2 Corinthians 5:1-11 - Our Hope and Warning

2 Corinthians 5:1-11

Assurance of the Resurrection

1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. 4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

The Judgment Seat of Christ

9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.

We as believers are given a certain expectation of resurrection and judgment of rewards as promised to us by the Lord.  This body we now have is corrupted by sin and left unchecked by the tree of life once available to mankind in Eden’s Garden.  It will be destroyed by death and rot away in the grave, but we have been shown that it will also be raised to a new life (Romans 8:11) just as our spirits have been already in Christ (Romans 6:4-5, Galatians 2:20, 6:14-15) as promised by faith.  It is therefore appropriate that our bodies are referred to as tents here in scripture since we are sojourners traveling through this life into eternity where the incorruptible permanent vessels await us all, whether in the presence of the Lord or in torment away from seeing His face as Matthew 25:46 and John 5:29 tell us plainly as we had been told before in Daniel 12:2 to prepare us for the coming of the Christ to make this possible.  We therefore also groan in anticipation to be transformed in body as in soul in this resurrection to come as the template was shown in the rising of our Lord Jesus Christ from the grave to give us assurance and peace in the truth of it all.  Yes, our mortality will certainly be swallowed up by eternal life and we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18)!  We can be certain of this promise because He has given us His own Spirit to live in us that we might understand these truths and know we have been sealed with Himself as proof of being His now and into eternity.  He is our guarantee of the promises and hope we eagerly wait for (Romans 8:25, Galatians 5:5, Philippians 3:20-21) as our mortality is swallowed up by this eternal life.  We walk about through life by faith in His word and work as certain promises back up the hope we have in Christ, with confidence that we will be one day absent from this corrupt flesh in the very real and unending presence of the Lord!  We are called therefore and given many examples in scripture to aim at pleasing God and not living for the passing pleasures of sin as we invest in eternity.  We will be held accountable by reward or loss (1 Corinthians 3:14-15) but not of the presence of our Savior who promises eternal life which cannot be forfeited or taken away from His grasp of us (John 10:28-29) if once saved to be always saved.  This is the hope and warning we present in the gospel to all who will hear and heed as God knows us and of whom we bear witness of to the world.