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The Commentary

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 25, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 10.

Read the full edition

The Commentary.

By Vesta N. Cudworth

Tell me the meaning of Scriptures. One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles of earthly streams.—M'Cheyne.

A Paraphrase

Of Paul's Earthly and Heavenly House, as a plain and beautiful figure, representing mortal and immortal life.
“For we know that if our earthly house [mortal life] of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house [immortal life] not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.
“For in this [mortal life] we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house [immortal life] which is from Heaven.
“If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked [dead, divested of mortal or immortal life.]
“For we that are in this tabernacle [mortal life] do groan, being burdened; not for that we should be unclothed, [dead] but clothed upon, [mark] that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
“Now He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing [immortal life] is God, how also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body [clothed with mortal life] we are absent [personally] from the Lord: [Here let Paul himself explain.]
(“For we walk by faith, not by sight.)
“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body [this mortal life] and to be present [personally] with the Lord.
“Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, [laboring here, or being at the judgment seat, which he refers to in the next verse] we may be accepted of him.
It is plain that while Paul was sighing for the immortal state, being burthened with the mortal, the unclothed state, or death, had no charms for him.
Vesta N. Cudworth.