Because our bodily presence and trustworthiness are inexorably tied together in human experience, physicality represents a key manner in which humans inculcate fidelity. Physical intimacy within marriage best exemplifies this truth and is especially relevant to our study in light of the biblical motif of YHWH/Christ as the bridegroom to the people of God (Jer. 31:32, Isa. 54:5, Hos. 2:7, Eph. 5). Christians have always rejected pre-marital sex and adultery not only because of the destructive consequences of disease and heartache, but because giving one’s self physically over to one’s spouse is the ultimate pledge of one’s loyalty and fidelity. To give one’s body to another is to give one’s very being. If one gives their very physical being away haphazardly, either for the sake of a pleasant weekend or in an affair, how can ultimate fidelity ever be established?[1] If one gives away his very enfleshed self to anyone who strikes his fancy, nothing will be left over to give to one’s spouse as an ultimate pledge. This is why the explanation that an act of infidelity was “just sex” is never convincing to the wronged partner.
Therefore, bodily self-gift is a necessary means of giving assurance of fidelity to the absolute promise of Christ the bridegroom of the Church. It is not sufficient to treat the sacraments as small, symbolic tokens of love in the manner of a husband who occasionally gives trinkets to his wife.[2] Any relationship may be poorer without gestures like these small gifts, but a marriage is not a marriage in a biblical sense without fleshly consummation and unity (Gen. 2:24, Eph. 5:31). Through fleshly self-giving one “knows” (yada) one’s spouse, that is, they gain a real participatory knowledge of their very physical being. In the same manner, we can be no more certain of our justification and eternal life than to physically receive the very flesh and blood that was sacrificed for humanity on the cross (1 Cor. 11:26) and raised in anticipation of the general resurrection (Jn. 6:54). There is no ambiguity as to whether or not one is justified by the work of Christ when Christ himself is present and gives believers that same body and blood that was sacrificed for them on the cross. Just as baptism is a proleptic realization of the last judgment, so too paschal feast of the Lord’s Supper is the proleptic realization of the final bridal feast of the Lamb at the end of time (Rev. 19:6-9).
[1] Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997-1999), 2:91-2.
[2] Carl Trueman’s analogy for the sacraments. See: Carl Trueman, Grace Alone: Salvation as a Gift of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 213-4.
From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).