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Future Life (2 Corinthians 5:1–5)

by Doug Van Meter | 2 Corinthians Exposition

About 35 years ago, theologian Don Carson was visiting Leon Morris, another well-known and accomplished theologian. Morris was a prolific commentator, well-known for his writings about the cross of Jesus Christ. Morris was no longer active in the ministry because of severe Parkinson’s disease. Carson asked him, “Leon, do you find this frustrating?” Morris replied, “Don, there is no future to frustration.”

I heard Carson share that story 25 years ago at a conference in South Africa. I recently read that Carson is no longer able to engage in speaking or writing ministry because he is now incapacitated by severe Parkinson’s disease. When asked about it, his response was, “I am not suffering from anything that a good general resurrection can’t fix.” He clearly believes there is no future in frustration because he believes there is a glorious future resurrection. Paul would agree, as he makes known in the text before us.

Pastor Douglas Kelly notes, with reference to this passage,

It has been said that in the nineteenth century it was fine to talk about death but not sex, but in the twentieth century it is fine to talk about sex but not death. Some of the most “liberated” people become quite offended if their own mortality is mentioned, and any discussion of physical death is held to be “in poor taste.” Yet there is nothing more liberating, uplifting or empowering for an effective, fruitful, Christian ministry than to face our own mortality.”

These verses help the Christian to talk sensibly, because scripturally, about death.

Christians sometimes think about death and the afterlife is strangely unbiblical, or at least extrabiblical, ways. For example, with no biblical warrant, some suggest that, in the resurrection, we will all be thirty-three years old. Others think that we will maintain our current physical scars or that we will be vegetarians throughout eternity. People sometimes talk about departed Christians becoming angels or as floating around as spirits and returning to earth, interacting with this world. Many appear to think that Christians “go to heaven” when they die and remain there, never again to dwell on earth.

As we study this passage, we will touch on some of these. But a word to the wise: God has not revealed enough about what happens after the death of the Christian to satisfy all our curiosity. But he has revealed enough to provide us with sufficient comfort.

Paul informs us that Christians will be resurrected with a physical body. This is a huge aspect of our future hope, which provides us with present comfort. Verses 1–10 is a unit centred on this hope. We will study it in two parts: (1) The resurrection and our future (vv. 1–5) (the Christian’s perspective or destiny) and (2) the resurrection and our present (vv. 6–10) (the Christian’s pleasure or disposition). In this study, we consider vv. 1–5, under four main headings:

  1. Confidence about the Future (v. 1)
  2. Craving the Future (vv. 2–3)
  3. Continuity with the Future (v. 4)
  4. Confirmation of the Future (v. 5)

Confidence about the Future

The text opens by highlighting Christian confidence about the future; “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (v. 1).

Paul’s “for” connects us to what he has just written. He has informed his readers that he lives with an eternal perspective (4:18)—that he “gazes” at the unseen rather than at the seen of his current trials and physical limitations (4:16–18). Guthrie observes, “Paul explains how the unseen realm mentioned at 4:18 relates to the ultimate hope of those often caught in the tumultuous mill of ministry.” His body was “wasting away.” He had suffered for the sake of the gospel, having been beaten, stoned, and malnourished, and having worked to point of exhaustion. Yet he did not lose heart. He did not “faint” from being faithful.

The reason for his perseverance was because something far greater than the sustenance of physical life was taking place. Though his body was growing weaker, he was confident that the most important thing in life was growing stronger—his love for and communion with God. He was growing in Christlikeness. As we will see, this pointed to his future bodily glory. Because of this, he was able to face his imminent death with confidence. He was confident that there is a better body to come.

Going Home

Continuing with the idea of “wasting away,” Paul likens his body to a tent that, over time, and with use, eventually “perishes.” As a tentmaker, he was familiar both with packing a tent to put it away and the inevitability of the tent wearing out, hence “perishing.”

Similarly, the “elements” of life—the physical, emotional, psychological, elements—wear and tear at our body and eventually we die. The word “destroyed” means “to loosen down” and thus to disintegrate or to demolish. The Gospels use the word to describe the destruction of the temple (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2) and Jesus used it metaphorically to predict his resurrection after death (Matthew 26:61).

Paul is confident that his existing “earthly home” will, at the resurrection, be replaced with an “eternal” home, an “eternal” body, which he refers to as his “building from God.”

The word “know” refers to certain knowledge. This is not theoretical assumption but confidence in his future resurrection because God has revealed it to be so. Philip Hughes writes, “The knowledge of which the Apostle is speaking here is a particular knowledge which has been granted to Christian believers. As Calvin says, it ‘does not spring from the human intellect, but takes its rise from the revelation of the Holy Spirit.’”

This anticipated “building” (body) is “a house not made with hands.” That is, though his earthly body was fashioned by God (Psalm 139), his future, resurrected body will be a completely supernatural product of God. His resurrected body will be unmanufactured. God will create his glorified body. Of this he was certain.

Permanent vs Temporary

Perhaps Paul was also thinking about the words Mark 14:58: “And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, ‘We heard him say, ​“I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”’” Of course, Jesus was speaking of his body. Just as Jesus received a glorified body from the Father, so will every Christian.

Paul’s “if” may suggest that he anticipated the possibility that the Lord would return before his death. Regardless, he was confident that a new body was awaiting him at death. It was a body prepared, fashioned by God. The Lord Jesus may have been referring to this in John 14:1–3:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Do you know this? How can you know? Jesus clarified:

“And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:4–6

Those who come to God the Father through God’s Son—who repent of their rebellion against God, trusting the crucified, risen, and returning Lord Jesus Christ—have every reason to be confident of their own resurrection and of a new and glorious body, fashioned by the God who saved them!

This is not pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die mythology but rather God’s promised future to his children. This is a huge part of what it means to have “a home in heaven.”

When we are certain of this promised outcome, we will persevere rather than faint; we will keep on serving rather than quitting; we will be faithful rather than fretting and failing.

Craving the Future

Paul craved this future hope: “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked” (vv. 2–3).

Groaning for Glory

Paul’s confidence concerning his resurrection undergirded his temporal existence with necessary conviction as his body perished in a suffering world. He alludes to this by the use of the word “groan.” “The certainty of hope does not bring Paul rest, but unrest” (Seifrid).

The word speaks of being confined in a tight space and therefore of groaning with grief. It means to murmur or sigh. Paul uses the same word in a similar context in Romans 8:18–25 speaking of both a world and of Christians groaning as they await the consummation of the new creation. The Spirit also groans (Romans 8:26). That is why Christians groan! He and we groan for glory.

The word was used in the Septuagint of the Israelites groaning in the wilderness as they headed to the Promised Land.

Christians are on a journey, headed for eternal rest. Like the Israelites, who transported a temporary tabernacle that would be replaced by the permanent structure of the temple, we are heading for a temple that lasts—an eternal temple (see Revelation 3:12; 21:22). Our perishing tabernacle will be replaced with a sinless temple!

Interestingly, the word is used to describe Jesus’ response as he healed a man who had been mute. Jesus sighed at the effects of a sin-soaked world (Mark 7:34). So did the apostle.

Christians may groan, but for the right things. The older a Christian grows, the more we groan for glory. The less we feel at home here and the less satisfied we become with the “fallen and fading.”

What are you groaning about? Kelly is helpful here: “1 John 3:2 tells us that ‘when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ Is not the greatest distress of any true Christian minister that daily discovery of our unlikeness to the Lord Jesus?”

Craving for Clothing

Paul’s groaning for glory was intense. He had an intense craving (“longing”) to be clothed (“put on”) with a new and glorious incorruptible body—a material body that would never perish, never wear out, never waste away because of the absence of sin.

The word “longing” is predominately used in the New Testament to describe a relational longing (Romans 1:11; 2 Corinthians 9:14; Philippians 1:8; etc.). Paul’s longing for a glorified body was more than a desire to escape problems; he craved unbroken communion with the Triune God.

Material Matters

Twice in vv. 2–3, Paul refers to “putting on” the “heavenly dwelling” (“the building from God” [v. 1]). The word picture is that of putting on clothes. Metaphorically, Paul is saying that he desires to put on the “clothing” of a glorified body and that he “not be found naked.” What does he mean?

The reference to nakedness refers not to being physically without clothes but rather to being without a body—a bodiless soul. Philip Hughes explains, “The picture conveyed is that of the heavenly body being put on, like an outer vesture, over the earthly body, with which the Apostle is as it were clad, so as not only to cover it but to absorb and transfigure it.” This is an important statement, packed with practical theology. Socrates—and Plato, for that matter—were wrong. The body is not to be despised. The body is not bad. But it is insufficient for what God has prepared for his people.

In much of the American culture, when a loved one dies, family and friends gather at the funeral home for a “viewing.” For a couple of hours, people come to pay their respects and to extend sympathies to the family. The individual is clothed in their best and people come by and sometimes say dumb things like, “He looks so good” or, “She looks so natural.” Really?

In truth, Christians who have died are neither at home nor clothed in their best. That will occur one day when Jesus Christ descends with a shout and the dead in Christ are raised. Christians follow their Saviour in every area. We emulate him in all we do (1 John 2:6), including our resurrection. Just as our risen Lord had a material body upon his resurrection (Luke 24:39), so will we.

This point will be fleshed out shortly, but, for now, we need to grasp that, though in the intermediate state (between death and resurrection), the immaterial soul lives, yet it is considered naked without a body. At the resurrection, that will be forever changed. The body matters. As Bruce observes,

While Paul longed to be delivered from the present mortal body it was in order that he might exchange it for one that was immortal: to be without a body of any kind would be a form of spiritual nakedness from which his mind shrank. For someone of Paul’s outlook the body was an essential means of communication with the environment, and to lack a body of any kind would be to experience fearful isolation.

Materialism is a problem because the -ism points to idolatry and therefore to false, wrongheaded, and soul-destroying worship. But God created matter. He created the material of this world and declared it good (Genesis 1). As Chrysostom observed, “At creation man was fashioned by God, not for death, but for immortality.” Hence the believer longs for bodily immortality. And this matter matters.

Biblical convictions about a future and glorious body can deliver us from being obsessed with our present body. Biblical convictions about a future and glorious body can deliver us from the frustration of physical failure. Biblical convictions about a future and glorious body equips us for a healthy eternal perspective. This is particularly important when it comes to how we approach the death of a Christian and, by extension, our theology of funerals. Death is not the end. Don’t confuse people by the way you grieve. Grieve, yes, but with hope.

We need a biblical theology of death and thus a biblical approach to funerals. Christians, of all people, should not fear speaking of death. Biblical convictions about a future and glorious body helps us to see that there is continuity between our life in this age and our life in the age to come. This brings us to our next point.

Continuity in/with the Future

There will be continuity of the present body with the resurrected body: “For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (v. 4).

Paul continues with the metaphor of being clothed with a resurrected body. Here, he summarises his perspective by saying that he does not look at death as a great escape from life in a body but rather as the means of a fuller life in an eternal body. It seems that Paul wants us to see that the new body, issued by God, will be put on over our perishing body. He is not speaking literally, of course, but using this image to make the point that, for the Christian, there is continuity between (bodily) life in this fallen world and (bodily) life in the new and glorious world of God’s new creation (more on that later in the chapter).

For example, I generally dress “smart” for Lord’s Day worship. But Monday morning, when I run, I will dress very differently. And yet there is continuity between who I am on Sunday and who I am when I am running on Monday. I am the same person but dressed in accordance with my function. So with the resurrection body. As Paul instructed in 1 Corinthians 15:35–42, God designs our bodies in accordance with their appointed environment. Grudem helpfully writes,

We will live in bodies that have all the excellent qualities God created us to have, and thereby we will forever be living proof of the wisdom of God in making a material creation that from the beginning was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). We will live as resurrected believers in those new bodies and they will be suitable for inhabiting the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

Immortal, not Invisible

What currently weighs us down (“burdened”) will be “swallowed” up—not by immaterial existence, but rather by unending, sinless, eternal bodily life. Mortality—life in perishing flesh—will be replaced with life in imperishable flesh. Yes, perishable flesh replaced with imperishable flesh. Those whom God has saved through his Son have been given eternal life. This is not only about eternal existence, but neither is it less than that. Our grace-produced eternal life will be lived in glorious eternal bodies. The body matters.

We need to be careful when we talk about “going to heaven” when we die. What do we mean by that? Do we realise that, at the resurrection, we will receive a body fit for unending existence in the new heaven and new earth?

Though our bodies matter—now—the abundant life promised by Jesus (John 10:10) can only be fully lived in glorified bodies. Among other things, this kicks a big hole in the side of the false prosperity gospel. Attempting to fill up our lives without an adequate doctrine of the resurrection results in fouling up our lives. We empty our lives of meaningful living. As Casto comments,

The problem with the body is not that it is a prison for the soul; the problem with the body is that it is corrupted by sin and death. What we need is not freedom from our body, therefore, but the redemption of our body. “Life”—life as it was meant to be, a perfect body and a perfect soul

Ultimately, we should “crave” our promised glorified body because our communion with God will not continue (“continuity”) but it will be unbroken!

Our biggest burden in this life is sinful or fleshly hindrances to walking with God. But when our sin-weakened bodies are “swallowed up by life,” we will never fall asleep while praying. We will never be distracted by a selfish or hateful or lustful or idolatrous thought. We will never desire a sinful action over God-centred devotion. We will never be entertained by that which is fallen and fading. Instead, we will forever be exhilarated as we seek and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord as we enquire in his glorious walless temple of the new heaven and new earth (Psalm 27:4).

Sadly, even as I type these words, I feel the pull of distractions. Not sinful distractions, but the pull of self-pleasure. I can relate to Paul’s words, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—Jesus Christ will” (Romans 7:24–25). He will do so when he returns and raises me from the dead.

Perhaps this seems like wishful thinking. After all, how could Paul, or any of us, be assured of this? I’m glad you asked. Paul answers this in v. 5.

Confirmation of the Future

Paul is saying, “Don’t take my word for it; believe God. He is the one who has fit us for this.” “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (v. 5).

Interestingly, Paul uses the past tense to speak of a future event. This frequently occurs in the Old Testament to emphasise that what God has promised is as good as done. We might say you can take that to the bank.

Don’t gloss over the word “God.” Paul wants his readers to pause and ponder that God, for whom nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37), has promised a new and glorious and resurrection body, which he will certainly provide. If I read John 14:1–3 correctly, the Lord Jesus has already prepared it!

But not only do we have God’s word on the matter; he has also given to us his Spirit to confirm the promise. Paul speaks of the Spirit as a “guarantee” of our future material body. He previously used this word in 1:22 and will use it when writing to the Ephesian church (1:14). The word means “down payment” in sense of an “earnest.”

An “earnest” is a deposit that guarantees the whole. Paul is saying is that, when a person is converted, and thus when they receive the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:13) his continual presence in our life serves as a continual confirmation that what God has begun will be fully accomplished (Philippians 1:6).

Pause and ponder. Paul has spoken of the groaning and craving of the inner person. “The inner person is the presence of the new creation within the present order. Although our resurrection remains in the future, it has entered the present in the resurrected Lord and in the Spirit given through him” (Seifrid).

When we are graciously born again, we repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 5:1). This is called justification. Having been declared righteous by God we then begin to practically live out that righteousness. This is sanctification. One day, we will be fully redeemed. That is, our bodies will be glorified at the resurrection. This is glorification. This is what Paul (and all Christians) crave. This craving is by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Romans 8:23ff). The work of the Holy Spirit, among other ministries, is to confirm that the believer’s salvation will be completed at the resurrection. And this confirmation is in our cravings.

We need to steward well our longing. Feed on eternal things. Feed on Christ. Gather to feed.

AMEN