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What! Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and
ye are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19). The Apostle’s question is as
relevant today as ever, perhaps more so. Most of us can remember seeing
pictures of the “heathen” in foreign lands painting and piercing their
bodies, stretching their skin over some bone or arrow, coloring their
hair and dancing around a fire or a carved idol. One not-so-old Bible
Encyclopedia comments on the prohibition to cut or disfigure the body
(Lev. 19:18) as a “reference to the custom of tattooing common among
savage tribes, and in vogue among both men and women of the lower orders
in Arabia, Egypt, and many other lands.”1 It seems that today
these comments would have to be amended to include not only “civilized”
countries but much of the Christian church as well.
What would have been a shocking and offensive practice among
believers just a few years ago, now is becoming accepted for laymen and
clergy alike. Tattoos may be anywhere and of anything; piercings are
displayed inside and outside almost any body part; “body art” of various
kinds is more common than billboards along the highways; hair is
colored, cubed or meticulously disheveled; and those
uncomely parts upon which we
used to bestow more abundant honor (1
Cor. 12:23) are now uncovered with lack of shame and even with
boldness. The discussion is no longer how to reach those poor souls
doing these things because they don’t know the Lord, but how to deal
with this within the church and among believers.
Though these things are obviously becoming accepted
practices, I believe they are dishonoring to the body which is the
temple of the Holy Spirit; are opening harmful doors to our children and
young people; and are doing far more harm than good in presenting the
gospel to a lost world.
The body as a
billboard
In the world, the marking and piercing of the body is seen
as art and artistic expression as well as a place for coded messages.
On one web site a “body artist” says, “In doing so, we aim to shatter
all stigmas associated with the body modification culture by proving
that tatted and pierced people are, for the most part, just as ‘normal’
as the Baby Boomers who presume to judge us. But then again, if
piercings were totally acceptable by society, we wouldn’t have any more
curious twenty-something year old customers taking their first step into
the ‘wild’ side.” One young person wrote, “Well, I for one feel that
scarification is a wonderful expression of who you are. I have a
scarification, it is a wolf on my back. I feel that this expressed my
true self, the wolf is my totem, my spiritual guide. I also have
tattoos on my back and arm. Each piece that is put on my body
represents some part of my spirit, my soul and who I am.” Another
online writer says, “There are many reasons in which people obtain
piercings and tattoos. Those who modify, manipulate and mutilate their
bodies do so for many reasons. Some say it’s simply exciting and
pleasurable, or part of the latest fad. Others place it in the context
of art, ritual or self-expression, they say it’s an act with cultural
and social significance.”2
In a Better Homes &
Gardens article titled, “8 Signs the Kids are Fine,” the fifth
sign is “She doesn’t have any tattoos.” The paragraph with a quote from
Dr. Timothy Roberts the University of Rochester’s Children’s Hospital
reads, “Studies of more than 6,000 junior and high school students found
that those with tattoos and body piercings (not earrings) were more
likely to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, go on drinking binges, have
premarital sex, get into fights, join gangs, skip school, and get poor
grades. ‘If a child asks for a tattoo, the parent should recognize that
as an opportunity to talk.’”3 I recall knowing a teenage
boy, the son of a Christian friend, on drug charges, who stood before
the judge in a court room with his longish hair, tattoos, chains and
black clothes. When the boy said he didn’t know how he got into such
trouble, the judge reprimanded him sternly about the way he appeared and
said, “You are a walking advertisement for every drug dealer in town.”
The body has become the billboard for a person’s coded message, the
sermon in picture of his world view. The atheist Friederic Nietzsche
has Zarathustra saying, “But the awakened and knowing say: Body am I
entirely, and nothing else; and the soul is only a word for something
about the body.”4
In contrast, David Warren wrote about how God values the body
enough to speak often of how it is clothed:
God speaks about matters that matter; He does not waste our time
with peripheral details. You may be interested to know that God
refers to clothing more than 530 times in Scripture, using 12
different Hebrew terms in the Old Testament and 6 different Greek
terms in the New Testament. He has something to say about our
clothing, and anything He talks about should be of immediate
interest to us. It is kind of Him to speak to us about something
that is such an integral part of life, isn't it?5
The Old Testament
admonitions
One would expect to find God’s attitude toward these things
in the Law, the only national constitution God ever wrote. He told
Israel, Ye shall not make any cuttings
in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD
(Lev. 19:28). God commanded Jeremiah not to intermingle in the
lives of the heathen people where he had been carried, and when they
died he was not to follow their religious ceremonies:
Neither shall men lament for them, nor
cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them (Jer. 16:6).
The cuttings in the flesh were done by the heathen for the souls of the
dead. God’s people were not to copy these cultural mores. God’s
attitude toward these things has never changed though He has changed the
way He deals with them. We think because God doesn’t strike offenders
dead immediately, He doesn’t care as much about it as He used to. The
New Testament adds an even greater responsibility to these things
because now the believer’s body is the actual abode of the Holy Spirit.
Many cling to an interpretation of Gen. 24:22 which proposes
that Abraham’s servant gave Rebekah a nose ring. But to call the jewel
a “nose ring” is an opinion and not a translation, nor does it seem
consistent with the text or context. Taking the KJV as a starting
point, we find that the man took a
golden (zahab-“gold”) earring
(nezem-“ring”) of a half-shekel
weight (Gen. 24:22). The NKJV translates the word
nezem “nose ring” but as an
interpretation not a translation seeing that the word for “nose” is not
in this verse. The NASB translates it “gold ring,” as does the ASV,
since both the word “gold” and “ring” are in this verse, while the NIV
translates it “a gold nose ring,” combining translation and
interpretation. To see the difference we only have to go forward to
Gen. 35:4 where we have and all their
earrings (nezem-“ring”) which
were in their ears (ozen-“ear”). We know that
ozen is the ear, not the nose
as any dictionary or concordance will show. In that verse, the ring was
obviously in the ear. The reason given why the simple word for “ring” (nezem)
is sometimes translated “nose ring” by some is because it is believed
that many non-Jewish tribes wore rings in their nose. This may or may
not be the case but it makes “nose ring” an interpretation, not a
translation.
The Hebrew word for “nose” is
aph and appears in the context
of the “ring” (nezem) in a few
related passages. In fact, in the 47th verse of this chapter
of Genesis (24) we read and I put the
earring (nezem-“ring”) upon her
face (aph-“nose”). Now that may seem to mean “in” her nose, but
it does not necessarily. It actually says “upon” (‘al)
the nose. This is an important distinction and some commentators (and
parallel verses) understand this to picture a different thing. John
Gill, for example, says, “This was a jewel that hung from the forehead
upon a lace of riband between the eyes down upon the nose.”6
The idea would be that the jewell hung on a strand of some kind around
the head but hung low over the face to be “upon the nose” (my Bible
footnotes Gen. 24:47 with, a jewel for
the forehead). This picture may be supported by contrasting two
prophetic verses, one positive and one negative. Ezekiel 16:12 is the
great chapter where God is describing how He found and rescued Israel in
her infancy. In that graphic description He says,
and I put a jewel (nezem-“ring”)
on (‘al-“upon”) thy forehead
(aph-“nose”). The ring
is said to be “upon” the nose as we have seen. A negative contrast to
this is in Isaiah 3:18-21 where we see God’s wrath poured out in the Day
of the Lord. In that day the Lord
will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet,
and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and
the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the
legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings (lit.
“amulets”), the rings (nezem-“ring”),
and the nose jewels (“rings of the nose”). Here we have the word
“nose” with the word “ring” which both appear in this verse. But what
is interesting is that these rings are actually “of the nose” which is
closer to meaning “in the nose” whereas in Genesis 24:47 the ring was
“upon” the nose or face, perhaps, as we have seen, worn as a head-band.
Now one last note about Rebekah’s gold ring needs to be
made. Just because we have a true record of what was given to her and
what she wore (even if it were
a nose ring), this doesn’t mean it should become a model for us. If the
society we live in has given it a coded connotation, it should be
discarded. I have to agree with the following rather long statement by
John Calvin,
But it may be asked, whether God approves ornaments of this kind,
which pertain not so much to the neatness as to pomp? I answer,
that the things related to Scripture are not always proper to be
imitated. Whatever the Lord commands in general terms is to be
accounted as an inflexible rule of conduct; but to rely on
particular examples is not only dangerous, but even foolish and
absurd. Now we know how highly displeasing to God is not only pomp
and ambition in adorning the body, but all kind of luxury. In order
to free the heart from inward cupidity, he condemns that immoderate
and superfluous splendour, which contains within itself many
allurements to vice. Where, indeed, is pure sincerity of heart
found under splendid ornaments? Certainly all acknowledge this
virtue to be rare. It is not, however, for us expressly to forbid
every kind of ornament; yet because whatever exceeds the frugal use
of such things is tarnished with some degree of vanity; and more
especially, because the cupidity of women is, on this point,
insatiable; not only must moderation, but even abstinence, be
cultivated as far as possible. . . . The women who desire to shine
in gold, seek in Rebekah a pretext for their corruption.7
The New Testament
Admonitions
1 Peter 3:3-4. Peter recalls
the Old Testament saints who honored God with their outward appearance
and admonishes us all (but specifically wives) to follow their example.
Whose adorning let it not be that
outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of
putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in
that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this
manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned
themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands.
1 Timothy 2:9-10.
Paul sounds much like Peter in addressing specific excesses in dress and
jewelry. In like manner also, that
women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamedfacedness and
sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
If today we cannot seem to apply these admonitions to avoid worldliness
without the “either or” mentality (i.e. either we eliminate every tiny
piece or we allow everything that can be dreamed up) then let us err on
the side of the godly women of old who received the blessings of God
because of their inward beauty not any outward advertisement.
Romans 6:13.
Neither yield ye your members as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourslves unto God. .
. and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Paul’s word for “instruments” in this verse means “weapons” (hopla).
Our bodies become weapons in the fight for righteousness! The
believer’s body can be a weapon on either side depending on how he/she
yields it. No wonder we will be judged at the Bema Seat for things done
in the body (2 Cor. 5:10).
1 Corinthians 3:16-17.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the
temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are. Here our translators show their love of
variety in vocabulary because, in verse 17, “defile” and “destroy” are
the exact same Greek word (to “destroy”, “defile” or “corrupt”). When
the believer sets about to “destroy” the body in which the Holy Spirit
dwells, God sets about to destroy that body. Vine calls it “God’s
retributive destruction of the offender who is guilty of this sin.”8
We are seeing this corrupting influence dragging down the lives of many
believers in our own churches.
1 Corinthians 6:15.
Know ye not that your bodies
are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and
make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Our Lord is
jealous of the whole person. He intends to save all of us, not just our
soul, by raising the body from the dead (vs. 14). If we will not carry
unnecessary marks on our bodies with us into heaven, then they are out
of place on this earth too. He is possessive enough of our body that
He is willing to share it with our earthly spouse but that is all. All
else is fornication whether it be physical or spiritual (Jas. 4:4).
Galatians 6:7-8.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked:
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that
soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.
“Corruption” is the same word as “defile, destroy” in 1 Cor. 3:17. We
cannot sow into our flesh the elements of the world without reaping a
corruption directed by God Himself! This is extremely serious when God
tells us that such sowing to the flesh is mocking Him! It is thumbing
our noses at God’s very warnings about how we treat the body which He
gave us to be used as His temple.
Ephesians 2:2-3, 11; 1
Peter 4:3. The phrase that is of interest in these verses (and
many others like them) is “in time past.”
Wherein
in time
past ye walked according to the
course of this world. . . Among whom also we all had our conversation
in
times past in the lust of the
flesh . . . Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in
the flesh. Peter says, For
the
time past of our life may
suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walkeded in
lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and
abominable idolatries. The time when we lived for and by our
flesh is history to the believer! We have left the world’s indicators
behind, even though (Peter writes in the next verse) unbelievers may
speak evil of you, it is only
because the old things have passed away and they like the old better
than the new.
Romans 8:13; Colossians
3:5. If ye live after the
flesh ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of
the body, ye shall live. Mortify therefore your members which are upon
the earth. “Mortification” is one of those doctrines that is
lost on our generation. Like a couch potato who tries to get up and run
a ten-mile marathon, the worldly Christian tries to mortify the fleshly
desires of his body and fails. The church today is much more interested
in making theologies to indulge the flesh and pacify immature saints
than it is to subject itself to rigorous spiritual training. It is
always easier in Rome to do as the Romans do (otherwise they may not
like us and that would hurt our precious self-esteem). Paul reminds us
that For thy sake we are killed all
the day long (Rom. 8:36) and that he was
always bearing about in the body the
dying of the Lord Jesus; and that he was
always delivered unto death for Jesus’
sake (2 Cor. 4:10-11). But we cannot seem to reserve even the
skin of our teeth for Him.
Other Admonitions
The dignity of causality.
I have read this phrase in older Christian writers that God has given us
two dignified means by which we may change things. One is by doing
things, and the other is by prayer. Prayer is the greater and yet the
lesser used of the two. We usually pray as though little depended on
God and work as though it all depends on us. But doing things with our
body is also a dignity God has given us. We have this “space” that we
live in to offer to God as a stewardship because it is the means by
which we can do things. It is the “space” for which we will be held
accountable at the Bema Seat. John says there will be shame before Him
some day rather than confidence (1 John 2:28-29) because we have not
used our bodies as effective instruments of the Holy Spirit.
Godliness for evangelism.
When Paul admonished Timothy to exercise himself to godliness more than
to physical exercise (1 Tim. 4:7-8), it was for the express purpose of
evangelism: Take heed unto thyself,
and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt
both save thyself and them that hear thee. It has pleased God to
draw the lost to Christ by His children exercising themselves in
godliness and not in physical exercises. We have fallen into the
unbiblical notion that we can reach the world better by avoiding
godliness because lost people are turned off by it. We certainly have
no right to criticize the questionable methodologies of past evangelists
when we have no concern of our own for the holy things of God. Where
did we hear that we can reach more sinners by offending the Holy
Spirit? For God hath not called us
unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He that despiseth, despiseth not
man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit (1 Thes.
4:7-8).
Threshold separation.
We ought to have learned by now that opening a door and crossing the
threshold exposes us to everything that is in that room. When we cross
certain thresholds of cultural and worldly practice, we are exposing
ourselves and our loved ones to everything related to it. Social
drinking will not stop there; lower rated movies will not stop there;
another hole in the same ear will not stop there; slightly crude words
will not stop there; a little aggressiveness in boys will not stop
there; a little cleavage on girls will not stop there; a little tattoo
on the arm will not stop there. Paul scolded the Thessalonian church
for being busy-bodies because he knew it would not stop there.
But ye, brethren, be not weary in
well-doing. And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that
man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count
him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thes. 3:13-15).
Whether bodily markings and piercings or any other culturally/worldly
initiation, when we cross that threshold we seldom go back or even slow
down.
Eschatological
sensitivity. The decline in preaching and belief about the
coming Tribulation and the rise of the Anti-Christ has allowed the
church to be less discerning about a one-world global culture. Though
this subject has fallen prey to many excesses and fantastic
interpretations of the prophetic details, we cannot just stop living in
the light of this coming judgment of God. One of the details that we
know is coming and that will have devastating global effects is the mark
of the Beast. The Bible uses a few different words for things
resembling a mark. Jesus is the image
(icon) of the invisible God (Col. 1:14). This word means
“representation” or “likeness” and is a fitting description of Christ’s
incarnation. Paul said, I bear
in my body the marks (stigma) of the
Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17). These were, no doubt, the scars from his
stoning in Lystra. This is the common word for a “brand” or a burned
“mark.” But the word used to describe the mark of the Beast is
charagma which is an engraver’s
mark, a purposed scarification. Though it can be used in its simple
meaning,9 it is almost always used with a negative
connotation in the New Testament. In Revelation, the 144,000 are said
to have God’s name “written” in their foreheads, but that is NOT this
word. Only the Beast and False Prophet use this kind of a mark (charagma)
to imitate as closely as possible what God does supernaturally. Paul
used this word on Mars Hill to describe the pagan idolatry of the
Athenians. We ought not to think that
the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven (charagma) by
art (technes) and man’s device (Acts 17:29). The Anti-Christ
will use this method to inscribe his mark on the heads or hands of the
whole world that worships him and Satan. Interestingly, the False
Prophet somehow brings a technological reinforcement to this through the
image (icon) he makes to the Beast.
In all of our modern and cultural “sophistication” the
churches are indulging more and more into these things, and becoming
less and less sensitive to their potential use for evil. We think we
are so culturally relevant because we can read the face of the sky, but
we are not discerning the signs of the times. Being culturally relevant
is not simply to know how to get along in the world, it is knowing how
to be God’s steward of truth in the time of falsehood, knowing how to be
lights in a dark world. How can we doubt that the world is being
conditioned to receive the Anti-Christ and his one-world system with its
vital key, the mark of the Beast. Is the Church of Jesus Christ helping
this conditioning? Are we making it easier for the great enemy of
Christ to deceive the rest of the world? Do we not care that Christ
will cast into hell those who worship
the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name
(Rev. 14:11)?
And So . . . .
We
ought to make the best use of this body that we have been given by God,
and use it in a discerning way in the time which we have. It is the
only “space” we have to carry out our stewardship. If we err, let us
err on the side of wholesomeness and effectiveness for the truth’s sake
and the gospel’s; let us err on the side of the fellowship of Christ’s
sufferings that we might know more about the power of His resurrection.
When facing more severe hardships than ours, the eighteenth century
writer Jean Baptiste Massillon wrote,
The children of Israel offered animals in sacrifice to the
Lord, and Egypt worshipped them. Their situation was typical of
ours. We form a people apart, in the midst of the world, because we
ought to sacrifice to God those passions of the flesh which the
world adores. As soon as we break the barrier which separates us
from the world -- as soon as we leave this happy land of Goshen and
go to mingle among idolaters, their worship becomes ours.
Separation from them constitutes all our safety and maintains a
diversity of manners; by mixing, we form but one people with them
and become like them.10
The believer’s walk in the world has become difficult for
our generation to discern. We’re told that any physical separation from
the world is unbiblical and is like the ostrich with his head in the
sand. We forget that today’s lack of separation is just that—only
today’s. It has not been the church’s testimony for these last two
thousand years. The great work done for Christ by preachers and
missionaries and many other godly saints, was not done in the worldly
mode we are trying to use today. The great cloud of witnesses is crying
to us to be faithful! They gave their bodies and their lives for the
Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Surely we can do no
less.
Notes:
1. Dwight M. Pratt, “Mark, a stigma,”
The International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia, vol. III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939) 1986.
2. These are taken from various sites by searching for
Tattoo and Piercing.
3. Better Homes &
Gardens, July 2005.
4. Friederic Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New York: Penguin Books, 1978) 34.
5. David Warren, “Clothing Communicates,”
The Baptist Bulletin, May 1999.
6. John Gill, Dr.
Gill’s Commentary, vol. 1 (London: William Hill Collingridge,
1853) 132.
7. John Calvin,
Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. second (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981)
22.
8. W.E. Vine,
Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Old Tappan: Fleming
H. Revell, 1966) 242.
9. This is used, for example, in Heb. 1:3, where Christ
is said to be the express image of his
person which shows the exactness of His divine image.
10. Jean Baptiste Massillon, “On the Spirit of the
Ministry,” Orations from Homer to
McKinley, vol. IV (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1902) 1713.
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