Absolute Confidence in a Future Life
By Calvin P. Bollman
The Resurrection a Foundation-Stone — Time Not Measured in the Tomb
By CALVIN P. BOLLMAN IN no other scripture in the word of God is the absolute confidence of the apostle Paul in a future life shown more clearly and forcibly than in 2 Cor. 5: 1-4. He says: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." The apostle calls the fleshly or carnal nature "the old man" (Rom. 6: 6); while the new, spiritual nature, begotten by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, he calls "the new man" (Col. 3: 10). In a similar way, in the text quoted above, the apostle describes the present, mortal state as "our earthly house of this tabernacle"; while the future, immortal state he calls "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." HOW WE HOLD ETERNAL LIFE NOW
By faith in Christ we have this eternal life, or "building of God," now. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 3: 36. To have by faith this "everlasting life," or this "building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," is to be "risen with Christ," as says the apostle: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Col. 3: 1-4. Here, then, is the "house from heaven" spoken of by the apostle in the scripture under review. The sinner is dead, his mortal life is forfeited; but what does it matter, if he be in Christ? For he then has by faith "an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," or, in other words, he has in Christ "everlasting life." This is the life which "is hid with Christ in God," and which will be given to the believer when Christ shall appear. It is with this life the believer is "clothed" at the coming of Christ, as the apostle puts it in one place. In 1 Cor. 15: 52-54 he uses the terms "changed," "put on," and "swallowed up," all referring to the same event, namely, the change from mortality to immortality, or from the "earthly house of this tabernacle" to the "building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The longing of which the apostle speaks is only natural. Yet nobody desires death for the sake of death itself. The apostle did not. He says: "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed [that is, deprived of the mortal life which now envelopes or clothes us], but clothed upon [with immortality], that mortality might be swallowed up of [or clothed with immortal] life." WAS WHOLLY IN THE RESURRECTION
To understand this scripture fully, we must look at the subject from the apostle's standpoint. His hope of a future life was wholly in the resurrection. "If there be no resurrection of the dead, . . . then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." 1 Cor. 15: 13-18. Being familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, the apostle was well aware that "the dead know not anything" (Eccl. 9: 5); and that in the day of one's death, even "his thoughts perish." Ps. 146: 4. He knew, therefore, that however long might be the time to elapse between one's death and his resurrection, in effect it would be but a moment. Hence he did not ordinarily refer to the time that would elapse between death and the resurrection, but spoke of the two events as though closely connected in point of time. WE PERISH IF NOT RESURRECTED
However, as already noted, in 1 Cor. 15: 12-18 we find the apostle basing all hope of a future life upon the resurrection, and recognizing unmistakably the truth that the dead are really dead, perished, in fact, if there be no resurrection. Again, in 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, the apostle states clearly that only by the coming of the Lord and the resurrection, or change to immortality, can anybody be with the Lord; and here he recognizes the lapse of time between death and the resurrection, but in this case he wrote from the standpoint of the living, and for the comfort of the living. While to the living, time goes on, moments grow into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into years, and years into centuries, and living men note the flight of time, the dead know not anything, not even the passage of centuries. To-day a man lives. He is old. To-morrow he dies, and791his years cease to multiply. He comes up in the resurrection no older than when he died. With him, time ceased at the moment of death, to be resumed only at the moment of his awakening at the last trump. The Scriptural view of the condition of man in death cuts the ground from under a host of both ancient and modern delusions, among which are ancestral worship, the veneration of saints, baptism for the dead, prayers for the dead, purgatory, and spiritualism. But it gives in exchange for these delusive things, something a thousand times better in Him who declares: "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." "Because I live, ye shall live also." Rev. 1: 18; John 14: 19.