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Good morning friends, it’s Saturday June 29 and today we’re reading the wonderful 5th chapter of 2 Corinthians.
Corinth was a very religiously diverse city, as I’ve told you, with a wide array of religious beliefs, especially related to death and the afterlife. That’s why again in chapter 5, Paul clarifies some of the unique perspective of God’s truth on death and life after death.
Paul begins chapter 5 with “…we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling…”.
Now perhaps you are remembering Jesus’ words to His friends in the upper room, the night before His crucifixion. He said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)
Now let me ask you… are Paul and Jesus talking about the same thing? Tents, heavenly buildings, rooms, dwellings?
No my friends.
Jesus was talking about the concept of a large family all living together in the same large house, or homestead, as was the tradition of many middle-eastern families in those days. It gave the disciples comfort, that after their death, Jesus would gather them, and all God’s people, all in the same heavenly place, to be with Him forever. That’s what we saw in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, when Jesus returns to earth to gather up God’s people, to be with Him forever.
In 2 Corinthians 5:1 Paul is talking about our earthly bodies, “…the earthly tent we live in…”. As you continue to read in vs. 2-9 you’ll see Paul giving some specific details of our Christian faith, regarding death. In vs. 2&4 the groaning Paul speaks of, is what we saw in chapter 4 vs 16. These bodies we have are remarkable, but as they age, they decay, and we’re all experiencing the aches, pains and medical challenges related to ageing. The more our bodies succumb to the ageing process, the more we long for the day we’ll have resurrected, heavenly, glorified bodies, which are ageless, painless, and very much like the resurrected body Jesus had on Easter Sunday, right? 1 Corinthians 15 gave us great detail about our future resurrected body, remember that study, 6 days ago?
Note verse 5. Paul is declaring all this is by God’s design. Conception, pregnancy, birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, elderly, death, and resurrection with a new body…it’s all God’s design. Now that was shocking to the Corinthians my friends, because NO other religion was claiming this. Some religions in Corinth, as today, said there is nothing after death. Others said, the human soul is immortal and floats around in space, and will never again have a body. But Jesus proved, with His resurrection, that God’s design is resurrection for all, with an eternal body, and the Holy Spirit living in Christians now, is God’s guarantee that this is His future for us!
I’m sure you’ve heard the statement “absent from the body is present with the Lord”. Have you wondered where that’s found in the Bible? Well, here it is… 2 Corinthians 5:8. Let’s start in vs. 6: “…as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.” Our physical bodies keep us captive here on earth. We are not able to be here and in heaven with Jesus at the same time. “We live by faith, not by sight”, Paul wrote in vs 7, and it means, we cannot see heaven with our earthly eyes. But from where-ever we live, with our spiritual eyes of faith, we can see heaven as described here in God’s Word the Bible, and so we live in anticipation of a place we’ve never seen, but we are confident it exists, and is waiting for us!
“We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” There it is, vs 8…absent from the body and present with the Lord. And do you see Paul declaring this is his preference, his longing? In fact later this summer we’ll read Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi, and there he writes “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain…Yet what shall I choose, I do not know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body…” (Phil. 1:20-26)
So Paul is inviting the Corinthian Christians to live like him…in two places at the same time. Bodily here on earth, while at the same time anticipating and even seeing with spiritual eyes, the day we’ll be together in heaven, in our resurrected bodies. No other religion offers that hope and it’s only found in the resurrected Jesus Christ! And that’s why in vs 9 Paul says our ultimate goal in life is to “please Him, whether we are at home in the body, or away from it.” Of course ‘away from it’ means we have died here, and left our earthly bodies here, and have been brought immediately into God’s presence.
Now Paul knows the human heart, and that too easily such wonderful future promises might lead people to live selfishly and without any thought to morality, thus notice he quickly cautions us, with vs 10. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him, for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” Yes my friends. Link this verse with Hebrews 4:13 and you will see there will be an accounting, for every human being who has ever lived.We will each stand, alone, before the Lord Jesus Christ, giving an account, for how we lived our life here. This judgment is also referred to in Revelation 20:12 “And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. …the dead were judged, according to what they had done as recorded in the books…and each person was judged according to what he had done.”
Friends, let there be no mistake… EVERYTHING every human being has ever said or done, is known to Holy God, and we will be held accountable to HIS Holy standard.
But what about the blood of Jesus and the forgiveness from God which it has earned for us? Oh yes, praise God, 1 John 1:9 is true…confessed sin is forgiven. And Psalm 103:12 is true, God removes our transgressions from us as far as east is from west.
So when we stand before God, in this judgment, seems to me there are two possibilities. First, that everything we’ve ever done or said, that is dishonoring to God, is revealed to us by Jesus, but at the same time, we will hear over and over again, the Lord Jesus saying something like… “That is forgiven, I paid for that with My blood, and you trusted me and repented, therefore it is forgiven.” Can you imagine what that would be like?
OR… there will be no mention at all of all the sins you and I have committed which have been covered, forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus. Either way, what a remarkable difference for those who have trusted in Jesus, and repented of their sin, and received forgiveness, and those who have not!
Beginning in verse 11, Paul leads us on a remarkable path of purpose. Every living person has the daily privilege of deciding what they will do with that day of life. Days become weeks. Weeks become months, and months years… a lifetime. When we think of that, two words come to mind… reputation and legacy. Each of us builds our reputation and our legacy with each day we live. And here, Paul is suggesting an idea, a concept for the Corinthians Christians that is so far beyond normal living, it almost takes your breath away.
Look closely at verse 14-21, oh my it is remarkable. Paul says it is the overwhelming love of God for humanity that compels Christians in how they live their lives. Because Jesus died to redeem the human race, then the single greatest potential of my life and yours is that we live each day for Him. “He died for all, that those who live should not live for themselves, but for Him who died for them, and was raised again.” Wow! It’s clear isn’t it. So think about it for a moment…what would be like if you and I and every Christian lived each day the rest of our lives FOR Jesus? Everything we did and said, intended to honor and glorify and please Jesus!
Therefore, Paul says, we would not see people in the traditional way… we would see all people through the eyes of Jesus, and have the love and compassion of God them, and a deep desire that they would all come to know Jesus!
In fact, do you see vs 17-20? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation: the old is gone, and the new has come! All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ… We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal [to the world] through us!”
Now friends, take that one phrase at a time… it’s clear enough I don’t need to explain it. The question is… will you own it?Will you accept the invitation to be commissioned by God, as a personal ambassador, a representative of Jesus Christ, to every person you meet, for the rest of your life? Will you allow yourself to be convinced God is actually “making His appeal” through you? He is reaching to those who don’t know Him, don’t believe in Him, don’t trust Him… through you and me, those who are His redeemed people. . .everywhere in the world! It is beyond normal human comprehension! And for the Christians in Corinth, it was simply outrageous, staggering, unbelievable!
Now give me one more minute, I just have to touch the last verse of chapter 5. “God made Him who had no sin, to be sin [be a sin offering] for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
It means God sent His Son Jesus to the cross, to take upon Himself your sin and mine, so that God could then pour our His wrath against sin upon His Son Jesus. Then, with God’s justice accomplished, He could then take Jesus’ holiness and apply it to you and me, and those whom He forgives. It’s the great exchange!
In theological terms it’s called “propitiation” and 1 John 2:2 explains it even more… “…Jesus Christ, the Righteous One is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world.” Do we really understand this remarkable concept my friends? It is the very core, the central point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Christianity! No other religion or spiritual faith system comes anywhere close to this.
So now as we read 2 Corinthians 5, let’s do so with tears streaming down our face in profound gratitude and the certainty of heaven, and the incredible life purpose of living each day as an Ambassador of Jesus Christ!
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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