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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 22. From Paul's Pen
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From Paul's Pen
There is no more exquisitely worded reference to the change from this world to the next than in Paul's Second Corinthian letter (2Co_5:1-8). He thinks of the body as a tent easily taken down or shifted. Death is the taking down of the tent. He thinks of Christ's Second Coming as meaning for him a new sort of life, swallowing up or absorbing into itself the sort of bodily life he is living here.
Then he thinks of the body as a garment or suit of clothing. Dying is like putting the old suit off. It is in anticipation of something better. There's a new suit of clothes to be put on, a new life immediately following the break of death in the old life. If Christ should come while he is still living then the new suit would be put on over the old. The new life would swallow up the old or present life without the break of death.
He has the intensest desire that the great change should come, not by death, but by Christ's return. But whichever way it may turn out for him there would be the same happy result. He would instantly be in Christ's own immediate presence revelling in the wondrous new life. To be present here in his body meant absence from the immediate presence of his Lord. And for his spirit to leave his body meant an instant going into the immediate conscious presence of the Lord he so adored.
In the circular letter Paul sent out to the group of churches centering in Ephesus, he pictures the Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary now seated in the upper world at the Father's right hand, in absolute possession of all power, both in the spirit world and on the earth (Eph_1:20-22).
There is a companion picture to this in Colossians, the two fitting together. The breadth of view in this double picture is refreshing. The Ephesian bit pictures Christ after His errand to the earth. In this Colossian bit He is seen before the errand to the earth (Col_1:14-18).
His presence on earth is like a hyphen, a tremendous tragic glorious hyphen, in His whole career. He it was who did things that far off creative week. Then He did His errand to earth. Then He went back again, and sits quietly waiting the next step in the program that shall show the full roundness of his planning.
There's a bit in the First Thessalonian letter of peculiar interest, because Paul is writing to comfort some who are sorrowing over the death of loved ones (1Th_4:13-18). The teaching is tied up with the expected Second Coming of Christ, whenever that may be. As surely as Jesus died and rose again, so sure is it, Paul says, that through Jesus, God will bring up out of the grave into His own presence, with Jesus, those trusting ones who have died.
Then he gives the detail of how it will be done. The Lord will descend out of the upper spirit world, where He is now. First of all, those trusting Him will rise up out of their graves; then the living ones who trust are also caught up. And so they are all together. Apart from Second Coming teaching, it is a very real picture of life after death, a glad joyous picture.
The writer of the Hebrews, quite probably some close friend and disciple of Paul, tells what happened on the other side of that cloud that Luke says served Jesus for transit up through the blue. He "sat down (as one whose task for the present was done) on the right hand (the place of power) of the Majesty on high" (Heb_1:3). Plainly there's something very real the other side of the upper blue, and some One very real, too; and some other ones very really with Him.
Peter's First Epistle has some interesting bits of teaching about this whole question we are considering in these talks. We shall be turning to him later. Just now this fits in here (1Pe_3:18). Speaking of Jesus, he says, "being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."
That "but" seems to throb with eager life. It's a hinge opening the door into the beyond. Peter is referring to what happened to Jesus at the moment of his death on the cross. As he experienced death in his body he likewise experienced just the reverse in his spirit life.
The two parts of the sentence stand in contrast to each other. The force of the language used implies that as there came a decrease of life in the body, to the point of extinction, there came an increase of life in the spirit. That is, not merely that his spirit continued to live, but that there was an increase of life, either more or, of a different higher sort, or both of these.
In his First Epistle, John says that we don't know at present just what we shall be in the future life. But we do know that when Christ appears openly before the gaze of men, we who are in touch shall be like Him, for we shall see Him even as He is (1Jn_3:2-3).