely different things. They’ll be different, but not entirely different. The analogy Paul used was the likeness between the seed and the tree. Is there a connection between the seed and the tree? Absolutely. But is the tree the seed? No, there’s a difference between the two, but they are still connected.
So yes, our bodies are mortal, but our immortal resurrection bodies will be connected to these mortal bodies in some way. The Bible really doesn’t specify all the ways that it is connected to it, but there is a connection. By the way, let’s remember that even those who are not in Christ, who will spend eternity in separation from Jesus Christ, they also will have a resurrection body. Jesus spoke of the resurrection of the just and the unjust.
The other thing you say is, “I recently heard that our body and our soul are one.” I don’t think that’s true. Here’s the difficulty. The Bible uses the term soul in more than one context. There are times when the Bible uses the term soulsimply to refer to a life, like saying, “There were 40 living souls in the city.” However, there are other times when the Bible uses the term soul to refer to the immaterial part of the human being. We understand that as human beings, there’s a material part of our being – our flesh and blood – but there’s also a non-material part of our being. That non-material part is shared by believers and unbelievers. You could say that for those who are not yet in Christ, the non-material part of their being exists, but it doesn’t have spiritual life. So, I wouldn’t strictly say that the body and soul are one. The passages that combine the two are simply speaking of a soul as a life.
Did Jesus come to save our bodies? Well, yes, He did. Jesus came to save us and purchase us, body, soul and spirit. In fact, Paul goes on to use this as an argument for why Christians should be moral in their sexual conduct, because God through Jesus has purchased the believer, body, soul and spirit. Every aspect of our being is the purchased possession of Jesus Christ, including our body.