“Our Earthly House of This Tabernacle”
By Eliza H. Morton
The human body is mentioned under various symbols in the Scriptures. Paul appropriately compares it to a tabernacle, or tent, indicative of no permanent dwelling place. Although we may have the Spirit of Christ in our hearts; yet when “at home in the body,” we are absent from the personal, visible presence of our Lord. 2 Cor. 5: 6. “At home in the body” means this mortal state. When “our earthly house of this tabernacle,” the body, is dissolved in death, the spirit of life, the breath, is unclothed, or naked. That is, it is separated from its constructive materials, and deprived of consciousness and consequent remembrance of God. Ps. 146: 3, 4; Eccl. 9: 5; Ps. 6: 5. It returns to God who gave it—not as a conscious entity, but as a life principle subject to His control. Eccl. 12: 7. It will be reunited with the body in the resurrection. Ps. 104: 29, 30. The just in the resurrection will be “clothed upon” with a “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” That is, their earthly bodies, mortality, will be swallowed up in life. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15: 52. When the wicked are raised, they will not be “clothed upon,” but will stand naked before their God. 2 Cor. 5: 3. To them “is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” Jude 13. The Christian groans in this life, longing, not for death, but for the second appearing of Christ, when he shall be forever absent from his corruptible body, and present with his Lord. Paul in Phil. 1: 20 again expresses the same thought concerning himself. He says in substance that he had no choice between life and death, for with him either would be for the glory of God; but he preferred to be translated, which if Christ should come at once, would be his happy portion. This is the desire of every Christian. “Hope whispers in my ear, calm and serene,
The world to come and here hath but a grave between.
So be it, I answer; but that is a lonesome place.
Rather alive would I behold my Saviour’s face.”