2 Corinthians 5:1

1. For In accordance with the glorious truths stated 2 Corinthians 4:17-18.

Know The spirit of faith, 2 Corinthians 4:13, is again (as in 2 Corinthians 4:14) a know. We say know of very different degrees of certainty. Most men think that seeing for instance, a material object, a marble pillar, or an iron statue is the strongest possible knowing. But the unseen laws of nature, as every philosopher understands, are objects of as certain knowing as any lump of matter whatever.

Earthly house What in 2 Corinthians 4:7 was earthly vessel, is now earthly house. It is an ancient and beautiful conception that our body is a house, and the soul is its resident. This conception is so universal, and so consonant with the feeling of our consciousness, that materialism is rejected by the best impulses of our nature.

House of… tabernacle The this supplied by the translators may be omitted, and the phrase then would be equivalent to a house of tabernacle, a tabernacle residence. Paul’s expectation was, that the new body would be, in glory, very much what the temple was to the old tabernacle.

Dissolved Gone to pieces.

We have Not (as Meyer, Alford, Stanley, and others) we will have at death, but we now have in reversion, to be received at the resurrection. So, in 2 Timothy 4:8, St. Paul says, “There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.” The new house, like the crown, he has now in heaven; not that he believes that his resurrection body now literally exists in heaven, any more than he believed that there was a physical crown for him in heaven. Both crown and house are merely conceptional images. The house in heaven is the over-vestment of immortality, the glorifying formative power, or mould, which is to model the resurrection body to the image of Christ, who is the image of God, just as the “crown” is the glory of the glorified.

A house A more dignified Greek word than that for house in 2 Corinthians 5:1 an edifice.

Not… with hands It is, indeed, true, that our first bodies are also formed without hands, but Paul speaks not in comparison with former bodies, but with other edifices, which are hand-built.

Eternal Note 2 Corinthians 4:18.

In the heavens Opposed to earthly in 2 Corinthians 5:1. It may mean that the conceptual edifice is now in heaven, or will be after resurrection. We prefer the latter meaning from the position of the clause after eternal.