07 Why We Should Not Fear Death (2 Corinthians 5:1-11)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the seventh talk in our series on 2 Corinthians, and we will be studying 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 1 through 11. Have you ever been overwhelmed by all the challenges in life or felt how fragile life can be? In our passage today, Paul shares how as an apostle he had to face death daily, and he faced it with hope and courage. And we'll explore how that same quiet confidence can shape the way we face our own challenges today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're blessed by today's study. Well, we are still in the section of 2 Corinthians that began back at the end of chapter one, so let's review how we got here. You'll recall that Paul had a very troubled relationship with the church in Corinth. Some folks in Corinth don't think that Paul is charismatic enough or sophisticated enough as a teacher, and they have rejected him as an apostle, and some of them think that he can't be trusted because he said he would come visit them and then he didn't. And since chapter one, Paul has been explaining to them how they should view his ministry. As we talked about, he repeats three themes through this section. The first is that he is not adequate to produce the results his ministry has been producing. He's just a man, he's not capable of coming up with something as powerful and wise as the gospel, and in one way he agrees with them. He is kind of a loser, he's not sophisticated and charismatic the way they want him to be. Nevertheless, God chose him to be an apostle, and God is producing these great results. The second theme is that Paul speaks with openness and integrity. He is not a salesman, he does not manipulate the gospel so that more people will like it, he doesn't change his presentation to win more converts. Instead, he sincerely speaks the truth as if he were standing in the presence of God himself. And the third theme is that the gospel is superior to the old covenant because through his spirit God is transforming his people. The old covenant law was a set of external commands, but we still had a problem. We had rebellious hearts, and the law was powerless to change our internal rebellion. Under the new covenant, God's offering a new deal, he forgives us because of Jesus, and then he gives us his spirit to cut out the rebellion of our hearts so that we follow him. And as we've seen, Paul has been walking a tightrope. On the one hand, he's claiming that his gospel is hugely important, but on the other hand, he wants to make clear he's not bragging about himself. His job is to preach the gospel, and understanding the gospel is a matter of life and death. Therefore, his ministry is incredibly important, but not because he, Paul, is a big deal, it's because his message is a big deal. In the last podcast in chapter four, Paul gave two reasons why he didn't lose heart. Even though he suffers as an apostle, first, he doesn't lose heart because God has given him this great ministry. Yes, it's true that while many reject him and he suffers many things, those who are called by God do find life through his gospel, and so his sufferings bring the message of life to many, including the Corinthians. And second, he doesn't lose heart because God is teaching him through these sufferings. He's learning to focus on the eternal glory that awaits him rather than focusing on the temporary sufferings of today. And we started to talk about that theme last time, and Paul is going to continue that into chapter five. Before I read from chapter five, let me remind you once again that Paul uses the pronoun we throughout 2 Corinthians to refer to himself. So he is speaking in the plural, but he means I, Paul. And in this section, Paul is going to say that God gave us the Spirit as a pledge. And I would argue that Paul is still talking primarily about himself. He is talking about his own perspective on his own destiny in the midst of his struggles as an apostle. But in this case, God has given the spirit as a pledge, not only to Paul, but to all believers. Sometimes Paul is saying, This is how I respond to my circumstances as an apostle, and sometimes he is saying, This is how I respond to my circumstances as a believer. When he talks about himself as a believer, I think we can apply that directly to ourselves as believers. But when he talks about himself as an apostle, we have to step back and ask, does that also apply to all believers? And if so, how? So this is a question of Bible study methodology, and I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that Paul's purpose throughout this letter is to talk about himself. He is trying to get the Corinthians to understand him and view his ministry the right way. Now it will be true that many of the things he says about himself will be the sorts of things that you and I should embrace as well because the same thing is true of us as believers. Paul has made it clear from the beginning of the letter that as an apostle he is constantly confronted with the possibility of his own death. In chapter one, he talked about the difficulty of his ministry. He said it was so hard he thought he was going to die. He sees life as an apostle as facing the hostility of the world, and he described that as living out the death of Christ. Now that kind of hostility and rejection could cause anyone to lose heart, but he said in the last chapter, he doesn't lose heart. His hope grows and thrives because he has his vision fixed on things that are eternal. By having his vision fixed on the right things, his inner man does not fall into despair, even though outwardly he is suffering greatly. As he said in chapter four, he preaches the gospel because he himself believes it. He preaches it for the sake of others, but also for his own sake so that he might be a believer and enter into life. His present experience is difficult and discouraging, and if he just focused on that, he would lose heart, but instead he thinks about the unseen promises of God. God has promised that believers will inherit glory, and he knows his suffering in this world is temporary and will pass away, it will come to an end, but the glory that God has promised is eternal. So this age and its suffering will not last, the next age and its glory will last forever. And that's where we pick up his thought in chapter five. Let's start with the first four verses. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it sounds like Paul is mixing up his metaphors here. He speaks of longing to be clothed with our dwelling in heaven. So he's talking about it like a house, but he's also talking about it like clothing, or at least the words he's chosen typically are used in that way. But I think the images work together. Both of them can be thought of as a covering or as a kind of protection. Don't think of clothing here as adornment, but as protection, something that covers me, protects me, and takes care of me. I think that's the idea he's exploring here is that we have an inner self that is housed, clothed, and protected by the body. And the issue under discussion is losing that protection. When my body is gone, what happens to me? Where is my metaphorical house? Where is my metaphorical clothing then? As Paul puts it, if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, but one that is eternal in the heavens. Now I think Paul is echoing a beautiful passage from Isaiah that talks about how what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. In Isaiah twenty five, Isaiah is speaking of a day in his future when God would finally come and rescue and redeem his people. And he says this, this is Isaiah chapter twenty five, verses six through eight. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined, and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. Now I can't prove it, but I think it's quite possible that the language of this passage is influencing what Paul says in chapter five of Second Corinthians when he talks about death being swallowed up. And for Paul, this is not abstract or theoretical. For Paul as an apostle, suffering and death are an ever present reality. He groans in this life. He is under the constant threat of death, and that burdens him, that puts emotional pressure on him. But his hope is that when he dies and he loses this temporary tent, his current clothing, he will not be left naked or unprotected. He longs for the new clothing, the new house that will protect him when he dies, and that is exactly what God intends to do, and he tells us that in five five. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. Now there are two important ideas here. First, is this God's idea. God intended from the beginning to give us eternal life. God promised to prepare new eternal bodies for us that replace our earthly temporary ones. And second, God guarantees that his people will arrive at this new life one day through the work of the Spirit in their lives today. And as we've seen, this has been a strong theme throughout Second Corinthians. Paul keeps bringing up this transforming aspect of the gospel, the idea that the Spirit of God reaches out and works in his people to bring them to a very good end. Now this is the second time that Paul has used this language of the Spirit as a pledge or a down payment. He said his ministry is better than the ministry of Moses, because his ministry concerns the Spirit writing on our hearts and spiritually changing us and removing our rebellion. Our hope for the future is secure because God is working on us now to ensure we arrive there and we see evidence of that as the Spirit changes us. So the Spirit guarantees that Paul will indeed arrive at new life in a new body, and Paul can have confidence in that hope because of the work the Spirit is doing in him now, and so as a result, he can face death with courage, and that is true for all of us believers. He goes on in six through eight. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord, so whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. Now in one sense what Paul is saying in these verses is very clear and very simple. As he has been saying from the beginning of this letter, his ministry involves constant suffering and the threat of death, but he can face this threat of death, this loss of his earthly body with courage because he knows that life in this body is not the end. It's not even the best life. Here in this world he is apart from the Lord, he's apart from Jesus, and he knows it's better to leave this body and go to that existence where he will be with Jesus forever. I think that part is fairly clear and most everyone agrees that's what Paul has in mind. But in the history of reading Second Corinthians, people started speculating about how exactly this life after death works, and there is a debate between a two-stage view of bodily existence and a three-stage view of bodily existence, and a lot of that debate comes from how you understand this passage in Corinthians. The three-stage view argues that stage one is our earthly body in this world, then we die, and in stage two we have a bodiless spiritual existence in heaven, and then finally when Jesus returns, we enter stage three, where we are resurrected and gain new eternal bodies. The two-stage view argues that stage one is the bodily existence in this world, then we die, and stage two is the next event that we will experience, which is immediate from our perspective, and that is our bodily resurrection with Christ. Now, as I said, some of the debate centers around this passage in Second Corinthians. People speculate from the language here. What does Paul mean by being away from the body and at home with the Lord? What does he mean by groaning? What exactly does it mean to be naked or unclothed? Now, my personal and good for nothing opinion is that building theology on a metaphor puts you on shaky ground at best. It is very easy and very tempting to take a metaphor and run off in all directions that the author never intended the metaphor to go. Paul is speaking in metaphors and he expects us to understand from the context the point he is making, and I'm not sure he means to say anything beyond the point he is making in context, which we just talked about. But let me review the arguments on each side so you can see the interpretive decisions they're making because this again is a lesson in Bible study. Here are the arguments as I understand them at this point. Everyone agrees that stage one is the earthly existence in a fallen world with physical bodies that decay. Everyone agrees that we get our resurrected body when Christ returns. Paul makes it clear in other letters that God resurrects his people into a new body when Jesus returns, at the second coming, the last trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and we will be changed, and Paul talks about that in other letters. The question that's debated is what happens in between? What happens between death and Christ's return? Are we essentially asleep, which is what the two stage folks argue, or are we awake and conscious in a disembodied state with Christ, which is what the three stage folks argue? Now the people who argue for a three stage experience understand this phrase in Second Corinthians 5 8, the phrase away from my body and at home with the Lord, to mean our souls depart from our physical bodies and are immediately present with Christ in a disembodied state. They understand the language of being away from the body as suggesting a conscious existence apart from a physical body. Further, they would argue that this idea of groaning for the resurrected body, which we see in two through four, implies a current state of incompleteness. We groan because we lack a tent or a building. We are in a temporary disembodied state and we want to get back to an embodied state. They understand the tent to be this earthly body and the building from God to be the resurrected body which comes later. And then they bring in passages like Luke 2343, where Jesus says to the thief on the cross, Today you will be with me in paradise, and Philippians 1 23, where Paul says his desire is to depart and be with Christ, they bring those passages in as emphasizing the soul's immediate communion with God after death. Proponents of the two stage view also interpret the tent as our current earthly body and the future building from God as the resurrection body. But they argue the groaning happens while we were in this tent. We aren't groaning because we lack a body, we are groaning because we have a physical earthly body that is subject to decay and we long for the resurrected body. They understand the phrase away from the body and at home with the Lord to mean away from this earthly body, not away from anybody at all, just the earthly one, and at home with the Lord in our resurrected body. They argue that the nakedness or the unclothed state mentioned in three and four is something that Paul dreads, something he wishes to avoid, and that suggests it is not a desirable intermediate state of disembodied consciousness. Rather, it is the tragic state of death itself, which is overcome at the resurrection. They argue the next conscious moment after death will be Christ's return and the resurrection. So Jesus can say to the thief, Today you will see me in paradise, because it is the very next thing the thief will know, and Paul can say he wants to depart and be with the Lord for the same reason. They argue that we will not perceive the passage of time in death, and they call this soul sleep. Now the two-stage view draws on passages like 1 Corinthians 15, which emphasize the resurrection as our central hope, and 1 Thessalonians 4, where the dead are described as asleep until Christ's return. And they argue that the three-stage view was influenced by ancient Greek philosophy, which had a dualistic view that the spirit was good and the body, the physical, was evil, and that that is more heavily influencing the three-stage view rather than the Bible. Now both sides draw on 2 Corinthians 5, but you can see their conclusions reflect the broader theological commitments and presuppositions that they started with. If you are inclined to a dualistic view that says the soul can exist separate from the body, then you'll lean toward the three-stage view. If you assume a more holistic view where human existence is tied to a body and can't live without a body, then you would lean toward the two-stage view. I lean toward the two-stage view. I think there is no intermediate state, and that when we die, the next thing we will know is the day when Christ returns and raises us from the dead. So from our perspective, there's no break in experience. We move from this life to the return of Christ. That's the way I'm leaning. But if you convinced me otherwise, if you could show me another passage or something that made it very clear, I'd say, great. Doesn't matter to me whether there's an intermediate stage or not. What is really important is that Jesus claims us as his and grants us forgiveness and a resurrected body. I'm not going to quibble about what happens in the meantime. Now, as I said before, I would classify this whole debate as an issue of deriving doctrine. It seems obvious to me, at least, from the context, that Paul did not intend to explain what happens after death in this letter. He's using this metaphor to make a different point. And what we are debating in this two-stage, three-stage view is how far to take that metaphor. And in my good for nothing opinion, neither view has rock solid ground to stand on. We can speculate, we can try to put the pieces together, but I don't think this is a hill we should die on and we shouldn't fight our brothers and sisters over it. We should be able to say there's a lot of interpretive dancing going on here, and the other side has just as much chance of being right as whatever side I favor. And I think it's crucial to see that no matter which side you Land on the two stage or the three-stage, it doesn't change Paul's essential point. Paul's essential point doesn't depend on the details of life after death and how they work out, at least if I'm understanding him right. What he's saying is his ministry involves a constant suffering and constant threat of death. Paul faces that death, this loss of his earthly body with courage because he knows something better is coming. Here in this world, he is apart from Jesus. It is better to leave this body and go to an existence where he will be with Jesus forever, and if his opponents succeed in killing him, then he'll be with Jesus sooner. So his courage in the midst of his suffering is grounded in his confidence that death is not the end. And that point is true no matter which side you take in the debate. As we continue on in verses nine through eleven, we see that the idea of eternal life doesn't only give Paul hope, it also changes his perspective on how he lives each day. Let's look at nine through eleven. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade others, but what we are is known by God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. So as I understand what he's saying here, the issue for Paul is who are you going to fear? By straightforwardly preaching the gospel, sometimes, oftentimes, Paul faces hostility and the threat of death. How does he go into that situation? Well he faces it with the confidence that no human being can truly harm him. No one can change or steal his eternal destiny. He fears the Lord, the one who judges, the one who is ultimately going to decide his eternal destiny, and that Lord is Christ, the judge of all mankind. And that brings us to another controversial question in Christian circles. What is the judgment seat of Christ? And what are we talking about here? Who or what is being judged? And there's another debate over that. I'm going to come back to that question in a minute. First, let's talk about what is clear in this passage and what most everyone agrees Paul is saying. Paul is telling the Corinthians how he thinks about his ministry. He knows that he's going to face some sort of judgment before Christ, so he makes it his ambition to live a life that is pleasing to Christ, and in particular, he conducts himself with the fear of the Lord. There's a great difference between how he thinks of his relationship to other people and his relationship to God. As far as other people are concerned, all Paul can do is try to persuade them the gospel is true. Some embrace the gospel as true, and some reject it and try to kill him. With God, however, Paul knows that his life is an open book. God clearly sees his actions, his words, his thoughts, and his motives. The people he speaks to may not understand him, they may not get where he's coming from, they may not understand what his gospel is about, but God knows him perfectly, God knows his heart and his motives, and so as Paul pursues his ministry, it makes much more sense to worry about how God will react to what he's doing than how these other people are going to react. It is the judgment seat of Christ that will determine his destiny, not the reaction of his listeners. And then at the end he adds this very poignant wish. He hopes that his motives are also transparent to the Corinthians. He says, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others, but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. So he said God knows his heart and his motives, and he hopes that the Corinthians would also see his heart and his motives, and that they would not reject him. They have known him for a long time, he has sacrificed himself for them over a period of years, and he says, I know God clearly sees my motives, and I wish that you would see me that clearly as well. And in a way, I think that's the entire theme of this letter. Paul is expressing his wish that the Corinthians would see him and his motives clearly as he understands it. Now let's talk about this debate over the judgment seat of Christ. The debate is who faces it? Will only believers face the judgment seat of Christ or will all people, both believers and unbelievers, face it? Some scholars argue that 510 refers to a judgment specifically for Christians, and they support that view by noting that Paul uses the first person plural pronoun we, therefore, he must be speaking to the church about the church. At this point, I imagine if you've been listening long enough, you know what I think about the pronoun issue and how I would evaluate that argument. I have argued that Paul frequently refers to himself in the first person plural. Those who argue that this is a judgment of believers argue that this is not about salvation. Salvation is secured through faith, but this judgment is to evaluate our works and therefore hand out our rewards in heaven. They claim Paul is talking about a second judgment that only believers will face that determines things like crowns and jobs and individual rewards in heaven. They focus on this phrase in 510, what was done in the body, as being a judgment that assesses our faithfulness, our service, and our obedience. They see the phrase good or evil also in 510 as referring to the quality of our deeds, were they effective or were they worthless, not a moral evil leading to condemnation. And to support their view, they argue that the Greek word translated judgment seat refers to a raised platform for rewards given to the winners of a race or competition. It does not refer to the bench where a judge sits in a criminal trial. They would also point to passages like 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul says that believers' works are tested by fire and they receive rewards or suffer loss but remain saved. They argue that when believers appear before Jesus, of course salvation is not at stake, but we will have rewards distributed to us based on how well or not well we did in this life. And those rewards will be things like stars in your crown, being given greater responsibility and ruling over others in heaven. Now when we hit the relevant passage in 1 Corinthians, I did a special bonus episode of the podcast where I went through the passages and arguments surrounding this issue of rewards in heaven. And I'm not going to cover all that ground again. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes if you want to go listen to it and go into more detail. I'll just summarize briefly here how I understand the argument. I think the key issue is understanding what the Bible says about the relationship between faith and works. And I would argue that the Bible teaches two big themes about faith and works. Theme one, we are saved by faith and grace alone. None of us will be saved based on our merit or how well we performed. We are sinners, and apart from the grace of God and the blood of Christ, we will be condemned. If we're going to be saved, we will be saved solely on the basis of God having mercy on us because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And that is a key teaching of the Bible. Alongside that teaching is the one we have seen in this letter, that faith makes a difference in how we live our lives today. This is the transforming work of the Spirit we've been talking about, and I would call this theme too. The Spirit changes us in real and tangible ways, and that produces changes in how we live our lives today. So we have real repentance and grief over sin. We desire to be holy, we long for the life God offers, and we try to live in accordance with His teachings because we love Him. Does that mean we will never sin again? No, we will continue to sin. Does that mean that perfect obedience is within our grasp? No, but over time our lives will change and we will increasingly make wiser choices. And I would argue the Bible teaches both of those truths, both of those themes. The Bible says both, we will not be judged by our works, and we will be judged by our works depending on which of these two themes the passage is talking about. When the Bible talks about believers being judged by our works, I think it is talking about theme two, that is, what we do reveals whether or not we have faith. Genuine saving faith changes us, and if we don't see those changes, then we don't have faith. We are not judged by our works in the sense that we have earned a place in heaven or a higher place in heaven or rewards or anything like that. In my humble good for nothing opinion, I think the people that teach we are earning rewards in heaven are mixing up theme one and theme two. And they are looking at passages which talk about theme two and saying, well, that's not theme one, so it must be this other thing, rewards in heaven. But there is another possibility, and that is the Bible is talking about theme two. And I would argue whenever we come to a passage that appears to say that believers are judged by their works, we should consider: is this passage talking about this idea that faith changes me and my works will reveal what I truly believe? So I don't see any problem with the idea that the judgment seat of Christ that Paul is talking about here in 2 Corinthians, it could be for all mankind and it could be for believers. Christ will judge all men as to whether they have lived as people of God, whether they have done good or bad, not in the sense of are they sinners or not, because we're all sinners, but whether we have lived our lives in a way that reveals we trust God or not. In the Gospel of John, in chapter five, Jesus talks about how God has given it to him to be the judge of all, and that he is going to raise everyone, and we will be judged on whether they did good or bad, and some will enter into eternal life and some will not, and I think he's talking about theme two there, that our lives reveal whether or not we follow God, and that that language would fit very well with what Paul is saying here in Corinthians. So don't misunderstand me. I am keenly aware of the fact that if I am judged on whether or not I am a sinful, weak, fallible human being, then I am guilty. If that's the criteria for getting saved, then I'm not getting saved. Then thankfully the Bible teaches that there's another way to be saved, and that is through faith, and that is theme one. But theme two is also true. Saving faith makes a difference. It makes such a difference that Jesus can look at how we lived our lives and tell if we have it or not. Our lives will express the reality of our relationship with God. They don't show complete moral perfection because we're not morally perfect yet, but they do express our faith, and that's the idea that Paul's getting at here. Alright, so let's wrap all this up and figure out what we learned today. Paul has said the hope of eternal life affects how he conducts his ministry in two ways. First, it gives him courage as he faces hostility and death. He can face death with courage because he knows there is a better life ahead of him. And second, it teaches Paul who to fear. It doesn't matter what other people think of him, it only matters what God thinks of him. So Paul doesn't worry about how people react to him, his job is to persuade them if he can, no matter how they respond. And in any case, he conducts himself with integrity and honesty, knowing that his life is an open book to God, and God sees his motives and his heart, and he hopes the Corinthians will see that as well. In spite of all the trouble in their relationship, he hopes that they will see him clearly for what he is. Now, in many ways, this is about Paul. Paul is talking about himself and his relationship with Corinthians and how they should view him. But in another sense, Paul is not just talking about himself. There's a sense in which each of us must do this. Everyone faces the same issue that Paul faced. The hope that gives him courage is the same hope that every believer has. The fear of God that motivates him is the same fear that every believer should have. We should seek to have our inner man renewed in the same way that Paul did by focusing on the hope of the gospel. When you and I think about death, we should be able to reach a point where we see it as a comfort and an incentive. And I know that is not an easy thing to do or an easy thing to say, but this is what Paul believes. The comfort is that God gives us an eternal weight of glory. He intends to give us eternal life with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. That's his purpose. That's what he set out to do. That's what the Spirit of God is bringing about even as we speak today. And the encouragement for us when we face really hard situations like Paul did is to recognize that our destiny is in the hands of God and his Messiah, Jesus Christ, and that is secure. No one can change that or take that away from us. And our calling is to live our lives in light of that hope and to focus on it when life gets hard. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also teaches you how to figure it out. The blog version of this podcast is on wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Corinthians 7. You can find all the episodes in this series on my website as well as many other series. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please rate or review it wherever you listen, because it really helps people find the program and spread the word. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned, and maybe where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can hear his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.