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Great.
Lord, we are thine thought by thy blood.
We are thine Thy claims, we own ourselves. To Thee we'd holy give. Reign Thou within our hearts alone, and let us to Thy glory live.
We ask as we open Thy word, that we might have more instruction and help, and that Thou wouldst open to us Thy word and open our hearts to receive it.
We ask this as we give thee our thanks, committing ourselves to thee.
Our loving Father in Jesus name, Amen.
Read in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 For we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be, that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan, being burdened.
Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath brought us for the self, same thing as God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always, always competent, knowing that whilst we're at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. Before 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.
Wherefore we labor that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in His body, according to that He hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, But we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences, for we commend not ourselves again unto you.
But give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that you may have somewhat to answer them, which glory and appearance, and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober it is for your cause.
For the love of Christ constrained with us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh? Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry.
Reconciliation to it, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ stead be ye reconciled to God, for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Just to recap what we had in chapter four, we spoke about how it brought before us the outflow of Christ in the life of the believer and the various exercises that we ought to have.
That would help us.
Help that outflow shine out brighter and brighter.
There were various things that could hinder that light from shining, if you will, and which were touched upon on the on the in chapter 4. And so various exercises were brought forward there that we ought to have so so as not to prevent that light from shining through us. Now in chapter 5, here we have various things that motivate us in our service for Christ.
00:05:24
And it's been pointed out that there are three main ones, you might say, in this chapter. The first one we considered at the front end of this chapter was the coming of Christ in terms of the rapture to bring us to bring the church home to glory with himself. And so we have the rapture put before us where certainly we.
As when we live and we we.
Go forward in our ministry for Christ that certainly is a motivating factors if not as we look on to that moment when we'll be caught up to be with the Lord himself. The other one was the judgment seat of Christ that the the in terms of the believer. That's where a faithful service will be rewarded and then at the end of the chapter we have the love of Christ. Certainly something that motivates us as we consider that it is really the greatest motivation going.
God was motivated to send his Son out of love for you and me. The Lord Jesus was motivated to die for us out of love for our never dying souls. And in turn, we ought to be motivated out of love for all that He's done for us, to give up our lives for His cause. So that's just a little bit of an outline. We'll fill it in, Lord willing, as we move along, but hopefully that that helps set things up.
There is one word that.
That I've circled in this first verse and it says for we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens if.
So we expect the Lord Jesus to come at any moment. We don't expect to die. That's not the proper hope of the Christian. Is that right?
When writing of the of the writing about the rapture and speaking to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul himself said we which are alive and remain so that he anticipated that moment to occur even within his lifetime.
And now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed.
We have every reason scripturally to expect that we may not pass through the article of death.
As we start this first section or this first motive that Josh outlined in the rapture, the condition of glory that we know which it's a certain thing. It's not something we we think might happen, but it's something we know in this, in these verses, it might be pretty confusing because Paul uses several terms that we're not using on a daily basis. And I think if we just define what they are, it might help us understand this.
Little section, this first section of the chapter better. There's four terms. There's clothes unclothed, clothed upon and naked, and they all four mean something very specific that helps us to understand what he talks about. When it speaks of clothes, it just speaks of being in our bodies as we are now. We're clothed and it it speaks of a Tabernacle, something temporal. It's not our permanent condition and we will have for all eternity.
And it speaks of unclothed. And that would be when there's that separation of the body from the spirit and the soul. That's when a person goes to the article of physical death. It's like he puts this body off his unclothed. And then the third one is clothe the palm. And that speaks of our future condition when we will have our changed. Bodies are glorified bodies. We're clothed upon. And once that happens, it won't change anymore. That's permanent. And then the last one is naked.
That speaks of having no covering for our sins before God. So if we keep those four terms separate, I think it clears up these verses quite a bit.
00:10:09
Yeah.
Maybe somebody could explain having a building of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
Right with the thought, brother.
President referred to the the glorified body that awaits the believer who's whose body humiliation is dissolved and death at this time.
So I think it connects much with the end of chapter 4 where it talks where Paul talked about the things which are seen and the things which are not seen. The things which are seen are temporal. The things which are not seen are eternal. He's been talking about the life that we have, the life of Christ, and how wonderful, powerful that life is and how it can shine out.
And then what were to happen? What we see around, if we look around, we see all of everyone in this room has a physical body. It's something that's seen, but there's something that's not seen. That's the life, the life of Christ that's inside you and me. It was said previously that the things which are not seen are actually more real than the things which are seen. That life that's inside of you and me is more real and more permanent.
Then the bodies that we have today. And so he goes on in this chapter, he says, now if this body that you see on me and I see on you is dissolved, that life is going to have a body with it because of the permanency, the eternal nature of that life that we have. And I think that that speaks volumes to me because we have a life now.
That is capable of sustaining a body for all eternity. The bodies that we have today are sustained by blood and by breath. The life of the flesh is in the blood. If you were to lose enough blood, your body would die. Our physical bodies that we have today would die, but there's going to come a day. But we're going to have a body that's not sustained by blood in the same way that our bodies today are. Those bodies are going to be sustained by the power.
Of the life of Christ.
We have that life already. We just don't have the body yet that goes with that life, but we have the the life itself. It's an unseen thing, but it's eternal and we have it right now.
I noticed that Brother Mark was careful to say that these bodies will be changed and glorified, but he didn't say a new body.
Because the body that you're sitting in now is a.
While it is fitted for this round that our brother Josh is talking about and in that sense is transient.
Our God is going to raise the bodies of the Saints who have who sleep now at the rapture, and the Apostle Paul teaches us this in chapter 4 to the Thessalonians. First Epistle to the Thessalonians.
And this body is going to be.