The Believer and His Body 651
fully appreciating how greatly sanctification in these realms depends
on sanctification of the body. They forget that unless all nerve
responses, sensations, actions, conduct, works, food and speech
which belong to the body are utterly for the Lord, they can never
arrive at perfection.
“The body is for the Lord.” This signifies that though the outer
flesh belongs to the Lord it is entrusted to man for him to maintain
for Him. How few are those who know and practice this truth! Many
saints today are stricken with sickness, weakness and suffering; God
is chastening them that they may present their bodies to Him a living
sacrifice. They would be healed if they yielded them completely to
God. God wants them to know that the body is for the Lord, not for
themselves. If they continue to live according to their wishes they
shall see the scourge of God remain upon them. All who are sick
should take these words seriously to heart.
“And the Lord for the body.” This is an incredibly wonderful
statement! We usually think of the Lord as saving only our spirit and
our soul, but here it is said that “the Lord (is) for the body.”
Christians look upon the Lord Jesus as having come to save their
spirit and soul alone, that the body is useless, having no value in
spiritual life and not graciously provided for in God’s redemptive
scheme. But it is plainly enunciated here that “the Lord is for the
body.” The Lord, affirms God, is equally for the earthen vessel
which man lightly esteems.
Why do believers overlook their fleshly frames? It is because they
erroneously look upon the Lord Jesus as saving them merely from
their sins and not also from the sickness of their body. Hence they
can only resort to human methods for the cure of their physical
weakness and illness. When they look into the four Gospels they find
that the Lord Jesus healed more bodies than He saved souls; yet they
spiritualize the affair entirely by interpreting these infirmities as
being spiritual sicknesses. They may concede that the Lord Jesus did