2 Corinthians 5:3

3. If so be By the best reading, since it will be, the apostle expresses no doubt.

Clothed… not… naked Commentators who, like Meyer, Alford, and Stanley, are haunted with the phantasm of Paul’s expectation of an immediate advent, make sad work here. St. Paul, say they, here expresses the hope that he may not die, and so be found naked, disembodied spirit; but may live until the resurrection change of 1 Corinthians 15:0. He did, no doubt, prefer the resurrection state to the disembodied, for he held it to be that consummation of glory which the intermediate state delays. That delay, though a higher glory than belongs to earth, is inferior to the final glory. It is imparadised, but not heavenly, bliss. It is a state of disorganization, produced by sin, and under the shadow of death waiting for that day to which St. Paul’s wish darts at once, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life, 2 Corinthians 5:4. The disembodied spirit is as unprepared to enter the heavenly mansions beyond the resurrection as an undressed person to enter a parlour.