2 Corinthians 5:6-9 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:… I. THE BELIEVER HAS GROUND FOR CONSTANT CONFIDENCE (vers. 6-8). 1. Note the confidence which the believer has in reference to his present condition. "Knowing that while we are at home in the body we are from home as to the Lord."(1) In the present state we are at home in the body; but it is a home which is not a home, a frail lodging to accommodate us till we reach our true home. It is such a home as a soldier has in the camp, or as a passenger on a journey. In a sense, however, this body is a home, for here dwells the living, thinking, active mind. It is a house for which we have no little affection, and we are loath to quit it. "This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of this house of clay, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind."We complain of the infirmities of our bodies, but we are in no hurry to leave them. (2) But yet this body is not a fitting home for us. (a) We often discover by experience how inconvenient it is. In the course of years it has become soiled and creased, and worn like the tents of Kedar. We have suffered many inconveniences; often the spirit has been willing, but the flesh has been weak. (b) According to the Greek, ours is a home in a foreign country. A numerous band of our brothers and sisters are with us, even as the Jews found company of their own race in Babylon; but this is exile to us, we have no inheritance here. (c) It is a home, too, which keeps us from our true home. To-day we are at school, like children whose great holiday joy is to go home. We are labourers, and this is the work field: when we have done our day's work we shall go home. (d) Home is the place where one feels secure; we find no such home spiritually in this world, for this is the place of conflict and watchfulness. In heaven there will be no foes to watch against, nor men of our own household to be our worst enemies. (e) Home, too, is the place of the closest and sweetest familiarities. Here, alas, our spirits cannot take their fill of heavenly familiarities, for distance comes between; but up there what indulgence shall be accorded to us! (3) These are the inconveniences, but Paul, despite all, was confident. (a) He had a hope of the immortality to be revealed. He knew that when he shook off this body his soul would be with Christ. (b) His confidence came from God's work in his soul. "He that has wrought us to the self-same thing is God." When the statuary takes the block of stone, and begins to carve it into a statue, we get the promise of that which is to be. But he may turn aside, or die, and therefore there may be no statue. But God never undertakes what He does not finish; and so if to-day I be the quarried block of marble, if He has begun to make the first chippings in me of genuine repentance and simple faith towards God, I have the sure prophecy that He will work me up into the perfect image of Christ. (c) Another ground of confidence was "the earnest of the Spirit." 2. Paul was equally confident about the next state, viz., the condition of a disembodied spirit (ver. 8). (1) It was not because Paul thought it would be better to be without a body that he thus spoke. He has told us already "not for that we would be unclothed." Our great Creator does not mean us to be maimed creatures for ever. (2) But if Paul preferred the disembodied state to this, then the spirits of dead saints are not annihilated. Paul could not have counted destruction better than a life of holy confidence. Neither are they unconscious, for who would prefer torpor to active confidence? Neither are they in purgatory. Paul would not have been willing rather to be tormented than to live here and serve his Lord. (3) He was willing to depart into the disembodied state because he knew he would be at home with the Lord in it. (4) In that condition to which we are speeding(a) We shall be beyond all doubt as to the truth of our holy faith. There will be no more mistrust of our Lord or of His promises, and no more shall we doubt the power of His blood or our share in His atoning sacrifice. (b) We shall communicate with Christ more sensibly than we do now. Here we do speak with Him, but it is by faith through the Spirit of God; in the glory land we hear His voice while He personally speaks to us. (c) We shall have greater capacity for taking in the glory of our Lord. II. THE BELIEVER HAS REASONS FOR AN ABSORBING AMBITION (ver. 9), From henceforth the one great thing we have to care about is to please our Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: |
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