What does Paul say we are confident about in 2 Corinthians 5:8?

We are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.

If I die meanwhile, I am always confident. I do not want to die; I want mortality to be swallowed up of life; but if death come, it does not touch my confidence; "absent from the body, present with the Lord."

For the moment we are at home in the body and absent from the Lord, left here to walk not by sight but by faith. Paul's confidence was such that he was willing — even 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 those who have died in the faith of Christ. They are absent from their bodies which have been laid in the grave, waiting the moment when they shall be clothed in bodies of glory. But even now they are present with the Lord, and in all the conscious blessedness of His presence, as the opening verses of 2 Cor. 12 bear witness.

(Vv. 6-8.) Entering into this glorious prospect by the earnest of the Spirit, we are "always confident." If still present in the body, and thus absent 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."

The apostle, in his deep intimacy with the Person of the Lord Jesus, could say, “we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” And we, too, as we consider for what God has wrought us, may exclaim, “Therefore we are always confident.”

"Therefore we are always confident." Whatever may transpire on earth, it cannot change this mighty working of God. The apostles rest upon His faithfulness. If now at home in the body, they are of course absent from the Lord, who is Himself in heaven. And since walking by faith, not by sight, they are fully confident and willing to be absent from the body, and at home with the Lord. This of course is not the full objective of being clothed upon, but the prospect of even this gives them not the slightest tremor of fear, for the eternal future is certain.

Then we have another thing. After saying, not for that we would be unclothed, "but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life," he says, "now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God." God has wrought all us Christians for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He has not given it to us yet, but He has wrought us for it, and given us also the earnest of the Spirit. We have not it yet; God has wrought us for it and given us the earnest. This it is that gives me confidence. He calls it "our house," not my house. Thus I have two truths certain. I am wrought for it, and I know it now while here, for God has given me the Holy Ghost. Now, supposing death comes: well, it is "I am always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord," though "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord": such is the certainty of being clothed with glory.

When Saul heard of his impending death he "fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid." We are reminded of Jacob when he learned that he must now meet the one against whom he had sinned: "Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed" (Gen. 32:7). Now mark the contrast to all this in Paul the apostle. His life was in jeopardy for the Gospel's sake. But was he dismayed? The very reverse. "We are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8). It is such an unusual thing to find men willing to be absent from the body (even the devil once said, "All that a man has will he give for his life"), that we are constrained to inquire as to the ground of the apostle's confidence. His own words in Rom. 5:8 tell us all we need know as to this: "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Here we have that which, when known and believed, banishes from the soul all dread of death. Christ has been into death for us, thus making complete atonement for all our sin and guilt, and breaking the power of the enemy once and for ever.

30 Again, you say, "The apostle desired to 'be' present with the Lord, not as a disembodied soul, for he says, 'not for that we would be unclothed.'" But the apostle never says that he desired to be absent from the body, but that he was willing rather. That is, not that it was his object of desire, but that he preferred it to being in the body. All this shews that you have not sufficiently taken account of what the apostle says. He did see the glory, and seeing it, would have mortality swallowed up of life, of that life whose power was already in him; for he was quickened together with Christ and by the same power — Christ was his life. He knew God had wrought him for this glory, and he had received the earnest of the Spirit; so that, if death did come, he was not the less confident — he would be willingly absent from the body and present with the Lord. And you will please to remember that he had actual death just before his eyes. He was writing to them about a persecution which had made him despair "even of life." Now it was not his desire to die, but to be glorified; but so well did he know that he had life in power of Christ risen, that if he did die, he knew he would only gain by it.

There is on the one hand no excuse for the unbelief which makes everything of going to be with Christ after death and stops short of the only adequate answer in our resurrection and change at Christ's coming by the power of His resurrection. But on the other it is a real slight of God's grace and of Christ's redemption to darken the condition of the disembodied soul in order to heighten the splendour of the resurrection morn. It is not true that the apostle when looking to the dissolution of his earthly tabernacle was comforted only by the building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; for in this very context he shows that we choose rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. And in fact inability to look at death or Satan in the face is a proof of weakness, not strength, of faith. The apostle does exactly the right thing in the Holy Ghost: for while he does present in the forefront the full triumph of life in Christ, he does not misrepresent departure to be with Him as bare and ghastly, or the state as airy, shadowy, or fantastical. It is of course unworldly, but not therefore inert; for it is to be with Christ which is far better than remaining in the flesh, though far short of the triumph we shall share when He comes. Never does the apostle treat it as sepulchral gloom and pale moonlight, which is the mere depreciation of the human spirit vexed with the perversity of such as blot the glorious hope of resurrection from their Bibles. Again, leaving out Christ, death is a parting, not a meeting; but is it a sorrowful parting if we go to be with Him in paradise? No doubt it is not our one hope; but is it then the cheerless parting, the sorrow without hope, which unbelief makes it? Such exaggeration is mischievous, most of all in those who call on the saints to wait for Christ's coming; for what is false in their statements acts powerfully to discredit what is true, and thus to hinder souls instead of helping them. The balance of truth is lost, and such as on scripture warrant look for the blessedness of those with Christ who fall asleep are stumbled by the doubt cast on it and indisposed to receive what may be doubtless truly said of the triumphant result of His coming.