Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
The verse makes laboring to be accepted by Christ the work of ministers as watchmen entrusted with a message of mercy and warning to awaken the world from its sleep of death. Whether present or absent means in life and in death, so the labor for acceptance is to be done now. That labor is carried on by walking by faith and not by sight. It keeps the day of judgment and the nearness of the end before the people.
The work done today will live through the eternal ages. Acceptance is decided when all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, at His appearing in His kingdom, where each receives according to what was done in the body. The fast-fulfilling signs show that the great day of the Lord is right upon us. Everyone who keeps refusing the repeated movings of the Spirit for minor things will be found unaccepted in that day.
The verse makes laboring to be accepted by Christ the work of ministers as watchmen entrusted with a message of mercy and warning to awaken the world from its sleep of death. Whether present or absent means in life and in death, so the labor for acceptance is to be done now. That labor is carried on by walking by faith and not by sight. It keeps the day of judgment and the nearness of the end before the people.
The work done today will live through the eternal ages. Acceptance is decided when all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, at His appearing in His kingdom, where each receives according to what was done in the body. The fast-fulfilling signs show that the great day of the Lord is right upon us. Everyone who keeps refusing the repeated movings of the Spirit for minor things will be found unaccepted in that day.