Around the time of Mother’s Day, health and beauty products are promoted by shops and businesses, and there is often a focus in Evangelical Christianity on women being healthy and beautiful as ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’.
There are conferences and sermons about feeling ‘beautiful’ as daughters of the King, dressing modestly (but also as a princess in the kingdom), honouring the Creator by being good stewards of one’s body through healthy eating and exercise, and so on.
I wanted to explore this idea a bit, because the specific use of the word ‘temple’ in the New Testament scriptures is a spiritual metaphor based upon the physical ‘tent of meeting’ and the first and second ‘temples’ in the Old Testament scriptures.
In fact, there are chapters upon chapters of detail about these structures—describing how they were to be made, the items which were to be placed inside them, and when and how certain people were permitted to enter the different parts of the temple (often based on the idea of ‘cleanness’ and ‘uncleanness’).
Then, in the New Testament, there are two references to the idea that members of Israel through Messiah are temples of the spirit of God—taking the known, physical, national structures from the Old Testament (or ‘old covenant’) and applying their features in a metaphoric, personal way to participants in the New Testament, or ‘new covenant’.
1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 16-17 says:
‘Don’t you know that you people are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? So if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you yourselves are that temple.’
1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 15-19 goes on to explain that as God’s temple, members of Israel through Messiah must glorify God with their bodies rather than using them for sin—that is—realising that their body now belongs to God and that they must follow His instructions concerning their bodies.
So, what are these instructions?
In the scriptures, we are given instructions concerning:
1. How Israelites are to adorn their bodies, 2. What they are to put into their bodies, and 3. How they are to use their bodies.
Adornment of the body
The tabernacle and temple designs were bursting with beauty, artistry and royal themes. However, the artisans had very specific instructions to follow—they couldn’t just come up with their own ideas as to how to make the structures beautiful.
So, to apply this principle to the ‘adornment’ of individual people in the New Covenant, what instructions are there for adornment? Paul gives cultural advice about dressing out of consideration for others with fewer economic means (1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 9), and for women to show their voluntary submission to men in authority over them in worship gatherings (1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 2-16).
However, there are two specific instructions regarding clothing choice in Scripture, and those are:
1. to dress only with clothing pertaining to your biological sex
(Deuteronomy chapter 22, verse 5),
2. to attach tassels containing a blue thread to the corners of your garment, so that you will remember God’s commands and obey them
(Numbers chapter 15, verses 37-39).
In addition, there are two instructions regarding mourning rituals which affect the body:
1. not to tattoo yourself
(Leviticus chapter 19, verse 28),
2. (for men) not to change the natural shape of the corners of their hairline or beard (Leviticus chapter 19, verse 27).
When we follow these commands, we make ourselves truly ‘beautiful’ in God’s eyes.
What we may put into our body
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 29, we learn that the Creator has given us every seed-bearing plant and every tree which bears fruit with seed in it for food. Then in Leviticus chapter 11, we learn that there are specific animals created for human consumption and other animals which are not. We also learn that blood and fat are not to be ingested under any circumstances.
Eating plants, seeds and ‘clean’ animals nourishes our bodies and honours our Creator. Ingesting ‘unclean’ animals desecrates the body, just as bringing such animals into the temple desecrated the temple and made it unfit for service to the Creator (this is what happened in the period leading up to the Maccabee rebellion, remembered by Judaism at Hanukah).
Want to be truly healthy? These ingredients from Scripture give us the recipe.
What we are to touch with our body
Lastly, we are to honour YHWH with the way we use our bodies—avoiding touching unclean things (described in the book of Leviticus), abstaining from prohibited sexual relations (Leviticus chapter 18), and harbouring love rather than malice toward our neighbour in our hearts and through our actions (Leviticus chapter 18, verse 17; Mark chapter 7).
As temples of the Holy Spirit, members of Messiah honour their bodies by following the Creator’s instructions concerning adornment, nourishment and actions to glorify Him. These standards are often different to our standards, and can seem strange when compared to the cultures in which we live. However, according to the Creator, obeying Him is what leads to true health and beauty!
Rosanne Menacho has recently moved to Peru with her husband to spend time living with his family. At the moment, she is trying her hand at writing poetry and Udemy courses online. In her spare time, Rosanne enjoys playing music, dancing, translating and drinking herbal tea. Her heart is to worship and represent the Creator in spirit and in truth, and to see the arrival of the Messianic kingdom on Earth.
Rosanne Menacho’s previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/rosanne-menacho.html