True spirituality means the Lordship of Christ over the total man

Despite our constant talk about the Lordship of Christ, we have narrowed its scope to a very small area of reality.  We have misunderstood the concept of the Lordship of Christ over the whole of man and the whole of the universe and have not taken to us the riches that the Bible gives us for ourselves, for our lives and for our culture.

The Lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and the soul.  God made the body as well as the soul and redemption is for the whole man.  Evangelicals have been legitimately criticized for often being so tremendously interested in seeing souls get saved and go to heaven that they have not cared much about the whole man.

The Bible, however, makes four things very clear: (1) God made the whole man, (2) in Christ the whole man is redeemed, (3) Christ is the Lord of the whole man now and the Lord of the whole Christian life and (4) in the future as Christ comes back, the body will be raised from the dead and the whole man will have a whole redemption.…

The conception of the wholeness of man and the lordship of man over creation comes early in Scripture.  In Genesis 1:26-27, we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."  From the very beginning, therefore, man and woman, being created in the image of God (both of them!), were given dominion (lordship) over the whole of the created earth.  They were the ones who bore the image of God and, bearing that image, they were to be in charge, to tend the garden, to keep it and preserve it before their own Lord.  Of course, that dominion was spoiled by the historic, space-time Fall, and therefore it is no longer possible to maintain that dominion in a perfect fashion.

Yet, when a man comes under the blood of Christ, his whole capacity as man is refashioned.  His soul is saved, yes, but so are his mind and body.  As Christians we are to look to Christ day by day, for Christ will produce his fruit through us.  True spirituality means the Lordship of Christ over the total man.   — Francis Schaeffer, Art & the Bible