12 Facing Death Confidently
(2 Corinthians 5:1–8)
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (5:1–8)
As he penned 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 terminal persecution. Both unbelieving Jews and Gentiles sought to take his life, viewing him as a danger to their religion (cf. Acts 13:50; 18:13), their economic prosperity (cf. Acts 19:23–27), and even to their political stability (cf. Acts 17:6). The apostle’s sense of imminent death comes through repeatedly in this epistle:
For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. (2 Cor. 1:8–10)
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. (4:7–12)
He described his life as “dying yet behold, we live; punished yet not put to death” (6:9), and “often in danger of death” (11:23). 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 heralding of the gospel, since it was that preaching that enraged his enemies and thus jeopardized his life. Being less confrontive would have mitigated the threat he faced. But the more the hostility and persecution escalated, the bolder Paul became. He never wavered in courageously proclaiming the truth. Because he faced death confidently, even gladly, that triumphant perspective caused him to write, “[I] prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (5:8), and “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. … “I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Phil. 1:21, 23). And because he did not fear death, Paul did not fear persecution, pain, or suffering; he was able always to be “of good courage” (2 Cor. 5:6, 8).
This passage builds on the truths Paul revealed in 4:16–18, when he wrote that no matter how difficult his circumstances were, he “[did] not lose heart,” because “though [his] outer man [was] decaying, yet [his] inner man [was] being renewed day by day.” He understood that “momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (4:16–18). He gladly suffered in this world for a far greater reward in the world to come.
For all, death comes like an utterly unsympathetic landlord waving an eviction notice. But that eviction merely releases believers from a wretched earthly neighborhood to an infinitely grand and glorious dwelling in a heavenly neighborhood. For the believer, then, the sorrows, disappointments, and suffering of this life are worse than death. Death releases believers from the relatively dilapidated slum in which they now live and ushers them into a room in the house of the eternal Father in the heavenly city.
Knowing that, Christians should not fear death. They should long “to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Phil. 1:23). That does not mean, of course, that they are to be foolishly reckless or careless with their lives; their bodies belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19–20). But an obsessive concern for one’s physical well-being or a morbid fear of death is inconsistent with a Christian perspective. Believers should long for heaven like a prisoner longs for freedom, like a sick man longs for health, like a hungry man longs for food, like a thirsty man longs for a drink, like a poor man longs for a payday, and like a soldier longs for peace. Hope and courage in facing death is the last opportunity for Christians to exhibit their faith in God, to prove their hope of heaven is genuine and to adorn their confidence in the promises of God.
From this passage four motives for facing death confidently emerge: The next body is the best, the next life is perfect, the next existence fulfills God’s purpose, and the next dwelling is with the Lord.
THE NEXT BODY IS THE BEST
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (5:1)
The “eternal weight of glory” Paul described in 4:17 includes a new body. That truth was of great comfort to the apostle, whose physical body had been so mercilessly battered by the effects of the Fall, personal sin, hardships, illness, the rigors of life, and persecution that he longed for his incorruptible, immortal resurrection body.
Paul’s confident assertion for we know indicates that believers’ glorified bodies are not a remote possibility or a vague wish. They are a fixed reality, a settled fact based on the promise of God (Rom. 8:18, 23; 1 Cor. 15:35–49; Phil. 3:21), not philosophical speculation or mystical fantasy.
Paul wrote if instead of “when” because, though he was ready to die, he did not see his death as inevitable. He viewed the return of Jesus Christ as imminent and believed it was possible for him to live until the Lord returned. That was his deepest desire, as his use of the plural pronoun “we” in passages describing the Rapture indicates. In 1 Corinthians 15:51 he wrote, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.” To the Thessalonians he wrote,
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:15–17)
If he could not live until the Rapture, Paul preferred “to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). He expressed that same truth to the Philippians when he wrote of his “desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Phil. 1:23). Remaining on in the flesh was only his third choice.
The phrase if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down refers metaphorically to death (cf. Isa. 38:12). As a tentmaker himself (Acts 18:3), Paul chose to use the analogy of an earthly tent (the physical body) to describe the soul’s temporary house in this world (cf. 2 Peter 1:13–14). Speaking of the incarnation of Christ, the apostle John used the verb skēnoō, (lit., “to live in a tent”) to depict the eternal God coming into the world and taking a human body (John 1:14). A tent is an apt metaphor for the human body, which is a temporary home for the eternal souls of those whose real home is in heaven (Phil. 3:20) and who are aliens and strangers in this world (Gen. 47:9; 1 Chron. 29:15; Ps. 119:19; Heb. 11:13; 1 Peter 1:1, 17; 2:11). Just as the tabernacle of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness was replaced with a permanent building when Israel entered the Promised Land, so the temporary tent in which believers now dwell will be replaced one day in heaven with an eternal, imperishable body (1 Cor. 15:42, 53–54).
After death dismantles believers’ earthly tent, they have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. A building suggests something on a solid foundation that is fixed, secure, and permanent. Since it replaced his earthly tent (his physical body), the building from God Paul referred to must be his glorified body, which he would receive after “He who raised the Lord Jesus … raise[d him] also with Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:14).
In Romans, written shortly after 2 Corinthians, Paul expressed the same longing for his glorified resurrection body:
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? (Rom. 8:18–24)
The entire created universe, subjected to futility by the Fall, will one day “be set free from its slavery to corruption” (v. 21). In that glorious and longed-for day, writes Paul, believers will experience “the redemption of our body” (v. 23).
Paul longed for his glorified body not primarily because it would be free of physical weakness, blemishes, 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 of flesh, sold into bondage to sin” (Rom. 7:14); “sin … dwells in me” (Rom. 7:17, 20); “evil is present in me” (Rom. 7:21); and “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). The apostle longed to serve, worship, and praise God in absolute purity, freed from the restrictions of his fallen, sinful flesh. That is the best feature of resurrection reality.
Paul further described the glorified, resurrection body as a house not made with hands. It is not a procreated, physical body. Referring to Jesus’ words in John 2:19, the false witnesses at His trial said, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands’” (Mark 14:58). They misconstrued those words as a reference to Herod’s temple, but in reality Jesus “was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:21)—that is, His resurrection body. Paul used the same phrase in Colossians 2:11 when he wrote, “you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” But perhaps the most definitive use of the phrase not made with hands is in Hebrews 9:11: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.” That verse equates not made with hands with “not of this creation.” It therefore refers to what is spiritual, transcendent, and eternal, not to what is earthly, physical, and temporal.
Paul gave the most detailed description of believers’ resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15:36–49. He wrote that section of his epistle in reply to those who asked, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” (v. 35). Paul answered that question in four ways.
First, he gave an illustration from nature in verses 36–38:
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.
There is no way to extrapolate from the plain, simple, ugly appearance of a seed the magnificent glory of the flower, tree, or plant that will grow out of its death. So also the glory of believers’ immortal, resurrection bodies cannot be imagined from our perishing, physical bodies.
Second, Paul gave a series of comparisons in verses 39–42a:
All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.
Just as the bodies of men, beasts, birds, fish, heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies differ from each other, so also will the resurrection body differ radically from the physical body.
Third, Paul listed a series of contrasts in verses 42b–44:
It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
The physical body is perishable, sinful, and weak. In contrast, the resurrection body is imperishable, free of sin, and powerful.
Finally, Paul gave the prototype of believers’ resurrection bodies in verses 45–49:
So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
Just as they have physical bodies like Adam’s, so believers will one day have glorified bodies like Christ’s. To the Philippians Paul wrote, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20–21). The apostle John wrote, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).
THE NEXT LIFE IS PERFECT
For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. (5:2–4)
The twice-repeated phrase for indeed expressed Paul’s intense longing for heaven and the certainty that he would one day enter its glory. But in the meantime, for all believers, in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. Those who love the Lord Jesus yearn for the next life “when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:54). Paul was weary of the frustrations, disappointments, limitations, weaknesses, and sins of this present life and longed “for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). The apostle passionately longed to be clothed with his dwelling from heaven. Paul’s mixed metaphor (putting on a building as if it were clothing) refers to his resurrection body and the perfections of eternal life, which would replace forever the debilitating, sin-caused corruptions of life in this world and set him free from his fallen humanness.
The phrase inasmuch as we (v. 3) carries the same thought along and means that since verse 2 is true, and he will put on the new body, he will not be found naked. To be naked, then, is to be only a soul without a resurrection body. The apostle’s hope of a future glorified body was in sharp contrast to the philosophical dualism that permeated Greek culture. That philosophy taught that matter is evil and spirit is good. Therefore the ultimate goal for its adherents was to be freed from their bodies and to become disembodied spirits. William Barclay writes,
Greek and Roman thinkers despised the body. “The body,” they said, “is a tomb.” Plotinus could say that he was ashamed that he had a body. Epictetus said of himself, “Thou art a poor soul burdened with a corpse.” Seneca wrote, “I am a higher being and born for higher things than to be the slave of my body which I look upon as only a shackle put upon my freedom. … In so detestable a habitation dwells the free soul.” Even Jewish thought sometimes had this idea. “For the corruptible body presses down upon the soul and the earthly tabernacle weighs down the mind that muses on many things.” (Wisdom 9:15).
With Paul there is a difference. He is not looking for a Nirvana with the peace of extinction; he is not looking for absorption in the divine; he is not looking for the freedom of a disembodied spirit; he is waiting for the day when God will give him a new body, a spiritual body, in which he will still be able, even in the heavenly places, to serve and adore God. (The Letters to the Corinthians, rev. ed. [Louisville: Westminster, 1975], 204–5)
Philosophical dualism posed a dangerous threat to the early church. Paul warned Timothy about Hymenaeus and Philetus, two false teachers at Ephesus who taught that the resurrection had already passed. They likely argued that believers’ identification with Christ’s death and resurrection was the only resurrection there is and denied the future resurrection of the body. The Corinthians had been so influenced by that dualistic philosophy that Paul had to write an entire chapter in 1 Corinthians defending bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15). Even after Paul addressed the issue in 1 Corinthians, it apparently still remained an influence.
The pagan Greeks may have felt that their souls needed to be freed from their bodies before they could enter the highest state of bliss, but not Paul. Therefore he reminded the Corinthians that when his earthly tent was dismantled by death he would not exist forever as a naked disembodied spirit. He was not looking for release from his body but for the perfections of his resurrection body. So passionate was his longing that Paul’s desire was to experience the Rapture, when living believers’ physical bodies will be instantly transformed into their glorified bodies (1 Cor. 15:51–52). He knew that if he died before the Rapture, he would have to wait until then for his glorified body (1 Thess. 4:16). The saints in heaven are awaiting their resurrection bodies, which is why the writer of Hebrews refers to them as “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:23).
Repeating the phrase for indeed to emphasize his point, Paul reiterated the truth that believers, while they are in this tent, groan, being burdened. Paul repeated this fact in Romans 8:23: “We ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” It is the crushing burden of sin and affliction believers experience in their physical bodies that makes them yearn for their spiritual bodies. Repeating his disdain for soul nakedness, Paul emphasized again that he did not want to be unclothed as a disembodied spirit, but to be clothed with his glorified body. Then, what is mortal will be swallowed up by the fullness and perfections of eternal life, and believers will be like their risen Lord. Like John, they “know that when He appears, [they] will be like Him, because [they] will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).
Summarizing Paul’s point, Augustine, the great theologian of the early church, wrote
We are burdened with this corruptible body; but knowing that the cause of this burdensomeness is not the nature and substance of the body, but its corruption, we do not desire to be deprived of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality. … If Adam had not sinned, he would not have been divested of his body, but would have been clothed upon (superinvested) with immortality and incorruption, that his mortal (body) might have been absorbed by life; that is, that he might have passed from his natural body to the spiritual body. (Cited in Philip E. Hughes, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992], 171.)
THE NEXT EXISTENCE FULFILLS GOD’S PURPOSE
Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. (5:5)
What is yet future for believers was prepared by God in the past and unfolds according to His plan and will. In eternity past, God sovereignly chose believers for salvation; in time, he redeemed them; in the future, He will give them their glorified, resurrection bodies. The phrase for this very purpose emphatically states that believers obtain their glorified bodies in fulfillment of God’s sovereign plan from all eternity, bound up in His elective decree. In Romans 8:28–30 Paul wrote the familiar words,
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
God’s ultimate purpose in salvation is not justification but glorification, when believers “become conformed to the image of His Son” (v. 29). And being transformed into Christ’s image includes receiving a glorified body like His (1 Cor. 15:49). Jesus swept through the fulfillment of the eternal decree from calling to glorification when He said,
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:37–40)
So God’s glorious purpose for believers stretches from eternity to eternity. It was planned in eternity past and will be fulfilled in eternity future; time is but a fleeting moment in the middle. No matter what level of spiritual maturity they attain or how effectively they serve God, the divine purpose will only be fulfilled in a glorified body.
Further reinforcing the apostle’s confidence in facing death was the knowledge that God gave to us the Spirit as a pledge (down payment; first installment; guarantee; cf. 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14). The indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5; 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:19–20) is God’s promise that His ultimate purpose for believers will be fulfilled. “For I am confident of this very thing,” Paul wrote to the Philippians, “that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). Nothing can interrupt that process, as Paul emphatically declared in Romans 8:35–39:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things pres ent, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The indwelling Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that believers are His possession and that He will redeem them to the praise of His glory. For that reason it is ludicrous to believe that Christians can lose their salvation. Nothing can interrupt the plan God set in motion in eternity past (election) and has pledged Himself to carry through until eternity future (glorification). To argue otherwise is to assume that God is incapable of achieving His purposes and thus to diminish His glory.
THE NEXT DWELLING IS WITH THE LORD
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (5:6–8)
In verses 6–8 Paul reached the pinnacle of heavenly anticipation. He looked forward to his new, glorified body, the perfection of heaven, and the eternal fulfillment of God’s plan. But beyond all of that was the wonderful reality that death would usher him into the presence of the Lord. Therefore points back to the foundational truths Paul expressed in verses 1–5. On the basis of those truths, Paul was always of good courage in the face of death. His courage was not a temporary feeling or a passing emotion; it was a constant state of mind. He faced death cheerfully, with complete confidence. It was not that he did not love the people in his life, but he loved the Lord more. Life for Paul was a race to finish, a battle to win, a stewardship to discharge. Once the race was over, the battle won, and the stewardship discharged, Paul saw no reason to cling to this life. The only reason for him to remain on earth was to serve God, and he stated his readiness to leave when that service was complete:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:6–8)
The reality of life in this world for believers, however, is that while we are at home in the body (living in the flesh) we are absent from the Lord. Believers communicate with the Lord through prayer and study of the Word and have communion with Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Yet there is still a sense in which they are separated from God and long for that separation to end. Psalm 42:1–2 expresses that desire: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?” “Whom have I in heaven but You?” the psalmist asked rhetorically. “And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Ps. 73:25). Paul longed for the day when he would “always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). That sense of separation caused Abraham to look for “the city … whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10) and the Old Testament saints to acknowledge “that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). It is only in heaven that believers will have intimate, un broken fellowship with God (cf. Rev. 21:3–4, 22–23; 22:3–4).
The parenthetical statement in verse 7 that we walk by faith, not by sight explains how believers can have fellowship with and serve the invisible God in this life. Such faith is not a wishful fantasy or a vague superstition but a strong confidence grounded in the truth of Scripture. It is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
Then Paul concludes the passage with the triumphant declaration, we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. He repeats the truth from verse 6 that he was always positive toward the future despite the constantly looming reality of death. To prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord is to understand the brief, temporary time on earth only as an alien’s and stranger’s experience and heaven as our true and permanent home.
The reality of death faces every believer who dies before the Lord raptures the church. Those who look forward to receiving their glorified bodies, to the perfections of life in 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, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55).