Soma #78

Soma is the standard Greek word for a body, applicable to a living human or animal body, a corpse, or, figuratively, any organized whole made of interdependent parts. Unlike sarx (“flesh”), which the New Testament often uses negatively for fallen human nature, soma is treated as good — the physical body God created, will one day raise, and can offer to him as an act of worship.

Biblical Usage

Paul urges believers, “by the mercies of God,” to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Romans 12:1), locating worship in bodily, everyday obedience rather than in ritual alone. He tells the Corinthians directly that “your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19), grounding ethical conduct in the body’s sanctity. Most distinctively, Paul extends soma into a governing metaphor for the church: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27), with each believer a differently-gifted part of one interdependent whole.

Theological Significance

Ephesians develops the same image further, picturing Christ as the head of the church, his body, and its savior (Ephesians 5:23) — a picture of intimate, organic union rather than a loose association of individuals. Paul’s insistence elsewhere that believers await a future bodily resurrection, not merely the soul’s release from the body, rests on the same conviction that soma is not a shell to be discarded but part of what God created good and intends to redeem.