Faithbase

Hello again as we are thinking about the Bible and today I'm doing something a little bit different. I'm gonna think about or talk about a couple words heavenly dwelling and again as I've mentioned before this shorter format makes it difficult to really develop any of these ideas so I'm trying to narrow this down. I'm gonna read to you from 2 Corinthians 5 1 through 5. I'm going to read from the New Living Translation because I think in this case it's a more clear translation. For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down, that is when we die and leave this earthly body, we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human. Heavenly body is like new clothing for we will put on heavenly bodies we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies we groan and sigh but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us rather we want to put on our new bodies so that those these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God has prepared us for this and as a guarantee has given us His Holy Spirit. Now most translations talk about this earthly tent and a heavenly dwelling and people get that mixed up with what Jesus said when he said I go to prepare a place for you in my father's dwelling or many rooms or in my as often said in my father's house or many mansions but in the Greek it's just talking about a multiplicity of places to live basically and it seems that Jesus is talking about actual housing there but Paul is talking about something much much different here in 2 Corinthians he's saying that this body this physical body is like a tent this earthly body and the heavenly body that what we have after our resurrection and again this is another discussion about whether this takes place upon resurrection or upon the upon death where we are with the Lord immediately Paul seems to make it pretty clear that we are with the Lord Jesus Christ immediately upon death but that aside what Paul is saying is that this this tent we have here is comparatively speaking is much less than the the heavenly body or the mansion the building that we have in the next life now what that means is that we're not going to be having some sort of a purely spiritual existence in eternity indeed I think it was NT Wright who said that we have a greater physicality in eternity because this tent this physical tent so to speak this body becomes something much greater in eternity and with the spiritual body it's something much like from a tent to a mansion now if you've ever seen these little pup tents that are pretty much useless as far as shelter compared that with a big McMansion someplace big castle there's a vast difference and that's what it's going to be like that this tent is going to be giving give way to a mansion this body this natural earthly body will give way to something magnificent as a spiritual or eternal body so much greater physicality that's I guess that's what I want you to think about today is that heaven in eternity that's not going to be some boring place where you float around with nothing to do that just as this physical body is given us to do things in this realm that even greater body of greater physicality will be given us to do things in that realm I want you to think about that today how the blessings of this life will be multiplied beyond our understanding in the next and that's represented by the fact that this this frail tent we live in now will one day give way to a mansion think about that today God bless you give way to a mansion think about that today God bless you