The Not-Yet Redemption of the Body in Ephesians 4

One of the most important lessons for anyone struggling with sin to learn about the nature of biblical soteriology is that the body is not redeemed yet. In fact, not only is it not redeemed, because it is corrupted, it continues to be corrupted the rest of your temporary life here. This means that not even the physical thing attached to your spirit directly, a thing the spirit pervades, is redeemed until the Lord returns and the physical resurrection of the body occurs.

One of the texts that tells us this is Ephesians 4:18-24.

⸀ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὄντες,* ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς,* διὰ τὴν πώρωσιν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, οἵτινες ⸀ἀπηλγηκότες ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν τῇ ἀσελγείᾳ εἰς ἐργασίαν ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης ⸂ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ⸃.* Ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν, εἴ γε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε,* καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ,* ἀποθέσθαι ὑμᾶς κατὰ τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν φθειρόμενον κατὰ ⸂τὰς ἐπιθυμίας⸃ τῆς ἀπάτης,* ⸀ἀνανεοῦσθαι δὲ ⸆ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν* καὶ ⸀ἐνδύσασθαι τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν κατὰ θεὸν κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι ⸂τῆς ἀληθείας⸃.* 

Having been darkened in their [people without Christ] understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But you did not learn Christ this way if indeed you heard Him and you were instructed by Him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you are to take off the former way of life, the old man which is being corrupted in accordance with its deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Things of note here: The former manner of life is described in vv. 18-19. This is the behavior that comes from an unredeemed life. However, we are told that this behavior can still come from a believer because the corrupt body continues to be corrupted in harmony with its deceitful desires. It is not the manner of life that is being corrupted but the old man that is currently being corrupted still. The participle τὸν φθειρόμενον is a Present Passive "being corrupted" and it is masculine in gender in agreement with  τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον also masculine in gender. It is not in agreement with τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν which is feminine in gender. Hence, it is not the behavior that is continually being corrupted but the source of that behavior, the old man, which is still something a Christian has as a part of him, i.e., this body of death, the flesh.

Paul tells us that the remedy for this is not to believe that the body is redeemed but rather to throw off those former behaviors by putting on the new man through the renewal of the spirit of the mind, which is created in the likeness of God. So this new nature is found in the spirit of the believer, in their minds, which are now made after the image and likeness of God as opposed to the corrupted old man that in Pauline theology is found within the physical body, the flesh. 

What this means is that there is no redemption of the old man in the flesh until the redemption of the body. This is helpful to understand in that many Christians are thrown into absolute despair because they find that they struggle with the same evil desires that they had before they were saved, and then, think that maybe they are not saved. 

Instead, what is really happening is that the person is saved and has become a new man in the spirit of the mind, but rather than ushered into the peace of a fully redeemed self, has instead entered into the war before the peace. 

Christians, therefore, need to understand that the desires of the body are not in continuity with the life of holiness but rather one that is alienated from God, hostile toward God, run by their emotions and given over to an indulgence in sexual immorality. And that is still the state of their physical bodies. They have not yet been redeemed in their bodies. That is the hope that they are to look toward and in view of that hope subject their bodies to the renewed spirit of their minds in Christ and be led by that spirit rather than by the winds and waves of what they want to do. 

This is helpful to note since it lets Christians know that the struggle is the normal pattern of the Christian life as the full redemption of his person has not yet taken place yet. It is also helpful to know that a Christian must overcome the flesh rather than try and get it aligned in agreement with the spirit. The wants will never be in agreement in this life. Hence, every decision will have an opposite desire to it and the Christian must learn the mind of Christ in order to choose which path to take. Even when taking the right path, there will always be a desire to take the other. This is the craziness of war but it is the craziness to which we are called when we have been reconciled to God in the inner man, but the body must now be placed in subjection until it is redeemed at the coming of the Lord for the world to come.