For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Paul has just called the body an earthen vessel, and here he tells us what happens when that vessel is destroyed. The verse sets a tent against a building, and the temporary against the eternal.
Paul does not begin with a hope. He begins with knowledge.
What calm and confident knowledge the apostle here credits to Christians, simply as Christians! What a contrast with the dark uncertainty of unbelief, or with its godless boldness! Eternal things are no less sure in hope because they are not seen.
This knowledge is for the hour when death comes close.
Let us look calmly at death; it may soon touch us. How shall we greet the "King of Terrors"? That is the world's name for death. God, speaking to His people, calls it Sleep… "We know!" What assurance is here; and again, the confidence rests on God. The shifting tent gives way to the building of God.
Two things are true of this body at once.
The tent that is our earthly home is the body of the believer, the earthen vessel of the previous chapter. It is called a tent because it is only a temporary lodging. By grace, believers are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Yet in this earthen vessel, this frail tent, there is a divine indweller, the Holy Spirit.
Paul does not treat death as settled for every believer.
The apostle speaks of our earthly house being destroyed: "if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed." He does not say "when we die." He only states the possibility that the tent may be taken down… "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" was the mystery revealed through the apostle in his first letter (1 Corinthians 15:51). The change of the believer's body is certain; its destruction is not.
One writer warns against reading extra ideas into the verse.
Let us not make difficulties for ourselves by putting into this verse what is not there. The destruction of the body is in view. The contrast is between the tent that is our earthly home — the most temporary of all dwelling places, easily shifted from one place to another — and a building. And it is a building "of God," not one "made with hands"; eternal in the heavens, instead of temporary and earthly.
Paul writes in the present tense about a house no one has moved into yet.
"We know" is the proper language of Christianity. There is no cause for alarm if this tent is destroyed, for it is only meant to be temporary. We do not have the new house yet, and still the verse says, "We have a building from God." It is as certain as though we were already living in it.
The new house is not a repaired version of the old one. It suits a different world.
The new and glorified body we are destined for will be like a house of God's workmanship. None of the frailties that come from human origin will exist in it. It will be able to sustain all the joys and services of the heavens for eternity. It would in a way be a poor thing if we came into the heavens with Christ, into all the brightness of the Father's house, with bodies that grow tired and weary.
Commentators differ over when this house becomes ours. Some tie it to the Lord's return:
This refers to the resurrection body, which we shall have when the Lord returns. We do not receive it when the tent-house is destroyed… The tent-house is subject to death; the new body is called "eternal."
Another writer rules out one common misreading, and finds more in the verse than the resurrection body alone:
Some will have it that this house not made with hands is heaven itself. But how then could it be called a house "in the heavens"? The house and heaven itself are carefully distinguished. Others, with less error but with an incomplete view of the passage as a whole, think only of the resurrection body. But it does not follow that the passage throws no light on the state of the soul between death and the resurrection.
- Tent — the present body is a traveller's lodging, temporary by design. The Holy Spirit lives in that frail vessel now.
- If — Paul says "if," not "when." The Lord may come first, so the change of the body is certain, but death is not.
- Building — the new house is God's work, not human work; permanent, not passing; heavenly, not earthly.
- Have — Paul speaks of the future body in the present tense: as sure as if we lived in it already.
- Know — certainty, not guesswork, lets a believer face death calmly.
For indeed in this we groan, ardently desiring to have put on our house which [is] from heaven;
Paul has just spoken of a building from God, eternal in the heavens. Here he tells us what that certainty produces in him: a groan. The sigh rises from confidence, not doubt, and what he wants is not death but something better.
The confidence of verse 1 and the sigh of verse 2 do not clash. One writer traces the groan back to that assurance.
Look at the certainty we have: "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." That very certainty makes us groan to have it. The apostle did not groan in doubt or uncertainty. He did not groan under the weight of guilt or fear. Still less did he groan because he could not satisfy the desires of the flesh or of the mind. Nor did he groan because he could not surround himself with this world's possessions, which all perish. No; he longed for the heavenly building — the divine, the real, the eternal.
The world sighs too, but in the opposite direction.
Men are never eager to be rid of the body unless they are sure of having something better. In fact, they grasp this present life with intense eagerness. They tremble at the thought of the future, which is all darkness and uncertainty to them. They groan at the thought of leaving the body; the apostle groaned because he was in it.
The longing starts with having already tasted what is coming. The groan lives in the gap between seeing and having.
In the power of this life I find myself dead in practice, and I see my house in heaven, as verse 2 puts it. This makes me groan. But why do I groan? Because I have seen and tasted the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, but in person I am not there yet. The groaning is not from disappointment, but from earnest desire... As yet we do not actually hold this glory, but we long for it... So there is no Christian, however weak, who does not have a title to long for the glory to which he has been predestined.
The verse calls the body a tent, and the name carries a lesson. This longing is not the product of hard days, either; it presses hardest when life is at its most pleasant.
It is called a tent because it is only the temporary lodging of those who are, by grace, strangers and pilgrims on the earth... The groaning is not because of weaknesses, hardship, deprivation or unsatisfied desires. It is deeper than that. It is the longing for the promised glorified condition with which we shall be clothed... Dear fellow-believer, we may live close to God and enjoy the fellowship with His Son into which grace has called us. If we do, then even in the finest scenes and the most attractive conditions on earth we shall know something of this groaning.
The phrase describes where the new body comes from, not a movement down to us.
The particular word used for "know" shows conscious knowledge. There is a certainty about it that makes an inward impression. This is why we groan. We feel how contrary everything is here, where we live in this tent-house... The words "from heaven" do not mean that our house comes down to us. They mean it is "out of" heaven — heavenly in source and character.
Being with the Lord after death is a real blessing. Yet Paul longs for more than that state of the spirit apart from the body.
Paul preferred (verse 8) to be absent from the body — that is, the present body of sin and death — and to be present with the Lord. But it was not the thing he earnestly desired. What he desired was quite another thing: "to be clothed upon with our house which is FROM heaven." The passage sets this in contrast with death and the separate state, and clearly prefers it.
Putting a garment over what is already worn points to a change without dying — which is the Lord's return.
We groan, but not to be unclothed — not to lay down the body in death. We groan to be clothed upon. That brings in the true normal hope of the Christian, that is, the Lord's coming. This hope is so ingrained into the Christian's life that it does not need to be stated. Then all that is mortal will be swallowed up by the power of the life we have in Him.
God allows one sound from us and rules out another.
This portion is assured to us, so the Apostle can twice say, "We groan." With the glory of the new body in view, we groan with earnest desire to have put it on. Feeling the burdens that press upon the mortal body, we groan with longing to have put it off... God permits a groan, but never a grumble.
- Certainty groans. The sigh is not doubt about heaven but desire for it; the surer the knowledge, the deeper the longing.
- Glory tasted. We groan because we have already seen the glory of Christ and are not yet in it. Every believer, however weak, has a title to long for it.
- Heavenly in source. "From heaven" marks the origin and character of the coming body, not a descent to where we are.
- Clothed, not stripped. Paul's earnest desire is not death, but being clothed over — the change that comes when the Lord returns.
- Groan, never grumble. God allows the longing to put on glory and to put off the burden. He does not allow complaint.
if indeed being also clothed we shall not be found naked.
Paul has been writing about the new body believers are waiting for. Here he adds a short condition, and it raises a hard question: how can a person be clothed and still be found naked?
The answer depends on who Paul is describing.
So it is possible to be clothed and yet naked. It is the unbeliever who will be found naked; so that the resurrection body of the unbeliever, while clothing his soul and spirit, will not cover the shame of his nakedness. This verse then guards against unbelief assuming itself safe. True confidence is only for the child of faith.
Resurrection is not a privilege of the saved only.
The apostle would warn every soul. In the day that is coming, everyone will be clothed. That is the resurrection of the body, when souls are no longer found without the body but clothed. Still, some, even despite that clothing, shall be found naked. The wicked are then to be clothed no less than the saints, who will have been already raised or changed. Their bodies shall be raised from the dead just as truly as those of the righteous. But when the unrighteous stand in resurrection before the great white throne, how bare will they appear? What will it be in that day to have no Christ to clothe us?
One writer traces the picture back to the garden. Adam covered himself with something he had made.
There is all the difference in the world between the "apron" that man made and the "coats of skins" which the Lord God made and put on them. In Adam's apron God did not put a single stitch. That is man's effort to reform himself, his self-improvement, and his own works. All your efforts and mine are worthless; we are as naked after as before. The coat that God made was His own work, and man had put no stitch in it. It is salvation by sovereign grace... Paul, so to speak, says, "Do not be like Adam." He was found "naked" when he thought himself clothed.
Another writer names what the naked never received.
There would be those clothed in bodies of resurrection who would be found terribly naked before God. They never received the "best robe" (Luke 15:22), and never became God's righteousness in Christ, as the last verse of the chapter says.
If Christ is the covering, when is He put on?
It is very solemn to think that it is here, and here only: when we depart to be with Christ, there is no putting on Christ in heaven. If we have not put on Christ here, we shall be found naked... The just will have been clothed too, but the clothing of their resurrection body does not leave them naked, but shows them like Christ. Now men may use clothing to cover up what they really are in the eyes of others. But in the resurrection state all must be shown as they are, whether just or unjust.
A believer who dies is unclothed. That is not the same as naked.
If we are true Christians we shall never be found naked in that way. We may be unclothed, but that word describes the state of those saints who are "away from the body" in the presence of the Lord. Paul himself, and countless others besides, are unclothed at this moment; but that unclothed state, blessed as it is, is not the great object of our desire.
Commentators differ over the opening word. Read as "since," the clause becomes comfort instead of warning, and one writer refuses that reading.
There are those who give this a very different turn, and make it a verse of comfort instead of warning. But such a view robs us of the true scope of the clause. It does not mean "since being clothed we shall not be found naked," which has no worthy lesson for any soul.
Another writer leaves room for a different sense of "naked."
That reading took "naked" as a contrast between the soul apart from the body and the soul clothed with the resurrection body — "our house which is from heaven." The ground for it was the word "we." Judgments have always differed widely on the subject. It is quite possible that "naked" may refer to those who will be left behind at the Lord's coming — that is, to the unconverted. In that case it will be equivalent to being without Christ.
- Clothed — every person will be raised with a body; a body is not proof of salvation.
- Naked — the word describes the soul without Christ, standing before God in nothing God gave.
- Now — Christ is put on here, in this life; there is no putting Him on afterwards.
- Unclothed — the believer between death and resurrection is unclothed, never naked.
- Shown — resurrection covers nothing; it reveals what each person already was.
For indeed we who are in the tabernacle groan, being burdened; while yet we do not wish to be unclothed, but clothed, that [what is] mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Paul is still living in the frail tent of his present body, and he admits that it weighs on him. Yet his longing is not to get out of the body. It is to have something put on over it.
(Some writers below say "clothed upon." That is an older translation of what the ESV calls "further clothed.")
The burden is honest. One writer traces where it comes from.
Truly knowing that we have Christ as a living possession does not deaden our sense of the groaning creation. It greatly increases it… Our body is the tent we live in. It is itself part of a creation that was made subject to futility. We who are inside it groan under the crushing sense of its total ruin. That is not because we are not delivered in Christ. It is because we are, and so we feel deeply what is held under the bondage of corruption.
This groan is not the sound of a man unsure of his standing.
The apostle did not groan in doubt or uncertainty. He did not groan under the weight of guilt or fear. Least of all did he groan because he could not satisfy the desires of the flesh or the mind. Nor did he groan because he could not surround himself with this world's perishable things. No; he longed for the heavenly building — the divine, the real, the eternal.
The same writer contrasts this with how people feel about dying.
People are never eager to be rid of the body unless they are sure of having something better… They groan at the thought of leaving the body. The apostle groaned because he was in it.
These two words point to two different events.
Our desire is not so much to lay aside the frail body and die. It is to go through the change spoken of at the end of verse 4. Not to be unclothed — that is, to die, the body laid in the grave and the spirit going to the Lord. Rather, to be clothed upon: the spirit dressed in its new clothing, clothed with its new home, the glorified and heavenly body, at the coming of the Lord. Then, instead of the frail body being swallowed up for a time by mortality, mortality itself will be swallowed up by life.
The groan does not ask for death. It does not excuse restlessness either.
He has no wish to deny the sorrow and weakness… There is no mere wish to get away from this present scene with its sadness and trial. It is never right to be impatient. To desire to be with Christ is right. But to be restless under what ties us to shame and pain is not of Christ… His wish was not to die, but the very opposite: that the mortality already at work in him might be swallowed up by Him who is eternal life, and our life.
One writer corrects a common mistake about what happens at death.
Very many Christians go wrong in their thinking here. They imagine that the moment the spirit escapes from its prison, it enters perfect bliss. The passage just quoted proves that this is not the case. Nothing can fill up the measure of the believer's joy but his being clothed upon with his house which is from heaven.
Another writer keeps the balance.
In that passage he shows that the "clothed" state — when we are clothed upon with our bodies of glory — is better in every way than the "unclothed" state. Yet the "unclothed" state is still far better than the best we can know while we are clothed in our present bodies of humiliation.
The last clause names the outcome. A life the believer already has will swallow up all that is mortal in him.
In verse 4 he develops the thought of verse 2 and explains the intended use of the expression "clothed upon." We groan, but not to be unclothed — not to lay down the body in death. We groan to be clothed upon. That brings in, as one of its effects, the true, normal hope of the Christian, that is, the Lord's coming. This hope is so ingrained into the Christian's life that it does not need to be stated. Then all that is mortal will be swallowed up by the power of the life we have in Him.
- Burden. The tent-body presses on us, and Scripture lets the believer say so out loud.
- Because delivered. The groan comes not from doubt or guilt, but from having Christ. Having Him makes us feel the ruin around us more, not less.
- Not unclothed. "Unclothed" means dying — the body in the grave, the spirit with the Lord; that is gain, but it is not what Paul asks for.
- But clothed. Paul wants the glorified body, put on at the Lord's coming. Only that change completes the believer's joy.
- Life wins. Then the life we already have in Him swallows up all that is mortal — mortality ended by life, not by death.
Now he that has wrought us for this very thing [is] God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit.
Paul has just spoken about groaning in a frail body and longing for a home from heaven. Here he answers the obvious question: how can anyone be sure of such a hope? The verse gives two answers. God has already prepared us for it, and He has already given us a first taste of it.
The hope does not rest on the strength of our longing. It rests on who did the preparing:
This hope rested on more than a desire stirred up by a view of the glory. God had formed Christians for this very thing. Anyone who is a Christian was formed for this, and for nothing else. It was God Himself who had formed him for this — this glory, in which Christ, the last Adam, is at the right hand of God. What happy confidence in the grace and the mighty work of God! Here the hope does not rest on a work done for us. It is the blessed knowledge that God has prepared us for this. We are His workmanship.
The wording matters. God did not prepare something on our behalf. The object of the verb is us.
"He who has prepared us for this very thing is God." Here God did not prepare something for us; He prepared us. That is a remarkable expression of His grace, linking us with His unfailing purpose in Christ.
The phrase points back to what Paul has just described: the mortal swallowed up by life. God began this work, so the outcome is not in doubt.
God, who cannot fail, does not begin a work and then leave it unfinished. He prepared us for this very thing: the swallowing up of the mortal by the life which triumphs for ever, the same portion as Christ. The One who did this is God. Indeed only He would have thought of it, and only He could have done it.
One writer ties this preparing to a work the Spirit has already done inside the believer.
He has already "prepared us" for this very thing. This refers to that spiritual work done in us and with us by the Holy Spirit. God by His Spirit has been the Potter, and we have been the clay... God will one day make our mortal bodies alive. He has already done such a work in our souls, and this present work looks ahead to what He will yet do in our bodies.
The older word "earnest" — the ESV has "guarantee" — is a business term. It means money paid down to secure a deal.
When someone sells a property, the buyer pays part of the price down as earnest-money to complete the bargain. In the same way, God graciously gives us the indwelling Spirit as the earnest of our inheritance. This assures us that we will have all He has promised. He also binds Himself (if we may put it that way) to carry out His own faithful word, for the earnest-money is both a promise and a pledge.
A deposit is part of the sum itself, not a separate token. So the Spirit is not just a receipt for future glory.
But there is more in the word translated "earnest." God has given us the Holy Spirit as a pledge. He will one day put us in possession of the inheritance He keeps in heaven for us. But more, He is the installment of that inheritance, the means by which we may already enter into its reality and joy.
Kelly also sets this gift apart from other ways the Spirit is described:
This is not the "anointing," which has a wider meaning, and it is not the "sealing" either. It is the aspect of the Spirit given to us that relates to Christ's coming again, and to our entering on the inheritance with Him.
The pledge is God's. So nothing in this life can undo it.
He is the Pledge on God's part that we shall be in the heavenly glory with and like Christ... Nothing that happens on earth, not our weakness, not even death itself, can alter the purpose of God by a hair's breadth or delay it by an instant. Because of that we are always confident (verse 6).
- Prepared. God did not just do something for us. He prepared us for this outcome. We are His workmanship, and He does not leave a work unfinished.
- For what. God shaped us for one outcome: the mortal swallowed up by life — the same glory as Christ, and nothing less.
- Given. The Spirit is the earnest — the deposit paid down, which both promises the full sum and binds God to His own word.
- Tasted. A deposit is part of the sum, so the Spirit is not just a receipt for glory but the means of entering its joy now, in weakness.
- Confident. The work is God's and the pledge is God's. No event, no weakness, not even death can delay it. That is why the next verse says we are always confident.
Therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the Lord,
Paul has just said that God shaped believers for glory and gave the Spirit as a down payment. That is why he can speak of courage now, and of a life still spent away from the Lord.
The confidence does not come from staring into the future. It rests on what believers already have. One writer traces the connecting word back to the verse before. (Older translations read "Therefore we are always confident," and the writers quoted here keep that wording.)
The word "therefore" is not linked, as you take it, with this glorious future state, as if that made him confident. It is linked with what he already had while in the body. "He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. Therefore we are always confident," and so on. Now you cannot fail to see how immensely important this is to the whole question. It was what Paul had already as God's workmanship, which made him so courageous at all times.
Paul writes "we," not "I." He describes what belongs to every believer — and he says it with death and judgment in plain view.
"Therefore we are always confident." Think of such language! Think of it as the apostle's words describing our portion, and in full view of both death and judgment! "We are always confident." … But he did enjoy it deeply. What is more, he puts it as the common enjoyment of all Christians. It is not just a question of his own personal feelings. It is about what God gave him to share now with God's people as God's people.
What backs such certainty? Two facts outside himself:
Where it is a question of the word of God, or the work of the Lord Jesus, the believer is entitled to have the fullest confidence. So the apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, in full view of all the perils of death which daily confronted him, does not hesitate to say "We are always confident," and to repeat it, "We are confident."
Being "at home in the body" is no compliment to our present situation. It means living away from the One our hearts belong to.
So we are courageous at all times, whatever God's way with us may be meanwhile. And we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. This world is not our rest; it is polluted. He is not here but risen and in glory, and our hearts are with Him where He is, and we look for Him to be like Him as well as with Him.
Readers have pulled this clause in two directions. Some make the distance itself the reason for confidence. Others treat it as the one thing that spoils it. Commentators differ here, and Kelly rejects both readings:
This is not the ground of our confidence, as Calvin strangely misread it. Nor is it an exception to it, as Roman Catholics and Rationalists have thought. It goes along with our good cheer as part of what we know as Christians. And it explains why we are ready in mind to leave the body when called, and to go home with the Lord.
The verse sets up a straight swap. Death does not break the pairing; it flips it — and the trade is in our favour.
Here we are absent from the Lord, there we shall be present with Him. Here at home in the body, there at home with the Lord. Even here our spirits enjoy communion with Him, in spite of this sinful world and the poor sinful bodies we live in. How much more in that safe place, where it will flow on unhindered, in an unbroken stream.
Certainty about the future does not slacken effort.
Understanding this rightly will not lead to loose living, or to being at ease and complacent. It leads instead to spiritual energy. As the apostle said, "We are always confident … we make it our aim to please Him." In every way, as he presses on, the true soul seeks to please the One who suffered for him. He wore the crown of thorns, but He now wears the crown of glory and honour.
- Cause. The courage is a conclusion, not a mood. It follows from what God has already done. He shaped us for glory and gave the Spirit as the pledge.
- Gift. God gives this confidence; we do not earn it. Paul writes "we," so it belongs to all believers, and he says it with death and judgment in full view.
- Distance. The same knowledge that steadies us also unsettles us. At home in the body means away from the Lord. He is risen and in glory, and this world is not our rest.
- Exchange. The two states are a straight trade. Home here means away from Him. Away from the body means at home with Him, with communion flowing on unhindered.
- Result. Certainty produces energy, not ease: always confident, therefore always aiming to please Him.
(for we walk by faith, not by sight;)
Paul has just described the body as a temporary tent and admitted that while we are at home in it we are away from the Lord. Verse 7 drops in one short line about how a Christian lives in that gap, and it raises a hard question: how do you walk toward someone you cannot see?
The sentence is short, but one writer treats it as a rule over the whole Christian life, not a passing remark. It explains why our spiritual blessings never show up to the eye.
Verse 7 is a very important aside: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." It rules our whole life while we are still in a body of flesh and blood. All the spiritual blessings we have are real to faith, but we cannot see or touch them. We are away from the Lord, so we have not seen Him with our eyes. Yet faith carries great certainty, and Hebrews 11 says the same: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).
The Greek word behind "sight" has been debated, and one commentator works through it carefully before landing on a sense that changes little of the meaning but sharpens it.
This verse has given scholars much trouble, though the general sense is plain enough… The way the New Testament uses the word leaves us with "appearance," unless we keep the sense of "sight" that the older English translators chose. That meaning is doubtful in any writer, religious or not. Either way it comes to much the same thing. We walk by faith, not by appearance, being absent from the Lord and heaven. We do look at the unseen and eternal, but we look by faith. We do not yet see the things or the persons themselves, as we will when we are there.
God led Israel through the desert one way, and He leads Christians another. The new way comes with someone to copy.
Nothing else given to a believer on earth compares with faith. More than anything else it honours God and the word of His grace, because it makes us lean on the good Shepherd through the Holy Spirit… For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Israel did not march through the desert that way. They were guided by the cloud and the pillar of fire, which they could see. The Christian now, whether a Jew or a Gentile, has to walk through faith, of which the Lord Himself was the blessed pattern and perfection.
The pull back toward a religion of the visible is not only ancient history. One writer sees it alive among believers now.
But there is always this great difference between the Jew and the Christian — "We walk by faith, not by sight." The Jewish religion was mostly by sight. "The law is not of faith." Sadly, much of what is in many believers is Jewish as well as Christian. So feelings, works and ceremonies take a large place with many.
If the rule is real, it cuts into ordinary decisions — how we choose, what we lean on, where we look for direction.
This is where a Christian stands right now. If I am ruled by anything I can see, I have left the path of faith… The moment I am ruled by something around me that I can see, or treat it as my motive or my aim, or look to it for guidance, direction, or understanding about my path, I have left this simple, blessed path of faith. It is the path God has marked out for His own.
Faith is not just refusing to look at what is in front of us. It puts something else in front of us, and that lifts the heart above where we are. One writer pictures this with two places from Israel's story: Egypt, the land of their slavery, and Canaan, the land God promised them.
It was so then, and it is so now. "We walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Cor. 5:7) "What we will be has not yet appeared." (1 John 3:2) We are shut in by the body here, "away from the Lord." In fact we are in Egypt, yet in spirit we are in the heavenly Canaan. Faith brings the heart under the power of divine and unseen things, so it can rise above everything down here, in this place "where death and darkness reign."
The verses on either side tie this way of living to confidence — in the body now, and in death later.
We enter into this glorious prospect by the Spirit, whom God gave as the guarantee of it, and so we are "always confident." If we are still at home in the body, and so away from the Lord, we are confident, for we walk by faith, not by sight. If called to pass through death, before the Lord comes, "we are confident," for this will mean the blessedness of being "present with the Lord."
- Absent. We cannot see the Lord now. While we are at home in the body, we are away from Him.
- Certainty. What faith holds is unseen, but it is not uncertain. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.
- Contrast. Israel followed a cloud they could see. Faith leads the Christian instead, with the Lord Himself as the pattern. Drifting back into feelings and ceremonies is drifting back to sight.
- Test. The moment anything visible becomes our motive, object, or guide, we have stepped off the path of faith.
- Confidence. Nothing we can see shakes a walk that rests on the unseen. Not life in the body, and not death, which only brings us to the One we already trust.
we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
Paul is writing about death and what lies beyond it. His words raise two questions: what happens to a believer between death and resurrection, and how anyone can face death with courage instead of dread.
Paul's two words are pictures of a house. Older translations print them as "present" and "absent," and one writer, speaking at a graveside, explains them:
In this passage the word translated "present" means "at home with," and the word translated "absent" literally means "to be away from home." Our beloved sister was taken from us so suddenly three days ago. She is clearly away from home as to the body, since we have put it in the grave. But that she is at home with the Lord is not evident if we judge by sight or appearances. It is only as we walk by faith that this fact becomes real to us.
One writer traces that confidence to what God has already done and given:
God has prepared all of us Christians for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He has not given it to us yet, but He has prepared us for it. He has also given us the Spirit as the pledge. This is what gives me confidence. He calls it "our house," not my house. So I have two certainties. I am prepared for it, and I know it now while I am here, because God has given me the Holy Spirit.
Another writer asks where such willingness comes from, and answers from Christ's death:
It is unusual to find men willing to be absent from the body. Even the devil once said, "All that a man has he will give for his life." So we have to ask what the ground of the apostle's confidence was. His own words in Romans 5:8 tell us all we need to know: "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Know this and believe it, and all dread of death leaves the soul.
Paul does not say he wants to die. He says he prefers it to staying here:
The apostle never says that he desired to be absent from the body, but that he was willing rather. That is, it was not the object of his desire, but he preferred it to being in the body… He knew God had prepared him for this glory, and he had received the Spirit as the pledge. So if death did come, he was no less confident. And please remember that he had actual death right in front of his eyes.
What he actually longed for stands a few verses earlier, and it is something better still:
Here he speaks of what is best of all. "We groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling… not that we would be unclothed" — that is, death and the separate state — "but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." He longed for the change at Christ's coming.
One writer describes where believers are now, and what they still wait for:
Paul's confidence was such that he was willing — more than willing, pleased — to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. This is his portion today, and the portion of all who have died in the faith of Christ. They are absent from the bodies which have been laid in the grave, waiting for the moment when they will be clothed in bodies of glory. But even now they are present with the Lord, in all the conscious blessedness of His presence.
One writer warns against two opposite mistakes:
On one side, there is no excuse for the unbelief which makes everything of going to be with Christ after death. It stops short of the only adequate answer: our resurrection and change at Christ's coming. On the other side, it is a real slight on God's grace and on Christ's redemption to darken the state of the soul apart from the body, so as to heighten the splendour of the resurrection morning… To be with Christ is far better than remaining in the flesh, though far short of the triumph we shall share when He comes.
This prospect also shapes life now:
The prospect braced up the soul of the apostle, stirring him to tireless zeal in everything he did, so that he sought only the approval of Christ. In fact, this is exactly what it does for us. It enables us to bring all our actions into the light of His presence now, and helps us to do them for Him and to Him. This is where our strength lies.
- Home — "Present" and "absent" are house words. Away from the body means at home with the Lord. Faith sees this, not sight.
- Ground — Courage rests on what God has done. He prepared us for glory and gave the Spirit as the pledge, and Christ died for sinners.
- Preference — Paul does not desire death; he prefers it to staying. His full hope is resurrection and change at Christ's coming.
- Interval — Those who have died are with the Lord now, awake to His presence, still waiting for bodies of glory. Writers warn against both overstating and darkening this state.
- Result — This hope is not idle comfort. It fuels a life aimed at pleasing Christ, doing everything in the light of His presence.
Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him.
Paul has just spoken of the believer's confidence, and now he draws the practical conclusion. Everything turns on two words. What is the "aim"? And does "please him" mean earning God's welcome, or delighting the One who has already welcomed us?
The older English rendering reads, "that we may be accepted of him." One commentator warns that this wording, taken at face value, overturns the gospel:
The common version gives a completely misleading idea. If anyone took it in fully, it would destroy the gospel. The danger is greater because the translators put philotimoumetha as "we labour" or "endeavour," and euarestoi as "accepted." That comes dangerously close to suggesting salvation by works in the most open way. Already accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1) we aspire — it is our zealous aim — to serve Him well, whether present or absent. His favour is better than life, so we devote ourselves to the pleasure of the One who delights only in what is good, holy, true, lowly and loving.
The Greek word itself is the evidence. The same translators handled it differently everywhere else:
Euarestos occurs nine times in the New Testament. Translators render it "acceptable" four times, "well-pleasing" four times, and "accepted" only once — here in 2 Cor. 5:9. Why they translated it that way in this one place, I do not know. We may well take our pen and strike out the word "accepted," and put in the word "well-pleasing."
Paul's verb here carries the sense of ambition.
The word used here is "ambition." The literal translation is, "Therefore we are ambitious." Another rendering is, "We make it our aim." It was true that the apostle groaned, longing for his house from heaven. But as long as the Lord left him here, he was ambitious to please Him.
Because it is an ambition, it competes with other ambitions:
What more beautiful ambition for every true Christian — to be "well-pleasing" to the Lord, no matter whether it is in life or in death. Worldly ambition has brought ruin to multitudes of the Lord's soldiers and servants. All around us we see loved saints of God whose lives announce their ambition for riches or honour or ease or learning or fame. But how rarely do we meet someone whose ambition in life is to preach the gospel where Christ is not known, and, whether in life or in death, to be well-pleasing to Him.
Paul aims at one Person only, and holding that aim costs something. The translation he quotes reads "agreeable to Him."
This speaks of Paul's desire, his ambition toward God. He did not have the approval of man in view. He was not concerned about the honours of this world. His one thought was, as he says elsewhere, to be "agreeable to Him." That meant a pathway completely separated from the current of man's mind. But it brought the joy and peace and triumph that belong to a walk in communion with God.
Keep two acceptances apart. One settles a sinner's standing. The other is a servant's commendation.
Always remember this: absolute trust in God as our Saviour is the sole foundation of all acceptable service in His sight. In this verse the apostle says nothing about our personal acceptance as forgiven sinners... To draw from such a text the idea that a believer's escape from wrath is still uncertain, you must first shut your eyes to the whole drift of the apostle's teaching. You must confuse two very different things: acceptance with a Saviour, and acceptance with a master. One is a believer's standing as an heir of grace. The other is Christ's commendation of His chosen when their race is done.
The next verse gives the reason, and it has a practical effect:
In short, the judgment seat of Christ brings everything to light and rewards it. That solemn fact tends to check all lightness and laziness. It makes us eager to respond to the grace that wants to reward all that was done according to the mind of the Holy Spirit. To this end we need earnestness in the study of the Word, and diligence in prayer, so that we may know and be led into right activities.
Pleasing Him starts with knowing Him:
To be well-pleasing to any person you must know him. It is the same with your Lord. You cannot know Him closely and well if you do not spend much time with Him. You must live to Him and not to yourself... Remember that when He chose His apostles, it was not first of all so that He might send them out to preach, but that they might be with Him. The preaching followed that.
- Accepted first. God has already taken the believer into favour in the Beloved. Verse 9 starts from there.
- Acceptable next. The Greek word means "well-pleasing," not "accepted" — the aim is to please a Master, not to win a Saviour.
- Ambition, not duty. Paul's word is the language of ambition, and it competes with the ambition for riches, honour, ease and fame.
- Either way. In life or in death, the aim never changes.
- Rewarded. The judgment seat brings everything to light and rewards it. That prospect turns ambition into study of the Word and prayer.
For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things [done] in the body, according to those he has done, whether [it be] good or evil.
Paul turns from how a Christian lives now to where that life ends up: in full view of Christ. Two questions follow. How can people whose sins the cross has settled still stand before a judgment seat? And what do they "receive" there?
The word translated "appear" means more than turning up. Older translations read "be manifested."
The word "appear" in verse 10 is "manifested." We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. Our works and our ways as Christians will then come fully into view. Everything will come into the light. Nothing can be hidden, and the believer receives the things done in the body.
For the believer, that moment brings sight, not sentence.
When the believer appears before the judgment seat of Christ, he won't be judged in the sense of condemned. That matter was settled at Calvary. But he will be revealed. It should be a joy for the believer to think that then, for the first time, he will see his own life exactly as the Lord Jesus sees it. And in our glorified bodies we will completely agree with this judgment.
How wide is "we all"? One writer reads it broadly, and shows why Paul's wording still guards the believer:
The context seems to show that Paul's statement is general, in that it includes believers and unbelievers. But since believers will be there, he does not say, "We must all be judged." He says, "We must all be manifested." Perhaps for the same reason, he does not speak of judging persons, but of "the things done in the body." Remember too that we reach the judgment seat of Christ by the coming of Christ, and by it we shall be "changed into the image of the heavenly." So when we stand there we shall have a body of glory like Christ; we shall be like the Judge.
If Christ is the one seated there, the outcome for His own is already settled by who He is to them.
The Lord Jesus will sit on the judgement seat. He died for believers' sins and rose again for their justification. He is the believer's righteousness, and He will not judge His own work. God has justified the saint, so the saint cannot be judged. John 5:24 says he does not come into judgement at all. But he will be manifested. The things done in the body will be brought into review. He will then see it all in its true light, whether good or bad, and this will only exalt the grace that has saved him.
Believers reach that seat by way of Christ's coming, changed into His likeness. So the fitness required there is not the fitness of a needy sinner.
Many a sincere person — I mean a sincere Christian — does not see this place of his in Christ. He may say, I am a poor sinner, and the cross just suits me. Blessedly true. But change the phrase: I am a poor sinner, and the judgment-seat just suits me! That will not do. Yet we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ. There we must be fit for the judge.
Paul's phrase reaches beyond service for the Lord.
It will also mean reward or loss, according to what has been done "in the body" — that is, in the whole of our lives of responsibility here. We see the same thing in 1 Corinthians 3:14-15. But there the question is the character of our work as servants of the Lord. Here it is more general and comprehensive, being a question of all our actions and ways.
Everything that comes out has a result, and the outcome is accepted without complaint:
Even in the saints, not all had been good. Everything has its result, though it never endangers the grace that saved them by Christ. God is not unrighteous, so He will not forget the work of faith and labour of love. Failure and wrong bring loss. The soul itself will understand fully, bow in adoration without a murmur, and bless Him who orders the place of each in the kingdom.
This truth is meant to shape life now.
Then, for the first time, we shall judge everything truly. We shall understand the perfection of Christ's grace all through. We shall see how wrong and mistaken we have been in many ways down here. To limit the judgment seat of Christ to a reward for works robs it of much of its practical power.
Christians who dread that day have misjudged it:
Many, when they stand before that judgment seat, will wonder why they ever feared it for themselves. They will see their mistake and adore the grace that has been so much better than all their legal fears.
- Manifested, not tried. "Appear" means shown. The believer's works come into the light, but the believer never comes into judgment.
- The Judge is the Saviour. He died for those sins and is the believer's righteousness — He will not judge His own work.
- Like the Judge. We reach that seat changed into Christ's likeness, so the light falls on someone already like the One seated there.
- The whole life. "The things done in the body" covers all our actions and ways, not just service — and it brings real reward and real loss.
- Its power is now. Treat it as a prize-giving and it loses its force. Take it seriously and it shapes how you live today.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men, but have been manifested to God, and I hope also that we have been manifested in your consciences.
Paul has just written about the judgment seat of Christ. Now he tells the Corinthians what that sight does to him: it sends him out to persuade people, and it keeps his own life open before God. (Where the ESV reads "the fear of the Lord," older translations read "the terror of the Lord" — the wording the writers below use.)
The dread in this verse is not the believer's dread. The same judgment seat looks different, depending on who stands before it.
This holds no terror for believers. They have boldness for that day, because Christ is already our righteousness. God has taken us into favour in Him, and we share in all that love of which He is the Object. When that day comes, we will be in bodies of glory like Him. But what about those who must appear there naked, with no righteousness, with no shelter from the wrath they are heirs to? The apostle thinks of them as that throne comes before his eyes, and it is with them in view that he calls it the terror of the Lord. It was no terror to him, but to those appearing there without Christ.
Notice what the thought of judgment does not do to Paul. He looks straight at it and then turns outward.
Then he considers judgment. He calls it the terror of the Lord, looks it full in the face, and knows it. He states that we shall all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. And then — what? Does he tremble or think of himself? Not at all; he persuades men. Its terror produces no effect of terror at all on his own mind. It was a judgment which, as such, affected others.
One writer warns that this motive for service is under attack:
Satan seems determined in our day to remove this motive for service altogether. Never has the coming judgment been made to sound so mild, or even been openly denied. But this deals falsely with people, and it turns us into tools of the enemy. Paul kept the future before his eyes, with all its huge and dreadful outcomes. It made him even more eager in his work for Christ among people.
Persuading has two sides, and the preacher can speak of both because he has proved the remedy himself.
How deep and loud and constant is the call for believers to wake up those who do not believe, while the day of grace lasts! They must not face that judgment unwarned, for it will be their ruin beyond remedy. The call is to "persuade men" — on the one hand of the wickedness, the folly, and the danger of sin; on the other of the reality and freeness, of the fulness and certainty, of salvation in Christ... We speak what we know and press a remedy, a deliverance, we have proved.
Persuasion is also a limit. It is as far as any servant can go.
Under-servants, even one as great as the apostle Paul, cannot go beyond persuading people; only the Spirit of the living God can work so effectively in the hearts of men as to "compel them to come in."
The second half of the verse turns from others to Paul himself.
The light has come in now, and an upright Christian delights in the light of God. He does not wait for the judgment seat of Christ to declare his motives... A Christian should be perfectly transparent. If not, he is unlike Christ. You may read me through and through, says Paul; I have nothing to conceal, all is out now.
Darby points to the tense Paul uses, and to what it does now.
The thought of that day brings him into God's judgment as a present thing, in a way that sanctifies him. We are, he says (not shall be), manifested to God. This is a most important effect: in practice it is simply being brought into the presence of God to judge ourselves, and to judge good and evil as they will be judged in that day.
The two clauses are not stated with equal confidence, and the difference is deliberate.
He could speak with certainty about being made manifest to God. About being manifested to the consciences of believers he could only speak in hope, because disturbing influences might be at work in them. At best that could only be partial, while to God, I repeat, they were already fully manifest.
- Terror — the judgment seat gives the believer boldness. For anyone who stands there without Christ, it is terror.
- Turned outward — that sight made Paul fear for others, not for himself. It moved him to persuade, not to tremble.
- Persuasion — he pressed home the danger of sin and the freeness of salvation. He spoke of a deliverance he had proved himself.
- Limit — a servant can only persuade; the Spirit alone compels people to come in.
- Manifested — Paul already lived in the light of that day. He was open before God, judging himself now as he will be judged then, and he hoped others could read him the same way.