Our bodies

what about our 'second' body?

Side notes
All Bible references are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

[1] 1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[a] 'Fearfully & Wonderfully Made’ and 'In His Image' - written by Dr Paul Brand & Philip Yancey.

[2] Ephesians 1:18-23
..having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

[3] Psalm 34:8
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

[4] 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ^niv
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

[5] Psalm 119:11
I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

[6] Joshua 1:8-9
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

[7] Isaiah 6:9-10
And he said, "Go, and say to this people: "'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

[8] Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

[9] 2 Peter 2:8
..(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)..

[10] 1 Corinthians 4:15-17
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ,as I teach them everywhere in every church.

[11] Hebrews 10:25
..not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

[12] Job 24:23
He gives them security, and they are supported, and his eyes are upon their ways.

[13] Ephesians 4:19
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

[14] 1 Timothy 4:1-4 ^niv
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving..

[15] Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

[16] 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

[17] 1 Corinthians 16:19-24
The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[18] 2 Corinthians 7:1
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

[19] 1 Peter 2:1-3
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

[20] Hebrews 5:14
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

[21] Hebrews 11:25
..choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

[22] 1 Peter 2:1
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

[23] 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

[24] John 6:51-56
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

The Bible teaches that we are three part beings, each made up of spirit, soul and body. 1 Thessalonians 5:23[1]

The spirit and the body have similar functions, and similar senses available to assist them in their work. The spiritual body and the physical body are each designed to carry the soul, enabling it to interact with those outside, and protecting and guarding it where possible. The physical body enables us to interact with the physical world around us. The spiritual body is designed to enable us to interact with the spiritual world around us.

Both bodies are amazingly made and deserve much more attention than we normally give them. We pay a lot of attention to the physical body and very little to the spiritual body, and this is a sad state of affairs. The truth is, however, that we know little about even the physical body. Let me share why I make such a claim.

Our physical bodies

Our physical bodies have five basic senses upon which they operate – sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Now, read some of the capabilities of these sense organs:

Sight – physical

Each eye contains 107 million cells, and can distinguish a thousand shades of colour. It can perceive a spectrum of light so wide that the brightest is a billion times brighter than the dimmest. Under the right conditions it has the ability to detect a candle at 24 kilometres distance.[a]

Hearing – physical

The ear can detect sound frequencies as small as a tenth the diameter of a hydrogen atom – from 20 to 20,000 cycles per second. The eardrum membrane can register volume differentials of 100 trillion times. It can distinguish 300,000 tones.[a]

Touch – physical

A 10 mm hair can discern a fiftieth of a gram of pressure. One tap from a fingernail can identify paper, fabric, wood, plastic or steel. A normal hand can distinguish between a smooth pane of glass and one etched with lines a mere 1/100 of a millimetre deep.[a]

Taste – physical

Taste buds advise the body that food is on the way, stimulating the gastric juices so that more of the food is absorbed as nourishment into the body.[a] The wine tester distinguishes each different wine, its age and place of origin.

Smell – physical

The nose can detect one garlic molecule amongst 50,000 other molecules. It has the power to discern between some 10,000 different odours.[a]

It’s hard to grasp some of the statements made about each of our body’s organs isn’t it? However, it is fascinating to do a study on the human body, and discover how wonderfully it is formed. It is most reassuring to also discover how well it protects us from a wide variety of ‘enemies’.

Our spiritual bodies

The human spirit, like the physical body has five basic senses, and they are the same as the body – sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. However, though we know little about our physical bodies, we know even less about our spirits!

Let us now look at the 5 senses of our spirits and seek to discover some of their roles in protecting and guarding us.

Sight – spiritual

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know….” writes Paul in Ephesians 1:18^niv. Know what? Paul goes on to name three attributes – hope, inheritance riches and power Ephesians 1:18-23[2], none of which are visible to the physical eye. We are elsewhere exhorted to “….see that the Lord is good….”. Psalm 34:8[3] Do you know some people who, when having had something explained to them say “Yes, I see.”? What do they see? Certainly nothing with their physical eyes! The Bible teaches that spiritual truths are spiritually discerned, and it is through the spiritual senses that such truths are filtered. Our spirit’s eyes are to bring us knowledge.

Now there is an opposite to knowledge gained through spiritual insight and that is pretension. The Bible teaches of pretensions that set themselves up against the knowledge of God. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5[4] Satan works very hard at bringing us to living in pretension. One of the most powerful mediums in use today has to be the television. Have you noticed some recurring themes in many programs? The pastor or vicar is always a bumbling, wine sipping, slightly immoral man, right? The father of the family is rarely in charge, often portrayed as dim-witted, tries hard to be funny – without success of course, and is generally tolerated by the other family members who are much smarter and with it, right? Now we see such things with our physical eyes, agreed, but the true message is cloaked by humour or clever acting. Satan knows, though, that our spiritual eyes will get the message, and that is all he wants to achieve.

Solution: Read the Bible more! Psalm 119:11[5], Joshua 1:8-9[6] Learn to recognise what is truth and what isn’t. Learn to distinguish what to look at and what not to.

Hearing – spiritual

The book of Galatians contains the theme of freedom through God’s grace, in contrast with bondage by the old law. One of the key verses is found in chapter 5:1^niv “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” In preparation for this statement, we find an earlier challenge issued in chapter 3:3^niv “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” We would have to answer that question by affirming that we became Christians and received God’s Holy Spirit into our beings by believing, not by doing.

We are told also in 2 Corinthians 3:17^niv “….where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”, and so we learn that freedom comes through our spiritual sense of hearing. To further strengthen the message of Galatians, seven times in the 1st three chapters of Revelation, Jesus himself declares – “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”^niv Our spirit’s ears are to bring us freedom.

Now, there is an opposite to freedom gained through spiritual hearing, and that is bondage. The Bible teaches that healing can be missed by not hearing God’s voice. Faith remains undeveloped unless we hear. We can be tormented by hearing the wrong things. Isaiah 6:9-10[7], Romans 10:17[8], 2 Peter 2:8[9]. Have you noticed a situation where a seemingly innocent statement is made and someone responds – “I can’t quite figure it out, but something sounds awfully wrong, somewhere!” That sort of response is the work of our spirit’s ears evaluating the message and sensing a message behind the message. Satan uses the television again to try and block us from freedom. On the surface it sounds exciting to hear that the purchase of a certain lottery ticket will give one chance in seven of getting the ticket money back. Big deal! If no one purchased at all, everyone would have their ‘money back’, wouldn’t they? Have you noticed that the advertisements always seem louder than the programs? They are! Deliberately so. A good evaluation ploy to remember is that the louder the claim, the more likely it is to be flawed.

Solution: Go to church meetings more where you can hear God’s truths spoken. Seek to learn how to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice speaking. Switch off the televisions, iPods, smart phones etc. Find godly people and learn from them. 1 Corinthians 4:15-17[10], Hebrews 10:25[11]

Touch – spiritual

This sense is taught from the Scripture in the negative sense. We are warned against feeling secure in our ways. Job 24:23[12] We are warned against losing sensitivity, and this is the one we most want to examine. Ephesians 4:19[13] The two opposing attributes of feelings are purity and defilement. Many times we enter into situations where we don’t ‘feel right’ somehow. We can hug one person and feel secure, pure and loved. We can hug another person in exactly the same manner and feel yuck. Why? Obviously not through our physical feelings because both hugs are the same. Somehow our spiritual feelings pick up warning signals, and we do well to heed those signals.

As you would expect, Satan seeks to bring much defilement through sexual immorality. There is, though, more damage done spiritually through such behaviour than physically. The body discards old cells and replaces them with new ones periodically, so the physical touch of impurity disappears. But the feelings remain, don’t they. Long after an incident, maybe for fifty or even more years, the feelings remain. These are not physical feelings, but spiritual feelings – burned into our memories just as fire burns into our bodies. The frightening thing is that just as leprosy destroys our ability to feel at all, causing us to damage ourselves without even knowing, so we can lose our spiritual sensitivity, becoming more and more depraved without any awareness of our state. 1 Timothy 4:1-4[14] We need to note well that any ungodly relationship will defile us spiritually. Jesus hurt for our sakes Hebrews 4:15[15] yet because he was pure, he was able to avoid defilement. I’m so glad!

Solution: Get out of any wrong relationships! Get washed clean by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11[16] Stop wallowing in the slime. Mix with and make friends of the holy, pure and righteous people. Dwell where true love is found. 1 Corinthians 16:19-24[17] It is hard work to become clean again but it is possible. 2 Corinthians 7:1[18]

Taste – spiritual

King David lifts his voice in praise to God in Psalm 34, and amongst his words we find an invitation to “Taste and see that the Lord is good..”^niv. It must be obvious by now that we are not examining physical senses, and so we find that the spiritual sense of taste is to establish good in our lives. 1 Peter 2:1-3[19] expands the taste concept somewhat by using the illustration of new-born babies desiring spiritual milk for their growth, and in Hebrews 5:14[20] we are introduced to maturity by ‘eating’ good solid food. Notice again the result of such eating – the ability to distinguish good from evil. Remember this sort of comment – “What she said about me sure left a bad taste in my mouth”?

Notice too the hallmark of taste maturity – constant use. A man can survive a long while without other physical senses, but eating has to be activated regularly for us to stay alive. And let’s be honest here, we enjoy eating! The trouble is we too often eat the wrong types of food and bring sickness and weakness upon ourselves.

Now isn’t that the same with our spiritual taste buds? We enjoy the taste of evil. It brings pleasure to us – temporarily. But sooner or later pay-day arrives and we find ourselves with acid stomachs and spiritual ulcers. Hebrews 11:25[21] Look at the list in 1 Peter 2:1[22] – malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. A fairly heavy sort of meal wouldn’t you say? Especially when we realise that this Scripture is written to Christians!

Solution: Regular meditation on the right food – the Bible. Constant use. Do you know what the Hebrew meaning for meditation is? Groaning, moaning, uttering and muttering! Now before you burst out laughing, think about the table conversation when a rare and expensive delicacy is being consumed. Groaning, moaning, uttering and muttering sounds pretty accurate to me! And what does a hangover do to a man after an evening spent ‘meditating’ on too many drinks? Makes him groan, moan, utter and mutter of course! So we all taste and eat spiritual food. Whether it is good or evil depends on the choices we make.

Smell – spiritual

We find an amazing Scripture in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16^niv. Permit me to quote it here – “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life.” Now did you know those words were written? According to the statement made, we all smell! We put out an aroma, and we receive aromas. Obviously we are not talking physical here. There is a double-edged concept presented. Firstly we should consider well what sort of aroma we present to others. Do we exude fragrance or stench? A challenge indeed. But in the context of our study we are primarily considering our spirit’s sense of smell. Let me bring one last saying from our culture – “Something sure smells fishy to me!”

You see, even our secular society moves in the spirit’s sensing abilities, they simply don’t recognise how they work in their evaluations. But we should, we are born again into God’s family and our spirits are now fully alive and functional, or are they. Our spiritual smelling is designed by God to produce either life or death in us. If we continue to sniff around the wrong places (it’s strange how evil places smell bad somehow), we will gradually die spiritually, but if we pursue Jesus we will become more and more alive, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11[23] and fragrant, and nice to be around.

Solution: Eat lots of Jesus! John 6:51-56[24] The Bible teaches us to eat his flesh and drink his blood – spiritual words, remember. Keep well away from the stench of death wherever it is found. Death produces only disease and decay.

Summary

There are five senses within each spirit.

Sight – in order to live in knowledge or pretension.
Hearing – in order to live in freedom or bondage.
Touch – in order to live in purity or defilement.
Taste – in order to live in goodness or evil.
Smell – in order to live in life or death.

As the welder’s torch is to sight; as the incessant high scream of tortured music is to hearing; as leprosy is to touch ability, as the cigarette is to taste and smell, so the spiritual opium of evil and sensual places that so attract us will dull and ultimately kill our spiritual senses.

What are you going to do about it?

This paper seeks to accurately represent the teachings of Holy Scriptures. You are free to copy or alter all or any part of this paper PROVIDED that the Holy Scriptures are not misrepresented as a result.