What is the body in relation to the whole person?
The body is the outer, temporary tent or covering of the whole person, functioning through the five senses. It is not the eternal part; the inner person—personality with mind, will, and emotions—is made in God’s image, while the body is here today and gone tomorrow.
Les explains that when God created Adam, He made him a trichotomous being—a three-part being of body, soul, and spirit, as Thessalonians lays out. The body is merely the outer tent or covering, the part that exercises the five senses. It is temporary, like a tent, here today and gone tomorrow. Inside that temporary tent are the eternal things, and it is there—in the personality, or true person, comprised of mind, will, and emotions—that we are made in the image of God. God never had a body with five senses to pattern us after; the image of God relates to the inner, spiritual part, not the physical body.