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.