Chapter 6. God Will Glorify the Entire Man, Because the Word Assumed Our Entire Nature.
Chapter 6
1. Now, God will be praised in his handiwork by fashioning it to conform and correspond to his Son. For by the Father’s hands, namely, the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not part of man, is made to the image and likeness of God. Now, the soul and the “Spirit” can be a part of man, but by no means the [whole] man; for the perfect man consists of the mingling and the union of the soul, which assumed the Father’s “Spirit,” and which has been united with the flesh, which was fashioned after the image of God.
For this reason the Apostle declares: We speak wisdom among the perfect. He calls those perfect who have received God’s Spirit and who speak with all the tongues through the Spirit, as he himself spoke. We, too, hear many brothers in the Church who possess the prophetic charisms, and speak with all the tongues through the Spirit, and bring out into the open secrets of men for the benefit of others, and declare the mysteries of God. The Apostle calls them also spiritual, since they are spiritual by virtue of the participation of the Spirit and not because they have been despoiled and deprived of their flesh. Really, if one would remove from someone the substance of the flesh, namely, of the handiwork, and would understand only the Spirit, such a one would no longer be a spiritual man, but man’s spirit, or God’s Spirit. But since this spirit is mingled with the soul and both are united to the handiwork, man has become spiritual and perfect because of the outpouring of the Spirit.
It is he who was made after God’s image and likeness. But if the spirit is lacking to the soul, such a one is truly ensouled and, having been left carnal, he will be imperfect. He has the image of the handiwork but has not assumed the likeness through the spirit. Just as such a one is imperfect, so, if anyone takes away the image and spurns the handiwork, this can no longer be considered man, but either a part of man, as we have said, or something other than man. For the handiwork of the flesh by itself is not the perfect man but the body of man and a part of man. Neither is even the soul itself a man, but the soul of man and a part of man; nor is the Spirit man, for it is called spirit and not man. But the mingling and the union of all these makes the perfect man.
With that in view, the Apostle explained himself and made clear who is the perfect and spiritual man, who is saved. This he said in his First Letter to the Thessalonians, May the God of peace himself sanctify you to be perfect, and may your whole self, spirit and soul and body, be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Really, what reason did he have to pray for these three—the soul, the body, and the spirit—that they be preserved as a whole for the Lord’s coming unless he knew that the restoration and the union of the three would be their one only and same salvation? For this reason he called those perfect who present all three blameless to God. So those are perfect who continuously possess God’s Spirit within themselves and preserve their souls and bodies blameless, that is, they keep the faith in God and practice justice toward their neighbor.
2. Hence he also says that the handiwork is God’s temple. Do you not know, he asks, that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are. He clearly calls the body the temple in which the Spirit dwells. The Lord said the same of himself: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But, it says, he spoke about his body. Paul, too, knows that our bodies are not only a temple but the members of Christ, as he tells the Corinthians: Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? He did not say that about some other kind of spiritual man, for such a one does not embrace a prostitute. But our body, namely, the flesh when it continues in holiness and purity, he called the members of Christ; but when it embraces a prostitute, it becomes the member of a prostitute. That is why he said, If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.
So, how is it not the greatest blasphemy to say that God’s temple, in which the Father’s Spirit dwells, and the members of Christ do not partake of salvation but are to be reduced to ruins? That our bodies, however, are raised, not in virtue of their own substance, but by God’s power, he tells the Corinthians: Now the body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.