Paul looks forward to
a heavenly house, which, in his estimation (as that estimation is based upon
his worldview that is now informed by the Resurrection), is a body that is
suited for the kingdom of heaven that ultimately is the covenant God’s restored
creation. To that end he writes “after
we have put on our heavenly house, we will not be found naked” (2 Corinthians
5:3). Paul believes that he and other believers will not be without a
body (no disembodied post-mortem experience in a faraway place as the final and
ultimate hope and destination of those that believe on the Christ), but will rather
have the experience of a renewed physicality, as did Christ upon His
Resurrection, here in this re-constituted world where Jesus rules as Lord and
where the Creator God dwells with His people.
Continuing with this
theme, Paul goes on to write “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, there is
an ability to correlate the groaning of the believer with the groaning of
creation (never forget the exodus undertones when Paul speaks of groaning), as
well as the similar groaning that is so carefully detailed in the eighth
chapter of Romans. The believer groans in his tent--- in the perishable
body that will run down and decay. He groans because he looks 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 Jesus’
Resurrection. He groans because of the anticipation of being fully
clothed, of being fully human, of properly bearing the image of God as all 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 happened to
Adam and Eve, there is eventually a realization of being 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 there be a re-gaining of 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. The believer
experiences that power through the preaching and living of the Gospel, by which
it is at work in this world, though it is not yet experienced in 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.”
As he continues his
written contemplation of the renewal and restoration that is implied by the
Gospel and the Resurrection, Paul writes, “Now the one who prepared us for this
very purpose is God” (2 Corinthians 5:5a). This purpose, by way of
reiteration, is being clothed with a “heavenly dwelling,” a renewed body that
is suited for an existence in the to-be-consummated kingdom of heaven on earth,
not just attaining to heaven. This purpose is to live beyond despair, and
instead, living in the light of that “eternal weight of glory far beyond all
comparison” (4:17b).
How has the Creator God
prepared His people for this? Paul says that those that live in
allegiance to His kingdom through allegiance to the Christ are prepared because
He “gave us the Spirit as a down payment” (5:5b). That is, the activity
of the Holy Spirit, apparently gifting faith and stirring belief in the Gospel
and the renewed life to come, is the down payment, or guarantee, of that God
accomplishing a final redemption through a thorough and complete rescue from
the power of death (spiritually and physically). In this state of belief,
as one believes in the very thing that is the power of God unto salvation, one
can trust and experience a foretaste of the power of the Resurrection to
come.
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