1 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 For
in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation
which is from heaven,
3 if
indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.
4 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 5:1-4 NKJV
Does
the Christian have a body in the time period between his death, and his
resurrection (or Rapture)?
At
death a believer’s spirit / soul goes immediately to Heaven to be with the Lord. His / her body is buried. At the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18),
believers will return with Jesus Christ, and they will be reunited with their
resurrected bodies. But are they simply
disembodied spirits between death and the resurrection? No, they will receive, “a building from God,
a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” An interim body, if you please.
When
a church is without a pastor, they often call an interim pastor to serve in the
meantime, until a permanent pastor is called.
When a company CEO (Chief Executive Officer) resigns, they often elect
an interim CEO. A university may elect
an interim president. Some auto repair
shops offer you an loan car to drive until your own car is repaired. In a similar way, it seems God will have an
interim body immediately ready for us upon our death.
The
witch of En Dor and King Saul (1 Samuel 28) saw and immediately recognized, the
recently deceased Samuel (this seems to be an unusual, one-time event, when God
allowed a dead saint to actually appear on earth with a message for Saul).
Moses
and Elijah were seen and recognized, apparently in bodily form, on the Mount of
Transfiguration (Matthew 17; Mark 9; Luke 9).
In
the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, after their deaths, their physical
bodies are referred to: eyes, tongue, finger (Luke 16).
In
Revelation 6:9; 20:4 the Apostle John uses the phrase, “I saw the souls,” of
those who had died.
While
these instances may not spell it out, they seem to imply a physical body after
death, but before resurrection.
The
Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4, seems to more strongly point out upon our
death, “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands.” While many scholars claim this is speaking of
the resurrection, Paul does not say so.
It also uses the present tense, immediately upon death, we “have” this
building from God. The word “house” is
used to refer to our bodies on this earth, and “house” is used to refer to
those bodies we will receive in Heaven. Why
not take the simple meaning of this passage rather than saying it does not mean
what it seems to mean? Paul spoke of the
resurrection (1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4), and here he speaks of our
receiving a body during what is often called the “intermediate state,” the time
between death and the resurrection.
To
sum up, when a Christian dies, his soul / spirit leaves the body and goes to
Heaven to be with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; John
14:3). At the resurrection (or rapture)
we will return with Christ and be reunited with our resurrected bodies (1
Thessalonians 4; 1 Corinthians 15). But
in the meantime (intermediate state), the Bible implies we will have an interim
body (2 Corinthians 5:1-8).
John
R. Rice
(AD 1895-1980) was an independent Baptist pastor, evangelist, author, and
founding editor of the Sword of the Lord.
Of this passage he said,
“Does
Paul mean here that before the resurrection there will be some heavenly body
prepared for us? It seems so. He expects to be clothed and ‘not be found
naked’ (vs. 3). He says ‘Not for that we
would be unclothed, but clothed upon’ (vs. 4).
When
the departed Samuel appeared to the Witch of Endor, did he not have some kind
of a body, although he had died and was not yet resurrected? Moses and Elijah appeared to the Lord Jesus
and the three apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration. Did they not have some bodies – visible and
definite bodies? Elisha [Elijah?] had
been changed and had been taken to Heaven without dying, but Moses died and God
had buried him.
So
whatever that heavenly mystery shall prove to be, those who die now are not
left as wandering spirits, without form, without recognition by other loved
ones, without physical senses. The Lord
Jesus in Heaven has a physical body, a resurrected, glorified body. Do you think the saints in Heaven that
rejoice with Him when a soul is saved do not have some form of body also, or
the equivalent of a body, while they wait?
Oh, Paul rejoiced that he would not be unclothed.”
-John
R. Rice, The Church of God at Corinth, Sword of the Lord Publishers;
1973.
John
Phillips
(AD 1927-2010) was a graduate of Luther Rice Seminary (D.Min.) and served as
director of Moody Correspondence School and Emmaus Correspondence School. He taught on the Moody Broadcasting radio
network and was the author of a number of Bible commentaries. John Phillips on 2 Corinthians 5:1-8:
“Down
through the ages, saved and lost alike have described things they have seen and
heard at the hour of death. D. L. Moody,
for instance, while awaiting the moment of his death, clearly saw his two
deceased grandchildren in heaven.
Moreover, he was able to tell his son Will, their father, that he could
see them. The evidence seems to be that
when we die we receive some kind of a body suited for life on the other
side. D. L. Moody saw children. The witch of Endor saw an old man. What they saw they could describe. In the case of Samuel both the psychic and
King Saul saw him…
“Let
us gather these various ideas together.
The believer’s present body is like a tent suited well enough for our
present, earthly pilgrimage, but something temporary and transient. It can be taken down at any moment. It is a very fragile affair at best. When the ‘tent’ is taken down we shall find
that God has already made provision for the believer’s soul to be housed in a
suitable, God-made dwelling pending the resurrection and transformation of his
present body. This intermediary home for
the soul is eternal not temporal. Nor is
it natural but spiritual. It cannot be
affected by the things that assail the believers present body. At the same time it is not his resurrection
body although it may well be related to it just as his present natural body
will be related to it.
“Paul
is so confident about these things that he says, ‘We have it.’ It is already awaiting us in heaven…
“Paul
mentions our dread: ‘If so be that being clothed we shall not be found
naked’ (5:3). The human body is an
essential part of us. The soul shrinks
in horror from the thought of being bereft of it. Paul here agrees that one reason why we long
for our heavenly covering is because the idea of being a naked soul is both
humiliating and horrifying. We recoil
from the thought. As F. F. Bruce points
out, a person’s body is essential to him as ‘a means of communication with his
environment.’ Therefore, to be deprived
of it would be a dreadful experience, it would be ‘to experience fearful
isolation.’
“It
comes as a great relief to know that God has provided for us so that no such
dread eventuality is allowed to overtake us.
‘We shall not be found naked.’
More, since the new body is to be put on like a new robe, we shall not
miss the old body. We cannot imagine the
restored prodigal lamenting that ruin of rags he discarded when he donned ‘the
best robe’ provided for him by his father (Luke 15:22). It seems likely, too, that the changeover
will be as instantaneous as the changeover from the natural body to the
spiritual resurrection body at the Rapture.
Paul has already told the Corinthians that that metamorphosis will take
place ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52)…
“Paul
himself evidently thought that there was something to look forward to in
death. He anticipated being ‘with the
Lord,’ in conscious enjoyment, the moment he died (Philippians 1:20-23) – and
this, in clear distinction from the transformation to take place at the Rapture
(Philippians 3:20-21).”
-John
Phillips, Exploring 2 Corinthians, Kregel Publications; 2002.
Randy
Alcorn
has served as pastor, author, and taught at Multnomah Bible College and Western
Seminary.
“Unlike
God and the angels, who are in essence spirits (John 4:24; Hebrews 1:14), human
beings are by nature both spiritual and physical (Genesis 2:7). God did
not create Adam as a spirit and place it inside a body. Rather, he first created a body, then
breathed into it a spirit. There never
was a moment when a human being existed without a body… It appears that we are
not essentially spirits who inhabit bodies, but we are essentially as much
physical as we are spiritual. We cannot
be fully human without both a spirit and a body.
“Given
the consistent physical descriptions of the present Heaven and those who dwell
there, it seems possible – though this is certainly debatable – that between
our earthly life and our bodily resurrection, God may grant us some physical
form that will allow us to function as human beings while in that unnatural
state ‘between bodies,’ awaiting our resurrection. Just as the intermediate state is a bridge
between life on the old Earth and the New Earth, perhaps intermediate bodies,
or at least a physical form of some sort, serve as bridges between our present
bodies and our resurrected bodies…
“If
we know there is physical substance in Heaven (namely, Christ’s body), can we
not also assume that other references to physical objects in Heaven, including
physical forms and clothing, are literal rather than figurative?”
-Randy
Alcorn, Heaven, Tyndale; 2004.
-David
R. Brumbelow, gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com, October 23, AD 2019.
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