Immeasurable Gain

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.”                                                                              (Philippians 1:21-23)

      Death for the believer is gain, infinite, immeasurable gain. Paul was confident that as soon as he departed from this world he would immediately be with Christ in blessed communion. Believing the Word and promise of God, he looked upon death as a desirable thing.

The Immediate Place

What is the state of the saints’ life between death and the resurrection? About that, little is revealed; but it is certain that the souls of God’s saints are not floating around in the sky. They have gone to a specific place where Christ is (Luke 23:43). They are assembled as a glorified church (Hebrews 12:22-23).

      They exist in a recognizable form. Moses and Elijah stood upon the mount of transfiguration in a recognizable form (Matthew 17:3). When the rich man saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, he saw and recognized him as the very same man who laid by his gate upon the earth (Luke 16:23).

      Do God’s saints in heaven have a body between death and the resurrection? A physical body? No. A spiritual body, a heavenly form, a house for their souls? — Most definitely (2 Corinthians 5:1). Every believer, as soon as he leaves this body, enters into heavenly glory with a heavenly body with Christ. It is this assurance of heavenly glory and bliss that makes death a desirable thing for the believer.

The Intermediate House

In 2^nd Corinthians 4:17 - 5:9 the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to tell us plainly that as soon as this earthly house is dissolved we have a “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” What is that house? Some say the house is heaven itself. Perhaps, Paul is saying, “We have a heaven in the heavens,” but I do not think that is his meaning. Others say that this “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” refers to the resurrection body; but Paul is not speaking here of the resurrection. He is telling us about the state of God’s saints immediately after the death of the body. It seems obvious to me that the Apostle is here declaring that as soon as we drop this earthly house of clay, we enter into another house for our souls, an intermediate body that is specifically prepared for that blessed state.

      Every word in the passage shows a distinct contrast between this new house and the old one. — The old is a tent. The new is a building. — The old, though not made with hands, was made what it is, a house of death, defiled and made defective by the sin and fall of our father Adam. The new is God’s work and

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God’s gift. — The old is temporal and perishing. The new is eternal.

      When Paul says we have this house “in the heavens,” it is plain that he is not talking about heaven itself. This house is a new body, replacing and surpassing the old. It is in the heavens in the sense that it is God’s gift, something he has for us where he is, and which we shall wear there. “We have it” means “it is ours.

“In this (house) the saints have a present interest. They have it already built and prepared for them. They have an indubitable right and title to it through the righteousness of Christ. They have it secured to them in Christ, their head and representative. And they have the earnest of it, the Spirit of God in their hearts. Of all which they have sure and certain knowledge: ‘for we know’. They are well assured of the truth of this from the promise of God, who cannot lie, from the declaration of the Gospel, the testimony of the Spirit and the close and inseparable connection there is between the grace they have already received and the glory that shall be hereafter.”                                                             — John Gill

      If we had the wisdom of Solomon, we too would “praise the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.” If we could see by faith that which John saw by revelation, if we could grasp something of the glory and happiness of God’s saints in heaven, even now, at this very moment, we would say with that beloved disciple, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”

Don Fortner

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