VERSE 4 (CONTINUED)
It is well, indeed, to plead earnestly with sinners who are unprepared for death: but now for a little while let us contemplate the triumph of the saint in the solemn hour of death. We have spoken of the human side, the dark valley; now look at the heavenly side—the way of the glory.
Suppose then the messenger of peace is come—come to close in quiet sleep the pilgrim days of one who has been many years in the wilderness. Of one, we will suppose, who had become foot-weary, but whose sympathies were all with Christ and His people, and who cared for the testimony of Jesus on the earth. But the Lord's appointed hour has come. The tie is dissolved; the body is left behind; the happy soul is liberated—it is present with the Lord.
Here let us pause one moment. Pray what tie is it that is dissolved? The tie that binds the divine life in the earthen vessel. "For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 2 Cor. 5:1. Here the apostle speaks on behalf of all Christians. "We know." There is no thought whatever, in such a case, of death being "the wages of sin." Rom. 6:23. Christ, our Surety, paid the penalty in full—so full, we may say, that it is not necessary that the Christian should die at all. And certain it is that all Christians shall not die. "We shall not all sleep," says the apostle plainly, "but we shall all be changed." 1 Cor. 15:51. And again, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4:17. The dissolving of the tabernacle, gently or roughly, touches not our eternal life in the risen Jesus. It simply dissolves its connection with the earthen vessel. The new man in Christ can never taste of death.
But here it may be profitable to dwell a little on the blessed and comforting truth just alluded to, namely, that all Christians shall not die—that many shall be changed and caught up with the dead who have been raised to meet the Lord in the air. It is quite evident from the passages already quoted that those who are alive on the earth when the Lord comes shall not pass through death at all. In their case, as the apostle says, "Mortality shall be swallowed up of life." (2 Cor. 5:4.) Such will be the power of life in the Son of the living God that every trace of mortality in their human nature shall instantly disappear from His presence. It will be swallowed up—annihilated. And observe, it is mortality, not death, that is here said to be swallowed up of life. Death, too, we know shall be swallowed up in victory. In the one case the apostle speaks of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus; in the other, to those who are alive on the earth at His coming. How beautiful and interesting is the perfect accuracy of Scripture! If a word is changed, there is an important reason for the change. The same truths and their distinctiveness are taught by the Lord when speaking of Himself as the resurrection and the life.
“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." John 11:25-26.
But need we wonder at this manifestation of the power of life in the coming Lord? Sin, we may say, is an accidental thing. It is no part of the divine arrangements. It was introduced by an enemy. But every particle of the poison of sin, with all its baneful effects, shall be completely expelled from the living saints when the Lord comes for them. There is no need that they should die: Christ had died for them. And, oh, how sweet the thought! It will be the same body still, but without the sin and its effects. Then shall our bodies of humiliation be fashioned like unto His body of glory (Phil. 3:21); yet the perfect identity of each shall be preserved. And all this shall be accomplished by the power of a life which we now see in the risen Jesus; and, oh, wondrous truth: This life is ours—ours now—ours in Him, where all is victory!
He had spoken in 2 Cor. 3 of the gospel in contrast with law—of the ministration of righteousness and the Spirit in contrast with the ministration of death and condemnation. The law, as presenting God's claims on man, condemns him because he breaks it. But the gospel reveals a righteousness on God's part in place of requiring it from man. Christ Himself is the righteousness. When He is received by faith, we are made the righteousness of God in Him and are sealed with the Holy Spirit. "And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17)—liberty from the pressure of law and from the fear of death.
Christ glorified is the foundation of the whole argument. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. 3:18. The Man Christ Jesus, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, is now on the throne. Blessed proof to the heart of the perfect and eternal settlement of the whole question of sin. One who is truly man is now on the throne of God. The divine glory is fully displayed in the risen Man. He is also the blessed manifestation of our place and portion in the same glory. And, oh, precious truth! In meditating on this glory, as it shines in the face of Jesus, we are changed into His likeness through the power of the Holy Ghost. Lord, grant me this grace that I may indeed meditate, with delight and intelligence, on Thy glory, and become here, on earth, its true reflection.
The apostle preached to the world the good news of Christ in glory. "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord." 2 Cor. 4:5. He preached Christ victorious over sin and Satan, death and the grave. He invited and entreated sinners to believe on a glorified Christ—to come to Him by faith and enjoy the love and share the blessings and glories of the Savior. Christ has established righteousness for the sinner in the presence of God so that there need be no doubting and fearing. The full blessing is promised to all who trust in Him. "Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." Psa. 2:12. What an immense power there is in such a gospel; but what weakness must characterize every other! All who believe the gospel Paul preached are introduced into the pure light of the glory as it is revealed in Christ. Those who reject the light are, alas, blinded by Satan, the god of this world. Refusing the glorified Savior, they fall into the hands of the enemy.
The explanation is given in 2 Cor. 4:6 of what we call the first state: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The heart is the vessel of the light. A light from the glory is kindled in the human heart. Divine life, through faith in a glorified Christ, being thus communicated, we are responsible for its manifestation as a light shining in a dark place. It is the light of life. It comes direct from God. He who at first commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts. Christ is our life, our light, our glory. In this dark world, before the eyes of man, we are called to be the reflection of our absent Lord. This is the first state of the new life. And how important! What a place it gives us here! The men of this world, who will neither read the Bible nor religious books, will sure read the lives of Christians. Oh, to be an epistle of Christ, known and read of all men! (2 Cor. 3:2.) As the Jew could read the Ten Commandments when he looked on the tables of stone, so may the eyes of those around us be able to read Christ in our daily walk and conversation.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." 2 Cor. 4:7. This is the second state. The divine life is viewed in near contact with the mortal body and with all the infirmities and evils connected therewith. But no evil can ever touch the life of Christ in the soul. The more the vessel was troubled on every side, the more evident it became that the power of God was there. It rose above the workings of death in the apostle and triumphed over all the difficulties of his thorny path. "For we which live," he says, "are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Cor. 4:11. This "daily dying" caused the life of Jesus to shine forth more brightly. Like Gideon's pitchers, the light was manifested when the vessel was broken. But what experience! What conflict! What service! His many and heavy afflictions he calls light and but for a moment in view of that eternal weight of glory which he saw before him. Encourage, Lord, and strengthen the hearts of Thy weak and sorrowing ones now, who come so far short of the example of Thy servant Paul.
We now come to the third state—the "unclothed" state—the one more immediately under our meditation.
Paul was "willing rather" (2 Cor. 5:8) to be in this state; although at the same time he saw in the Man, Christ glorified in heaven, the perfect, or resurrection, state. This is the fourth state, when the person, complete, shall be glorified after the image of Christ in glory. This was the grand object before the apostle's mind. "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." 2 Cor. 5:4. (See also Phil. 3.)