“2 Corinthians 5”

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Paul describes the future hope of God's people by comparing a common, ordinary tent to a mansion built by the Great Architect.

“This ‘building of God’ is not the believer's heavenly home, promised in John 14:1-6. It is his glorified body. Paul was a tentmaker (Acts 18:1-3) and here he used a tent as a picture of our present earthly bodies. A tent is a weak, temporary structure, without much beauty; but the glorified body we shall receive will be eternal, beautiful, and never show signs of weakness or decay (See Phil. 3:20-21.). Paul saw the human body as an earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7) and a temporary tent; but he knew that believers would one day receive a wonderful glorified body, suited to the glorious environment of heaven” (Warren Wiersbe, Be Encouraged, page 55).

He spends considerable time in this chapter comparing the time we are at home in this body and absent from the Lord with the eternity he sought, being absent from this physical body, but present forever with God.

In the last part of the chapter, Paul gives two motivations for the work we do for the Lord.

One is the coming judgment. Paul never lost sight of the reality that all of us, Christian and unbeliever, will all stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and give an answer for the things we have chosen to do in this life. There will be both a reward for the faithful and an eternal punishment for the ungodly. He says, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…”

The other is the forgiveness we have received in Jesus Christ and the “ministry of reconciliation” we have been given. When one obeys the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9) of Christ, his sins are taken away. This is what makes it possible for sinful man to be friends with God again. That is the meaning of the word, reconciliation, to make friends again. After a person’s sins are remitted, we become a “new creation.” Old things have disappeared and all things have become new. This is why the Lord is often called, the God of second chances.

All of this is possible through the sacrificial offering of the sinless Son of God on the cross of Calvary. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Amen.

--Roger Hillis

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