2Cor 5:1-4, 1Jo 3:2 | PNT | STEP | The House Not Made with Hands SUMMARY OF II CORINTHIANS 5: The Groaning for Deliverance. The Divine Cloth for the Soul Which Has Laid Aside Its Mortal. Tenement. Absent from the Body, but Present with the Lord. Appearing Before the Judgment Seat. Dying with Christ. New Creatures. The Ministry of Reconciliation. For we know that if our earthly house of [this] tabernacle were dissolved . Paul has spoken of looking for the things that are unseen and eternal ( ). He now describes the body as only a tent dwelling, a temporary abode, in which we are camping during a journey. If death should come and the body be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens . There is another dwelling for the redeemed, "the spiritual body" described in , a heavenly and eternal body. To the saint, death is the exchange of the earthly tent dwelling for this eternal spiritual body.

‏ 2 Corinthians 5:1-4

The House Not Made with Hands SUMMARY OF II CORINTHIANS 5: The Groaning for Deliverance. The Divine Cloth for the Soul Which Has Laid Aside Its Mortal. Tenement. Absent from the Body, but Present with the Lord. Appearing Before the Judgment Seat. Dying with Christ. New Creatures. The Ministry of Reconciliation.

For we know that if our earthly house of [this] tabernacle were dissolved. Paul has spoken of looking for the things that are unseen and eternal (2Co 4:18). He now describes the body as only a tent dwelling, a temporary abode, in which we are camping during a journey. If death should come and the body be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There is another dwelling for the redeemed, "the spiritual body" described in 1Co 15:44, a heavenly and eternal body. To the saint, death is the exchange of the earthly tent dwelling for this eternal spiritual body. For in this we groan. While in this fragile, suffering earthly body, Paul longed for the deliverance from it and "for the house not made with hands" (2Co 5:1), the spiritual body.

Desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. The thought is that when the spirit leaves the mortal clay, it lays off an old and worn-out clothing, and is to be clothed with, or invested in, its divine clothing. If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. This shall come to pass, provided the spirit is clothed with a spiritual body at the resurrection, and not disembodied or naked. This is an allusion to the errors so prevalent at Corinth which he had combated in 1 Corinthians 15.

See PNT 1Co 15:1. It was a Greek theory that when the spirit left the mortal body that it remained without a body, but Paul says: "If we too, clothed upon, shall not be without an immortal body". See Meyer on this passage. Many hold that Paul's language is due to the belief that they would meet the Lord in the mortal body is that at his speedy coming. This, I am sure, is a wrong interpretation. For we that are in [this] tabernacle. This tent dwelling for the journey.

Do groan, being burdened. Groan for deliverance from it, because the burden is so heavy.

Not for that we would be unclothed. It is not that we wish to be freed from a body, but we wish a better one; to lay off the old raiment that we may be clothed upon with the heavenly raiment, the spiritual body, in order that "this mortal shall put on immortality" (1Co 15:53).

‏ 1 John 3:2

Now are we the sons of God. Already we have the great privilege of being sons, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Our future glory is not yet manifest. Even we ourselves cannot understand it.

But we know that, when he shall appear. One glorious revelation has been made. At the coming of Christ we shall be like him. Then we shall be like him in body. See Php 3:21. We shall also be found morally in his image.

For we shall see him as he is. To look upon him has power to change us into his glory. See 2Co 3:18.