Paul continued to give reasons why we need not lose heart. The themes of life in the midst of death and glory following as a result of present suffering also continue.
What about the believer who dies before he or she has followed God faithfully for very long? Will such a person experience no glory in the future? Paul explained that there are three bases for comfort in such a case. All Christians who die will receive an immortal body (v. 1). This is by itself a substantial gift of glory. Second, all Christians, including those who die soon after becoming believers, presently possess the Holy Spirit who is God's pledge of our future complete glorification (vv. 4-5). Third, death begins a new phase of existence for all believers that will be far superior to what we experience now (vv. 7-8).
5:1 "For"(NASB) or "Now"(NIV, Gr. gar) continues the contrast between things presently seen and things not yet seen (4:18). Here Paul contrasted our present and future bodies.
"The clothed upon' and swallowed up by life' imagery (vv. 2-4), when read alongside 1 Cor 15:53-54, leaves little doubt that this house' is the individual's resurrection body."160
As a tentmaker, Paul compared the human body to a tent.161In ancient times a tent was a familiar symbol of what was transitory.162Our physical bodies are only temporary structures, but God is preparing new bodies for us that are superior to anything that human hands can produce and maintain.
Paul earlier indicated that he expected that the Lord would probably return before he died (1 Thess. 4:15, 17; 1 Cor. 15:51). Here he said that he might die before Jesus Christ returns for His own. Perhaps his recent brush with death in Ephesus made this possibility fresh in his mind (1:8-11). No Christian can ever be sure which will come first, the Rapture or death. These statements indicate that Paul believed in Jesus' imminent return to take Christians to heaven (John 14:1-3).163
5:2-3 Paul changed his figure slightly. God will clothe us with a new and better garment. Until then we groan because we feel the pains associated with mortality, namely our physical limitations, sickness, and the increasing disability that accompanies advancing age. This new covering apparently awaits us immediately after death and before our resurrection. It is therefore probably an intermediate body.
Even though there is no specific instruction concerning an intermediate body and its characteristics in Scripture, its existence seems beyond doubt. References to believers after death and before resurrection suggest that they have bodies (cf. Lazarus, Luke 16:19-25; Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, Matt. 17:1-3, et al; the martyred dead in heaven, Rev. 6:9-11 and 7:13-17). These bodies evidently will not be suitable for eternal existence since God will replace them with resurrection bodies.164Another view sees this "building"or "dwelling"as our heavenly home.165
Verse 3 is parenthetic. Paul clarified that believers who die are not disembodied spirits until the resurrection of their bodies. Another interpretation sees believers as unclothed (without an intermediate body) between their death and resurrection.166Those who hold this view understand Paul to be saying that he did not look forward to his disembodied condition. He anticipated the time when God would clothe him with an immortal body (at his resurrection).
I believe that one of the strongest arguments that we will never be disembodied spirits is that the Bible consistently views humans as unified beings. It does not describe the body as merely the house that the real person lives in. That is a Platonic concept that the early Gnostics and other anthropological dualists held. Rather, the Bible describes people as consisting of material and immaterial parts. If we were to lack material substance (either mortal or immortal), we would seemingly be less than human beings.
5:4 This verse expands verse 2. The Christian does not groan in his or her present body because he or she wants to get rid of it. At least that was not what Paul meant here. We groan because we long to receive the immortal bodies that God will give us. God's promises of something better make us dissatisfied with what we have now. We long for the time when immortal life will in a sense consume what is mortal and dies. This is another paradox. Paul was confident that if death would destroy his present body he would certainly receive a glorious future body that God would provide.
5:5 The hope of an immortal body is not just wishful thinking. We already have the down payment of our inheritance in the Holy Spirit. In modern Greek the word translated "pledge"(NASB) or "deposit"(NIV) here, arrhabona, elsewhere describes an engagement ring (cf. 1:22). Our present possession of the Holy Spirit is God's guarantee that He will provide all that we need in the future.
The Spirit may not seem like a very convincing guarantee since we cannot see Him. However, we can see what His presence in us produces, namely our character transformation. This should give us confidence that God will transform us completely in the future.
5:6-8 Verses 6-8 bear the same relation to each other as do verses 2-4. Verses 2 and 6 make a statement. Verses 3 and 7 are parenthetical, and verses 4 and 8 expand verses 2 and 6 respectively.
Since we have the promise that we will obtain a glorified body (v. 1), and since we have a pledge of that promise in our present transformation (v. 5), we can feel consistently confident.
However because we are absent from the Lord while we are living in our mortal bodies we desire to leave these bodies and take up our new residence in the Lord's presence. Note that there are no other alternatives for the believer. We are either in our mortal bodies and absent from the Lord or we are with the Lord and absent from our mortal bodies. This is a strong guarantee that when we leave our mortal bodies we will go immediately into the Lord's presence. Being "at home with the Lord"implies a closer fellowship with Christ than we experience now as well as closer proximity to Him (cf. 1 Thess. 4:17; Phil. 1:23).
We need never despair, therefore, when we walk by faith believing what God has revealed He has in store for us. Nevertheless the fact that we now walk by faith and not by sight reminds us that the fellowship that we enjoy with the Lord now, while genuine, is inferior to what we will experience.
5:9 As we look forward to the realization of these good things our ambition must be to please God come life or death. The prospect of face-to-face fellowship with Jesus Christ should motivate us to please Him out of love (cf. Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:20; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 4:1). Paul did not mean that we can perform acts after we die that will please God (cf. v. 10), though we can. "At home or absent"is a figure of speech (merism) for always.167
"To be well-pleasing to Christ is, indeed, the sum of all ambition which is truly Christian."168
". . . one always wishes to please the one he or she loves."169
5:10 It is not only the hope of God's positive provisions that should motivate the Christian, however. We must also bear in mind that we will have to account for our works when we meet the Lord. Then He will reward His children on the basis of their deeds. This is not a judgment to determine whether we will enter heaven but one to determine to what extent He will reward us who enter heaven.170
"The imagery used here for the future moment of eschatological revelation is that of the forensic process whereby the Roman governor sat on his tribunal to hear accusation and defense of an accused person standing before him. If he judged the accused guilty, the governor would order immediate punishment. Paul's use of this language to the Corinthians may have been calculated; he himself had stood accused before the Roman governor Gallio in the Corinthian agorasome years earlier (Acts 18:12, 16-17), as the original members of the Corinthian church doubtless remembered."171
The Greek word translated "bad"(phaulos) really means worthless. The idea is not that God will reward us for the good things we did and punish us for the bad things we did. He will rather reward us for the worthwhile things we did and not reward us for the worthless things we did (cf. Matt. 6:19-21; 1 Cor. 9:24-27). The worthwhile things are those that contribute to the advancement of God's mission and glory in the world. Worthless deeds are those that make no contribution to the fulfillment of God's good purposes (cf. Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27).
"The bad works are discarded as unworthy of reward but good works are rewarded. The penalty is limited to the loss of reward."172
". . . believers do not face condemnation at Christ's tribunal (see Rom 5:16, 18; 8:1) but rather evaluationwith a view to the Master's commendation given or withheld (1 Cor 3:10-15)."173
"Judgment on the basis of works is not opposed to justification on the basis of faith. . . . Yet not all verdicts will be comforting. The believer may suffer loss' (1 Cor. 3:15) by forfeiting Christ's praise or losing a reward that might have been his."174
"The judgment seat of Christ might be compared to a commencement ceremony. At graduation there is some measure of disappointment and remorse that one did not do better and work harder. However, at such an event the overwhelming emotion is joy, not remorse. The graduates do not leave the auditorium weeping because they did not earn better grades. Rather, they are thankful that they have been graduated, and they are grateful for what they did achieve. To overdo the sorrow aspect of the judgment seat of Christ is to make heaven hell. To underdo the sorrow aspect is to make faithfulness inconsequential."175
". . . because much is required of those to whom much has been given, the thought of the judgment seat of Christ has for the Christian a peculiar solemnity. It is not meant to cloud his prospect of future blessedness, but to act as a stimulus, as strong a stimulus as the most imperious of human ambitions; for the word philotimoumetha, translated we labour(RV we make it our aim'), means literally we are ambitious'."176
Throughout this section contrasts between the Spirit-imparted viewpoint on life and the natural viewpoint stand out. Some of the Corinthians were criticizing Paul because they were looking at his activities from the human viewpoint and were projecting that point of view onto him. They were concluding that he viewed life as they did. For their benefit he drew these contrasting views of life clearly.
The extent to which we view life from Paul's spiritual viewpoint will be the extent to which we do not lose heart in our ministry.
