The Believer's True Weight

Introduction:

We see much to disturb us taking place in the world.

World events

Personal events

Growing older?

Paul has explained to the Corinthians, a second time, that he is not “fainting.” (2 Cor. 4:16).

He told them reason #1 for this.

2 Cor. 5:17.

Today, we will see him expand ideas from 2 Cor. 4:18 and develop a second reason why he does not faint.

We will also be reminded, therefore, of the value of building a sound theological understanding of the Bible’s teachings.

Knowledge Informs Our Living

The contemporary world takes a very narrow view of knowledge usually asserting that knowledge comes through living alone.

Paul differentiates between not seeing and not knowing. Just because we do not see something, i.e. that we experience it, does not mean we cannot know it is true.

We can learn from God.

God, through his word, has provided truthful information enabling us to live life, as much as possible, based upon knowledge.

Eternal Life is neither Here nor in This Body

Also from 2 Cor. 5:1, we should be very careful to notice how Paul distinguishes between the temporal and the eternal.

“Earthly house of the tent”

If that tent-house might be destroyed, we are having, note the tense, a dwelling place that is eternal.

Paul does not merely mean we have a place to go.

He primarily means we have an eternal body to inhabit.

It is not a constructed home that will decay and collapse.

It is an eternal home.

Notice that Paul speaks of having possession of it now although we do not (present tense in 2 Cor. 5:1).

The Real Struggle

Paul will carry this thought through 2 Cor. 5:4 where he will also expand upon it.

Paul faced a real dilemma.

So do we.

Philippians 1: strait betwixt two

Paul portrays himself, and others, has having an eager desire to be dressed (in) our little house which is from heaven.

Now, he adds the metaphor of dressing and undressing.

As our society moves farther away from having a grasp on reality, we also see unspiritual attitudes toward death that begin to creep into the public conscience. At the outset, we should consider that the Bible would warn us against extremes. We are to be stable, sober minded people. In other words, we are supposed to handle whatever we face in life with sound minds and with self-control. We are not to be people who become trapped with thinking about death. The Bible does refer to us, in our Adamic state, as enslaved to death and as those who live in fear of death because of that slavery. But, it is equally not the case that we should never wish to think about our own mortality. Some people treat death as something never to be discussed and funerals as something rarely to be attended.

What produces the sighing is the presumption that upon death, we will not be found naked, that is that there is an eternal reality that awaits, and especially that there is an eternal body that awaits.

For the third time (2 Cor. 5:4), Paul repeats, “we are sighing.”

He states the desire most clearly at the end of 2 Cor. 5:4.