The physical aspect of human beings and animals. It can refer to a dead body, i.e., a corpse or carcass (Mark 15:43; Luke 17:37; Luke 24:3; Luke 24:23; Acts 9:40; Heb 13:11; Jude 1:9), but usually refers to a living body. Because God created the human body (Gen 2:7), the Bible portrays it favorably as integral to human being, a means of concrete activity in the world (1Cor 6:20; 2Cor 5:10), rather than unfavorably as a drag on the soul. Yet the Bible does not glorify the body as an artistic ideal of human strength and beauty. The body may stand for the whole human being (see the alternation of “bodies” and “selves” in (Rom 6:12-13). But elsewhere, the body contrasts with the soul (Matt 10:28), spirit (1Cor 5:3), and mind (Rom 7:23-24). Paul speaks of the possibility that he was outside his body in a visionary state (2Cor 12:2-3). To be dead is to be away from the body (2Cor 5:6-10; Phil 1:20-24). In the NT, Christ’s bodily death and resurrection make possible the bodily resurrection of human beings (Rom 6:5; 1Cor 15:3-26; 1Pet 2:24; 1Pet 3:18-22). Therefore, also, the “body of Christ” comes to mean the church, its limbs and organs made up of individual believers united in Christ and functioning for mutual benefit (1Cor 12:12-31).
