God’s priorities are different from the world’s. He encourages us to look and see the deeper undercurrents of beauty and the things that endure. It is there that one finds a prelude of the majesty to come. But marriage, Paul reminds us, is a picture of a far greater mystery—namely, the union between Christ and the “members of his body” (Eph. 5:30). The love that subsists between the heavenly Bridegroom and His bride is one that surpasses knowledge. No breadth or length or height or depth can comprehend it (Eph. 3:18–19). Nothing in all creation can separate us from it (Rom. 8:39). It was purchased at great cost and guaranteed by great conquest. 

What do you think of when you hear the word hybrid? For those looking to replace their current gas-guzzler, a hybrid car probably comes to mind. Those who were students a few years ago remember the frustrations of hybrid learning, seeing some friends in person and others online. Any farmer reading this article remembers that most of the corn planted now is a hybrid grain. But the most important example of a hybrid that you should consider is you. You are a hybrid.

You are a combination of body and soul, made of what is visible and invisible. You reconcile earth and heaven in yourself, sharing a kinship with both animals and angels. And yet none of the animal kingdom nor any of the heavenly hosts can lay claim to being both. Only humankind is composed of these distinct yet inseparable entities of clay and spirit. Only humankind is declared to be the image bearer of God: “‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26–27). Fundamental to understanding our personal identity is appreciating our human identity as made in God’s image, and that image refers to the whole person, both body and soul. To do full justice to the image of God, one must maintain this organic unity of human personhood. Nothing less will do.

Two in One: Body and Soul

On the one hand, this means that what was fearfully and wonderfully knit together in your mother’s womb must always be regarded as an essential and noble part of the image (Ps. 139:13–16). There are those who would denigrate the body by suggesting that it is inherently evil or that it is the source of sin. But Paul had strong words for those who slander God’s good creation, and he labeled such libel as “teachings of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1–5; see also Col. 2:23). Likewise, Christ affirmed the importance of the human body and its essential needs when He ministered to those who suffered from physical pain and to those who were blind, deaf, lame, or hungry. When Christ returns in glory, He will complete this work of full and final redemption in us, both outwardly and inwardly (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21; 1 John 3:2). The promise of our glorification provides hope as we experience the gradual decline of sight, hearing, taste, mobility, and strength (Eccl. 12:1–6). It provides even brighter hope for those who endure the challenges with greatly diminished physical or physiological abilities, knowing that the body that is “sown in weakness” will be “raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:43). The body is part of what it means to bear God’s image, no matter how fit or how needy it might be.

On the other hand, it is important to appreciate how man’s inner spiritual life relates to the image of God. Although it is true that the image refers to the whole person (including the body), it is also true, as John Calvin stated, that the “primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers” (Institutes, 1.15.3). This inner life is what distinguishes humanity from every other living thing on earth, just as our bodies distinguish us from the angels in heaven. Scripture uses a cluster of terms to refer to the inner person: “soul,” “spirit,” “conscience,” “inner self,” and, most often, “heart.” Our spiritual dimension is the fountain of what it means to be human. From it flow all our thoughts, desires, will, emotions, passions, choices, and love—everything that gives birth to song, poetry, courage, and tears. As Blaise Pascal wrote: “What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.” What’s more—without taking anything away from the body’s essential part of the image of God—our spiritual life must be given a place of preference.

The Noble Soul

The primacy of our invisible nature is seen in the fact that it can exist even without the body. Upon the death of a Christian, his or her soul leaves the body to be gathered before the Lord with the other “spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). Christ assured the thief on the cross of this reality when He said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus comforted Martha with the same truth: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–-26). The body may die, but the soul will live on.

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