We need to know how God views the position of the body. No one can deny that there is a relationship between the body and the spiritual life. In addition to having a spirit and soul, we also have a body. Although the intuition, fellowship, and conscience of our spirit may be very healthy, and although the mind, emotion, and will of our soul may be renewed, we have not become a spiritual man if our outward body is not healthy and renewed in accordance with our spirit and soul. We cannot be considered complete, and we are still lacking in something. As human beings we not only have a spirit and soul, but we also have a body. We cannot overlook the body and care only for the spirit and soul. If we do so, our life will wither.
The body is needed and important; otherwise, God would not have given man a body. If we carefully read through the Bible, we can see the importance that God places on the body of man. Nearly everything that is recorded in the Bible has to do with the body. The incarnation is the most conspicuous and convincing point. The Son of God took a body of flesh and blood. Though He has passed through death, He still has this body throughout eternity.
Romans 8:10 through 13 tells us in detail about the condition of our (the believers') body, how the Holy Spirit helps our body, and the proper attitude towards the body. By understanding these few verses, we will not be mistaken concerning the position of the believers' body in the plan of God's redemption.
Verse 10 says, "But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness." Both our body and our spirit were originally dead. But after we believed in the Lord Jesus, we received Him within us to be our life. Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit, now dwells within the believers. This is the most important truth of the gospel. Every believer, no matter how weak he is, has Christ dwelling within him. This is the very Christ who is our life. At the moment He entered into our inward part, He enlivened our spirit. We have seen this previously. Originally our body and spirit were dead. Because we have received the indwelling Christ, our spirit is alive. The spirit and body were previously dead, but now the spirit is revived; only the body remains dead. This is the common condition of every believer—the spirit is alive and the body is dead.
This experience (shared by every believer) causes major differences between the outward and inward parts of the believers. Our inner man is full of life, but our outward man is full of death. We are living, and our spirit is full of life, but we dwell in a body of death. In other words, the life of our spirit and the life of our body are completely different. The life in the spirit is truly life, and the life in the body is nothing but death, because our body is still a "body of sin." Consequently, no matter how much growth in the spiritual life we have, our body is still a "body of sin." We have not yet received the body of resurrection, that glorious and spiritual body. The redemption of our body is in the future. Today's body is nothing but an "earthen vessel," an "earthly tabernacle," and it is still in "dishonor." Although sin has been cast out from the spirit and the will, the redemption of the body is still something in the future. Therefore, sin has not been cast out from the body. Since sin is still in the body, the body is dead. This is the meaning of "the body is dead because of sin." In the meantime our spirit is living, or more accurately stated, our spirit is life; because of the righteousness of Christ, our spirit received life. When we believed in Christ, we simultaneously received (1) the righteousness of Christ and (2) God's justification. In the first case, Christ dispensed His righteousness into us. This is a fact that has truly transpired and is not a figure of speech. Christ has dispensed His righteousness into us like one dispenses material things of the world. In the second case, God through Christ has reckoned us righteous. This is only a legal procedure. If there were no dispensing of righteousness, there would be no justification. When we received Christ, we received justification from God positionally. He dispensed Christ's righteousness into us at the same time that He entered into us to be our life and revive our dead spirit. This is why Romans 8:10 says, "The spirit is life because of righteousness."