“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, the things that are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). Here Paul is contrasting eternal things with temporal things. He carries this same thought over into chapter 5, where he says, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
Paul calls our earthly body a tent, and Peter said the same thing, “Knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me” (1 Peter 1:14). And the moment you say tent you are thinking about something transient, you don’t think of a tent as something that is lasting, you don’t expect a tent to last you seventy, eighty, ninety years. If you are a camper and you go camping each summer, you know that every few years you will have to replace your tent, because they wear out.
When Paul talks about our bodies, he speaks of them in this same transitory way, our earthly bodies wear out. When God formed man out of the dust of the earth, he was just inert matter until God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). Paul tells us we have this treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ in earthen vessels, these bodies of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7). The body is the medium by which our spirit expresses itself. What we are, how we feel and think; we are able to relate through the medium of our earthly body.
When Paul says, “When this tent is destroyed,” he is talking about the fact that our earthly body immediately begins to disintegrate when our spirit leaves the body. God told Adam, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). And anyone who has seen an animal left to decompose in hot and humid conditions knows how fast the body breaks down. And given enough time, even the bones go back to dust.
Sin is the corrupting factor of the human body, and our earthly body has all of the inherent deficiencies of our sinful ancestry. Our earthly body is a hand-me-down; it goes back to when Adam sinned and corrupted the prefect genetics that God gave him. Throughout many generations of sinful humanity there has been an even greater pollution of the gene pool, and we are a composite of the genetic factors that have come down to us.
But it was not so with Jesus’ earthly body, He was sinless and there was no corruption of His body. In fact, they could not have killed Jesus had He not wanted to die. He said, “I lay down my life…No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father” (John 10:17-18). When Jesus was on the Cross, “He dismissed His Spirit” (Matthew 27:50). Because His body was sinless and perfect, He ascended into heaven with the same body He had on this earth (Acts 1:9).
Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:1-3). Jesus is telling us that we have a spiritual body that is waiting for us when we leave our earthly body.
There is a tremendous mystery concerning our heavenly body and its relationship to the old body. Paul said that people were asking, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35). Then, pointing to nature, Paul tells us that when you plant a seed into the ground, you don’t plant the body that shall be, all you plant is the bare grain, and God gives to it a body that pleases Him (1 Corinthians 15:38). We will have a new body that, in some way, is somehow related to this earthly body (Read all of 1 Corinthians 15), and when we get to heaven we will discover what it is.
Then Paul says, “If indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:3-4). Notice, “Not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed.” Paul was very confident that to be absent from his earthly body was to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8), and in his heavenly body. Paul said that the Lord will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body (Philippians 3:21).
After Paul had a glimpse of heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1-4), he found that he had mixed emotions, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless, for our sake he knew that he needed to stay around a while (Philippians 1:21-24). Compared to eternity, our life on this earth can be measured in less than a microsecond. And compared to the glory of heaven, our life on this earth is filled with trouble. I think that if any of us could get a glimpse of heaven, we would be like Paul, ready and willing to move into the heavenly and immortal body that God has prepared for us. And because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, we should make it our priority to live a life that pleases Him.