2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 5
Paul’s Longing for the Future Glory. 2 Cor. 5, 1–10.
Paul’s expectation of a glorified body: V.1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. v.2. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, v.3. if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
In comparing the afflictions of this present time with the future glory, chap. 4, 17, Paul had declared the former to be light, insignificant, in comparison with the latter.
And therefore he himself looks forward with the faith of hope to the realization of these glories in his own body: For we (Christians) know that if our earthly house of the tent dwelling be dissolved, we have a building from God. a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
The apostle speaks of the bodies of the Christians as flimsy and unstable tents, sheltering the soul for a time, Isaiah 38, 12. The time will come, and that very soon, when this tent, this mortal body, will be destroyed by physical death. But he has the firm assurance that it will be replaced by a solid building, by a real house, not built up by the natural processes of physical growth, but the direct gift of God.
The new dwelling which he hopes to enter will not be rude and temporary, but it will be permanent, it will last forever; and instead of being in this world, with its illusions and vanity, it will be in the heavens, in the home of Christ and the Father, where the only true and lasting joys will be found. Our earthly, mortal body will be laid into the grave, to become a prey of worms, but the body which we shall receive at the hands of God, the body of the resurrection, will partake of the immortality of Christ Himself.
That this is the apostle’s meaning appears plainly from the next statements: For indeed in this (tent-dwelling) we sigh, sincerely longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven.
So long as a believer is still in the flesh of this life, he sighs and groans with longing for the time when the heavenly body which awaits him above will, as it were, be put on over the mortal flesh, like a garment which hides forever its perishable nature. Paul here expresses the same thought as in 1 Corinthians 15, 52, where he speaks of a changing, by which our present vile body will become spiritual and immortal.
The believers will, on the last day, “put on the lord’s dress of their heavenly habitation over the servant’s coat of the earthly hut, in the same manner as the human nature of Christ in the bosom of the Virgin Mary became the dwelling-place of eternal glory” (Besser, Bibelstunden, 9, 175).
But the apostle adds a condition: If so be that we be found clothed, not naked. During their entire life on earth the believers put on Christ and the garment of His righteousness by means of the Word and the Sacraments, Gal. 3, 27: Rom. 13, 14. Without this covering of the innocence and righteousness of Christ the shame of a person’s nakedness will appear, Rev. 3, 18. and there will be no putting on of the garment of Christ’s heavenly glory.