The hall leading to Michelangelo’s David in the Academy in Florence holds several of his unfinished statues. These “prisoner” statues are more interesting than his impressive David, for the chiseled outlines of their half-finished forms offer a glimpse of a genius at work. Their placard says that Michelangelo left these statues unfinished to express his belief that, just as the prisoners’ bodies struggle to emerge from the blocks of marble, so our spirits yearn to escape the confines of our bodies.

How surprising that history’s greatest artist had such a low view of the human body! If Michelangelo really believed this, why did he waste his life painting and sculpting images of people?

The Christians in Corinth also thought they were too spiritual for their bodies. They argued that single people should not marry, that married people should divorce, and that married people who could not divorce should at least stop having sex. Paul replied that sex is good and that married couples should fulfill each other’s needs by enjoying it (1 Corinthians 7:1-11; 1 Timothy 4:3-4).

The Corinthians were also too spiritual to believe in a physical resurrection. Paul reminded them that “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, than all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless”
(1 Corinthians 15:13-14).

Christianity is an earthy, material faith. It is the story of a God who created our good world, “became human and made His home among us” (John 1:14), and then arose with a physical body that could eat and be touched (Luke 24:36-43). In the person of His Son, God Himself chose to come to earth in a human body. We are most like God not when we rise above our bodies, but when we honor God with them.