"So then, death is at work in us, but ... because we know that The One who raised The Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus ... Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day ... For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:12-18 (NIV)
This message was written by the Apostle Paul to the believers in The Church in Corinth to encourage them to keep the faith and not be led astray by false prophets. (2 Corinthians 4:13) He told them that although they were dying a little each day, and would eventually see physical death, their spirit was being renewed each day, and it is eternal.
From the day that we are born we began to die. It is just that, while we are young, we were growing at a faster rate than we were dying, so the net result was that we grew. However, at some point in our life the rate at which we were dying exceeded the rate of growth and we began to notice that we were aging, decaying, wasting away, and slowing dying. As Paul put it, "...death is at work in us..." from the very beginning. But when the process is complete and death overtakes us, as believers we know that The God who raised up our Lord and Savior Jesus, The Christ, will also raise us up from the dead. Christ said that, "he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John 11:25) We know that when the body dies physically, the spirit returns to God, for when we are absent from the body, we are present with The Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8) We know that the dead in Christ shall rise, and they will meet The Lord God first. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) Our spiritual selves will live throughout eternity. (Matthew 25:46, John 3:15, Romans 6:23, and 1 John 5:11) Death and dying is a temporary process, but spiritual life is eternal. In this we can find comfort at the death of a loved one.
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