Ken Myers shared this quote in a recent talk (HERE). The author is referring to Marcion’s early dualistic Christological heresy, which stands in direct opposition to the truth:
Human nature, or the condition of having a material body and participating in the change and suffering of the creation, was that from which man had to be delivered, but not that by which he would be delivered.
-Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, p. 76
I have noted elsewhere the notion of so-called religious asceticism which is actually worldly. You could call it dualism as well. This quote rings true to that idea. While Christians should yearn for the life of heaven, because it is life in the immediate presence of God, and while they should denounce the works of the sinful nature, we should never think that physical matter is innately bad. We can say with Paul, ‘Who shall deliver me from this body of death?’, but we must not forget that it was God taking on a body and dying that brings life to this dead body.
In other words, when you start to look down on this early existence, the frailness of life, and the persistence of suffering, rather than thinking that these things are somehow evil or unfitting, remember that it was through these very same means that Jesus Christ redeemed you. And so thank God for them. Thank him for the fact that he has given you a body, and that his Son took on a body that your body will not stay in the grave.
We feel the need to be delivered from our flesh, it was a man in the flesh who delivered us. We feel a need to be saved from suffering, but it was suffering that saved us. Take comfort in the gospel.
