Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 5

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved.—Better, be broken up, as more in harmony with the image of the tent. The words that follow give the secret of his calmness and courage in the midst of sufferings. He looks beyond them. A new train of imagery begins to rise in his mind: linked, perhaps, to that of the preceding chapter by the idea of the tabernacle; in part, perhaps, suggested by his own occupation as a tentmaker.

His daily work was to him as a parable, and as his hands were making the temporary shelter for those who were travellers on earth, he thought of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The comparison of the body to the house or dwelling-place of the Spirit was, of course, natural, and common enough, and, it may be noted, was common among the Greek medical writers (as, e.g., in Hippocrates, with whom St. Luke must have been familiar). The modification introduced by the idea of the “tent” emphasises the transitory character of the habitation. “What if the tent be broken up?” He, the true inward man, who dwells in the tent will find a more permanent, an eternal, home in heaven: a house which comes from God. What follows shows that he is thinking of that spiritual body of which he had said such glorious things in 1 Corinthians 15:42–49.

For in this we groan.—The “groaning” here, and in 2 Corinthians 5:4, may, of course, be a strong way of expressing the burden and the weariness of life. But when considered in connection with what we have already seen in the Epistle, which points to the pressure of disease, we can scarcely fail to find in it the utterance of a personal or special suffering. (See Notes on 2 Corinthians 1:8–9.)

Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon.—These words have suggested the question whether St. Paul spoke of the “spiritual body” to be received at the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:42–49), or of some intermediate stage of being, like that represented in the visions which poets have imagined and schoolmen theorized about—for example, in the visions of the world of the dead in the Odyssey (Book 11), in the Aeneid (Book 6), and throughout Dante’s Divina Commedia.

The answer to that question is found in the clear fact that the intermediate state occupied only a subordinate position in St. Paul’s thoughts. He would not speak too confidently about times and seasons, but his practical belief was that he, and most of those who were then living, would survive until the coming of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15).

Therefore, he did not speculate about that state, but was content to rest in the belief that when absent from the body he would, in some more immediate sense, be present with the Lord. But the longing of his soul was, like that of St. John (Revelation 22:20), that the Lord might come quickly—that he might put on the new and glorious body without the pain and struggle of the “dissolution” of the old.

In the words “be clothed upon” (literally, the verb being in the middle voice, to clothe ourselves, to put on) we find a slight change of imagery. The transition from the idea of a dwelling to that of a garment is, however, quite natural, as seen, for example, in Psalms 104:1-3.

Each shelters the person. Each is separable from the person himself. In these respects, each corresponds to the body that clothes the spirit.

If so be that being clothed . . .—The Greek particles express rather more than the English phrase does, the truth of what follows. “If, as I believe . . .,” though not a translation, would be a fair paraphrase. The confident expectation thus expressed is that in the resurrection state the spirit will not be “naked,” will have, i.e., its appropriate garment, a body—clothing it with the attributes of distinct individuality.

To the Greek, Hades was a world of shadows. Of Hades, as an intermediate state, St. Paul does not here speak, but he is sure that, in the state of glory which seemed to him so near, there will be nothing shadowy and unreal. The conviction is identical with that expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:35–49, against those who, admitting the immortality of the spirit, denied the resurrection of the body.

Being burdened.—The whole passage is strikingly parallel to Wisdom 9:15: “The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.” The Wisdom of Solomon, which no writer quotes before Clement of Rome, had probably been written only recently (possibly, as I believe, by Apollos), but St. Paul may well have become acquainted with it.

Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon.—Better, Seeing that we do not seek to put off, but to put on a garment. The thought is that of one who thinks that the Coming of the Lord is near. He wishes, as he expects, to remain until that Coming (compare 1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:15), to let the incorruptible body be put on over the corruptible, to be changed instead of dying. In this way that which is mortal, subject to death, would be swallowed up of life, as death itself is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54).

He that has wrought us for the very same thing.—Better, he that wrought us for this very thing.

The “very thing” is the consummation, by whatever stages it may be reached, in which mortality is swallowed up of life. The whole work of God in the past—redemption, the new birth, the gifts and graces of the Spirit—was looking to this as its result.

He had given the earnest of the Spirit (see Note on 2 Corinthians 1:22) as a pledge of the future victory of the higher life over the lower.

Every gift of spiritual energy not dependent upon the material organism was an assurance that that organism was an impediment to the free action of the Spirit, which would one day be overcome. Our eyes, to take a striking instance, are limits, as well as instruments, to the spirit’s powers of perception.