¹ For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, ³ if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. ⁶ So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, ⁷ for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸ Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Polycarp. Sounds like something you’d say after smashing your finger. But it is, in fact, the name of a bishop from Smyrna. Polycarp lived from AD 69 till his martyrdom in 155. He was a disciple of John the Apostle. His firsthand testimonies have become a valuable resource for historians piecing together early Christianity. But many know Polycarp for his courage when pagan authorities arrested him for following Jesus.

Picture it with me: sneering onlookers have gathered at an amphitheater. A magistrate tries to convince Polycarp that if he offers incense to the gods, his life would be spared. He refuses and they kick him to the ground. As the crowd taunts, Polycarp limps into the amphitheater. The governor asks him to deny Christ, to which Polycarp says, “Fourscore and six years have I served him, and he has never done me injury; how then can I now blaspheme my King and savior?”

The governor replies, “I have wild beasts…” Polycarp answers, “Call them then, for we’re not accustomed to repent of what is good to adopt that which is evil…” Again, the governor: “Seeing how you despise the wild beasts, I’ll cause you to be consumed by fire…” Polycarp says, “You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and after a little while is extinguished, but you are ignorant of the fire of coming judgment and of eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly. But why do you tarry? Bring forth what you will.” He was then burned at the stake.

In the face of death, where does such confidence come from? For some of you, faithfulness may leave you facing a similar threat. Perhaps others will do you great harm for following Jesus. For others, the Lord may appoint fewer sufferings. Your years may be many—Polycarp was 86. Nevertheless, should our Lord delay his coming, you too will feel death’s looming stare. How will you stay faithful?

Death strips from us everything we hold dear in this life. That’s why terrorists use it to control people. The fear of death tempts us to abandon our post; to compromise truth to keep our head, to keep our family, our home, our reputation, our comforts, our flowers and gardens and friendships and hobbies. We need confidence in the face of death, a most dreadful enemy. Where does such confidence come from?

Since 4:1, Paul has mentioned several truths that give him confidence. God’s glory is revealed in Paul’s gospel. God’s power is at work in Paul’s weakness. God’s Son is displayed in Paul’s sufferings. More than that, those very sufferings are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. For these reasons (and more), Paul says, “Therefore, we do not lose heart.” Our passage today continues that idea of “not losing heart,” only he states it more positively in verses 6 and 8, “So, we are always of good courage…Yes, we are of good courage.” “We are confident!”

He hasn’t let up from what he started in 4:1. Alright, Paul, tell us more. What gives you such confidence, such courage when facing suffering and death? What should give us confidence? In verses 1-8, I see three more truths that should give us confidence; and then verses 9-10 will supply a key application. But let’s first look at the three truths that should give us confidence when facing death.

The Assurance of a Resurrection Body

Number one, the assurance of a resurrection body. Verse 1 starts with the word “for,” linking our passage to 4:18. Among three contrasts last Sunday, the third was between “things that are seen” and “things that are unseen.” Paul’s point was not to pit the physical world against the spiritual world, as if the physical is bad. Rather, as Colby pointed out, Paul’s categories come from the progression of end-time events. God’s final age has broken into the present; we find ourselves caught in the overlap, the already-not-yet, where the old order in Adam is giving way to the new order in Christ.

“The things that are seen” are good, but they’re also transient, giving away to something greater and more glorious. “The things that are unseen” refer not to the immaterial, but to the tangible blessings of the final age that we can’t yet fully observe (but we will). To explain further, he then gets specific in 5:1-4. To understand “the seen” and “the unseen,” just consider your current body against your resurrection body.

Verse 1, “We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed.” Stop there. Some of you went to the campout this weekend and you set up a tent. That tent was a temporary home—one you propped up only to tear down. Paul was familiar with tents. He made them. His readers used them; or they read of them being used—like with the tent in the wilderness, set up and torn down. Transitory, temporary—Paul is saying our current physical bodies are like that; and we know he’s talking about our physical body because he’ll make that explicit in verse 6: “being at home in the body.”

But even more, he’s anticipating how his own tent-like body will likely be destroyed, torn down by death.[i] Now, not everyone will experience death the way Paul is describing. In 1 Corinthians 15, it says that when Jesus returns some who are alive and remain will be transformed in an instant. But many others experience death before that day comes. And Paul knows that he’s likely among them. Remember what he said in 4:11—“We’re always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake.” He’s very aware that his own commitment to Jesus will likely cost him his life.

If persecutors tear down his tent, what then? Well, consider the assurance in the rest of verse 1: “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We’ve moved from a temporary, tent-like home to a permanent, building-like home. He’s describing what our new, resurrection bodies are like. They have a divine origin; God makes them. They can’t be destroyed any longer, unlike the old tent. Which means they’re also eternal, immortal. And “in the heavens” refers not simply to their location but to their nature. They are bodies suited for heaven (the new heaven), especially when that heaven comes on earth.

Paul is so sure of this future resurrection body that he speaks like it’s already his possession: “we have a building from God.” It’s as good as done. The Corinthians should know this. Paul explained it for them already in 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees our resurrection. He’s the first fruits; and there’s more harvest to come. To use the words of Philippians 3:21, “he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” Jesus’ resurrection body makes certain our resurrection body.

In fact, this rock-solid assurance drives his groaning in verses 2-4: “For in this tent we groan, [because we] long to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

I once had a professor tell me that “Writing is a lot like herding cattle: if you leave a gate open, they’re gonna go through it.” His point was that good writers shut the gates. Paul is being very careful to close some gates here. For instance, some might think that the Christian ideal is just going to heaven when we die; that at death our soul “flies away, O glory, I’ll fly away”—as if that’s all there is, as if the soul is the real me, but I’m trapped inside this shell, and true freedom is to get rid of it forever.

But Paul is clear, he longs to be further clothed with his resurrection body, what he calls his “heavenly dwelling.” Anything less than that he illustrates with “nakedness,” being unclothed. The end goal is not disembodied spirits, but embodied life in a new creation. To use the words of Romans 8, it is “the redemption of our bodies.”

All of creation groans for that day to come. Paul says especially Christians groan for that day to come—using the same word in Romans 8 that he uses here. In Romans 8, he also compares this groaning to the pains of childbirth. So, it’s not just an attitude of “Ah, I’m just tired of this.” Rather, it’s conveying something hard but hopeful, excruciating but expectant, painful but promising—all at the same time. The other word he uses is “being burdened,” the idea being that you’re pressed down by a weight. So, the picture is that our sufferings in the path of obedience are weighing us down, beating us down. We’re burdened in our limited, broken bodies; and, in the process, our longings for our new body in a new age produce this sigh, this groan, “Oh, come already, Jesus! Bring the day of redemption! Don’t leave us like this! Clothe us further!”

Why? So that “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” I love that sentence! It’s not the only place in Scripture where God says this. Isaiah 25:7 pictures God ruling his people in the New Jerusalem, on the new Mount Zion, and he promises this: “[The Lord] will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces.”

We can’t hardly imagine this. Every day death swallows somebody else. Just this week, Derek and Elise lost a friend and coworker to a car accident. We’re calling doctors. We’re exercising. We’re frantically searching for diets that work. We’re taking the chemo. Somebody’s selling life-insurance. Somebody’s arguing about gun laws and terrorist threats and nuclear warheads and whether babies should sleep on their tummies or their backs. These exist only because Death is always hungry. The grave always wants to swallow more; and in some ways, we’ve just gotten used to it.

But things aren’t supposed to be this way; and there’s coming a day when what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. What’s your assurance of that? Jesus Christ is risen! He has power over the grave. He entered death for us. He took our sins to the grave, endured their consequences, and then rose three days later, bodily. He entered death to defeat its hold on us. It had no hold on him. If you belong to Christ, death doesn’t get the final word. Christ does! His life will swallow what is mortal.

Do you believe this? Do you know this assurance? Perhaps someone might be saying, “Well, I’d like to. But this whole resurrection business seems a bit fishy to me. You don’t see that every day.” No, you don’t. But you do access and read the testimony of eyewitnesses nearly every day. Do you believe them? The Gospels exemplify the best eyewitness testimony, with multiple eyewitnesses and named eyewitnesses—such that others at the time of their writing could cross-examine their accounts.[ii]

Also, we’re not left with just the open-ended testimony that the tomb of Jesus was empty. We also have the complementary testimony that many people saw the resurrected Jesus. They heard him, touched him, ate with him. And then there’s the integrity of the eyewitnesses themselves. In Luke 24:11, when the disciples hear that Jesus rose from the dead, they admit their initial skepticism. It “seemed to them an idle tale.” But later Jesus “presents himself alive to them…by many proofs” (Acts 1:3).

The truth was undeniable. No longer skeptics, they gave their lives to announcing Jesus’ resurrection. It was no mere religious idea. It wasn’t a myth full of great symbolism. It wasn’t what Jordan Peterson would call an ultimate Hero archetype. They were announcing Jesus’ resurrection as a historical claim. If you want what I think is the best historical defense of Jesus’ resurrection, read N. T. Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God. If Jesus rose from the dead, he will raise us.

Write it on your hearts, beloved. Encourage one another with this truth. Teach it to your children like Anna of Rotterdam did. You may not have heard of her. She was an Anabaptist; and while we wouldn’t agree with them theologically on several points, we would agree with her commitment to Christ and baptizing believers, something the state hated. They viewed it as revolutionary since the state tracked taxpayers through the church when they baptized infants.

Anyway, after her husband dies, she’s arrested, tried, and eventually martyred by drowning. All this while she has a little boy named Isaiah, who’s one and a half at the time. She’s allowed to leave him in the care of a local baker; and days before her execution she writes her son a long letter, one that she hopes he’ll read later in life. Part of that letter reads like so: “[Isaiah,] Be not ashamed to confess [Jesus] before men. Do not fear men; [better to] give up your life than depart from the truth. If you lose your body, which is earthly, the Lord your God has prepared you a better one in heaven.”[iii]

Why is she confident when facing death? The assurance of a resurrection body. This same assurance will give you confidence as well. Meditate on the promise of resurrection. Let it drive your longings. We’ve all experienced good gifts like a vacation with friends, or laughter around a fire, or a shot at the buzzer to win the game—and we say, “Doesn’t get much better than this!”[iv] I get the expression. But for the Christian there ought to be a longing that says, “O yes it does! It gets way better than this!” Whether things are hard or good, our longings should be set on resurrection glory. That’s the Christian ideal, and that’s the assurance that gives us confidence in the face of death.

The Guarantee of God’s Spirit

Here’s a second truth to give you confidence: the guarantee of God’s Spirit. Verse 5: “He who has prepared us for this very thing [i.e., resurrection life in the age to come] is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”

I think several things are intertwined here. One is how Paul again compares the gift of the Spirit to a guarantee. Think “down payment” with the rest coming later, or “first installment” of a final inheritance. He’s not saying that we get only part of the Spirit now and the rest of him later, but that the Spirit himself is the initial installment. He’s the guarantee that the rest of our inheritance is coming, which includes resurrection life.

Also, I don’t think it’s an accident that Paul follows his section about groaning with words about the Spirit. He makes the same connection in Romans 8:23. Listen to this: “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

You ever been to someone’s house—they’re cooking a delicious meal. Smoker’s going in the back. But before everything’s ready, someone cuts you off a little slice of something and says, “Try that.” You put it in your mouth, your eyes light up: “O that’s so good.” And the host says, “Yeah, I got more of that coming.” That’s how the Spirit prepares us—giving us little tastes of glory as we see Christ in the gospel, little tastes of holiness as he sanctifies us day by day, little tastes of love as he pours out God’s love in our hearts, little tastes of fellowship as he builds the new humanity in the church—and all of these things are getting us ready!

But get this one too: the Spirit who is in you is the same Spirit who already raised Jesus’ body from the dead. It’s like he’s saying, “I’ve done this before. I’m the Spirit of the Lord who was hovering over the surface of the deep—I gave life to this creation, and I’ll give life to the new creation. In fact, I already started the new creation when I raised Jesus. He was part one. You’re part two. Don’t worry about death. I got you.” “Therefore,” Paul says in verse 6, “we are always of good courage.”

The Presence of Christ upon Death

And that brings us to truth number three that gives us confidence: the presence of Christ upon death. He says in verse 6, “We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” Notice, he’s closing a few more gates for us. He doesn’t mean we’re away from the Lord in an absolute sense. We walk by faith. We have his Spirit. He promised to be “with us till the end of the age.” But we aren’t with him in the sense of unmediated presence, seeing him face to face.

So, Paul finds himself living with this tension that comes out further in verse 8, “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” His point isn’t that being in this body is bad; it’s just that the unmediated presence of Jesus is better. It sounds very similar to his struggle in Philippians 1:21-24. He says there: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I’m hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.”

Both in Philippians and here, Paul is describing what the intermediate state is like for the Christian. After death but before final bodily resurrection, the Christian’s soul is “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” It’s not the final state; it’s the in-between state. Still, it means that upon death we’ll get to experience more of Christ, not less. We’ll be closer to Christ, not further away. And this too should give us confidence.

One of the greatest fears in death is separation. Being alone. Aware of the darkness. Being cut off from all that’s good. If you’re not a Christian, that will be your experience upon death. 2 Peter 2:9 says that God “will keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.” The Bible calls this experience the “sting of death.” As long as sin keeps you separated from God, death stings. It holds over your head the threat of judgment, because you don’t get another chance. But if sin is removed, then death has lost its sting. That’s why God sent his Son into the world, to remove our sin and guilt, to remove the sting of death, by dying on the cross for your sin.

For the Christian, death no longer stings. Immediately, it sends us into the presence of Jesus. And this is another reason Paul has confidence in the face of death. Brothers and sisters, I hope you see how practical good theology is. Paul’s confidence grows from what he knows to be true about the Lord. He started with “we know” and in verse 6 he says, “we know.” Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s grounded in knowing truth—truth about God and what he has accomplished (objectively, historically) in Christ to save us from death. So, study these things and know them for yourselves.

Do you have a theology of the body, and of death, and of the intermediate state, and of your final state? Church history has done us a favor here. In 1563, The Heidlberg Catechism was published to instruct youth in the church. Here’s Question 57: “What comfort does the resurrection of the body offer you?” Answer: “Not only shall my soul after this life immediately be taken up to Christ, my Head [and they cite this passage], but also this my flesh, raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul and made like Christ’s glorious body.” Prepare yourselves now, before you’re facing death, so that when death comes, you may be confident.

Aiming to Please Jesus

Now, someone might hear these glorious truths and think, “Well, then, I guess I’ll just hunker down and wait. After all, if this present order isn’t permanent, if it’s all just passing away, if my current body isn’t permanent, if a better body is coming, I’ll just sit around and wait for it.” But that’s a gate Paul shuts as well with verses 9-10.

“So,” he says, “whether we are at home [in the body] or away [with the Lord], we make it our aim to please him.” In life and in death, we aim to please the Lord. Why? “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

Now, we know from elsewhere in Scripture that all people—Christian and non-Christian alike—will stand before God in judgment; and final judgment is according to works. Our works will stand as the external evidence to what’s true within. For some, their works will prove that they didn’t belong to Jesus: “Depart from me you workers of iniquity.” But for others, their works will prove they did belong to Jesus—Jesus changed them, he justified them, he knows them, and the quality of their works proves their status as his own. Some read Paul’s words with that more general judgment in view.

But in our present context, Paul’s focus seems to be a judgment of Christians in particular. The “we all” of verse 10 is the same “we” throughout verses 1-9. So, not everyone in general but the “we” who aim to please God.[v] What sort of judgment will this be for Christians in particular?

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 may help clarify the judgment in view. There, he mentions a judgment for Christians as well: “No one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

Now, if this judgment is the same as that in 2 Corinthians 5, then we’re looking at a moment when Jesus will evaluate our works not simply to prove our status but to determine our reward and loss of reward.[vi] In either case, his point about final judgment remains the same: whatever days you’re given in the body—that body you have—make it your aim to please the Lord. No true believer looks at the judgment seat of Christ and says, “Eh, whatever. I’m good. I’ll take the loss.”

No, the true believer says, “The Lord who died for me. The Lord who loved me and forgave me. The Lord who gives me his Spirit. The Lord who will raise me in resurrection. The Lord who, even in death, will take me to himself—I’ll do anything for him! I want everything to count for him! I can’t believe I get to serve him! He’s everything to me! Give me something else that will help others see him more clearly.” That’s the spirit of Paul’s aim; and it should be the spirit of our aim.

Beloved, we’re going to see him. Everything matters—from the way we labor, to the way we eat and drink, to the way we paint a canvas, to the way we spend our time, to the way we write, read, speak, laugh, to the way rest and celebrate. Everything matters, because we’re going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

So, let’s make it our aim to please him. And when your aim to please him brings suffering, or you come face to face with death, remember these truths to give you confidence. These truths will help keep you faithful in the face of death: the assurance of bodily resurrection, the guarantee of the Spirit, the presence of Christ upon death.

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[i] Cf. Isa 38:12, where taking down a tent illustrates death: “My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent.”

[ii] There’s also the testimony of several named women. If you were fabricating a story and really going to sell it in the first century, you would’ve chosen men as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. But that’s not what the Gospels do, because that’s not what happened. They tell it as it happened.

[iii] Thieleman J van Bracht, The Martyrs Mirror of Defenseless Christians (Amsterdam: J. Vander Deyster, 1660), accessed at https://ccel.org/ccel/vanbraght/mirror/mirror.iv.v.html.

[iv] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 219.

[v] If you want to read about the judgment of non-Christians, you can find that in Revelation 20:11-15.

[vi] Cf. Matt 6:1-20; 25:20-23; Luke 19:12-27; 1 Cor 3:10-15; 15:47; 2 Cor 5:5-7; 9:6; 1 Tim 6:17-19.