A Metaphor by EPSILON

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 24, 1884

A Metaphor.

By EPSILON

THE first ten verses of 2 Cor. 5 is a metaphor; because the words tabernacle, building, house, clothed, unclothed, and swallowed up are not used in a literal sense. All such scriptures must be explained by other and plain scriptures. A careful comparison of this metaphor with the plain language of 1 Cor. 15: 40–58 will make it plain; for it is obvious that the same thoughts were in Paul's mind at the two writings. In 1 Cor. 15: 54, we have the words, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” In 2 Cor. 5: 4, we have the words, “That mortality might be swallowed up of life.” The same idea is expressed in the two passages.

IN 1 Cor. 15 we have two images or likenesses, and three states: 1. The image and nature of the earthly Adam. 2. Death or sleep. 3. The image and nature of the heavenly Adam, Christ. In 2 Cor. 5, we have two houses and three states: 1. The earthly house [Adamic body]. 2. Unclothed [death or sleep]. 3. The house from heaven [glorified body]. The house from heaven is the glorified spiritual body like unto that of our coming Redeemer, who is now both a pattern and a pledge of the glorious bodies we shall have at the resurrection. “And as we have borne the image of the earthy [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” [Adam, our glorified Saviour]. 1 Cor. 15: 49; see also Phil. 3: 20, 21.

To claim that mortality is swallowed up of life as soon as we die, would be to array Paul against Paul; for he teaches that “Death is swallowed up in victory,” at the resurrection. Besides, where would the unclothed come in? Would Paul have used the word unclothed if he had meant to give such an idea? To admit the truth that mortality is swallowed up of life at the resurrection, is to deny that the soul is immortal; for mortality (not immortality) is swallowed up of life.

IF Paul in the plain language of 1 Cor. 15 had used the word unclothed instead of death or sleep, then he would have connived at the idea of an apparitional man, with neither an Adamic nor a Christ-like body. But his use of unclothed in the metaphor only carries out the metaphor. Its literal sense would demand that clothed, tabernacle, and house, also be literal.

NOW let us mark: The desire is “To be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” and the unclothed is not to be desired. We will not be with the Lord while unclothed. Mortality is not swallowed up of life unless we are “clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.” To be absent from the body is not to be present with the Lord, unless we are clothed upon with the spiritual body of which our resurrected Saviour is both a pattern and a pledge. “Wherefore we labor, that whether present [still living] or absent [asleep] we may be accepted of him” [at his coming]. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” &c.

THE ninth verse contains the same idea as that given in 1 Thess. 5: 10, “That whether we wake [are living], or sleep, we should live together with him” [at his coming]. It is but natural that one, believing that death is a dreamless sleep, a blank in consciousness, would look beyond to the promise, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” EPSILON.