We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
The verse belongs to a contrast between two successive conditions of the whole person, the present mortal earthly house in which believers groan burdened and the future immortal heavenly house not made with hands. To be at home in the body is to continue in this mortal probationary life absent from the Lord, and to be absent from the body is to leave that mortal state, desiring not nakedness in death but to be clothed upon with immortality when mortality is swallowed up by life. That presence with the Lord is entered in reality at Christ's second coming, when he raises the dead, changes the living to immortality, and catches them up together to ever be with him. It therefore gives no proof of a conscious disembodied intermediate state, but holds out the resurrection and Christ's appearing as the Christian hope, with God giving the earnest of the Spirit as pledge of that certain change. Those who held otherwise taught that at death the soul leaves the body and is at once consciously present with Christ in heaven before the resurrection.
Words and Context
The surrounding passage sets two homes against each other, the present earthly house or tabernacle in which believers groan while burdened and the future heavenly house or building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens. The first is the mortal body and mortal condition, the second is the immortal body and immortal state to be received when mortality is swallowed up by life and the redeemed are clothed upon with the house from heaven. That house language is figurative for two successive conditions of the same whole person, as putting off the old person and putting on the new, not two dwellings occupied at once and not a separate soul-house entered at death. To make the eternal house a soul entered at death would require three houses, with a middle house vacated and left to ruin when the redeemed body is taken, which is impossible.
To be at home in the body is to continue in this mortal probationary life in the earthly tabernacle, absent from the Lord and from the resurrection body. To be absent from the body is to leave that mortal state, and to be present with the Lord is to be clothed upon with the building of God when mortality is swallowed up of life. To be unclothed, naked, found naked, or dissolved is death or sleep, an utterly undesirable unconscious condition not to be desired, while to be clothed or clothed upon is to receive the immortal body at the resurrection. Rendering the phrases as leaving home in the body and being at home with the Lord does not change the sense.
The verse expresses confidence and a willing preference to be present with the Lord rather than remain absent from him while at home in the body. That confidence is held while walking by faith and not by sight. It is directed toward eternal things and Christ's final appearing, longing to be clothed with the heavenly dwelling and laboring to be accepted by God whether present or absent.
Human beings were wrought by God to reach immortal life with him, designed to attain that end when death as the unclothed state is left behind. The earnest of the Spirit dwelling in the heart is given toward that end as pledge, assurance, and guarantee of the promised change to immortality and of the future inheritance. That pledge is the ground of confidence even while absent from the Lord, making the inheritance certain and near amid present trouble. Faith in that promise sustains rejoicing in hope, for immortality is otherwise theirs only by God's promise until the dead are raised.
Laboring to be accepted whether present or absent means whether living in this mortal state or dead, the two classes found at Christ's day, laboring now to be ready for his coming. The present life is the time to labor for acceptance, with no work to gain acceptance going on between death and resurrection. All must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive reward for deeds done in the body, when the saints stand before him in joyful triumph.
On one reading, absent from the body may refer to separation from the church as Christ's body. When applied to the fleshly body it means leaving mortal life as mortality is swallowed up by life at Christ's coming, entering his presence through resurrection and gathering of the living and dead to meet him, not by dying.
Promised Immortal State
To be away from the body and at home with the Lord is to leave one condition of the whole person and enter another, from the present sorrowful mortal state to the future glorious immortal state in God's own presence. It is not an intelligent soul slipping out of the body to live consciously with God, and it is not a vision seen while still in the body. There is no third, in-between existence as a disembodied spirit; the unclothed or naked condition is the unconscious sleep of death, which is not the thing desired. What is longed for is to receive the house from heaven, the eternal resurrection body, when mortality is swallowed up by life at the resurrection or translation. The Spirit dwelling in the heart is the pledge of that promised change, by which the whole person is made immortal and brought into God's presence. That presence comes when Christ returns and the dead are raised and the living are caught up together to meet him.
The desire is not for death or dying, nor for remaining in the present mortal condition, nor for being found unclothed or naked in death. It is to be clothed upon with the heavenly house, so that mortality is swallowed up by life and the body is redeemed. Death dissolves the present body and the heavenly body is not received until the resurrection, so the interval between death and resurrection is not the desired being with the Lord. Death is an enemy, the wages of sin and the last enemy to be destroyed, while God gives eternal life and immortality at Christ's coming when the dead are raised and the living are changed from mortal to immortal at the last trumpet.
To be present with the Lord is to be personally present in Christ's personal presence in glory, where there is fullness of joy. It is more than having the presence of his Spirit in daily life here; it is to be with Christ himself forever. Heaven is the believer's true home, a place of safety and rest and joy, confidently preferred to presence in the body here. That home is already held securely by faith though unseen, for the believer's life is hidden with Christ in God through his bearing of sin in death and his resurrection uniting believers to him as members of his body. They will be with him in reality forever when he comes and they are changed into his image.
Fulfilled at Christ's Coming
Entrance into presence with the Lord happens at Christ's second coming and appointed return, when he raises the dead, changes the living from mortal to immortal, and catches them up together to meet him and ever be with him. Then at the last trumpet this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, when mortality is swallowed up by life, which is the redemption of the body, the full fruition of hope, and deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children of God. What is longed for is not death or becoming unclothed and naked and losing life, but being clothed and clothed upon with the house from heaven, the building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens, while remaining in the mortal body is being at home in the body and absent from the Lord. When applied to the fleshly body, leaving mortal life is mortality swallowed up by life at Christ's coming through resurrection and translation, and on one reading absence from the body may refer to separation from the church as Christ's body. God wrought human beings to live immortal with him and gave the earnest of the Spirit toward that end, so the desire is for life and translation to heaven for an eternal home with Christ, which is the blessed hope.
Paul looked beyond death to that coming, expecting life and the crown of righteousness and presence with Christ when Christ appears and establishes his kingdom. He is dead and knows nothing until then, resting without consciousness or reward until the change, since death is an enemy and the wages of sin and the last enemy to be destroyed, not what is longed for. His desire to be with Christ means receiving immortality and being with Christ bodily, as Enoch and Elijah were, whether by translation or resurrection. Some faithful people will receive this change without passing through death, being apart from this life through being with Christ by translation or resurrection rather than through death.
Death and being with the Lord are spoken of as immediately connected because the unconscious interval between death and resurrection is not reckoned, just as time spent asleep is not reckoned in describing a man's actions. The dead have no conscious existence and no sense of anything and take no notice of time, so even a long wait until the resurrection seems like an instant. For them the next conscious moment is the resurrection and the life to come, so the end of this life and the commencement of the better life seem joined without interruption. Being with Christ can only take place at Christ's second coming to judgment, for he said he would come again and take his disciples to himself, which implies they are not with him before that time.
Denial of Conscious Intermediate State
The verse gives no proof of consciousness in death, no support for an immortal soul or conscious existence apart from the body, and does not teach that believers become conscious with Christ immediately after death. Being absent from the mortal state and present with the Lord belongs to the immortality God gives his people at Christ's coming, when mortality is swallowed up by life through resurrection or translation and not to being naked in death. What is longed for is a future condition, not death itself, for the chapter sets out three conditions of present earthly life at home in the body with groaning and mortality, the dissolved naked unclothed condition of death which is utterly undesirable, and the future clothed-upon state in the building of God eternal in the heavens. That presence with the Lord comes when this mortal puts on immortality and this corruptible puts on incorruption at the last trumpet at the second coming of Christ, which is the same redemption of the body for which those with the first-fruits of the Spirit groan, and until then believers walk by faith not by sight, laboring whether living or dead at his coming to be accepted of him when all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. The only hope of the Christian held out here is the second coming of the Lord.
The passage presents three conditions and not two independent entities of soul and body: present mortal life at home in the body and absent from the Lord, death as nakedness and unconsciousness without the body, and the future glorified immortal body. To be absent from the body and present with the Lord means to be at home with the Lord when Jesus comes, not at death, for Paul did not wish to be unclothed by death or found naked in the grave with no conscious existence but groaned to be clothed upon with the house from heaven made immortal at Christ's coming. God wrought human beings to live immortal with him and gave the earnest of the Spirit toward that end, while death remains the last enemy to be destroyed and the wages of sin, and what is desired is life and translation to heaven for an eternal home with Christ. The language about the outward person perishing while the inward person is renewed day by day does not mean the person is composed of two independent entities.
To read the verse as conscious presence with Christ for 1,800 years since Paul's death denies that the dead sleep in their graves until the resurrection. Such teaching leaves only that they sleep in heaven or do not sleep at all, contradicts the Bible's clear teaching that they are asleep, sets aside the resurrection of the physical body, and belongs to spiritualist theology swung loose from the Bible, nor does it mean that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah and dead friends are now conscious in heaven keeping identity and recognition. Popular theology uses its language of being outside the body and with the Lord to teach that the saints go to a far-off region beyond time and space, where the inheritance is spiritual and not real and where people are formless viewless ethereal substances floating through space. Against that use, the true hope is tangible and real: a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells, the kingdom and dominion under heaven given to the saints forever, the meek inheriting the earth, and a glorious literal city with streets of gold, gates of pearl and foundations of precious stones located on the new earth where God dwells with men for those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, compared with which leaving the body for such an empty condition is undesirable and remaining in the body is preferable.
Comfort for mourners does not rest on being absent from the body and present with the Lord, but on Christ's return, when the dead in Christ will rise and believers will be reunited with them and be with the Lord. Citing the verse for a saint as already with Christ and present with the Lord, understood as being in heaven with Christ in his resurrected glorified body, is used to challenge the idea that saints go to heaven at death. On that challenge, if they already have spiritual bodies there, the claim that they later return to earth to enter bodies raised from the ground is presented as lacking scriptural support.
Dissenting Immediate Presence Views
In contrast, to be absent from the body is to be consciously present with the Lord, a state preferable to remaining in the body. At death the soul leaves the body in which it dwelt during life and is at once received into the Lord's presence in heaven. Trust in Christ and his completed sacrifice therefore lets the dying face death without fear, resting on the promise of being with him. Paul's preference was to leave the body at death and be present with Christ in Paradise before the body is raised. The body in this context is a tabernacle, and the dead in Christ are conscious between death and the resurrection.
Death is the putting off of the earthly body, with the spirit going to the Lord Jesus Christ where he is. It liberates man's immortal spirit from this house of clay to go to where Christ is at the right hand of the Majesty on High. This is an intermediate state but not an intermediate place, in which the soul without the body waits for full redemption, namely the resurrection body. The soul without the body is not a whole man and is not capable of all the joy and blessedness, or of complete misery, that a complete man is capable of, so the bliss of the redeemed and the misery of the lost is not complete until the whole man is in it. Putting off the earthly body at death concerns each believer individually while the church militant and other believers remain behind, unlike Christ's return which concerns the whole body of Christians including living saints, believers who have died, and old-covenant believers who trusted in the Messiah.
Whether the spirit is conscious while absent from the body and present with the Lord is a disputed point on which the Bible is almost silent and which is not essential to salvation.
Comfort and Faithful Living
The passage belongs at the memorial of one who has died in the Lord, to comfort mourners with hope beyond death and with rest from labors, set alongside the resurrection taught in 1 Corinthians 15. Trust in Christ and his completed sacrifice enables the dying to face death without fear, resting on the promise of being with him. The one who walks with Jesus in life has his divine companionship at the dying bed and will be with the Lord forever. Though the believer remains a pilgrim away from the One loved, Christ will soon receive such into his glory.
While still living in the body the believer is to draw continually near to God and live in the paths that lead toward heaven. That drawing near also means turning from entanglement in worldly affairs that leaves little leisure for heavenly things, and giving attention to heavenly things while life is by faith and not by sight. The time to labor to be accepted by God is this present life, with reward for things done in the body given only when all appear before the judgment seat of Christ at his coming, and with no work to gain acceptance going on between death and resurrection. Keeping his commandments belongs to living with boldness for the day of judgment.
The verse stands within the ministry of reconciliation in which men, women, and youth serve as ambassadors on behalf of Christ to beseech others to be reconciled to God. That ministry is joined to the Father's love to save the world from perishing and give eternal life, to the Son's mission to accomplish that purpose, and to the Holy Spirit's instruction in salvation. Its section teaches the need for living faith in Christ and the great change that faith produces in character. Paul's expressions about human nature in such places are to be harmonized together and with his consistent teaching, rather than read so as to make him contradict himself.
Walking by faith is shown by the impotent man at the pool when Christ commanded him to rise, take up his bed, and walk. Power for rising was in the word rise, for taking in the word take, and for walking in the word walk. He believed Christ's word and acted on it at once, living by faith and walking by faith. The words accomplished what they commanded when he was made whole, took up his bed, and walked, and the fruit of his faith was seen in what he did.
The verse belongs to a contrast between two successive conditions of the whole person, the present mortal earthly house in which believers groan burdened and the future immortal heavenly house not made with hands. To be at home in the body is to continue in this mortal probationary life absent from the Lord, and to be absent from the body is to leave that mortal state, desiring not nakedness in death but to be clothed upon with immortality when mortality is swallowed up by life. That presence with the Lord is entered in reality at Christ's second coming, when he raises the dead, changes the living to immortality, and catches them up together to ever be with him. It therefore gives no proof of a conscious disembodied intermediate state, but holds out the resurrection and Christ's appearing as the Christian hope, with God giving the earnest of the Spirit as pledge of that certain change. Those who held otherwise taught that at death the soul leaves the body and is at once consciously present with Christ in heaven before the resurrection.
Words and Context
The surrounding passage sets two homes against each other, the present earthly house or tabernacle in which believers groan while burdened and the future heavenly house or building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens. The first is the mortal body and mortal condition, the second is the immortal body and immortal state to be received when mortality is swallowed up by life and the redeemed are clothed upon with the house from heaven. That house language is figurative for two successive conditions of the same whole person, as putting off the old person and putting on the new, not two dwellings occupied at once and not a separate soul-house entered at death. To make the eternal house a soul entered at death would require three houses, with a middle house vacated and left to ruin when the redeemed body is taken, which is impossible.
To be at home in the body is to continue in this mortal probationary life in the earthly tabernacle, absent from the Lord and from the resurrection body. To be absent from the body is to leave that mortal state, and to be present with the Lord is to be clothed upon with the building of God when mortality is swallowed up of life. To be unclothed, naked, found naked, or dissolved is death or sleep, an utterly undesirable unconscious condition not to be desired, while to be clothed or clothed upon is to receive the immortal body at the resurrection. Rendering the phrases as leaving home in the body and being at home with the Lord does not change the sense.
The verse expresses confidence and a willing preference to be present with the Lord rather than remain absent from him while at home in the body. That confidence is held while walking by faith and not by sight. It is directed toward eternal things and Christ's final appearing, longing to be clothed with the heavenly dwelling and laboring to be accepted by God whether present or absent.
Human beings were wrought by God to reach immortal life with him, designed to attain that end when death as the unclothed state is left behind. The earnest of the Spirit dwelling in the heart is given toward that end as pledge, assurance, and guarantee of the promised change to immortality and of the future inheritance. That pledge is the ground of confidence even while absent from the Lord, making the inheritance certain and near amid present trouble. Faith in that promise sustains rejoicing in hope, for immortality is otherwise theirs only by God's promise until the dead are raised.
Laboring to be accepted whether present or absent means whether living in this mortal state or dead, the two classes found at Christ's day, laboring now to be ready for his coming. The present life is the time to labor for acceptance, with no work to gain acceptance going on between death and resurrection. All must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive reward for deeds done in the body, when the saints stand before him in joyful triumph.
On one reading, absent from the body may refer to separation from the church as Christ's body. When applied to the fleshly body it means leaving mortal life as mortality is swallowed up by life at Christ's coming, entering his presence through resurrection and gathering of the living and dead to meet him, not by dying.
Promised Immortal State
To be away from the body and at home with the Lord is to leave one condition of the whole person and enter another, from the present sorrowful mortal state to the future glorious immortal state in God's own presence. It is not an intelligent soul slipping out of the body to live consciously with God, and it is not a vision seen while still in the body. There is no third, in-between existence as a disembodied spirit; the unclothed or naked condition is the unconscious sleep of death, which is not the thing desired. What is longed for is to receive the house from heaven, the eternal resurrection body, when mortality is swallowed up by life at the resurrection or translation. The Spirit dwelling in the heart is the pledge of that promised change, by which the whole person is made immortal and brought into God's presence. That presence comes when Christ returns and the dead are raised and the living are caught up together to meet him.
The desire is not for death or dying, nor for remaining in the present mortal condition, nor for being found unclothed or naked in death. It is to be clothed upon with the heavenly house, so that mortality is swallowed up by life and the body is redeemed. Death dissolves the present body and the heavenly body is not received until the resurrection, so the interval between death and resurrection is not the desired being with the Lord. Death is an enemy, the wages of sin and the last enemy to be destroyed, while God gives eternal life and immortality at Christ's coming when the dead are raised and the living are changed from mortal to immortal at the last trumpet.
To be present with the Lord is to be personally present in Christ's personal presence in glory, where there is fullness of joy. It is more than having the presence of his Spirit in daily life here; it is to be with Christ himself forever. Heaven is the believer's true home, a place of safety and rest and joy, confidently preferred to presence in the body here. That home is already held securely by faith though unseen, for the believer's life is hidden with Christ in God through his bearing of sin in death and his resurrection uniting believers to him as members of his body. They will be with him in reality forever when he comes and they are changed into his image.
Fulfilled at Christ's Coming
Entrance into presence with the Lord happens at Christ's second coming and appointed return, when he raises the dead, changes the living from mortal to immortal, and catches them up together to meet him and ever be with him. Then at the last trumpet this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, when mortality is swallowed up by life, which is the redemption of the body, the full fruition of hope, and deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children of God. What is longed for is not death or becoming unclothed and naked and losing life, but being clothed and clothed upon with the house from heaven, the building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens, while remaining in the mortal body is being at home in the body and absent from the Lord. When applied to the fleshly body, leaving mortal life is mortality swallowed up by life at Christ's coming through resurrection and translation, and on one reading absence from the body may refer to separation from the church as Christ's body. God wrought human beings to live immortal with him and gave the earnest of the Spirit toward that end, so the desire is for life and translation to heaven for an eternal home with Christ, which is the blessed hope.
Paul looked beyond death to that coming, expecting life and the crown of righteousness and presence with Christ when Christ appears and establishes his kingdom. He is dead and knows nothing until then, resting without consciousness or reward until the change, since death is an enemy and the wages of sin and the last enemy to be destroyed, not what is longed for. His desire to be with Christ means receiving immortality and being with Christ bodily, as Enoch and Elijah were, whether by translation or resurrection. Some faithful people will receive this change without passing through death, being apart from this life through being with Christ by translation or resurrection rather than through death.
Death and being with the Lord are spoken of as immediately connected because the unconscious interval between death and resurrection is not reckoned, just as time spent asleep is not reckoned in describing a man's actions. The dead have no conscious existence and no sense of anything and take no notice of time, so even a long wait until the resurrection seems like an instant. For them the next conscious moment is the resurrection and the life to come, so the end of this life and the commencement of the better life seem joined without interruption. Being with Christ can only take place at Christ's second coming to judgment, for he said he would come again and take his disciples to himself, which implies they are not with him before that time.
Denial of Conscious Intermediate State
The verse gives no proof of consciousness in death, no support for an immortal soul or conscious existence apart from the body, and does not teach that believers become conscious with Christ immediately after death. Being absent from the mortal state and present with the Lord belongs to the immortality God gives his people at Christ's coming, when mortality is swallowed up by life through resurrection or translation and not to being naked in death. What is longed for is a future condition, not death itself, for the chapter sets out three conditions of present earthly life at home in the body with groaning and mortality, the dissolved naked unclothed condition of death which is utterly undesirable, and the future clothed-upon state in the building of God eternal in the heavens. That presence with the Lord comes when this mortal puts on immortality and this corruptible puts on incorruption at the last trumpet at the second coming of Christ, which is the same redemption of the body for which those with the first-fruits of the Spirit groan, and until then believers walk by faith not by sight, laboring whether living or dead at his coming to be accepted of him when all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. The only hope of the Christian held out here is the second coming of the Lord.
The passage presents three conditions and not two independent entities of soul and body: present mortal life at home in the body and absent from the Lord, death as nakedness and unconsciousness without the body, and the future glorified immortal body. To be absent from the body and present with the Lord means to be at home with the Lord when Jesus comes, not at death, for Paul did not wish to be unclothed by death or found naked in the grave with no conscious existence but groaned to be clothed upon with the house from heaven made immortal at Christ's coming. God wrought human beings to live immortal with him and gave the earnest of the Spirit toward that end, while death remains the last enemy to be destroyed and the wages of sin, and what is desired is life and translation to heaven for an eternal home with Christ. The language about the outward person perishing while the inward person is renewed day by day does not mean the person is composed of two independent entities.
To read the verse as conscious presence with Christ for 1,800 years since Paul's death denies that the dead sleep in their graves until the resurrection. Such teaching leaves only that they sleep in heaven or do not sleep at all, contradicts the Bible's clear teaching that they are asleep, sets aside the resurrection of the physical body, and belongs to spiritualist theology swung loose from the Bible, nor does it mean that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah and dead friends are now conscious in heaven keeping identity and recognition. Popular theology uses its language of being outside the body and with the Lord to teach that the saints go to a far-off region beyond time and space, where the inheritance is spiritual and not real and where people are formless viewless ethereal substances floating through space. Against that use, the true hope is tangible and real: a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells, the kingdom and dominion under heaven given to the saints forever, the meek inheriting the earth, and a glorious literal city with streets of gold, gates of pearl and foundations of precious stones located on the new earth where God dwells with men for those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, compared with which leaving the body for such an empty condition is undesirable and remaining in the body is preferable.
Comfort for mourners does not rest on being absent from the body and present with the Lord, but on Christ's return, when the dead in Christ will rise and believers will be reunited with them and be with the Lord. Citing the verse for a saint as already with Christ and present with the Lord, understood as being in heaven with Christ in his resurrected glorified body, is used to challenge the idea that saints go to heaven at death. On that challenge, if they already have spiritual bodies there, the claim that they later return to earth to enter bodies raised from the ground is presented as lacking scriptural support.
Dissenting Immediate Presence Views
In contrast, to be absent from the body is to be consciously present with the Lord, a state preferable to remaining in the body. At death the soul leaves the body in which it dwelt during life and is at once received into the Lord's presence in heaven. Trust in Christ and his completed sacrifice therefore lets the dying face death without fear, resting on the promise of being with him. Paul's preference was to leave the body at death and be present with Christ in Paradise before the body is raised. The body in this context is a tabernacle, and the dead in Christ are conscious between death and the resurrection.
Death is the putting off of the earthly body, with the spirit going to the Lord Jesus Christ where he is. It liberates man's immortal spirit from this house of clay to go to where Christ is at the right hand of the Majesty on High. This is an intermediate state but not an intermediate place, in which the soul without the body waits for full redemption, namely the resurrection body. The soul without the body is not a whole man and is not capable of all the joy and blessedness, or of complete misery, that a complete man is capable of, so the bliss of the redeemed and the misery of the lost is not complete until the whole man is in it. Putting off the earthly body at death concerns each believer individually while the church militant and other believers remain behind, unlike Christ's return which concerns the whole body of Christians including living saints, believers who have died, and old-covenant believers who trusted in the Messiah.
Whether the spirit is conscious while absent from the body and present with the Lord is a disputed point on which the Bible is almost silent and which is not essential to salvation.
Comfort and Faithful Living
The passage belongs at the memorial of one who has died in the Lord, to comfort mourners with hope beyond death and with rest from labors, set alongside the resurrection taught in 1 Corinthians 15. Trust in Christ and his completed sacrifice enables the dying to face death without fear, resting on the promise of being with him. The one who walks with Jesus in life has his divine companionship at the dying bed and will be with the Lord forever. Though the believer remains a pilgrim away from the One loved, Christ will soon receive such into his glory.
While still living in the body the believer is to draw continually near to God and live in the paths that lead toward heaven. That drawing near also means turning from entanglement in worldly affairs that leaves little leisure for heavenly things, and giving attention to heavenly things while life is by faith and not by sight. The time to labor to be accepted by God is this present life, with reward for things done in the body given only when all appear before the judgment seat of Christ at his coming, and with no work to gain acceptance going on between death and resurrection. Keeping his commandments belongs to living with boldness for the day of judgment.
The verse stands within the ministry of reconciliation in which men, women, and youth serve as ambassadors on behalf of Christ to beseech others to be reconciled to God. That ministry is joined to the Father's love to save the world from perishing and give eternal life, to the Son's mission to accomplish that purpose, and to the Holy Spirit's instruction in salvation. Its section teaches the need for living faith in Christ and the great change that faith produces in character. Paul's expressions about human nature in such places are to be harmonized together and with his consistent teaching, rather than read so as to make him contradict himself.
Walking by faith is shown by the impotent man at the pool when Christ commanded him to rise, take up his bed, and walk. Power for rising was in the word rise, for taking in the word take, and for walking in the word walk. He believed Christ's word and acted on it at once, living by faith and walking by faith. The words accomplished what they commanded when he was made whole, took up his bed, and walked, and the fruit of his faith was seen in what he did.