June 26, 2005

PRESENT WITH THE LORD

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

 

   "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved (if we died), we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (we have the promise of a glorified heavenly body) 2. For in this (body) we groan (because of impending death), earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (we desire greatly to experience the replacement of this groaning body with a glorified body without enduring death) 3. If so be that being clothed (clothed with the new body) we shall not be found naked (dead, with no body at all).

   4. "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan (in the mortal body we groan), being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed (we do not want to die and thus be naked), but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life (we desire our new bodies to simply swallow up the old, just like Isaiah 25:8 was quoted in 1 Cor. 15:54, "Death is swallowed up in victory."). 5. Now He Who has wrought us for this selfsame thing is God, Who has also given unto us the earnest of the Spirit (we have God's earnest, His pledge which assures us of fulfillment). 6. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body (still living in this mortal body), we are absent from the Lord (describes our present status): 7. (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) (that is, we believe and trust God for the new body of glory even though we do not see it yet) 8. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord (in a glorified body. We cannot be "with the Lord" except in a body of glory like His) 9. Wherefore we make it our aim, that, whether present or absent, we may be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (in glorified bodies); in order that every one may receive the things done in his body (that we may be rewarded for things done in mortal bodies during this life), according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad (2 Cor. 5:1-11)."

Ivan L. Burgener