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Why do we not worry about our physical body being destroyed?

Back to Study the Book of Second Corinthians


Back to Chapter Five


Because we have "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Our "house not made with hands" is the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" of the preceding chapter. It is the abiding place (mansion) of which Jesus spoke (John 14:2).

Our momentary, light tribulation is achieving for us a solid, eternal glory. This solid glory is our spiritual house that is before the Throne of God in Heaven.

The same thought is stated in I Corinthians 15:44:

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. The weight of glory is our spiritual body, our body of eternal life, our crown of righteousness and life.

A farmer sows seed. The disciple sows his physical body. The farmer reaps wheat. The disciple reaps a spiritual body of righteousness, a robe of eternal life.

Our spiritual body, our house from Heaven, is being formed now. The disciple allows God to bring him down into difficult, painful places. The believer is perplexed, cast down, weak, denied what he or she is longing for, compelled to do things that are disagreeable, sometimes persecuted so severely as to result in his or her physical death.

There is a portion of eternal resurrection life assigned to each difficulty, each pain, each perplexity, each oppression, each weakness. This eternal life raises and strengthens the inner man of the saint. At the same time it creates before the Throne of God a spiritual body adapted to our strengthened inner man. The development of our inner nature is linked to the new body in Heaven—one complements the other.

Eternal, indestructible resurrection righteousness and life are having their rise in two places simultaneously: (1) in the inner man of the saint on earth; (2) in a body fashioned from resurrection life that will clothe strengthened inner man of the saint at the coming of the Lord from Heaven.

Here is the righteousness and justice of God. We are reaping exactly what we are sowing on the earth. If we are sowing to our flesh, no house of life is being constructed for us in the Presence of the Father. If we are sowing to the Holy Spirit, a house of eternal life is being constructed for us in Heaven.

We shall be clothed with our own righteous works. If we allow God to bring us into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ in the present world, then we will come to know the power of His resurrection in the ages to come. If we choose instead to walk in the lusts of our body and soul we will reap corruption. We will be a naked spirit in the Day of the Lord, perhaps saved, perhaps lost to the Presence and purposes of God for eternity.



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