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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 21. The Old Tent and the New
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The Old Tent and the New
There is no one of Paul's letters in which he lays bare his inner heart, to these members of his spiritual family, so much as in II Corinthians. An exquisite tenderness and pleading runs through its lines. The great suffering he has been through has left distinct marks, deepening and enriching, tendering and mellowing his great strong nature. The weaving in of the allusion of the Lord's coming, so common in all his writings, and which reveals how near it lay to his heart, is found in the first chapter. [Note: 2Co_1:14.] The day of the Lord is the one dear, cherished objective never out of his vision.
There is a paragraph devoted to one phase of the Lord's coming, couched in language of much simplicity and beauty. [Note: 2Co_5:1-10.] It reveals more than any other words from Paul's pen, how intense was his expectation and longing that the Lord's coming might be in his own lifetime. He speaks of his body as the earthly tent in which his spirit is sojourning for a little while. If it should be dissolved or fall to pieces he is sure of a better one which would never decay (Act_28:1). The weaknesses and sufferings, of which he seems so conscious in this letter, make him long most intensely for a change to the better bodily dwelling place for his spirit (Act_28:2).
It is not a longing to lay aside this temporary dwelling place of his body. For then when the Lord came he would be "found" in an unclothed condition, the old body being laid off and the new one not yet received (Act_28:3). He longs that the new and better one might come to take its place before it is laid aside. Then what is temporary and weak in it would be swallowed up by the new touch of life upon it (Act_28:4). For this is the dear plan of God for His children, not a death coming, but a new life coming, even for the body. And the Holy Spirit living in these bodies is the pledge He has given us in advance that some sweet day He Himself is coming to claim His own, and release these bodies from every touch of death, and give them every touch of life (Act_28:5).
He is perfectly happy in heart whichever thing the Lord shall appoint him. Yet there is such an intense longing to see the Lord Himself, that, because remaining in his body would mean absence from the immediate presence of Christ, he is willing to leave his empty body down on the earth, and go through the process of dying that he may be in the wondrous presence of the Lord (Act_28:6-8).
Then he swings to the north star of all his conduct,—it was his ambition whether living here, or, through death living up yonder, to be well-pleasing unto the Lord (Act_28:9). For the whole inner heart and life would be laid bare when they were all gathered, living and dead, in His presence for a reckoning of the life lived on the earth. He longed that in that hour he might be found well-pleasing to the Lord whom he loved (Act_28:10).
It is probably not very long after this that, while in Greece, in the city of Corinth, he wrote the only letter to a Church which he had not visited, the Church at Rome. But he had many dear friends there. A member of the Church in the near-by town of Cenchreæ, a deaconess, a godly woman, and an earnest worker there, found it needful to make a visit to Rome. Paul is led to take advantage of this to send a letter by her to the group of believers in the imperial capital. It is a remarkably compact, clear, full summary of the Gospel he believed so firmly, and preached so lovingly and earnestly wherever he went.
There are here two teaching passages about the Coming, in addition to an exhortation to faithfulness. [Note: Rom_13:11, Rom_13:12.] The first occurs as a parenthesis in the eighth chapter. Verse twenty-six connects directly with verses sixteen and seventeen. The intervening verses (Act_28:18-25) form a distinct parenthetical paragraph. It will make the reading clearer to note that most of verse twenty is a small parenthesis within this larger one. It would help to have it read in this way:—"the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God (for the creation was subjected to vanity not of its own will but by reason of him who subjected it), in hope that," and so on.
The whole thought here is turned toward the wondrous result for Christ's people at the Coming. It was then a time of much suffering among Christ's followers, everywhere, because of their faith. Paul's pen reveals indirectly how much he had felt, and was feeling, the suffering he himself had gone through. In the midst of this he passionately points out the glory that is to come to them all. There is to be a revealing, or unveiling, of the sons of God, as though now we were in disguise, but then it will be openly seen that we are of royal lineage. At that time would come such a glory as to far more than compensate even for such suffering as was being endured. The longing for that coming time is put into the intensest language. In the midst of all their suffering, there is a continued inward groaning and sighing for that glad time to come when the body will be redeemed out of its present servitude into the glorious liberty of God's children.
There occurs here a very striking bit about the lower creation, which is as interesting as it is rare. The whole creation, which would seem to mean vegetable as well as animal life, is under a bondage, the curse of decay and death. Against its own wish it was put into this bondage. The thing that appeals to our sympathies at once is that the creation is spoken of as though conscious of this. It, too, is suffering, as well as we. And he, who has felt oftentimes to the point of pain, the mute appealing look in the eye of some horse or dog as though asking for sympathy or help, or the melancholy braying of the donkey in North China, will feel at once an answering within, to this rare note in Scripture. The whole creation is joining with us in unutterable groans and birth pangs, earnestly looking forward to its release with ours, out into full free life. It is this continued thought of the glory, that will come with the coming of the Lord Jesus, that helped to steady these Christians, and that made them so eager for the glad day of release.
There is a word used three times here [Note: Act_28:19, Act_28:23, Act_28:25.] that helps. It is the word "wait," which means literally to wait patiently, steadfastly, or, to wait it out. Some of us have been waiting more or less patiently, or maybe it has been impatiently, but we must "wait it out," till that blessed day of His appearing.