Through the divine dispensing God also raises the believers up and presents them to Himself. In 2 Corinthians 4:14 Paul says, “Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will present us with you.” This indicates that the apostles considered themselves dead persons, for they were always being delivered unto death for the Lord’s purpose. Their only hope was in the God who raised up the Lord Jesus and who would also raise them up. They lived with this kind of faith.
In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul testifies of his experience of being raised up by God: “We ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have confidence in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.” Literally, the Greek word translated “sentence” means answer or response. When the apostles were under the pressure of affliction, despairing even of life, they may have asked themselves what the issue of the suffering would be. The answer, or response, was death. According to their estimation, they were dying. This was a self-insight that led to a particular vital decision. It caused them to have no confidence in themselves. As far as they were concerned, there was no way out. Their confidence was in God, who raises the dead.
The experience of death ushers us into the experience of resurrection. Resurrection is the very God who, through His dispensing, resurrects the dead. The working of the cross terminates the self that we may experience God in resurrection. The experience of the cross always issues in the enjoyment of the God of resurrection.
God fashions, shapes, prepares, makes the believers fit, for their mortal body to be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4b-5a). In 2 Corinthians 5:4b Paul says, “That what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Here “what is mortal” denotes our mortal body (2 Cor. 4:11; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:53). To have our mortal body swallowed up by life is to have it transfigured by resurrection life swallowing up the death in our mortal body (1 Cor. 15:54). Our fallen, mortal body is a great burden to us. Under the weight of this burden, we groan that we would be clothed with a transfigured body. When we are raptured, transfigured, and clothed with the heavenly, spiritual, and resurrected body, then that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
In 2 Corinthians 5:5 Paul goes on to say, “Now He who has wrought us for this very thing is God, who has given to us the pledge of the Spirit.” The Greek word rendered “wrought” can also be translated fashioned, shaped, prepared, made fit. God has wrought us, fashioned us, shaped us, prepared us, made us fit, for the very purpose that our mortal body may be swallowed up by His resurrection life. Thus, our entire being will be saturated with Christ. God has given us the Spirit as the pledge of this wonderful and marvelous part of His complete salvation in Christ.
God prepares us for our mortal body to be swallowed up by life by dispensing Himself into us. Eventually the Christ who dwells in us will grow in us and saturate our entire being. This is the preparation for Christ’s saturating our body. On the one hand, when we are transfigured, we shall be clothed with a spiritual body outwardly. On the other hand, transfiguration means that the indwelling Christ is saturating our body and swallowing up the element of death in it. He has been sown into our spirit and heart, and now He is saturating our soul. Then one day He will spread from the soul into the body and saturate the body. When our body has been saturated in full, it will become a new body.
The One who fashions, shapes, prepares, makes us fit for this is God. The Spirit is the guarantee that God will accomplish this. The Spirit is Christ, and Christ is the embodiment of God. Therefore, actually God has put Himself into our being as the guarantee that He will change our body so that we shall be entirely conformed to Christ in resurrection.
We may believe, according to 2 Corinthians 5:4, that our mortal body will be swallowed up by life. However, we still need to see that for this purpose God needs to shape us. God’s fashioning of us for the future in which our mortal body will be swallowed up by life is also God’s dispensing. We need to pray, “Lord, prepare me, make me fit, for the day when my mortal body will be swallowed up by life and transfigured.” Eventually, our body will be transfigured into the form of Christ’s glorious body. Today God is shaping, fashioning, us for this by dispensing Himself into our being.
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