Our Destiny
In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes about the Judgement Seat of Christ. Just before this section he has been talking about the tension between living in a body (that is slowly dying) and his desire to leave this world to enter the next. In this body ‘we groan, being burdened’ (v.4).
Everything points to the extraordinary release coming as we pass from this world into the eternal world. All our experiences of God in this earthly life are through the Spirit, but even the Holy Spirit is only given to us as a pledge (v.5) – a down payment toward the fullness which is still coming. Our life on earth is a walk of faith (v.7). We haven’t entered the eternal world just yet (vs.6,8) but it’s the eternal world we long for (v.8).
Paul sees the desire of every believer must be to please God – in both this life and the next (v.9). This desire to please Him lies at the heart of the motive that God loves most and will reward accordingly at the Judgement Seat (vs.9,10) when God’s people receive their rewards (v.10).
And so against this backdrop of knowing we will all stand before Christ’s Judgement Seat, Paul launches into an emphatic plea for the Corinthians to reach out to those who don’t know Christ. Motivated by the fear of God (v.11) and the love of God (v.14) we are Christ’s ambassadors here on earth (v.20) imploring people to be reconciled to God (v.20).
So writing about his desire to be with Christ made Paul think about the coming Judgement Seat experience, and that in turn made him think about the destiny of the human soul. It should for us too.
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