The Bride and Groom as Embodied Souls

Henry Reyenga

So today we're going to actually dive a little bit into Christian anthropology and Christian philosophy because, if you're going to be advanced, some of this advanced person theory will really serve you well in ways that you may not imagine at first.

Because it's not just, in this case, about doing a ceremony. It's about understanding you as a marriage minister, a Christian Wedding Officiant.

So first of all, get this important biblical understanding: the bride and groom are embodied souls.

Now, what does that mean?

Okay, so first of all, a little background.

Soul and body.

You'll see that in our culture, the ancient philosophers differentiated between soul and body. They would say the soul is the spiritual and the non-organic. The body is the organic, the physical.

Plato, for example, would say the soul is where goodness reigns. The body is to be discarded, almost as if it were evil.

In fact, there were various Platonic philosophical ideas that taught the soul is good and the body is evil.

Even throughout church history, that philosophy can sometimes creep into Christian thinking, where the soul is good and the body is evil, spirituality is good and physicality is evil, sexuality is evil, and so on.

That is a Greek understanding.

The Christian understanding is different.

When God, in Genesis chapter 2, made humans, He made them a nephesh, a living soul.

Just read Genesis chapter 2. That whole chapter is amazing.

When it gets to the phrase "living soul," some of the other classes at Christian Leaders Institute dive deeply into the Hebrew and this understanding.

Essentially, the Christian understanding is that when God made humans, He made you a living soul.

Then we see throughout the Bible that a living soul is fully physical and fully spiritual.

A living soul has a physical nature and a spiritual nature.

So when someone gets married, two souls come together—a fully spiritual union and a fully physical union.

From a philosophical standpoint, that matters.

When you have two people standing before you, you see the full dimensions of what it means to be human.

As a wedding officiant, what we often see is that people's philosophy, their anthropology, their understanding of their own personhood, may be steeped in many different philosophies.

They may come to you with a contemporary form of postmodernism mixed with a little Greek philosophy.

Let me explain.

If you reduce the soul to your real essence and disconnect it from the body, then philosophically you can become like the ancient Greeks.

You can say, "My truth is what I experience. My gender is whatever I experience it to be. My body doesn't have anything to say about it."

It's what I experience.

It's what I want it to be.

It's what abuse has created it to be in my person.

And my body is disconnected from that.

Those are philosophical issues of personhood.

Christianity would say that, no matter what has happened to you, you are designed as an embodied soul with spiritual and physical natures.

So when someone comes to you and you see a bride and groom, seeing them that way makes a big difference.

We often talk about how the spiritual and the bodily connect.

It's really true.

They do.

They are not meant to be separated.

It's not that devotions are spiritual and sexual intimacy with my spouse is physical.

No, they are connected.

There is a spiritual aspect to sexual intimacy.

There is a spiritual aspect to the union of a man and a woman.

Yes, we experience it physically.

God created pleasure to be connected to it.

But it is also deeply spiritual.

If we see people that way, we can minister to them from that point of view.

What starts happening is that we can help them see that their truth is not simply their truth.

They are designed a certain way by God, and God blesses that design.

Companionship can be spiritual, but it can also be physical.

You're actually spending life together.

Sexuality can be physical, accompanied by pleasure and the possibility of reproduction, but it can also be spiritual.

Prayer and sexual intimacy can connect.

When a couple has children, they can see that divine pattern reflected in their family.

One thing about a married couple and their family is that they are two spiritually broken and physically broken fallen humans.

Then come children—fallen children.

But now there is the possibility of bringing in the redemption story and the power of a reborn spiritual existence.

That's what is called being born again.

But the physical is also being renewed, so that our actions, our lives, our work—our whole souls, spiritual and physical—are transformed.

Some people may not have heard this very much because even in Christian circles there is often a lot of soul talk.

And that's great.

At Christian Leaders Institute, we have what is called the Soul Center.

Many people think that means only the spiritual center.

Yes, it includes the spiritual, but it also includes the physical.

Why is that important?

Because as living souls, we see this pattern even in Christ Jesus.

When Jesus was on this earth, Christianity teaches that He possessed both a divine nature and a human nature.

Jesus Himself speaks in the language of both the spiritual and the physical.

You see that in His conversation with the thief on the cross.

Jesus says, "Today you will be with Me in paradise."

Spiritually, Jesus is anticipating paradise and inviting the thief to join Him.

So you see that spiritual reality.

Yet physically, His body is crucified, dead, buried, and descends to the grave.

The word hell is an old word for the grave.

We see that on Good Friday.

Jesus is crucified and dies.

Yet He says to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with Me in paradise."

When you study the word paradise, you realize that paradise refers to that spiritual place of the blessed.

There is also a place for those who do not glorify God.

We see that in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, where there appear to be different compartments or realities.

Again, we're getting a little deep here, but it matters.

Then Jesus, while dying on the cross, says, "Into Thy hands I commit My spirit."

Again, you see that interplay of the living soul—fully spiritual and fully physical.

Then on the third day, fully spiritual and fully physical, Jesus rises from the dead.

The Christian hope for all of us is that someday, fully spiritual and fully physical, our souls will rise from the dead when Christ returns.

Now there's a lot of theology there, but it matters even when performing a wedding.

When someone comes to you and asks you to perform a ceremony, you see them as God designed them—as organic humans, as souls, fully human, spiritual and physical, created by God, fallen in sin like our first parents, and redeemed through Jesus Christ for those who welcome Him and believe in Him.

Now they are living out that designed truth.

With that foundation, God is welcomed into the marriage because a fully alive spiritual and physical being who surrenders life to Jesus Christ now brings God into their narrative, their story, their future, their decisions, their experiences, how they think about money, how they think about children, and how they think about life.

All of that comes from who God made them to be.

So it is important to see the bride and groom as embodied souls made in the image of God.

When you're a Christian Wedding Officiant, you see them that way, whether they themselves see themselves that way right now.

People come to you with many concepts and many understandings of who they are.

But as a Christian Wedding Officiant, you are marrying two souls created as living, walking, spiritual and physical beings—image bearers.

And that makes all the difference.