Your Body is a Temple, So Act

On Porn, Sex, and Commodification of the Body

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

It’s one thing to read that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). It’s another thing entirely to believe it and live it. This is especially true in a culture that degrades the body, that consumes the body, that commodifies the body, that abuses the body, that teaches men that women’s bodies are there to be tortured for sexual gratification, that teaches women to torture their bodies for the male gaze, that teaches both sexes to give into their fleshly passions instead of developing chastity. Sometimes when people choose to participate in this culture’s sex death cult, they do so out of perverse glee, because they have had their consciences seared. But I suspect that many do so out of despair, because they don’t feel like they have an alternative. Men who turn to pornography because they feel insecure, inadequate, or inhibited. Women who commodify their bodies and participate in violent sex to please men because they have been taught by pornography that this is “just what women do.” What I’d like to encourage all of us to remember is that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And that has radical implications. The first of those implications is that there is grace for our sins. The second is that we have a duty to care for our body, including our experience of sex. And the third is that we have the ability to learn self-control through the power of the Holy Spirit. Together, these truths mean we are not passive observers of our lives. We can act and turn from the world’s sex death cult and to the beautiful vision of the body that God has for us. But we must act.

One major barrier for people turning from the lies of the world about the body is the weight of sin. Our past mistakes feel like they cling to us. We’ve already done so much, been used so much, viewed so much, consumed so much, that there’s no point in stopping now—we think to ourselves. This is the logic of despair, the lie of despair, that you are so far gone that Christ cannot save you, cannot redeem you. That there is nothing you can do equipped by the power of the Holy Spirit to turn from sin and to Christ because of what you have already done or what you fear you will do in the future. If ever there was a lie from Satan, it is this. God’s grace is sufficient, is more than sufficient for whatever sins you have done. And God’s love and acceptance are more than enough to cover any shame you may feel for what you’ve done or what has been done to you. There is grace and acceptance at the cross for you. Whether you have sexual addictions or have addictions to being desired, there is grace.

That grace, however, should always move us to action. If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, then we don’t get to do whatever we want with them. For example, we don’t get to expose our eyes to pornographic images of women or men (whether real or AI generated!). We especially don’t get to masterbate to those images. That’s not how God designed sex to be experienced, which is in the covenant of marriage. Our bodies are sacred temples to be used for God’s glory, not for fleshly passions. As much as the world and our flesh cry out that we should gratify ourselves, we have to accept our duty before God to live chaste lives, controlling our bodies.

This also means caring for our bodies, not just avoiding premarital sex and pornography, but advocating for our bodies. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are made in the image of God. You are a precious child of God. You (including your body) deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, not abused, not harmed—even with “consent”—not pressured into sharing images, not conforming to disordered societal beauty standards, not demeaned, but treated with dignity. And you have to start treating yourself with that dignity and respect by not viewing pornography, not getting into harmful relationships, but by seeking out people who will treat you and your body with the godly respect you deserve.

Finally, being indwelt by the Holy Spirit means that you can develop the Fruits of the Spirit through the Spirit, which includes self-control (Galatians 5:23). If you have believed in Christ, then you are no longer in bondage to sin (Romans 6:6). You have agency. You can choose. I’m not saying it’s easy to break out of the gaze of men or women and stand before God, but it is possible through Christ. And I am saying that it is important. It matters. It matters that you make the choice to live a chaste life, a dignified life, caring for this temple of a body that God has given you which is so, so precious. It matters because young women desire to marry young men who don’t have an addiction to pornography. It matters because young men desire to marry young women who can trust them. It matters because all of us are being suckered into a perverse sex death cult by the world and it’s awful and terrible and makes us depressed and anxious and insecure and violent and inadequate and inhibited and afraid of each other and nothing will get better and I mean nothing unless we say no. I refuse to participate. I quit. I belong to God. I will treat my body like it belongs to God because it does. I will treat others as made in the image of God because they are.

God can redeem your story, whatever it is. But don’t let this day go by without taking the opportunity to turn from sin and turn to Christ. Yes, this will be hard. But you can do hard things. You have agency. And when you slip up, do not listen to the lie of despair. Get up and keep fighting. But do take active steps to shut off those voices that are tempting you back into the world of sin, whether those are specific people in your life, beauty influencers, social media apps, or even unfiltered access to the internet. Find mentorship. Know that you are loved and deserve to be loved as a beloved child of God. The world will whisper into your ear that you are inadequate and so you must mistreat your body in order to gain some kind of acceptance or relief or pleasure. It’s a lie. There’s no peace there. Only bondage. The truth is that real acceptance comes when we allow God’s loving gaze to fall on us and be enough, and then we begin to treat ourselves with the dignity that he sees in us.

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I think there’s still room to join me next week as I talk with Jake Meador and Mere Orthodoxy about my New Book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, which comes out TUESDAY!