Now, Then, In-Between

Now, Then, In-Between

Fourth after Easter

Collect of the Day: O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:15 (KJ21)

4:13 We, having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written: “I believed and therefore have I spoken” — we also believe and therefore speak,

14 knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

15 For all things are for your sakes, that, through the thanksgiving of many, the abundant grace might redound to the glory of God.

16 For this cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tabernacle, were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed about with our house which is from Heaven,

3 that, being so clothed, we shall not be found naked.

4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not because we would be unclothed, but clothed about, that mortality might be swallowed up by life.

5 Now He that hath wrought us for this selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the pledge of the Spirit.

6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;

7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.

8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

9 Therefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted by Him.

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

12 For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have something to answer those who glory in appearance and not in heart.

13 For if we be beside ourselves, it is for God; if we be soberminded, it is for your cause.

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if One died for all, then all were dead;

15 and that He died for all, that those who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.

You plan a trip. It involves a present, a future, and an in-between. Now you are in Roanoke. Your final destination is the Hawaiian Islands. In between you have a stopover. Your intermediate destination is Los Angeles.  

As Christians we on a journey like that. Our now is mortal existence. Our destination is resurrection life. Between mortality and resurrection our intermediate destination is to be spiritually present with Christ.

1. Now

Where are we now? In verse 1 of chapter 5, Paul says we have an earthly house, a tabernacle. “Tabernacle” is another word for “tent.” When the Israelites left Egypt they lived in tents. Even God had a tent, the tabernacle he had them build for him.

There are two important characteristics of tents. One is that they are temporary. They are not permanent places to live. The Israelites looked forward to living in houses when they got to the Promised Land. God, too, would live in a House, the grand Temple that Solomon built. The other characteristic of tents is that they are fragile. They can be blown over by a strong wind. Or consumed by a fire. If they survive sudden disasters, the cloth they are made of will grow weak and rot.

That is what our present life is like. We are mortal, something we experience most acutely in our bodies. When God created us humans to be embodied souls, a perfect and harmonious union of body and spirit, not meant to be separated. But when sin came, the eventual separation of body and soul became inevitable.

Our present bodies are temporary. I am soon going to need to start drawing on my retirement account. I have talked about this with a friend. He told me, “You need to plan to make your money last 25-30 years. I told my friend, “There are two problems with that: One is that I need enough to live till I die. The other is, ‘How many 98 year old men do you know?’” Life in our present bodies is temporary, no matter how well we take care of ourselves. And, however long we live, life is fragile.  Accidents and illnesses constantly loom, and if we avoid those, we decay and something will end our bodily lives.

Paul pictures the ending of life as an “unclothing.” Our soul are supposed to be “clothed” with our bodies. That’s what is natural. The soul is not trapped in the body waiting to be set free by death. The souls is meant to be “clothed” with the body. At death the body is stripped away, leaving us “naked.” For Paul the separation of the body and spirit is unnatural, not something to welcome.

This life is a life of groaning. When I was a little boy, one night the phone rang late, and my father got up to answer. There was bad news. His brother had been a passenger in car involved in an accident and had been thrown through the windshield. He was alive but badly hurt. I remember getting up and going to the living room. From behind I witnessed my dad sitting in a chair in the dark and groaning. That is a picture of life. Because of death and the threat of death, despite the many wonderful things to enjoy in this life, we spend our mortal existence groaning.

2. Then

Our “now” is mortal existence. What is our ultimate destination?

Paul calls it “a building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” What does Paul mean? Does he mean heaven, the dwelling-place of God the Father where Christ now sits at the Father’s right hand? As we read on in chapter 5 Paul writes about being “clothed about with our house which is from Heaven.” If being unclothed is separation from the body at death, then being clothed must mean the resurrection body we will receive when we are raised and our lowly bodies made like Christ’s glorious body. In the 14th verse of chapter 4, Paul expresses his confidence “that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.” God raised Jesus bodily. God will also raise Paul and all believers and bring us all together in his presence.

This resurrection body the opposite of the temporary and fragile tent of our present mortal bodies. It is building made without hands because it is built by God. It is an eternal house in the heavens that God has prepared. In chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about the resurrection body:

Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep (that is, die - some will live till the second coming); but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-54)

 

Paul makes it clear that his preference is to go right from this mortal bodily existence to immortal bodily existence - from a body that will die to a body that will not die. He writes: “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed about with our house which is from Heaven, that, being so clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not because we would be unclothed, but clothed about, that mortality might be swallowed up by life.”

He does not want to experience “unclothing” - the separation of the body and soul at death so that the soul exists without the body. This is not natural.

Now we groan as we experience all the troubles, stresses, anxieties, and sorrows of our present life. But this does not mean we want to die and be unclothed. We would prefer to bypass death and be clothed immediately with the resurrection body. We would like the mortal body to be swallowed up by immortality, so that we go directly from the present to our ultimate destination without any stopover in-between.

Going to heaven when we die is not the ultimate goal or destination of Christians. The ultimate goal not Los Angeles but Hawaii, the resurrection of the body.

3. In-Between

Our present “location” is as mortal creatures whose bodies will die. Our ultimate destination is resurrection to immortal life. But there is an in-between - between the death of the body and the resurrection of the body. At death our bodies and souls are separated. Our bodies go to  their graves. At the resurrection our bodies will be raised to new life and reunited with our souls.

But what will become of our souls between death and the resurrection. Paul tells us:

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. (5:6-8)

Paul confidently knows that now, while we are at home in our bodies, we are absent from the Lord. He does not mean that we have no contact with with Lord, no fellowship with him. No, the Holy Spirit lives within us and he unites us to Christ in heaven. When we celebrate communion, “we lift up our hearts” to heaven where Christ is. But there is a limit to our communion with Christ right now.

Paul, however, is also confident about what will happen when he dies. He will be absent from the body, but he will be present with the Lord in heaven. He will be with Jesus, nearer to Jesus than is possible now. Through death he will pass into the life of heaven. Paul was thinking about death in this way when he wrote to the Philippians from imprisonment in Rome:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor; yet what I shall choose, I know not. For I am in a strait between the two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you (Philippians 1:21-24).

The reason Paul can say death is gain is because he knows that at death he will be present with the Lord Jesus. To live is Christ for Paul for if he lived he would serve the Lord and his people, but his personal preference is to depart this life and be with Christ, for the fellowship he would have with Christ would be far better than the fellowship possible now.

When we die, we will be happy and blessed, for we will be with the Lord. Yet the presence of our souls in heaven with the Lord, good as it is, is not our final destination or goal - because we were not created to be disembodied souls but embodied, our sinless souls joined to immortal bodies. That is the Hawaii, the final destination - raised to share the resurrection life of Jesus.

So, what?

1. We do not lose heart but live confidently because death means first to be with the Lord and in the end resurrection. Loss of the body brings us into the Lord’s presence. But loss of the body is only temporary, for we shall be raised with Christ.

2. While we live we seek to please and serve Christ. Our final salvation is not in jeopardy, but we will give account of the way we have lived and the service we have given the Lord.

Life is serving Christ. Death is entrance into the presence of the Lord. The second coming is resurrection to eternal live.