God’s Word and Our Body

Medical research has brought to light one very definite way in which many modern Christians, like David of old, have been kept from the paths of the destroyer by the application of God’s Word.

The Scriptures teach very plainly that the body of the Christian, having been redeemed from the dominion of Satan by the blood of Christ, is a temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in and is therefore to be kept clean and holy. For example, Paul says:

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification... that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel [that is, the earthen vessel of his physical body] in sanctification and honour.” (1 Thess. 4:3-4)

On the basis of these and other similar passages, many Christians have refrained from using tobacco in any form. Until fairly recently it was often suggested by unbelievers that this refusal by Christians to indulge in tobacco was merely a kind of foolish, old-fashioned fad, akin to fanaticism. However, modern medical research has demonstrated, beyond all possibility of doubt, that smoking – particularly of cigarettes – is a direct contributory cause of lung cancer. The medical associations of both the United States and Great Britain have endorsed this conclusion. In the United States this year there will be an estimated 146,000 deaths from lung cancer (American Cancer Society). Another undisputed fact, proved by experience and endorsed by medical science, is that death through lung cancer is usually lingering and painful.

In the face of facts such as these, the refusal of Christians to smoke can no longer be dismissed as foolishness or fanaticism. If foolishness can be charged to anyone today, it is certainly not to the Christian but to the person who regularly wastes substantial sums of money to gratify a lust which greatly increases the possibility of a painful death through lung cancer. And if foolishness can be charged to the victims of this lust, surely nothing short of wickedness can be charged to those who, by every means of persuasion and modern publicity, willfully seek, for the sake of their own financial profit, to bring their fellow human beings under the cruel bondage of this degrading and destroying habit.

Almost exactly the same that has been said about tobacco smoking applies equally to excessive indulgence in alcohol. Again, a majority of sincere Christians have through the years refrained from this kind of indulgence on the basis of the Bible’s warnings against it. It is a well-established fact that excessive indulgence in alcohol is a major contributing factor in many kinds of mental and physical disease and also in the modern toll of traffic accidents.

Here again, as in the case of smoking, millions of Christians have been preserved from harm and disaster by their practical application of the Bible’s teaching.

Christians who practice monogamy and refrain from immorality protect themselves and their children from the devastation of, for example, AIDS. On the other hand, homosexuality, so often touted as an “alternative life-style,” has many times proved to be an alternative death-style. Christians who have been protected from these evils can surely echo, with deep thankfulness, the words of David.

“Concerning the works of men, By the word of Your lips, I have kept myself from the paths of the destroyer.” (Ps. 17:4)