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| The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
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Chapter XLI.—The
Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our
Bodies.
It is still the same sentiment which he follows up
in the passage in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings:
“for we know;” he says, “that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens;”7552
in other words,
owing to the fact that our flesh is undergoing dissolution through its
sufferings, we shall be provided with a home in heaven. He remembered
the award (which the Lord assigns) in the Gospel: “Blessed are
they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.”7553
Yet, when he thus
contrasted the recompense of the reward, he did not deny the
flesh’s restoration; since the recompense is due to the same
substance to which the dissolution is attributed,—that is, of
course, the flesh. Because, however, he had called the flesh a
house, he wished elegantly to use the same term in his comparison
of the ultimate reward; promising to the very house, which undergoes
dissolution through suffering, a better house through the
resurrection. Just as the Lord also promises us many mansions as
of a house in His Father’s home;7554
although this may possibly be understood of the domicile of this world,
on the dissolution of whose fabric an eternal abode is promised in
heaven, inasmuch as the following context, having a manifest reference
to the flesh, seems to show that these preceding words have no such
reference. For the apostle makes a distinction, when he goes on to say,
“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;”7555
which means, before
we put off the garment of the flesh, we wish to be clothed with the
celestial glory of immortality. Now the privilege of this favour
awaits those who shall at the coming of the Lord be found in the flesh,
and who shall, owing to the oppressions of the time of Antichrist,
deserve by an instantaneous death,7556
| 7556 Compendio
mortis. Compare our Anti-Marcion for the same thoughts and
words, v. 12. [p. 455, supra.] | which is
accomplished by a sudden change, to become qualified to join the rising
saints; as he writes to the Thessalonians: “For this we say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ
shall rise first: then we too shall ourselves be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord.”7557
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