Renewed (part 2)

As Paul moves on to the second verse of the chapter, he causes us to encounter a powerful and interesting word that he uses to great effect elsewhere in his writings. We read, “For in this earthly house we groan, because we desire to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:2). Upon reading the word “groan,” we cannot help but be forced to contemplate the eighth chapter of Romans, where Paul writes, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23).

In both letters, the groaning is linked. Just as the creation groans in anticipation of being “set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Romans 8:21), so we too groan with the same desire. That desire, which comes as “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groaning” (8:26b), is to move past the age in which we live with these physical bodies that wear away--- in this age of fallen man and a cursed earth in which “the creation was subjected to futility” (8:20a)---so that we might put on our heavenly dwelling. That heavenly dwelling is the physical body that will be suited to exist in God’s new creation. That heavenly dwelling is that same body that Christ put on through Resurrection power, in which He walked this earth for a brief period in God’s newly inaugurated new creation.

Just as Jesus was raised up with that new body from out of the grave, so too shall we who have believed upon Christ and His Gospel, be raised up with that new body when the final resurrection comes to pass and all things are restored. The creation itself does not groan after a disembodied spiritual existence as its final hope. How could it? The creation groans for a renewal, and a time when all thorns and thistles will disappear and the lion will lay down with the lamb. The creation does not have heaven as its final hope, and neither do those in union with Christ. Since we groan in the same way as the creation, we also groan for a renewal which takes us beyond heaven, to the other side of heaven, as our ultimate hope. Paul looks forward to this heavenly house, this body that is suited for the kingdom of heaven that ultimately is God’s restored creation, writing that “after we have put on our heavenly house, we will not be found naked” (2 Corinthians 5:3). That is, we will not be without a body, but we will have the experience of a renewed physicality, as did Christ upon His Resurrection, here in this re-constituted world where our Lord rules and where God dwells with His people.

Continuing with this theme, Paul goes on and writes, “For we groan while we are on this tent, since we are weighed down, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (5:4). Once again, we are able to correlate our groaning with the groaning of creation, as well as our similar groaning that is so carefully detailed in the eighth chapter of Romans. We groan in this tent, in this perishable body that will run down and decay. We groan because we look forward to a body that will never run down and never decay and never die, because the power of sin and death was defeated at the cross and triumphed over in our Lord’s Resurrection. We groan because of the anticipation of being fully clothed, being fully human, properly bearing the image of God as we were designed to do before the great rebellion in which man first realized that he was unclothed.

Though man was first naked before God before the fall, he was truly clothed; but just as did Adam and Eve, we now carry the realization that we are unclothed, desirous of re-gaining, through God’s great victory in Christ, the good creation that existed before the fall. Not only will that creation be re-gained, and not only will we re-gain our true clothing, but that creation and clothing will be enhanced and made into something truly unknown and glorious, having been experienced by only one person in all of history, because of the awesome power of God that was put forth in the Resurrection. We experience that power through the preaching and living of the Gospel, by which it is at work in this world, though we do not experience the fullness of its power. That day, however, will come. In that day, what is mortal, what can and will die, will be, as Paul writes, completely “swallowed up by life.”