2 Corinthians 5:5

Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has also given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

2 Corinthians 5:5

In 2 Corinthians 5:1, Paul tells us that once our earthly house is destroyed — meaning our body — that we have an eternal dwelling in heaven waiting for us. This is the thing mentioned here in verse 5. The wonderful revelation here is that the Spirit has been given to us as a guarantee, or in other words, a down payment. This transaction is completely opposite of what we experience here in an earthly sense in terms of purchasing a home. In most cases, we make a deposit in order to place a serious offer with the seller, guaranteeing that we are serious about proceeding with the sale. From there we come up with more money in order to guarantee to the bank that we are serious about paying off the mortgage loan that they are funding. Then we make payments over the course of many years to finally earn the right to call the home our own.

The transaction for our heavenly dwelling is entirely different. This future dwelling is a free gift from God, paid for by the blood of Christ, and there is no payment that we could begin to make to cover the cost of this gift. Even more amazing is that God gives us a deposit on this free gift as assurance that His promise is true. What are we to do in the meantime as we anticipate the final receipt of our heavenly “building?” We are to live our lives by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7) and we are to make it our goal to be well pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:9). Not to repay God for His gift, but to demonstrate our loving response to Him for what Christ did for us on the cross.

Jeff Mericle