Therefore We… Live For Eternity 2 Cor 4&5

Live For Eternity

English Standard Version Chapter 4

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Though we suffer we endure. We keep courage. Why? The suffering is preparing for us for glory as we look to things not seen instead of things seen. We look to the eternal

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Our Heavenly Dwelling

5 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.

We have a tent. A temporary dwelling. Our bodies. He is talking about bodies in the first clause, he is continuing the same line of thought. It is also the same line of reasoning from verse 14. Even if its destroyed we have a building made for us by God. The heavenly dwelling is referring to the permanency.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,

We long and groan for the time where the tent is gone and the new has come. We long for our resurrected bodies. Mortality physical vulnerability. Groans for new heavens and new earth with resurrected bodies, not death. Rom 8:23-25 .

English Standard Version Chapter 4

3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.

Adam was found naked or bodiless? Which is Paul saying here. If Adam it refering to the judgment in verse 10 where he will not be found naked becasue of the resurection in Christ.

Paul’s confident longing to inherit the eternal life of the age to come is supported by his desire to escape God’s judgment. In terms of his metaphor, the apostle is “burdened” because he does “not wish to be unclothed” (i.e., found naked or condemned at the judgment of God), but “clothed” (i.e., vindicated at the judgment of God by his resurrection). If “nakedness” is seen as a metaphor for being under God’s judgment, then there is no reference to an intermediate state in this verse. Moreover, Paul focuses on his longing in the present, not his whereabouts between his death and the final resurrection. The desire not to be “unclothed” when judgment takes place is supporting evidence that the believer will indeed be “clothed” when it occurs (5:5, 9–11).

I think Nakedness is referring to bodiliessness. The whole passage talks about the glory waiting for us. It compares the temporary to the eternal, and says the eternal is what we long for.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

4 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. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

We groan for our resurection bodies, we want the mortal death bound life to be swollowed up by the glorious eternal life.

God is preparing for us (17) and prepared us for Glory

The holy spirit is our first taste of eternity. He is a down payment. Our expereince of the glory of God now.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.

Home in body/home with God is either intermediate state or referring generally to the fact that now in the body is not heaven. Here and now you do not yet “see” the glory that is prepared for us in God fully.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

We have courage. Please the Lord= not focusing our attention on things seen, but on things unseen and eternal.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

10 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.

What is the judgement? Believers do not face condemnation at the tribunal (rom 5:16, 18, 8:1) but rather evaluation with the masters commendation geven or witheld (1 Cor 3:10-15, 4:5)