Exiled in Your Own Body

Have you ever wished you could escape your own body? Do you feel like you’re not at home in your own body? 

That’s because you aren’t! You’re an exile, even in your own body. In a previous post we looked at spiritual, cultural, and temporal forms of exile. In this post, we are going to explore a fourth kind: physical exile.

Physical Exile

Both Christians and non-Christians live with the vague sense of not being at home in our bodies. As a society we’ve accepted the reality of a decaying and dying body as normal. But it wasn’t always this way. The very first humans were in God’s direct presence, and their bodies received full vitality from Him. 

When they were separated from God, their bodies began a slow process of fading like a star that slowly loses its shine over time. The term the Bible uses for this is “glory.” Their glory faded.

Fast forward to today. Our bodies hardly have any of the glory they used to, because glory only comes from God’s presence. Instead, our bodies fade and die. Even though the Holy Spirit lives inside Christians and gives us God’s glory in some sense, we still live in bodies that get weaker and eventually die. Our inclinations will always be towards sinful thoughts and actions while we’re here in this present age.

At Home Where?

It is from this perspective that Paul writes to us:

“In this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling…. While we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord…. We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

Selections from 2 Corinthians 5:1-8

Here’s a helpful word picture to describe what he’s saying: Away from the Body = At Home with The Lord.

As someone exiled in your physical body, you cannot treat your physical body as your final home. But people of this world, who are not at home with the Lord, are at home in their bodies. Here’s a word picture to describe this: At Home in the Body = Away from The Lord.

At the core of being “at home in your body” is the belief that, “My body is the only one I will ever have, and so it determines my identity and worth.” This belief keeps you away from The Lord, because He is supposed to be the source of your identity, not your body.

Assimilate, Reject, or Bless

If you remember the binary from the first article, rather than assimilate to or reject the world’s standards, Christians must bless the world as exiles. 

This same paradigm will apply to how we view our bodies. The world tells us our body is our source of identity. But we can’t assimilate to that way of thinking, or reject our body altogether. We must take the middle way and learn to bless our body for God’s glory in the world.

Assimilate:

If we believe our body determines our identity, then when our bodies look great it will lead to prideful self-absorption. It’ll also lead to obsessive exercising or dieting when your body stops looking so great. It can also mean undergoing desperate measures to fight the signs of aging and imperfections. 

On the whole, the person at home in their mortal body is seeking to replace the glory that only comes from God’s presence with man-made forms of self-improvement. They aren’t living in hope of a new resurrection body, but in making a dying body look a little nicer and die a little slower.

Reject:

There is also a movement in our society to reject the body as a source of our identity through various forms of body-acceptance. These are wonderful causes that Christians can actually affirm. They rightly reject one body as more valuable than another. Size, color, shape, etc., do not make someone more or less valuable. 

But the philosophy is incomplete. It still encourages people to make their home in their current body, rather than long for another one. It says we should accept our body in its current form (which is good) but to never feel discontent or unhappy because of our bodies. That is impossible when we live in a broken world. 

It can also send us on a hunt for our identity in other things, like our personal character and morality, or family, or security, which are also false sources of identity.

Bless

When you realize that your mortal body is only a temporary home—until you receive an immortal body when Jesus returns—you’re free from putting your identity in your current body, or rejecting any hope of changing it.

You can bless your body by loving it and treating it well, without putting a false hope in its capacity to fully satisfy you. You can embrace your body as a temporary home to steward, so that you can bless the world around you while you’re here.

The reason you have been given your body is not to serve yourself, but to serve others and glorify God. Knowing that you’re destined for a better, immortal body, allows you to let go of worrying so much about your current situation, so that your focus can be on loving God and others.

“In This Tent We Groan”

Although we can bless the world as exiles, our bodies will still make us groan. That’s actually a good and normal response to life in a broken world. Our current body is not a perfect match for God’s Spirit because it makes us want to do sinful things that lead us away from Him. We’re also subject to all manner of illnesses like cancer, COVID-19, chronic pain, and many more. 

When we groan for our pains to go away, for the beauty of our youth, or for more energy, ultimately we are longing to take up residence in a different body. Our current body just will not do! It cannot compare to our future home: our resurrection body.

A Gift for God’s Glory

Working as a physical therapist in a hospital, I’ve had the privilege of helping people make the most of their bodies by walking again and regaining their independence. But an even greater privilege is telling patients who will never walk again or regain their independence, that their body is not permanent. 

But it’s also a gift. It can be hard to see your body as a gift when it’s disabled or painful, but it still offers you the opportunity to experience joy and shine for God’s glory. 

No matter what state your body is in, practicing health and wellness helps you steward your temporary body well in order to serve God and others, which brings you joy and purpose. 

Be of good courage and live as an exile in your earthly body with a longing to one day put on your heavenly body. Take heart for, “though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Author: Jason Pelletier

Jason is a physical therapist living in Roanoke with his wife Taryn, hyper dog Piper, and needy cat Remy. They joined Redemption Church because of their heart for church planting and their passion for seeing Gods mission fulfilled in Roanoke.