START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
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OBSERVE:
There is an old saying among Bible students — When you see a therefore in the text, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for?
In this case, the text picks up the previous discussion in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 concerning the hope of eternal life. Paul first boldly states the promise that physical destruction means merely that the Christian will receive a permanent home in heaven. He uses metaphorical language from his trade as a tentmaker, recognizing that tents are only temporary homes for pilgrims and travelers:
For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).
Furthermore, he wrestles with the Christian dilemma — longing to be home in the heavenly dwelling, the believer groans and wishes to be home with the Lord. Nevertheless, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they have already received assurance about their future through the Holy Spirit:
Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5).
That is, the Christian has a sense of assurance — a credit or down payment in this life as a promissory note for the future hope.
Therefore, Paul is saying as our passage picks up, the Christian has confidence because of the guarantee that the Spirit has given. He also returns to his perennial theme of faith, recognizing that there is a difference between the now and the not yet of the heavenly dwelling:
for we walk by faith, not by sight.
The believer’s assurance of heaven is grounded in faith alone.
Interestingly, Paul seems to present a kind of dualism between the body and spirit. Those who walk by faith are:
willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
This is fascinating because we are told by most Biblical scholars today that the Bible knows nothing of immortality separated from the resurrected body. The normal understanding of eternal life, they tell us, is always embodied, beginning on the day of resurrection when all shall be raised:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
Is Paul here suggesting a disembodied life after death? We should note that he says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:4:
For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
In other words, the dead may be away from their physical body, but they will have a heavenly body.
In any event, he uses this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that there is still a moral demand on their lives in this life:
Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.
He reminds them that there will be a day in court for all people:
For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Our lectionary reading skips from verse 10 to verse 14. Verses 14 to17 address the implications of the new reality introduced by Christ:
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
The believer’s identity is now shaped by the love of Christ because the believer no longer lives for themselves but for Christ. Identification with Christ means dying with him to sin and self, and being raised to new life in him.
Paul also suggests that there is a new relationship not only with Christ, but with everyone. Paul says:
Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
The Greek word for flesh (sarx) may describe the body, but the metaphor here is deeper. Paul seems to mean that the flesh is human nature as opposed to the spirit. Therefore, once there is a new relationship with Christ, the believer’s understanding of Christ and of other people transcends mere human limitations. The believer now sees the world from a spiritual perspective.
Paul thus declares:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
The believer really lives in the world, but not of the world and sees the world through a new lens as a new creation in Christ.
APPLY:
Obviously I have merely touched on a debate going on today concerning the New Testament view of eternal life, immortality and heaven.
On the one hand, I’m tempted to simply say, “We’ll know bye and bye.” But that would be a little cowardly.
The issues are a little too complicated to explore here. One group believes that at death even believers experience a kind of “soul sleep” until the day of judgment and the general resurrection. Others believe just the opposite, that the day of judgment happens for each of us personally when we die, and we are immediately received by Christ through his grace.
Perhaps there is a “middle way” here that is supported by scripture. Why must it be either/or? Why not both/and?
Paul declares in Philippians 1:21-22:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose.
His expectation of immediate union with Christ suggests that he will experience eternal life upon his death.
Moreover, Jesus tells Martha:
I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).
Perhaps the answer to this paradox, between the immediacy of eternal life and the promised resurrection and embodiment at the end of the age lies in a third way.
Paul himself makes it clear:
flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50).
Moreover, earlier in the same passage, he points out that the resurrection body will be a body, but a transformed body:
The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).
The body that we will have in the resurrection will be a transformed, glorified body — perhaps not unlike the body in which Jesus appeared after his own resurrection? He was obviously not merely a ghost — he could be touched, he could eat, he still bore the scars of his torture — and yet his body seemed also to transcend time and space, appearing and disappearing at will!
In any event, whatever our speculation, Paul makes it clear what our primary business is in this life:
Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him [i.e., the Lord].
And that is the same conclusion Paul comes to in his own journey — that though he might prefer to be home with the Lord, the Lord has a mission for him to accomplish. And so do we!
RESPOND:
I find speculations about heaven and the afterlife and judgment day fascinating — up to a point. It’s when we Christians begin to insist that we know exactly what it will all be like, when the end will come, and all the events leading up to that day, that I begin to get uncomfortable.
How can any of us know what lies ahead? We have been given the down payment of the Spirit which gives us the assurance of our salvation and eternal life. And we walk by faith, not by sight.
In the meantime, we are to live lives that are pleasing to God in the here and now. Moreover, we are to live as a new creation in Christ!
Lord, I thank you for all the benefits that you have given us, including the promise of eternal life. I long to be united with you forever, but I know that you have a purpose for me here in this life. And so for now, as your Word says, ‘I walk by faith, not by sight.’ Amen.
PHOTOS:
Background texture for “Therefore. What’s it there for?” is “Chalk Board” by Dave Linscheid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.
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