What is the physical body according to this teaching?
The physical body is the outer tent or covering of a human being, distinct from soul and spirit. It functions through the five senses, is temporary like a tent, here today and gone tomorrow, and is not the part made in God's image. It is the temporary outer vessel, not the eternal personality.
Les teaches that when God created Adam, He made him a trichotomous being—a three-part being described as body, soul, and spirit. The body is simply the outer tent, the outer covering, and normally it is used as the exercise of the five senses; that is all it is really good for. It is temporary, like a tent is temporary, here today and gone tomorrow in the overall picture. Inside that temporary tent are the things that are eternal, and it is in this inner area where we are made in the image of God, not in the body. God never had a body with the five senses that He could pattern us after, but in the inner person He did. That inner person is a personality comprised of mind, will, and emotions, which Les calls the personality or the true person.