Mark McCulley
Judge by the Gospel

Hasten to Death Because We Want to be More Fully Clothed

In the Institutes Book 3, Chapter 3, I read Calvin quoting Plato and Cicero, asking, "if heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile." And I begin to skip the page, talking back to Calvin: Revelation 21-21 says that heaven comes to earth in the visible church. BUT, then I read this: "believers eagerly hasten to death NOT BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE UNCLOTHED but because they long to be more fully clothed."

The traditional church has made the mistake of saying that the image of God in the human is immortality. The tradition has read the word "body" into I Corinthians 15 when it says "sleep". But God CAN destroy even the "soul". But does God do such a thing? If so, what then does "soul" mean if not life?

II Corinthians 5 does not say that the "present with" is at the same time as the "absent from". Is the sleeping dead body (which sees corruption) united to Christ? What is it to be "away from the Lord" (II Corinthians 5:6)? Are we not now united to Christ?

Mark McCulley
mcculley@redrose.net