A Word in Season: A building from God (2 Corinthians 5:1)

The Fragility of Our Earthly Tent

You live in a tent. That may not be a particularly palatable thought, it may not be something you've even thought about a great deal, but it's true. I'm not referring to the home in which you live, the property that you rent or own or are in the process of buying or whatever it may be, I'm talking about your physical body.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians in chapter 5 in verse 1 says that 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.

Now we know if we've had any experience of tents or camping that even our modern technology cannot make a tent a permanent and secure dwelling. It is by definition fragile and frail. It wears out quickly, it's quickly and easily damaged and the Apostle Paul was a man who knew tents in his day.

He was by trade and training a tent maker. When he needed to that was the work to which he returned in order to provide for himself and he knows the fragility and the frailty of a tent and he knows the fragility and frailty of his own body.

If you read the record of his sufferings you know how much he went through. He understands how easy it is to damage a tent and how quickly a tent wears out and he refers then to this earthly house, this tent being destroyed and it might just be the wear and tear that takes place over days and weeks and months and years so that in due course the fabric becomes threadbare and begins to fade and to split.

It might be something more abrupt and aggressive, it might be an accident, it might be a disease, it might be an assault, but there are so many ways in which this tent, this earthly house can be destroyed.

The Christian Hope of a Building from God

Is there then any confident hope for God's people? Yes says the Apostle. He doesn't deny then the fragility of our bodies in this fallen world, in this present age. He doesn't dismiss it either. This really is our dwelling place, it really is part of our humanity.

He's not demeaning our bodies, he's recognizing the reality of their weakness but he does say that we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens and he seems here to be referring now not to the just general prospect of glory to come but the fact that we will put on immortality, that we will be clothed again, that what is now simply a tent will become a house, a building from God not made with hands.

It's a language that's meant to communicate permanence and beauty and glory. It's the language of moving from tented accommodation to a proper home. You think of that kind of language used in our world today, the refugee cities, the tented cities where people dwell and it's not lasting and it's not comfortable and it's passing away and it's dirty and yet they are longing to have a proper place and so it is with the believer.

We don't demean what we presently have, we don't dismiss it but we do recognize its frailty and its fragility. It's a tent and it's easily destroyed and it will be but if that's so, when that happens, as that takes place, we need to remember that this is not all and everything, that we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

There is a body which is to come, a body which will be glorious like the risen body of our Lord Jesus Christ, a body which will be suited to the new heavens and the new earth. This then is the Christian's hope.

The Certainty of Resurrection Glory for Believers

Every one of us, whether or not we're a believer, has to reckon with the fact that this earthly house, this tent, is being destroyed. It cannot and will not last forever but the believer has this confidence that even when this body is destroyed, even if this earthly house comes to the dust, then there is a prospect of something sure, beautiful, glorious and lasting, part of the purchase of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the confidence of every true believer, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, God's own building.