February 23

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle. - 2 Peter 1:14.

HERE we have the Christian’s present residence. “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened,” says Paul; and here Peter says, “I must put off this my tabernacle.” By this tabernacle they mean the body. It is the same to the soul as a dwelling is to the inhabitant; but, you will observe, the apostles do not call it a palace, or a mansion, or even a house, but only a tabernacle. Paul was by craft a tent-maker; his hands, therefore, had been often employed in the construction of such residences as these. He well knew that a tent or a tabernacle had a roof but no foundation-was a temporary accommodation-a movable body, easily taken down, easily injured, easily destroyed.

Ah! do what we will with these bodies of ours, they are really no better than tabernacles,-earthly tabernacles. Nurse them as we please, pamper them, as some do, dress them, idolize them, indulge them in every kind of luxury, after all, dust they are, and unto dust they will return. “Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth, and my age is as nothing before thee. Verily, every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.” But let us now see how the apostles distinguish our souls from our bodies, and how they place them above our bodies. They speak as if our bodies did not even belong to our persons. Paul says, “We that are in this tabernacle;” and Peter here avails himself of the same allusion:-“I must put off this my tabernacle;” as if we could live and act without our bodies. This is possible, and the soul is the man, and the soul is the inhabitant that is in the body, but not of it; it is not of the same material, the same quality, the same origin.

Do what we will we can never save the tabernacle, but the tenant may be saved; and surely it must be our wisdom to make its salvation our immediate and our main concern; and, therefore, our Saviour, who well knew the value of the soul, from the price of our redemption which he paid for it, meets us in all our worldly pursuits, and asks, “What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Yet there are many persons who have no more regard for their souls than if they had none, or as if they deemed them unworthy of one moment’s thought.

This is the case with them not only while they live but often even when they die. They discover the same indifference then; they employ the physician; they call in the lawyer; they dispose of their substance; they arrange their funeral; they tell their survivors where, and how, and when, they choose to be buried: but not a word escapes them concerning their soul, and not one of their cruel relatives, or attendants in the room with them, dares to break this delusion and say to them, Have you, then, no soul? Is the soul provided for? Is your soul safe? After death is the judgment: and where will you be in the day of the Lord Jesus?