Going Home
5: 1-8
Going home DIG: What does Paul mean by comparing an earthly body to a tent? What is he saying about the state of our life on this earth? How can you balance longing for heaven with the need to accomplish God’s purposes for you here on earth? What are some of the ways you seek to maintain an eternal perspective? How are you walking by faith and not by sight?
REFLECT: What is your attitude toward death? Not that you want to die, but does it feel like you would be going home, or are you, in some way, still clinging to this world? Are you looking forward to a trade-in on your used body for a new, eternal one? How so? What legacy has been passed on to you from your family regarding how their death is approached?
The day of our death will be better than the day of our birth.
As he wrote this letter, Paul was facing death on a daily basis. Hostility swirled around him, animosity was constant, and so was the reality and threat of opposition and deadly persecution. Both unbelieving Jews and Gentiles sought to take his life, viewing him as a danger to their religion (Acts 13:50 and 18:13), their economic prosperity (Acts 19:23-27), and even to their political stability (Acts 17:6). The apostle’s sense of imminent death comes through repeatedly in Second Corinthians (1:8-10 and 4:7-12). How did he face the reality that he, like a soldier in the front lines, constantly lived on the brink of death?
Some might have expected Paul to tone down his fearless preaching of the Good News, since it was his preaching that enraged his enemies and thus jeopardized his life. But the more hostility and persecution he faced, the bolder Paul became. He never wavered from proclaiming the truth. Because he faced death confidently, that triumphant outlook caused him to write: For me, life is the Messiah, and death is gain . . . I am caught in a dilemma: my desire is to go off and be with Messiah for that is far better (Philippians 1:21 and 23).
Knowing that, believers should not fear death. Death merely releases us from the relatively dilapidated tent, our earthly body (5:2), in which we now live and ushers us into a room in the house of the eternal Father in the heavenly city. That does not mean that we should be foolishly reckless or careless with our lives because our bodies belong to God (6:19-20). We should long for heaven like a prisoner longs for freedom, like a thirsty person longs for a drink, like a sick person longs for health, like a hungry person longs for food, like a poor person longs for a payday, and like a soldier longs for peace. Hope and courage in facing death is the last opportunity for us to exhibit our faith in ADONAI, to prove our hope of heaven is genuine and to further develop our confidence in the promises of God. From this passage four motives for facing death confidently emerge.127
The next body is the best (5:1): For we know. How do we know? Because we trust the Word of God. No believer has to consult a fortune-teller, a Ouija board, a spiritist, or a deck of cards to find out what the future holds or what lies ahead on the other side of death.128 This initial for points to the explanation this verse will provide for the implications of previous verses (to see link click Ba – Renewed Day by Day), which are closely connected. To know something, in the sense expressed here, means more than having information, or having a theoretical understanding of some concept. Rather, Paul knows about the resurrected body because he knew the resurrected Messiah.129 Paul’s confident assertion for we know indicates that believer’s glorified bodies are not a remote possibility or a vague wish because the Ruach Ha’Kodesh has been given as a down payment, guaranteeing our future.
Paul longed for his glorified body not primarily because it would be free of physical weakness and defects, but because it would be free of sin. The tent of the body is sin’s home, causing Paul to lament: I am bound to the old sin nature, sold to sin as a slave (Romans 7:14); sin is housed inside me (Romans 7:17b and 20b); and What a miserable creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for death (Romans 7:24)? The apostle longed to serve, worship, and praise ADONAI in absolute purity, freed from the restrictions of his fallen, sinful flesh. That is the best feature of the reality of the resurrection.130
Paul was a tentmaker (Acts 18:1-3), and here he used a tent as a picture of our present earthly bodies. For we know that when the tent which houses us here on earth is torn down. The earthly tent is synonymous with our body (4:10), our mortal flesh (4:11), and our outer man (4:16), as well as the clay jar (4:17). Tent life is a ready metaphor for our brief sojourn in this world, and depicts the instability, and thus vulnerability, of our mortal existence. And the verb torn down is particularly appropriate for the image of striking a tent, or the reference to physical death.131
After death dismantles believers’ earthly tent, we have a permanent building from God (5:1a). The assertion “we have” brings up the question, “When do we have it and what do we have?” Do we receive an interim tent at death and have to wait for the coming of Messiah and the first resurrection before we receive our resurrection bodies? I think not. It is more likely that Paul understands the believer to receive the resurrection body immediately at death. It would be a small consolation to know that this heavenly dwelling is only another partial fulfillment of what is to come and that we must wait in limbo until the Second Coming. Kind of a “heavenly purgatory.” Such an interpretation seems to contradict Paul’s statements in Philippians 1:23-24. With the prospect of death looming over him, he confesses that his personal preference is for death (something far better) because he will be with Messiah. We can surmise that it is also better because it will bring an end to his earthly conflict (Philippians 1:29), sorrow piled on sorrow (Philippians 2:27) and affliction (Philippians 4:12). But he concludes that his personal desires will be overruled by Ha’Shem because of the necessity of him returning to the Philippians to strengthen their faith (Philippians 1:24-26). Therefore, “the present tense” we have means that there is no homeless interlude between the destruction of our temporary earthly tent and receiving our eternal heavenly Tent.132 Paul had only two conditions in view since 4:16, the temporary and the eternal.
A building not made by human hands, to house us in heaven (5:1b). Perhaps the most definitive use of the phrase not made with human hands is Hebrews 9:11, “When the Messiah appeared as the High Priest of the good things that are happening already, then, through the greater and more perfect Tent which is not not made by human hands.” The description implies “not made by human effort or ability,” and speaks of something only God can do. Paul gave a more extensive teaching on the resurrection of the dead in his previous letter (see the commentary on First Corinthians Dq – The Resurrection of the Dead).
The next life is perfect (5:2-4): But in the meantime, in this tent, our earthly body, we groan longingly with desire to have around us the home from heaven that will be ours (5:2). Those who love the Lord yearn for the next life when this perishable body must be clothed with imperishability and what is mortal puts on immortality (First Corinthians 15:54a). Paul was weary of the frustrations, disappointments, limitations, weaknesses, and sins of this present life and longed for the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19). When we put on this new eternal body, we will not be found naked. To be naked, then, is to be only a soul without a resurrected body. Yes, while we are in this earthly, temporary body, we groan with the sense of being oppressed. It is the crushing burden of sin that we experience in our physical bodies that make us yearn for our spiritual bodies. Repeating his disdain for soul nakedness, Paul emphasized again that it is not so much that we want to take something off, but rather to put something on over it; so that what must die may be swallowed up by the fulness and perfections of eternal life (5:3-4).133
The next existence fulfills God’s purpose (5:5): Moreover, what is yet the future was prepared by God in the past and unfolds according to His plan and will. In eternity past, ADONAI sovereignly chose believers for salvation (see the commentary on Romans Ae – My Position on T.U.L.I.P. or Calvinism); in time, He redeemed us and in the future He will give us resurrection bodies. The phrase for this very purpose (5:5a) emphatically states that we obtain our glorified bodies in fulfillment of God’s sovereign plan from all eternity past. Paul wrote similar words to the believers in Rome (see Romans Cl – Our Bodies and Redemption).
But how can we be sure that we shall one day have new bodies like the glorified body of our Lord? We can be sure because the Ruach lives inside of us. Further reinforcing the apostle’s confidence in facing death was the knowledge that YHVH has given us His Spirit as a pledge (5:5b). Paul mentioned the sealing of the Spirit earlier in his letter (see An – God’s Seal of Approval). Thus, the Ruach Ha’Kodesh dwelling the believer’s body is the “down payment” that guarantees the future inheritance, including a glorified body (Ephesians 1:13-14). In modern Greek, the word translated guarantees means “engagement ring.” The True Universal Church, made up of Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14), is engaged to Yeshua Messiah and is waiting for the Bridegroom to come and take her to the wedding (see the commentary on Revelation Fg – Blessed Are Those Invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb).134
The next dwelling is with the Lord (5:6-8): Therefore, we are always confident when facing death, we know that so long as we are at home in the body, we are away from our home with the Lord (5:6), The people of God can be found in one of two places: either in heaven or on earth (Ephesians 3:15). None of them is in the grave, in hell, or in any “intermediate purgatory” between earth and heaven. Believers on earth are at home in the body, while believers who have died are absent from the body. Believers on earth are absent from the Lord, while believers in heaven are present with the Lord.
Just as the nine months you spent in your mother’s womb were not an end in themselves but a preparation for life, so this life is preparation for the next. If you have a relationship with YHVH through Yeshua, you don’t need to fear death. It is the door to eternity. It will be the last hour of your time here on earth, but it won’t be the last of you. Rather than being the end of your life, it will be the birthday into eternal life. In that sense, the day of our death will be better than the day of our birth, because the first time we were born into sin. But when we die, we will awaken into the glorious presence of Messiah.135 The Bible says: This world is not our home; we are looking forward to our eternal home in heaven (Hebrews 13:14).
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise you that our Hope of heaven is a for-sure hope. Heaven is certain for those who love and worship Yeshua as Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10). That is such a comfort. We know that we are going home to be with You. In this world of uncertainty, Your love is joyously certain. It is a solid hope, a rock of refuge. The truth of heaven is so strong that nothing that happens in this world can touch Your Almighty power to take Your children to their heavenly home to live with You forever! Messiah’s words are always true, for He is Truth (John 14:6). He said that He was preparing a home for those who love Him! I am going to prepare a place for you . . . I will come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you may also be (John 14:2c, 3b-c). Thank You for your great love. We love You and rejoice in serving You, even when it is hard, for our eyes are on You and our eternal home with You! In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen
The parenthetical statement: For we live by trust, not by what we see, explains how believers can have fellowship with and serve an invisible God in this life. Such trust is not a wishful fantasy or a vague superstition, but a strong confidence, grounded in the truth of Scripture (5:7). Trusting is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).
Paul concludes the passage with the triumphant declaration : We are confident, then, and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and come to our home with the Lord (5:8). He was always positive toward the future despite the constantly looming reality of death. To prefer to leave our home in the body and come to our home with the Lord is to understand the brief, temporary time we spend on earth only as alien’s and stranger’s experience, while heaven is our true and permanent home.
The reality of death faces every believer who dies before the Lord raptures His Church (see the commentary on Revelation By – The Rapture of the Church). Those who look forward to receiving their glorified bodies, to the perfections of heaven, to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for them, and to living forever in His presence, will be able to say triumphantly with Paul, “Death, where is your victory? Death where is your sting” (First Corinthians 15:55)?136
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