Our “body” refers to our physical flesh, which became temporal the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Hence our flesh (physical body) is merely a container for our soul and spirit, it won’t go with us when we die. Our soul is who we are—our character, personality, and experiences that make us uniquely created by God as an individual. When we become a believer in Jesus our “spirit” is awakened and rejoined to God, returning us to the relationship Adam and Eve had before the fall.
However, because our relationship with Jesus is spiritual and not physical, there is a difference between our love for him and a human marriage. Our love for Jesus is passionate and vibrant, but it is a spiritual love and does not need the physical flesh for us to become one with him. Yes, we experience certain physical aspects of it, for example, the dopamine (mood- boosting neurotransmitters in our brain) we get from Jesus’ love, presence, and spiritual touch. We get warm-fuzzies from dancing with him and holding hands. These can cause physical sensations that can lead to a desire for sex, because our physical body is a part of who we currently are—body, soul, and spirit—and we can’t just separate it out of the mix. However, we can be careful not to involve it, because Jesus doesn’t need to access our physical body to be intimate with us, he goes straight to our spirit, heart, and soul.
Surely, if we already know sex and experience it as humans, God would have prepared an intimacy beyond what we already have in a fallen world with fallen bodies, and beyond what we can imagine. Is the best God can do in intimacy to merely deliver great, physical and emotional sex? NO! The truth is so much better than we could ever imagine. As someone told me, “It transcends all the types of love we know. It’s stronger and more passionate. There is no “self” in intimacy with God. Sex is about self, a craving to satisfy our flesh, a desire for pleasure. God’s love is all about the other—God doesn’t need us for sexual pleasure. He bypasses our flesh and goes straight for our heart.”
