April 1, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 5:6 - "Christ the Hope of Glory"

2 Corinthians 5:6

"Therefore, we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:"

This verse highlights the temporariness of our earthly existence in contrast to the eternal glory that awaits God's elect—those for whom Christ, as their perfect Substitute, paid the sin debt in full. In this present life, we dwell in frail, perishable bodies, burdened by sin and weakness. Yet, for those redeemed by sovereign grace, this earthly tent is not our true or permanent home. Our confidence rests not in the flesh, but in the finished work of Christ, who has obtained for us an everlasting inheritance by His death on the cross. As the apostle Paul declares in Ephesians 1:4-5, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." This divine election ensures that all whom the Father has given to the Son would be redeemed in time, justified by His effectual Sacrifice, and ultimately glorified in Him.

While we are "absent from the Lord" in this mortal state, we nevertheless live in the blessed Hope and assurance that in God's appointed day, we will be clothed with immortality and dwell eternally in Christ's presence. This Hope is not based on human effort or merit but solely on the sovereign grace and redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the Substitute alone, Who bore our sins and obtained our eternal redemption as elect sinners. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:7-8, " (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

The flesh that we inherited from Adam is a broken and corrupt shelter. As the psalmist declares, "Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah" (Psalm 39:5). Our earthly tabernacle is a temporary tent, built on sand. As the apostle Paul attested in Romans 7:18, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." The only deliverance from these earthly, sinful tents in which we dwell is death.

Our body is a tabernacle, comparable to the tents in which the people of Israel dwelt in the wilderness. Those tents were not designed to be permanent. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:1, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Just as the tents in the wilderness were earthly and temporary, so too is our fleshly body, yet our heavenly tabernacle (Christ) is eternal. We can only put off this earthly tabernacle when we die. Peter, understanding this, wrote in 2 Peter 1:14, "Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me."

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. We must be cast out of these sinful fleshly bodies either in death or at the coming of the LORD Jesus Christ. As Paul proclaims in 1 Corinthians 15:50-55, "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This passage speaks to the believer’s unwavering confidence, not in self, but in the finished work of the LORD Jesus Christ. When the LORD Jesus died, rose again, and ascended on high, He did so for His chosen seed, the elect of God, so that His death was their death, and His resurrection and ascension were also theirs, being in Him as their Representative. As God's elected, redeemed, and justified children, our assurance is rooted in Christ's work alone, decreed by the Father, made effectual by His sacrificial death, and now dwelling in His Perfect Righteousness alone, our Hope of glory.

Though we dwell in this earthly tent, longing for the fullness of His Presence, we are not left in doubt, for Christ has obtained our eternal redemption for each one given Him by the Father. "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Hebrews 9:12. By His grace alone, we walk by Faith, and not by sight, knowing that our pilgrimage here is but a passing moment before we enter into the glory He has prepared for His elect, as Christ Himself promised in John 14:2-3, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." The LORD Jesus fulfilled this in going to the cross. It was there that the place was prepared by His shed blood unto death. He came again to His disciples in His resurrection, and in His ascension took with Him the souls of each of His redeemed ones, where their place is forever reserved in Him, Ephesians 2:6-9.

Therefore, we take heart, knowing that our life is hidden with Christ, and in Him, we shall be raised in glory, clothed in immortality, and forever with the Lord. Colossians 3:3-4, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."