Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 2 Corinthians 5:1-8 | Date: November 4, 2018 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

It’s good to be back with you again. You folks always have such a warm fellowship, a rich fellowship. It’s good to be back with you every time. Before we come to the Lord’s table, which I understand we are observing this morning, I’d like to invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. The title of the message this morning is “The Christian’s Attitude Toward Death.” That actually is a title that Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield gave this passage when he preached on it at the death of one of his colleagues at Old Princeton Seminary back in 1892. And I think it captures the point here very well: the Christian attitude toward death.

I’ll begin reading with verse one:

For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 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. 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. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we are grateful for this portion of your Word that instructs us so about matters that affect every one of us eventually. We pray that you would give us an understanding of it, and we ask that through it you would give us a greater assurance and a greater appreciation of the great treasures that we have in Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.

Well, this passage, obviously, verses 1 through 8, speaks so clearly to Paul’s thinking and teaching regarding life after death that it’s often approached isolated and on its own and not in its context. But we should look back to chapter 4 to see what has brought this about. You’ll notice in chapter 4, verse 7 and following, Paul speaks of the distress that attends his life of service for Christ, and he speaks of it in some pretty graphic terms. We have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power that belongs to God and not to us. And here he describes his service for Christ: “We’re afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life for you.”

So I have this service, he says, for Christ, and it involves all the time, all the time, all the time, this persecution, this suffering, this affliction. I feel like I’m being beaten down all the time, worn down all the time, being destroyed all the time—the death of Jesus being reworked, as it were, in my own experience. It’s been a lot of work. Now he doesn’t say that to complain, because he says it’s balanced out on the other hand with the renewal, the renewing work of God in him. But he describes all of this finally in verse 16 as our outer man wasting away. The outer man wasting away, not just physically, but all that I am wearing down, the energy level wearing down. It’s taking a toll on me. The service for Christ has cost me.

And yet, as he hinted toward in verses 8 and following that we just read, he tells us in verses 16 to 18 that although he is having this experience of continually wasting away by the work that he is doing, the second part of the verse tells us our inward man is being renewed day by day. And so there’s this constant back and forth. On the one level, I’m wearing out and being beaten down. And yet on the other level, I’m being built up and I’m being renewed. And I feel new vigor for service for Christ. And this is what he calls the outer man and the inner man. I’ve been redeemed, but it hasn’t affected the body yet. And it’s still wearing down, and it’s wearing down, and it’s wearing down. But inwardly, I feel the work of God in me, and I’m being renewed day by day.

And so, in other words, he tells us then—well, notice the explanatory clause that he gives us in verse 17: “We do not lose heart, though our outward man is wasting away, our inward man is being renewed day by day, for…”—that is, I’m going to explain it to you now—”…my inward man is being renewed day by day because this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” So he says, I’ve tried to work to get a right perspective on things. My faithfulness to Christ, the steadfastness of it all, even though it has cost me so much physically, and in a way wearing out by it all—I keep it in perspective, and there’s a perspective that makes me think of it all as a very light thing. This slight momentary affliction.

I doubt that if any of us ever had to experience the afflictions the Apostle Paul had experienced at this point, that any of us would turn around and say, “Well, it’s a slight thing.” And yet that’s Paul’s estimate of it, and he says, I have that because this slight affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory that exceeds all of it. So I try to keep it in perspective. There’s this sense of proportion, and when I see what is coming, then what I’ve had seems a very little thing.

Now when we get to chapter five, beginning with verse one, Paul wants to expand on that thought, and that’s the significance of the first word, “for” or “because,” in verse one. So I’m going to expand on this a little bit more, he says: this suffering and affliction and difficulty in service that wears me down and wears me down, and yet through it all I’m being renewed day by day, and that in the anticipation of what God has promised for me. Let me expand on that. And so, verse 1: “We know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Very clearly this word “tent” is a metaphor spoken in terms of his physical body. In fact, this word for tent here is used only here and in verse 4 in the New Testament. It’s used in other Greek literature as a metaphor for the same—the present body that we have. It’s clearly what Paul has in mind here. This body is wearing away. This earthly tent is wearing out. That’s the metaphor that he’s using. And then in the second half of the verse, verse 1, he says, if this tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So in this body, it’s like a tent that’s wearing out with so much use and so many miles being put on it. It’s wearing out. But when it wears out, I’ll have not a tent, but a building, a house, and not one that’s made with human hands, but a house that God gives me—that is to say, a new body.

That’s clearly what’s in mind in verse 14 of chapter 4 when he speaks of the resurrection. So this body will be replaced by a resurrection body, and that will be an eternal one that is marked by glory, and it won’t fade away and wear out. So this is much like what we have in Romans chapter 8. On the one hand, verse 18, he says in Romans chapter 8, I’ve measured it all out, I’ve weighed it, and I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. When I weigh what I’ve had to endure here against what I will have there, this seems like a blip on the screen. And then he goes on to expand on it in Romans chapter 8, and speaks of the groaning creation, and we are caught up with the creation in its fallen condition under a curse. We groan also, and there’s all kinds of sickness and disease, and there’s all this that marks the fallen order of creation. And all of creation waits for the manifestations of the sons of God, and we wait for that. We wait for the fullness of our adoption—that is, he says, the resurrection of our bodies.

And that’s what’s going on here. I have this, and it’s wearing out, and in the meantime I’m being renewed day by day, and I’m being renewed by this anticipation of what is coming, and that which is eternal. So in other words—and actually, in verse 2, the metaphor is actually mixed a little bit. In this tent we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our heavenly dwelling. There he mixes the metaphor. It’s like putting on clothing now. This tent will be put away, and then I’ll receive a new set of clothing. But this situation, then, of suffering causes me, then, not to dwell on my sufferings; the situation of suffering causes me instead to dwell on what lies ahead and what God has promised.

There’ll be a better day. I remember one time some years ago, a pastor friend had passed away and I was talking to his wife on the telephone afterwards. And somehow in the conversation—I try to be careful not to say these kinds of things too soon; I don’t want to push something on them they’re emotionally not ready for yet—but it came up in the conversation and I said that, that there’ll be a better day. And she responded and said, “Yes, and a longer one.” And that’s just a great perspective. That’s exactly what Paul is saying here. A better day and a longer day is coming.

I don’t know him personally, but there’s an Old Testament scholar who now is into his 90s, an older man, and he has been suffering now for a good many years in many ways physically. And a friend of mine was talking to him, and it was kind of a serious conversation. He says, “Well, how are you doing?” And this old man responded, “Oh, it’s nothing a good resurrection won’t fix.” And this is exactly Paul’s perspective here. It captures it very well. The anticipation of what is to come, the anticipation of what God has promised, shapes my perspective on what is happening here and now, when this life can be viewed as passing and temporary and brief, and this body even can be viewed as just a tent that will be replaced by a building given from God that is eternal in the heavens. When you can have that kind of perspective on what is to come, well then the perspective on today is shaped accordingly. And he says these sufferings then can seem like a very slight and momentary thing.

Now I want you to notice here then that Paul is taking the long look forward. What he is looking for is the eternal state. You know that terminology, the intermediate state and the eternal state? He’s not looking here for the intermediate state—that is, that state between death and resurrection. We call that the intermediate state. He’s looking to the eternal state, the state of resurrection that is permanent and eternal. What I’m looking for, he says, is this resurrection. The resurrection is my hope. That’s the day when all that God has promised comes good. And that in the New Testament, of course, is always associated with the second coming of Jesus Christ. He will come with a trumpet blast and a shout of the angel. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and those who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds; we will be forever with the Lord. That’s 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of much the same thing. This mortal will put on immortality, this perishable will be clothed with imperishable, and we will have a resurrection body that is fit for what we call the eternal state. And that, Paul says, is what I’m looking forward to.

Now that raises another question. What about the intermediate state? Paul is looking forward to the resurrection, the eternal state. Does Paul look forward to the intermediate state also? And the answer here is a little mixed. The answer is yes and not really. And that’s what we find in the following verses here, with Paul’s attitude toward the intermediate state. Notice again in verse 3 how Paul describes that intermediate state. He’s longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, “if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.” There’s a funny metaphor, isn’t it? “Be found naked.” What do you mean by that? What he means by that is in death, there’ll be the separation of body and soul. And what an unnatural condition that is—soul separated from body. A bodiless soul. Well, whatever else you have to say, that’s not what we are created to be. It has come about only because of judgment, of sin, and the fall, and it’s an unnatural condition to be naked—a soul without a body.

And Paul tells us then in verse 4 what he thinks about that. “For while we are still in this tent,” that is in this body, “we groan, being burdened.” And what we’re groaning for is not that we would be unclothed—naked, the intermediate state—but that we would be further clothed: resurrection, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. And that is language that he uses again in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 with regards to the resurrection, and both are taken from Isaiah chapter 25, which is a passage again on the resurrection of the dead. What I’m looking forward to then, he says, is not that condition in which I will be naked, soul without the body. What I’m looking for is the resurrection. There and then I will realize all that God has promised for me.

And he grounds all of that finally in verse 5 in God’s promise. “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee.” And again, this is like Romans chapter 8 and verse 11: “If the spirit who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he will also give life to your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwells in you.” And the spirit then is the guarantee, the promise, the down payment of the full treasure that will come later. The full inheritance is in the resurrection. And the spirit has been given for that promise.

So what I’m looking forward to, he says, ultimately, is the resurrection. Not that intermediate state, but the eternal state, the final state. But in verses 6 through 8, Paul backs up just a little bit so that we don’t misunderstand. And what he tells us in verses 6 through 8 is that there is yet an advantage to the intermediate state also. So, verse 6: “We are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. Now here Paul introduces another metaphor, the metaphor of being at home. And notice the contrast that he gives us. On the one hand, I can be at home in the body, in which case I’m away from home, or away from the Lord. Or I can be away from the body, in which case I’m at home with Christ. Two choices. I can be at home in this body, or I can be away from the body—this bodiless soul—but home with Christ. Or I can be absent from the body, at home with Christ. So there’s the contrast. Life now is in the body. And what he tells us here is that life now, if we do not survive until the coming of Jesus Christ, life now is followed by life at home in the very presence of Christ. Absent from the body, present with the Lord.

And that, he says, is actually to be preferred. “I’d rather,” he says. And that sounds a whole lot like what he says in Philippians chapter 1, doesn’t it? To die is gain. To be with Christ is far better. That is, I don’t really cherish the idea of death, and Paul is not saying here that he’s looking forward to death. What he’s looking forward to is the resurrection. But it’s not the thought of death that encourages him. Because after all, in death I’m just naked, and I’m a soulless body, and I’m separated from my body. It’s ultimately not what I want. What I really want is to be with Christ when He comes. I want to be there at the event when He arrives and comes. That’s verse 2, so that this tent will give way to the building, and this mortal will be swallowed up by life in verse 4. I want to experience just being swallowed up in the resurrection, so that this mortal then will put on immortality.

And yet, and yet, even if I don’t live in this body until that day, I’m still at a real advantage because, verse 6, to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. And so, although naturally Paul shrinks from the idea of death like we all do, he does not fear death. If death is the direct path into the presence of Christ, then that’s worth it. And in fact, it is to be preferred.

All right, there in a nutshell is verses one through eight. Let’s back up then and see if we can give some summary observations or some lessons then from the passage. What should we take away from that? And in a way, this will be just restating what we’ve said.

Number One, For The Christian, This Life Can Never Be Entirely Satisfying

For the Christian, this life can never be entirely satisfying. I need to be careful with that. It is not saying that we have a death wish. It’s not saying we could hurry up the day. Paul doesn’t do that. But he does tell us here that in this life we’ll never find real ultimate satisfaction. He says that in verse 2: “in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” He says it in verse 4: “while we’re still in this tent we groan, being burdened.” That’s what he said in chapter 4, verses 7 and following. All of this torn down, wasting away, the outward man being destroyed, and all of that.

Now we’re content with God’s providence and Paul is not chafing against it. And there are many joys that attend this life, but all of them are temporary. And even the progresses that we make in grace, they seem slow to come. Never in this life do we find all that we are looking for. We’re content with God’s providence, but living in a cursed world. Particularly then in the service for Christ, there will also be found opposition. And in all of that, he says, this life can never be completely satisfying. And so, our second observation from the passage:

Even For The Christian, Death Is Not Ultimately Desirable

Death, or if I put it this way, the intermediate state is not ultimately what we’re after. An intermediate state is something that’s made necessary only because of sin and judgment, and there’ll be this awful dissolution of this body to go through, and there’ll be this unnatural separation of body and soul. Paul’s final goal, what he’s looking for, he says, is not death; it’s not the intermediate state. What he longed for was the eternal state. And I think the Apostle Paul would have sung very joyfully with us that song: “Oh joy, oh delight, should we go without dying.” That’s what he’s saying here. I want to live to that day when Jesus comes.

Because Jesus stands on the other side of death, we can tolerate it. As we’ll see in a second and as we’ve already seen briefly, there’s a sense in which we will call it even better. But death is still a dreaded enemy even though the stinger has been pulled out of it in a significant way. The Bible does not ever endorse a merely romantic view of death. It’s an enemy. And it’s an awful experience. It’s not something we look forward to and we shouldn’t pretend that we do. It’s just that—and here’s lesson number three:

Even Though The Intermediate State Is Unnatural And Incomplete, It Is Still Better

Even though the intermediate state is unnatural and incomplete, it is still better. Because, verse 8, there it tells us, the soul will be at home with the Lord. So far as the soul is concerned, it will be salvation complete. Perfect sanctification in the joyful presence of the Lord Jesus. And I have to point out here, notice in verse 8, there is no room for purgatory. There’s no period of time between. There’s no being purged from your sin and suffering so that you be rid of them. But immediately ushered into the presence of Christ to behold his face.

And because of that, Paul says, even though this condition of a bodiless soul is so unnatural, it is better, and I would rather. Now again, Paul is not questioning divine providence, he’s not having a death wish—it’s not that I want to go out and kill myself, it’s none of that kind of thing. It’s just that there are other considerations like the will of Christ to serve him here and all of that. But all else considered, all things considered, being here in this body, as natural as that is, and as unnatural as being out of the body would be—given that out of the body, I’ll be in the very presence of Christ—that is what I would rather have. And so it is better.

And so today we fear death on one level, but on another level we don’t. Because in death we will enjoy the immediate presence of Christ while we wait for his return and the reuniting of body and soul. And so Paul’s chief joy then is found not in simply being at home in the body. His highest joy is found in being at home with Christ. And that will be so glorious that even the awful thought of the dissolution of this body, and even the unnatural thought of being in soul without my body—all of that pales in comparison to the glory of being with Christ in the intermediate state.

And this is the New Testament idea of hope. It focuses finally on the resurrection, the second coming of Jesus. But we are not asked to imagine that somehow death will be a pleasant experience, that we can enter into it in some kind of romantic way. But we are given every ground of hope that even in death we are safe because passing through death we will gain and be better in the presence of Christ.

I mentioned at the outset that the title that B.B. Warfield gave to this passage was “The Christian Attitude Toward Death.” It was a sermon he preached at a memorial service for the death of one of his colleagues, Charles Augustus Aiken, in 1892. He finished up his sermon here with something I think is worth reading to you, making reference to Dr. Aiken who had passed and so many others like him who had entered into their rest. He says:

While yet our farewell to them on this side of the separating gulf was sounding in their ears, the glad hail of their master was welcoming them there. May God grant to each of us to follow them. May he give us his Holy Spirit to sanctify us wholly and enable us, when we close our eyes in our long sleep, to open them at once, not in the terrified pain and torment, but in the soft, sweet light of paradise, safe in the arms of Jesus.

Fourth Observation: Even Though The Intermediate State Is Marked By The Glorious Presence Of Christ, A Greater Glory Will Be Ours In The Resurrection

Even though the intermediate state will be marked by the glorious presence of Christ, a greater glory will be ours in the resurrection. Glorious as that intermediate state then will be—even though unnatural and separated from body, glorious because in the immediate presence of Christ—glorious as that will be, it’s not our final glory. It’s just a foretaste and another step toward our final glory in resurrection.

Because one day, Jesus will come and call up all who are his. All who are sleeping in Jesus will be caught up with Him and raised to be like Him. And at last we will know what it is to be redeemed body and soul and rejoicing in the very presence of Christ with all that God has promised now given to us in full. That’s the anticipation that Paul is looking forward to in verse 2: “that in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” He repeats it in verse 4: “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.” This is what he says in Romans chapter 8, where we are waiting while we groan in this fallen creation, waiting for the redemption of our bodies, the resurrection of the dead.

That is in that case then finally we will realize all that God has promised and we will be all that we were created to be. And we may be sure that all of this will come about precisely because our Lord has traveled that way ahead of us. Our Lord has passed through death. But he did it as the substitute of all of his people, bearing our sin and taking all of our curse, and having exhausted the wrath of God against our sin, having exhausted the full curse of God against sin. God raised him from the dead, and when he raised him from the dead, Jesus did not rise from the dead simply on his own, but he rose from the dead as the representative head of all of his people, and we follow along with him in his train.

That’s the biblical New Testament view of resurrection. Not that just he was raised and we will be raised, but that we are joined to Jesus Christ in his death and we are joined to Christ in his resurrection so that just as on the cross he took our sins and took us with him so that our sin was judged, so also in his resurrection he brings us with him and so that we inevitably will be raised because Christ our head was raised as well. This is what we sing every Easter. We ought to sing it more, it’s really great: “So are we now where Christ has led, following our exalted head, joined with him in his resurrection.” We then will share in his glory and in all that God has promised for us.

This is the Christian attitude then toward death. And this is why John Wesley could say, or rather boastfully, “Our people die well.” It’s not that we like death. It’s not that we want death. It’s not that we look forward to death. It’s just that looking through death, we see things that are even better. And beyond that, we see things that are still better than that. And this, of course, then is the value of Jesus Christ. This is the urgency of the gospel. Apart from Jesus Christ who took our sin, you have no hope facing death. But in Jesus Christ we have every hope facing death—in both the intermediate and finally in the eternal state, raised with him to be like him. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, we are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in which we have hope. We are grateful for your Word that has made plain for us all that we need to know in order to maintain hope. I ask that you would encourage the hearts of your people today in it. We say with the Church of all of the ages, looking through all of this, even so, come, Lord Jesus. Hasten that day, we ask. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.