The Human Body

The Human Body THE HUMAN BODY
By H. L. Calhoun The teaching of the New Testament makes it very clear that God wants the human body. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1). And again, “Glorify God in your body and your spirit which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20). And Paul says: “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, after I have preached the gospel to others. I myself should become a castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

It was not Paul’s duty to keep his body under and bring it into subjection to the will of Christ more than it is your duty or mine to do the same. Again we find: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, and if any man defile this temple, him shall God destroy.” If it is a Christian’s spiritual duty to offer his body to God as a living sacrifice; if it is his duty to glorify God in his body; if it is his duty to keep his body under and bring it into subjection to the will of Christ; and if one who defiles his body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit will be destroyed; it is very clear that God wants the human body. In 2 Corinthians 7:1, we have this language: “Having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse our-selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, per-fecting holiness in the fear of God.” Here again it is made very clear that God wants our bodies. This statement: “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh,” and the flesh means the body, shows beyond a doubt that God wants our bodies kept free from sin here called the “filthiness of the flesh.”

Notice how wonderful this work is, how thorough. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit.” One sin is enough to ruin a person both for time and eternity, if that sin be persisted in. One does not have to suffer from all the diseases known to medicine in order that death may claim his physical body. Just one disease like tuberculosis or pneumonia or typhoid fever, if allowed to have its way is enough to bring death. One does not have to break every law of the state in order to be punished as a criminal. He does not have to commit' murder, burn somebody’s house, and steal somebody’s automobile in order to be arrested. Any one of these is sufficient to bring him within the clutches of the law; and so one sin is enough to bring one under condemnation of the law of God. He does not have to lie, steal, get drunk, commit adultery, and covet. Any one of these is enough to ruin him for time and eternity.

Let us notice how personal the work is. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” It does not say, “Let God cleanse us from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit nor Christ’ nor the Holy Spirit.” This does not mean that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit do not have important parts to perform in man’s salvation, but it does mean that there is a personal part each one of us must have. God cannot and will not do our part and his too. Let us cleanse ourselves. James speaks in harmony with the apostle Paul, talking to Christians he says: "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.” And John says: “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.” Again this makes it very clear that it demands on our part a very thorough cleansing of ourselves by ourselves.

Repentance is a personal work. God does not repent for me nor you. God commands all men everywhere to repent' and repentance means the turning away from and the leaving off of the practice of sin with all one’s heart and body. “Having therefore these promises.” What does the writer mean by “these promises?” Where are they to be. found? I suppose each one of us knows that the Bible as originally written was not divided into either chapters or verses. Chapters and verses, like printing, are comparatively modern inventions and are used for the convenience of the readers. The writers of the New Testament books no more divided it into chapters and verses than you and I divide our letters into chapters and verses. If we remove the chapter mark from 2 Corinthians 7, and allow the last verses of the preceding chapter to come in immediate connection with the first verse of the seventh chapter, and then read what we find in the last verses immediately preceding this first verse of the seventh chapter, we have the promises clearly stated. They are as follows: God says, “I will receive you,” “I will be a father to you,” and “You shall be my sons and my daughters,” said the Lord almighty. These then are the promises referred to in the first verse of the seventh chapter, the promises that God will receive us, that he will be a father to us, that we shall be his sons and his daughters. “Having these promises,” the writer says, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” Now these prom-ises are not unconditional. God does not say to just anybody and everybody under any and all conditions, “I will receive you; I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters.” The conditions upon which he will receive us and be a father to us and make us his sons and his daughters are clearly stated in the verse preceding the promises. They are as follows: “Come out from among them; be ye separate, and touch no unclean thing,” then he says, “I will receive you; I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters.” But nowhere does God promise to receive any one who will not come out from the people of the world, keep himself separate from it, and refuse to touch the unclean thing'which is sin. These are the universal conditions that one must come out from among the people of the world, be separate from the world, and refuse to touch the unclean things of sin. And only such persons as do this may expect to receive the promises. But some one says, “Have you not forgotten what Jesus says? ‘No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him.’ Does not this scripture show that I cannot come to God without his drawing me? And hence, if I never come, it will not be my fault; but all I can do is just to wait till he draws me, for I cannot come until he draws me. And so if I never come, I shall not be to blame.” No; I have not forgotten that, and I have it recorded here in my notes that I would be sure not to forget it. It is found in John 6:44. I believe with all my heart just what Jesus says, that no man can come unto Jesus except God who sent Jesus draws him; but I do not believe what you said about it when you said, “Well, then, if. I never do come, it will not be my fault. All I can do is just to wait' until he draws me.” I do not believe that, for the language of Jesus does not say that and does not say anything that means that or that can properly be construed to mean that. Well, some one says, “Have you not forgotten this other verse which says: 'It is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure?’ ” No; I have not forgotten that verse either. I have it noted. It is Php_2:13 and this verse is true. I believe it with all my heart just as it is written. It is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now, this does not mean, does not say that I do not have part in doing the will of God or in getting myself ready to do it. Certainly God can do as much as a poor puny man could do. He can do more than I can do, or than you can do. And I can work in my friend here to will and do of my good pleasure, and have no mystery about it and no miracle connected with it.

Suppose (and I am glad it would have to be a supposition,, for I never did such a thing in my life and am proud to say that I never did such a thing) but suppose I had a pistol in my pocket—and a good one too, loaded and just ready for business—and I should whip it out quickly and level it on my friend here, and say to him, “Get out that door immediately or I’ll put a bullet through your heart.” Do you think he would go? I have not known him long, but I am very sure he would go promptly; yet I would work in him to will and to do of my good pleasure. How? By the fear of what would happen to him if he did not. Now, God does not draw a pistol on one. But he does say those who do not obey the gospel shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. I do not know what that language means. I know it means what we commonly call “hell,” but I do not know what “hell” means. I know just what little the Bible tells about it. It is a place where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth forever and forever; it is a place where the smoke of their torment ascends up before God day and night forever and ever; where those within it have no rest; it is a lake of fire and brimstone; it is outer darkness, where the vile. and the impure are to spend an eternity of misery. When God says, “If you do not do my will, hell will be your home forever,” I do not hesitate to tell you that that works in me at once the willingness to do his good pleasure. I say, “Lord, I’ll do anything you want me to do to keep out of a place like that.” Here is one way in wdiich any one who knows the Bible understands that God seeks to work in us to will and do of his good pleasure. I am not ashamed to say that one reason I am a Christian is because I am afraid not to be. Jesus said, “Fear not those that kill the body, but after that have no more that they can do; but I will show you whom you shall fear. Fear him who hath power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yea, I say unto you fear him.” So in this way by the fear of punishment (and I am not ashamed to be afraid of what Jesus tells me to fear) God seeks to work in me, and in all of us, to will and do of his good pleasure. But there is another way in which I could work in my brother t'o will and to do of my good pleasure and have no more mystery about it than in the way we have just considered. Suppose (and this would have to be a supposition too, for I do not have it) suppose I had a twenty-dollar gold piece in my hand, and I would hold it out to him and say, “I will gave you this twenty-dollar gold piece if you will get out that door immediately.” l)o you think he would go? I have not known him long, but you just ought to see him jump. He would go and go gladly for the pay he wouM get; and so I could work in him to w U and do of my good pleasure simply for the pay I offer him. Any clerk in. any store, every person who is working for wages in the employ of any company or person is being worked on by the wages he is to receive to do the good pleasure of the employees. Talk about working for pay, the greatest pay that anybody in this world could be offered for his work is that which God Almighty offers those who will serve him. Listen. “Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have rignt to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city.” I do not know" what this means. I know it means what we commonly call heaven, but I know no more what heaven is than just w'hat little this Bible says about it. I know it is a place where God’s own hand wipes away every tear from our eyes; where there is no more pain, neither sorrow nor crying; where there is fullness of joy; where there are pleasures forevermore. It is a place where they have no need of the sun Joy day nor the moon by night, for the Lord God gives them light; and they shall dwell in his presence, and God shall be their God and they shall be his people throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. I know" it is a place where the sparkling waters of the river of life, clear as crystal, flow out from beneath the snow-white thvone of God; and on either bank of this river grows the tree of life, bearing its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations—a city whose foundations are of precious stones whose gates are of pearl; whose streets are paved with gold, where nothing unclean or sinful ever soils the inmates who dwell within. And when God says, “If you’ll do my will, I’ll give you a home in a place like this,” I say at once, “Lord, that’s too good to miss. I’ll take the pay which you offer me.” It does not seem to me that it ought' to take an intelligent person a half minute to decide between heaven and hell when the decision is left wholly to him, and God says, “I set before you life and death, good and evil, choose ye.” But there is another way in which I could work in my friend to will and do of my good pleasure, and have no more mystery about' it than in the ways of which we have been speaking. Man has a conscience, a sense of right and wrong. You can appeal to a man’s conscience, and a fair-minded man is always willing to do right. He would not be fair-minded if he were not willing to do what is right. A horse or a hog or a dog has no conscience. It is the glory of a human being that he has a conscience and that he can be led by that conscience to do the thing that is right. Now, if I could convince my friend that it was right to go out that door, he would go; for I esteem him to be a fair-minded man so God comes to us saying, “My law is holy and just and good. The law of the Lord is perfect; whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty shall be blest.” And when God says, “Will you not do what I ask you to do? My law is right, holy, just, and good.” Do you not see how this itself is sufficient to work in a man who is fair-minded to will and to do God’s good pleasure? But there is another way also in which I could work in my friend to will and to do of my good pleasure, just as free from mystery as any of the three already considered. Suppose that I had done him a great favor at some time in the past. Suppose that I had stepped between him and death and that at the risk of my own life I had saved his life; and then I would say to him, “Will you not get out that door just to show that you appreciate what I did for you in saving your life at the risk of my own?” Of course, he would go gladly and quickly. Otherwise you would say he would not be fit to have his life saved. Now, Jesus did not risk his life to save you and me from eternal death— he died for us. He wore a thorn crown for us; he bore that old rugged cross up the rocky steps of Calvary; he was nailed to the cross; he suffered the cruel mockings of the enemies for you and for me. Then with those pierced hands of his he comes before us holding out the crown of life, and says, “Will you not accept it to show me that you appreciate what I did for you?” Where is the heart that realizes that Jesus died for him that would refuse this, gift of his love? Would you not say even as the apostle said, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema?” That is, let him be damned. Such a person as could trample the blood of Jesus Christ under unhallowed feet, and say, “I don’t care if he did die for me. I don’t care any more about his blood than I do for the blood of a hog.” Would you not join with the rest in saying, “Let such a person be damned. No other fate could be or would be appropriate for such a person as that.”

Now, in all four of these ways God’s word makes it clear that he is seeking to work in each of us to will and to do of his good pleasure—by fear of punishment, by the hope of reward, by the appeal to conscience, and by the appeal of love, this last being God’s greatest and strongest appeal. But still it remains for you Or me to say whether or not we will let him thus work in us to do his will. Did not Jesus say, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man should hear my voice and open the door, I will come in?” But Jesus never forces himself into any heart that does not want him. It is as much your place and mine to open the door as it is his place to come in; and if we do not open the door, it is not his fault, but' ours.

Well, some one says: “Did you not promise to speak about the religion of the human body? Is it not about time you were turning your attention to that?” Yes, that is what we are proposing to do just now. Having seen that God wants our bodies, that it is our reasonable service to present to him our bodies, and that we can do so and ought to do so, and that he offers every inducement that infinite wisdom and love could suggest to work in us to do so, then may we not ask, “If I yield my body to him, what does he want with it?” Most of us know that about the first of the year most merchants take stock; that is, they make inventory of all goods that are on hand, and of all bills, due to them, also making a list of all obligations that they owe, striking the balances, that they may find out just how their business stands.

Now since God tells us that he wants our bodies, we learn that it is our reasonable service to give them to him. Let us take stock and see just what we could do for God with our bodies if he wanted us to use them for him, what can your body do? I do not mean your dead body—your body without your spirit in it. God asks for our bodies as living sacrifices. What can your body do just as it is now, living, acting? Only this: it can see. You have eyes with which to see and you could not see unless you had eyes. This is one thing that the body can do. Again, you can hear. We have ears just as we have eyes, and we hear with our ears just as we see with our eyes. One may injure his eyes so as to lose them entirely; and so one’s ears may be injured that he cannot hear. I have not been in this community very long, but I have learned one thing already about it—that you people are fond of good things to eat, and you are very careful about what you eat, insisting that it may always be clean. Nothing but the cleanest' food will you allow to go down your throat. Yet there are some people who are just as careful about what goes down their own throats as you are, but’ are not so careful about what goes down their ears.

I have known some people who would listen to filthy talk, smutty jokes, profane language, vile stories, filthier than any slop that a pig ever drinks. And such people would hold their place and listen intently while some person pours this filth down his ears and laugh while it was being done. Such persons are filthier than a pig that drinks of the slop. I would rather be a pig and drink the slop than a man with a soul akin to God and so degrade that soul as to listen to the filth. The body therefore can see and the body can hear and the body can taste. Yes, I have a sense of taste just as I have a sense of sight. When I bite an apple I know whether it is sweet or sour. Some people lose their taste almost entirely. Just as one can injure his eyes or his ears, he can injure his taste. Once I heard an old man say, “Oh, watermelons are not good like they used to be;” and then he spit out a wad of tobacco about as big as the end of your thumb. The old fellow did not know that he had let that dirty filthy stuff lie in his mouth until it had paralyzed his taste.- You never heard a boy say, ‘‘Watermelons aren’t good like they used to be.” The body can see and hear and taste, and touch. It can also smell. These are simply the five senses our children are taught in school. What else can your body do? You can’t think of anything else just now. No, and you could not if you had a day in which to think. The body can see and hear and taste and touch and smell, and that is all it can do. Yes, if you know anything about mathematics, you know that by the theory of permutations and combinations you can take these five things and make literally thousands of things which the body can do; but when you reduce each one down to its simple elements, it is either some one of these five or some combinations of them. If your body had no power to see and hear and taste and touch and smell then it would be as powerless as this chair to do any work in this world.

Now since these five things are all that the body can do, the next question is, Does God want me to do all these for him? I am not free to use my eyes to look at anything I please. Some people seem to think so. They would say, “Oh, there’s no harm just to look at it, just to see it you know;” and yet God’s word tells man to avoid the very appearance of evil, turn away from it, pass not by it, look not upon it. Some of us know, sad to say, that there are pictures posted on our streets at which one cannot look and keep a decent thought in his mind. God gave us our eyes to use for him, and I have no right to look at anything that God would not want me to look at. Years ago I was in Huntingdon, Tennessee, assisting in a meeting, stopping in the home of Brother Freeman. One afternoon just before sundown I was on the front veranda studying my sermon. Just outside the portico was the flower garden. Standing in the midst of this garden was a great old-fashioned trellis covered completely with a splendid rose vine loaded down with beautiful roses, wonderful to see and very sweet to smell. As I stood there, looking at the rosebush and drinking in its perfume and beauty, I said, “I wonder if I tried, if I couldn’t find something ugly about this rosebush.” And just for the sake of the illustration, I went to look; and I had only looked a moment before I found an ugly old bug. He did not look pretty, and he did not smell sweet. You think I would have been foolish to stand there and look at that bug and smell him instead of looking at the beautiful roses and smelling them.

Sometimes a man may preach a sermon which is a perfect bouquet of thoughts, beautiful and sweet with heaven’s own perfume, and yet if he happens to say just one thing in that sermon that some people do not like, they cannot see or talk about anything but the mistake in the sermon, the one thing the preacher said that they think he should not have said. So as it would be foolish to stop and look at the bug in the rosebush instead of looking at the beautiful roses and drinking in their sweetness and beauty, would it not be foolish to spend all the time looking at the bad things we see. Let us learn to use our eyes only to look for that which is good and pure. The body can hear. Does God care what I do with my ears? Does he not say, “Take heed what ye hear?” And one has no more right to listen to just anything than he has to look at just anything. It is just as much my duty to keep my ears for God as it is to keep my eyes for him. Some of you have read the story of the sirens, those three creatures said by the ancient Greeks to live on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. From the waist upward they were like beautiful young ladies. They had brows like alabaster, cheeks tinted like roses, cherry lips and teeth like pearl, hair that hung in beautiful golden ringlets over shoulders white as marble. They had beautiful tapering tinted fingers and voices rivalling those of heaven’s seraphs in richness and beauty. In the evening when the sun was low, and the zephyrs sweet and soft, they would come out on the shores of the island and sing sweet songs to the sailors sailing over the sea. So sweet were their voices that the sailors, listening, would forget about the port from whence they sailed and the golden harbor toward which they were now sailing—would forget' everything but the matchless music of the siren’s song, and drawn nearer and nearer, and would finally come right up to the shores of the island and be lulled to sleep by their song, but to them it was the sleep of death. For when those beautiful creatures saw that they had them completely under their power, they were beautiful no longer. They tore them limb from limb and ate their flesh and drank their blood; for they lived on the flesh and blood of the victims whom they enticed by their music.

Now don’t you think that those old Greeks believed that old story any more than you and I believe it. That was merely their way of setting before us the seductive influences of the voices of sin. Those sailors sailing over the sea represent us sailing over life’s sea in the frail barks of our bodies. And the siren voices of sin were represented by the siren song, and many have been the sailors over life’s sea that, listening to the songs of sin, were lulled to the sleep of death which is the wages of sin. Do I need to stop here to tell you that we have no right to touch just anything? Does not God’s word say, “Touch not, handle not any unclean thing?” We do not have the right to smell just' anything. God gave us our noses and they are just as much a part of our bodies as our eyes and ears; therefore they should be kept for him just as our other organs are.

Some years ago in northern Mississippi a man and his wife were passing along a road which ran between a filthy mudhole, foul smelling, and a large pile of fresh sweet pine lumber. When they came just between the two, the man turning his nose toward the mudhole said, “My! just smell this! how awful it is!” His wife with more good sense said, “No, thank you, dear; I’d rather smell this pine lumber,” and turned her nose toward that. As we go through life let us learn to turn away from the vile, filth and impurities, and keep our eyes and ears, our taste, our touch, our smell for just' such things only as those that make us good and pure and holy.
In closing, may I tell you in a few words just what God wants with these bodies of ours? By the old farmhouse where I lived when a boy was the flower garden. Just inside the gate was a great old honeysuckle vine that climbed up over a wooden frame. Beneath this was a rustic bench on which many a time we sat and drank in the beauty of the honeysuckle blossoms and the sweetness of its perfume that filled the yard and the garden. One evening a dark cloud rose in the west. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared; find the storm came riding over the face of the land and smote the old frame and its vine and levelled them in the dust. Did we let the frame lie there? Ah, no. We lifted the vine and with gentle hands planted a new frame, a stronger frame, a more beautiful frame than the old one ever had been. Then all about this we taught the vine to climb again with its tendrils, bursting with its bright buds, and shedding its sweet perfume as in days of yore. But I know a prettier story than that. Long years ago the God of heaven planted in the soil of earth a beautiful vine, and that vine is the human soul. He wanted a frame on which the soul could lean. He gave these bodies of ours. The bodies of some people are not very pretty to look at, twisted by disease, bowed by age, hardened by toil; yet they are the frames of the soul to lean on, clinging round it with its tendrils of faith, bursting out with its buds of hope, and shedding the perfume of love on all the atmosphere of life. And this is what God wants with our bodies. Some day the storm cloud of death will come sweeping over the land and will level these old bodies of ours in the dust of the grave. Will God let them lie there? Ah, no. He loves them too well for that. Then up from the grave with loving hands he will raise them. He will transplant them from the soil of the earth to the bowers of heaven; and there in the presence of the king himself the soul will cling round that glorified, immortal, heavenly body, fashioned like unto the glorious body of Christ, and throughout eternity the soul vine will cling round it with its tendrils of faith, bursting out with buds of hope, and shedding the perfume of love over all the atmosphere of heaven. And that^ what God wants with our bodies.