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.