Saturday, November 23, 2024

Epistle Reading for 2024-11-23

2 Cor 5:1-10 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an 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 wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For 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.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

There are a great many things in this passage that are clearly revealed here more than in other places in Scripture. One of these is the state of the soul after death. We won't be some ethereal disembodied spirit, but we will receive our resurrection bodies. Our bodies will be raised from mortality to immortality.

The judgement of all men will happen. This judgment will be done based on what we did in the bodies we have now. This is a call to live in holiness and the fear of God in the here and now. The judgment will be final.

This life has pain and suffering but glimpses of the glory that is to be revealed. John adds further detail about that life to come.

1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

The Glory that Christ has with the Father will be ours on that day.

John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Paul referred to the same thing. 

Romans 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Romans 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Theosis is this - Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Colossans 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

This is not an incidental doctrine. It is the goal of our lives in Christ. It is what we push on towards.

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