PAUL was no coward. When he had something to say, he usually didn't hesitate to say it. Especially was he forth right and unhesitating about what he believed. This characteristic is nowhere better exemplified than in his under standing and teaching of the promise of immortality. As we approach the Easter season, it's appropriate to study again what he has to say on this tremendously significant subject.
The New English Bible* version of 2 Corinthians 4:13 to 5:10 helps us understand that there were three certainties that Paul claimed he knew.
Certainty One—"We know that so long as we are at home in the body we are exiles from the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6). In our present condition we are physically separated from God, exiled in a sense. The main purpose of the gospel is to enable us to break this separation.
Certainty Two—The second certainty the writer of the Epistle presents is phrased this way: "If the earthly frame that houses us today should be demolished, we possess a building which God has provided—a house not made by human hands, eternal, and in heaven" (verse 1). In other words, when the body is demolished by injury or disease, one dies and the soul ceases to be. The "house" decomposes to dust. How do we then possess another building? One of the scriptural promises is that the righteous dead shall live again. And living again should make a body or "house" necessary according to the Genesis formula (body+breath of life=soul). So the saved person may be confident now that should he die he "possesses" a building in escrow, if you will, in safe keeping until such a time as he needs it, which in his case will be the resurrection day. The new body, house, or building will be endowed with immortality from the very start. It is designed and arranged in heaven without the touch of the human hand.
Certainty Three—Paul expresses his third certainty in 2 Corinthians 4:14 and 15: "We know that he who raised the Lord Jesus to life will with Jesus raise us too, and bring us to his presence, and you with us." Thus the promise of a literal future resurrection was a certainty to Paul. It is evident that he was confident that all the righteous who had preceded him and who would follow him in death would one day be resurrected and brought into God's presence.
Along with Paul we must realize that we live a sternly realistic life. It is true that our humanity is in decay (2 Cor. 4:16). Our earthly frames will be dis solved (chap. 5:1). We are oppressed (verse 4). We groan indeed (verses 2 and 4) with our present troubles (chap. 4:17). We yearn for the change (chap. 5:2), all of this because of the separation from God that sin imposes. These are, admittedly, undesirable aspects of life. But this is life!
But not all is so gloomy, for there are hopeful and happy aspects that make life well worth while. Paul wrote that we are being renewed inwardly day by day, so we do not lose heart (chap. 4:16). Our eyes are fixed on things that are unseen, for what is unseen is eternal (verse 18). Our troubles really are slight, and we know that they will be short-lived and their outcome an eternal glory that far outweighs them (verse 17). Hence, like Paul we should never cease to be confident (chap. 5:6). Also God has given us His Spirit as a pledge of this promise of eternal life (verse 5). So we, by faith, live on these promises with the ever-present guidance of the Holy Spirit. What is faith but believing, trusting in God, and being willing and perfectly contented to do God's will? Faith indicates that we are happy with God. And this is the real life!
Would you rather die and later be resurrected to eternal life? Or would you prefer to be translated to eternal life, never to die? It appears that Paul considered this question and that his answer was the same as ours would be. He preferred and wanted to be translated into eternal life! And his friends had the same desire. Here is how he stated it: "We do not want to have the old body stripped off" (2 Cor. 5:3,4). It becomes clear that they did not want to die and thus be involved in the inter mediate state awaiting the resurrection, for again he repeated, "We do not want to have the old body stripped off. Rather our desire is to have the new body put on over it, so that our mortal part may be absorbed into life immortal" (verse 4). In fact, "We yearn to have our heavenly habitation put on over this one in the hope that, being thus clothed we shall not find ourselves naked" (verse 3). Rather than experiencing death and the decomposition of the present body and passing through an intermediate state of awaiting the resurrection of the body, Paul wanted to have the habitation of heaven, the immortal body simply put on over his present body in a momentary transition from this life to life eternal. This is termed translation without seeing death. And it sounds like Paul not only desired such translation but yearned for it.
However, Paul realized that although he desired translation very much, it likely would not be his experience. Perhaps he realized that much must transpire before Christ's return and the consummation of all things. But he was happy with his second choice, the promise of a resurrection, for he wrote: "We are confident, I repeat, and would rather leave our home in the body and go to live with the Lord" (verse 8). Notice that leaving the body is an altogether different expression and thought than having the heavenly habitation put on over the present body. It clearly refers to the death of man.
At death the so-called intermediate state begins. What was Paul's under standing of the intermediate state? Was it an immediate going to and living with the Lord? Not so. In this expression Paul was stating the sequence but not the timing; for he had a clear under standing of the sequence of death, the grave, and the resurrection.
Notice how plainly he spells this out in his letter to the Corinthians: "But Scripture says, 'I believed, and therefore I spoke out', and we too, in the same spirit of faith, believe and therefore speak out; for we know that he who raised the Lord Jesus to life will with Jesus raise us too, and bring us to his presence, and you with us" (2 Cor. 4:13, 14). Paul would someday die, and at various times so would the readers of his letter. Paul would be raised one day, and along with him so would the readers of his letter, and together, then, they would be brought to God's presence.
This reflects Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where he clearly indicates that the resurrection of the redeemed will be "afterwards, at his coming, those who belong to Christ" (1 Cor. 15:23). In 1 Corinthians 15:52 Paul speaks again about life after death at the time when the last trumpet sounds. "For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise immortal."
Resurrection of the Redeemed
In another letter, this one to the Thessalonians, he states,, "For this we tell you as the Lord's, word: we who are left alive until the Lord comes shall not forestall those who have died; because at the word of command, at the sound of the archangel's voice and God's trumpet-call, the Lord himself will' descend from heaven; first the Christian dead will rise ... to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thess. 4:15-17). What a meeting and what a greeting are in store for the Christian dead!
Though it seems Paul could hardly draw himself away from thoughts of translation, still he was a practical man, understood priorities, and made the statement that he made it his ambition, wherever he was, here or there, to be acceptable to God. Like Paul we, too, do not see God, but faith is our guide just now. And knowing that "we must all have our lives laid open before the tribunal of Christ where each must receive what is due him for his conduct in the body, good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10), we should look with confidence to the promise of Christ's coming and deter mine to be either among the Christian dead waiting for His return or among the Christian living who greet their coming King.
* The texts in this article are from The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1970. Reprinted by permission