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Answer on 2 Cor. 5:1-8

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 40.

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Answer on 2 Cor. 5:1-8.

By Editor

A READER of our paper requests us to harmonize 2 Cor. 5:1-8, with the views taught by Eld. Canright in his articles on the soul of man. We give the following, written by Eld. J. N. Andrews, as a sufficient answer. We consider it an excellent exposition of this text.
2 Cor. 5:1-10: "For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
1. The apostle represents the Christian as having two houses, one a temporary structure, called a tabernacle because liable at any time to be taken down; the other an eternal house, because incapable of dissolution.
2. The tabernacle or temporary house is our mortal body, or the present state of mortality.
3. The eternal house is our immortal body, or immortality itself.
4. The dissolution of the tabernacle or temporary house, is the unbuilding of the mortal body by death.
5. At death we have the eternal house, not in actual possession, but by God's promise, which is then ours without condition.
6. For the eternal house, or house from Heaven, is the immortal body, or more properly it is immortality itself. And this is not given till mortality is swallowed up of life.
7. But mortality is swallowed up of life, not at the death of the body, but when it is raised from the dead.
8. The unclothed or naked state is that of death, for the tabernacle is dissolved, and the eternal house exists only in God's promise. The man has laid down the mortal life, and has not yet laid hold on the immortal life. He is asleep in death.
9. Paul did not desire this state of death, but did desire the state of immortality in the resurrection.
10. This immortal state is that for which God hath wrought man.
11. The indwelling of the Spirit of God is the earnest or pledge, not of death, but of the resurrection or immortal state.
12. Paul speaks of the first of these houses in which we have always lived as our home, and so long as we continue in this home we are absent from the Lord.
13. He was "willing rather," that is, he chose to be absent from the mortal body and present with the Lord. But this cannot mean that he chose death, for he expressly declares in the previous verses that he did not.
14. But as he has used the figure of two houses, one a temporary structure in which we have always lived, and which for that reason he calls home, and the other an eternal house, so now he speaks of moving from our home, when we are absent from our mortal body, and present with the Lord in immortality. Until the resurrection, Paul did not expect to be with Christ. 1 Cor. 15:32.
15. Let it be observed that there is but one house at a time, for the two houses are simply the body in its mortal and in its immortal state. The figure is like that used with respect to conversion, when it is said that we put off the old man and put on the new, and yet these are simply two conditions of the same mind.
16. And the apostle fixes the time when we shall appear in the presence of Christ to receive our reward, and that time is the Judgment. It is manifest that Paul looked not to death, but beyond it to the immortal glory of the resurrected saints in the presence of Christ.