Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Corinthians 5:8
We are confident, [I say,] and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
8. we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord ] Our confidence is not even disturbed by death, though it is not ( 2Co 5:4) death in itself that we seek. But even in death we ‘sleep in Jesus’ (1Th 4:14; cf. 1Co 15:18), and though removed from our earthly tenement we are still at home with God. Cf. also Luk 23:43. The word translated ‘present’ here is translated ‘at home’ in 2Co 5:6, a variation which commenced with Tyndale. He returns however to ‘at home’ in the next verse.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
We are confident – 2Co 5:6. We are cheerful, and courageous, and ready to bear our trial. Tyndale renders it: we are of good comfort.
And willing rather to be absent from the body – We would prefer to die. The same idea occurs in Phi 1:23. Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ; which is far better. The sense is, that Paul would have preferred to die, and to go to heaven; rather than to remain in a world of sin and trial.
To be present with the Lord – The Lord Jesus; see the note on Act 1:24; compare Phi 1:23. The idea of Paul is, that the Lord Jesus would constitute the main glory of heaven, and that to be with him was equivalent to being in a place of perfect bliss. He had no idea of any heaven where the Lord Jesus was not; and to be with him was to be in heaven. That world where the Redeemer is, is heaven. This also proves that the spirits of the saints, when they depart, are with the Redeemer; that is, are at once taken to heaven. It demonstrates:
- That they are not annihilated.
(2)That they do not sleep, and remain in an unconscious state, as Dr. Priestley supposes.
(3)That they are not in some intermediate state, either in a state of purgatory, as the Papists suppose, or a state where all the souls of the just and the unjust are assembled in a common abode, as many Protestants have supposed; but,
- That they dwell with Christ; they are with the Lord ( pros ton Kurion). They abide in his presence; they partake of his joy and his glory; they are permitted to sit with him in his throne; Rev 3:21.
The same idea the Saviour expressed to the dying thief, when he said, today shalt thou be with me in paradise; Luk 23:43.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. We are confident] We are of good courage, notwithstanding our many difficulties; because we have this earnest of the Spirit, and the unfailing testimony of God. And notwithstanding this, we are willing rather to be absent from the body-we certainly prefer a state of glory to a state of suffering, and the enjoyment of the beatific vision to even the anticipation of it by faith and hope; but, as Christians, we cannot desire to die before our time.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
We are confident of such a blessed state, and this makes us willing to be out of this body, that we might have the glorious presence and enjoyment of God to all eternity.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. willingliterally, “wellcontent.” Translate also, “To go (literally, migrate)from our home in the body, and to come to our home with the Lord.”We should prefer to be found alive at the Lord’s coming, and to beclothed upon with our heavenly body (2Co5:2-4). But feeling, as we do, the sojourn in the body to be aseparation from our true home “with the Lord,” we prefereven dissolution by death, so that in the intermediate disembodiedstate we may go to be “with the Lord” (Php1:23). “To be with Christ” (the disembodied state) isdistinguished from Christ’s coming to take us to be with Himin soul and body (1Th4:14-17, “with the Lord”). Perhaps the disembodiedspirits of believers have fulness of communion with Christunseen; but not the mutual recognition of one another, until clothedwith their visible bodies at the resurrection (compare 1Th4:13-17), when they shall with joy recognize Christ’s image ineach other perfect.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
We are confident, I say, and willing rather,…. We are cheerful in our present state, being assured of future happiness; though we choose rather
to be absent from the body; that is, to die, to depart out of this world. The interval between death, and the resurrection, is a state of absence from the body, during which time the soul is disembodied, and exists in a separate state; not in a state of inactivity and sleep, for that would not be desirable, but of happiness and glory, enjoying the presence of God, and praising of him, believing and waiting for the resurrection of the body, when both will be united together again; and after that there will be no more absence, neither from the body, nor from the Lord:
and to be present with the Lord. This was promised to Christ in the everlasting covenant, that all his spiritual seed and offspring should be with him. This he expected; it was the joy of this which was set before him, that carried him through his sufferings and death with so much cheerfulness; this is the sum of his prayers and intercession, and what all his preparations in heaven are on the account of. It is this which supports and comforts the saints under all their sorrows here, and which makes them meet death with pleasure, which otherwise is formidable and disagreeable to nature; and even desirous of parting with life, to be with Christ, which is far better.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
We are of good courage (). Good word for cheer and same root as (Matt 9:2; Matt 9:22). Cheer up.
Are willing rather (). Rather, “We are well-pleased, we prefer” if left to ourselves. Cf. Php 1:21f. Same used in Lu 3:22.
To be at home with the Lord ( ). First aorist (ingressive) active infinitive, to attain that goal is bliss for Paul.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Are willing [] . The translation might well be made stronger as well as more literal : we are well – pleased.
To be absent – present [ – ] . The same verbs as in ver 6 to be from home, at home.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “We are confident,” (tharroumen) “we are of good cheer, confident,” or bold in the faith, to live and to die in and with the faith, as Paul, 2Ti 4:7-8.
2) “I say, and willing rather,” (de kai eudokoumen mallon) “Then, and think it rather good,” proper or preferable, to give up this wrestling, running, soldiering clay body to be with the Lord to await in His fellowship in glory, the crowning time, 2Ti 4:8; Heb 11:6.
3) “To be absent from the body,” (ekdemesai ek tou somatos) “to go away from home, this earthly home, out of the earthly body,” to die, to depart this tent of clay, to be received by the Lord, in which experience there is gain, Php_1:20-21.
4) “And to be present with the Lord,” (kai’ endemesai pros ton kurion) “and to come (or go) home to the Lord,” to be with Him, where He is, Php_1:23; Psa 16:11. For in His presence is “the fulness of joy – and pleasures forevermore.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
8. We are confident, I say He again repeats, what he had said respecting the confidence of the pious — that they are so far from breaking down under the severity of the cross, and from being disheartened by afflictions, that they are made thereby more courageous. For the worst of evils is death, yet believers long to attain it, as being the commencement of perfect blessedness. Hence and may be regarded as equivalent to because, in this way: “Nothing can befall us, that can shake our confidence and courage, since death (which others so much dread) is to us great gain. (Phi 1:21.) For nothing is better than to quit the body, that we may attain near intercourse with God, and may truly and openly enjoy his presence. Hence by the decay of the body we lose nothing that belongs to us.”
Observe here — what has been once stated already — that true faith begets not merely a contempt of death, but even a desire for it, (522) and that it is, accordingly, on the other hand, a token of unbelief, when dread of death predominates in us above the joy and consolation of hope. Believers, however, desire death — not as if they would, by an importunate desire, anticipate their Lord’s day, for they willingly retain their footing in their earthly station, so long as their Lord may see good, for they would rather live to the glory of Christ than die to themselves, (Rom 14:7,) and for their own advantage; (523) for the desire, of which Paul speaks, springs from faith. Hence it is not at all at variance with the will of God. We may, also, gather from these words of Paul, that souls, when released from the body, live in the presence of God, for if, on being absent from the body, they have God present, (524) they assuredly live with him.
Here it is asked by some — “How then did it happen that the holy fathers dreaded death so much, as for example David, Hezekiah, and the whole of the Israelitish Church, as appears from Psa 4:0, from Isa 38:3, and from Psa 115:17 ?” I am aware of the answer, that is usually returned — that the reason, why death was so much dreaded by them was, that the revelation of the future life was as yet obscure, and the consolation, consequently, was but small. Now I acknowledge, that this, in part, accounts for it, but not entirely, for the holy fathers of the ancient Church did not in every case tremble, on being forewarned of their death. Nay more, they embraced death with alacrity, and with joyful hearts. For Abraham departed without regret, full of days. (525) (Gen 25:8.) We do not read that Isaac was reluctant to die. (Gen 35:29.) Jacob, with his last breath, declares that he is
waiting for the salvation of the Lord. (Gen 49:18.)
David himself, too, dies peacefully, without any regrets, (1Kg 2:10,) and in like manner Hezekiah. As to the circumstance, that David and Hezekiah did, each of them, on one occasion deprecate death with tears, the reason was, that they were punished by the Lord for certain sins, and, in consequence of this, they felt the anger of the Lord in death. Such was the cause of their alarm, and this believers might feel even at this day, under the reign of Christ. The desire, however, of which Paul speaks, is the disposition of a well-regulated mind. (526)
(522) See p. 216.
(523) “ C’est… dire pour leur propre proufit et vtilite;” — “That is to say, for their own profit and advantage.”
(524) “In this world,” says Howe, in a discourse on 2Co 5:8, “we find ourselves encompassed with objects that are suitable, grateful, and entertaining to our bodily senses, and the several principles, perceptions, and appetites that belong to the bodily life; and these things familiarize and habituate us to this world, and make us, as it were, one with it. There is particularly a bodily people, as is intimated in the text, that we are associated with, by our being in the body. The words ἐνδημὢσαι and ἐκδημὢσαι, in this verse, (and the same are used in 2Co 5:6 and 9,) signify there is such a people of which we are, and from which we would be disassociated; ἔνδημος is civis, incola , or indigena — an inhabitant or native among this or that people; an ἔκδημος is peregrinus , one that lives abroad, and is severed from the people he belonged unto. The apostle considers himself, while in the body, as living among such a sort of people as dwell in bodies, a like sort of people to himself, and would be no longer a home — dweller with them, but travel away from them, to join and be a dweller with another people. For also, on the other hand, he considers, ‘with the Lord,’ an invisible world where he resides, and an incorporeal people he presides over.” — Howe’s Works, (Lond. 1834,) p. 1023. — Ed.
(525) “ Rassassi de iours, et sans regret;” — “Satisfied with days and without regret.” “In the Hebrew,” says Poole in his Annotations, “it is only full or satisfied; but you must understand with days or years, as the phrase is fully expressed in Gen 35:29; 1Ch 23:1; 1Ch 29:28; Job 42:17; Jer 6:11. When he (Abraham) had lived as long as he desired, being in some sort weary of life, and desirous to be dissolved, or full of all good, as the Chaldee renders it — satisfied, as it is said of Naphtali, (Deu 33:23,) with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord upon himself and upon his children.” — Ed.
(526) “ Vn esprit bien pose, et deliure de trouble;” — “A mind well regulated, and free from alarm.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) We are confident, I say.The sentence begun in 2Co. 5:6 and half broken off is resumed. The apparent sense is that he prefers death to life, because it brings him to the presence of his Lord. At first, this seems at variance with what he had said in 2Co. 5:4, as to his not wishing to put off the garment of the present body. Here, however, the expression is not so strong. We are content, he says, if death comes before the Coming of the Lord, to accept death; for even though it does not bring with it the glory of the resurrection body, it does make us at home with Christ among the souls who wait for the resurrection. If there still seems to us some shadow of inconsistency, we may look upon it as the all but inevitable outcome of the state which he describes in Php. 1:21-25, as in a strait between two, and of the form of life in which he now finds himself. The whole passage presents a striking parallelism, and should be compared with this. This is, it is believed, an adequate explanation. Another may, however, be suggested. We find the Apostle speaking of certain visions and revelations of the Lord, of which he says he knows not whether they are in the body or out of the body (2Co. 12:1). May we not think of him as referring here also to a like experience? We take pleasure, he says, if we adopt this interpretation, wholly or in part, even here, in that state which takes us, as it were, out of the body, or seems to do so, because it is in that state that our eyes are open to gaze more clearly on the unseen glories of the eternal world. The fact that both verbs are in the tense which indicates a single act, and not a continuous state, is, as far as it goes, in favour of this explanation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Are confident Free from disheartening misgivings.
Rather The whole passage is an important exhibit of Paul’s view: 1. Of the soul, as being an independent entity, the central personality; 2. Of the need of the body to the wholeness and unity of the human person; 3. Of the real existence of an intermediate conscious state of the soul between death and resurrection; 4. Of the superior happiness of that disembodied state to our present state in the body, yet of its inferior happiness to the resurrection glory; and, 5. That a main element of the happiness of that intermediate state is the attainment of some association with Christ.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Co 5:8. And willing rather to be absent, &c. This may be understood as spoken with respect to death; and then it will imply, that a Christian, as soon as he dies, is present with Christ: or it may mean, that he wished for Christ’s coming, that his whole man might be translated from this state of absence. Some have argued from this text, not only against the sleep of the soul during the intermediate state; but that pious souls, when departed from our world, go into the higher heaven, where they dwell with Christ; and are not, as some have supposed, in a place where they have only a transitory sight of him on some extraordinary occasions.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Co 5:8 . But we have good courage and are well pleased , etc. With this Paul resumes the thought of 2Co 5:6 , and carries it on, yet without keeping to the construction there begun. The idea of the must in this resumption be the same as that of the in 2Co 5:6 , namely, the idea of confident courage in suffering . This in opposition to Hofmann, who takes rightly of courage in suffering , but of courage in death , making the infinitive depend also on (see below).
, no doubt, links on again the discourse interrupted by the parenthesis (Hermann, ad Viger. p. 847; Pflugk, ad Eurip . Hec. 1211; Fritzsche, Diss. II. p. 21), which may also happen, where no has preceded (Klotz, ad Devar. p. 377); since, however, is not repeated here, we must suppose that Paul has quite dropped the plan of the discourse begun in 2Co 5:6 and broken off by 2Co 5:7 , and returns by the way of contrast to what was said in 2Co 5:6 . Accordingly there occurs an adversative reference to the previous . , , in so far as this state of things as to the course of his temporal life does not make the apostle at all discontented and discouraged, but, on the contrary, leaves his , already expressed in 2Co 5:6 , quite untouched, and makes his desire tend rather towards being from home, etc. Comp. Hartung, I. p. 173. 2; Klotz, l.c. Thus there is a logical reason why Paul has not written . Comp. on Eph 2:4 .
in the sense of being pleased, of placet mihi , comp. 1Co 1:21 ; Gal 1:15 ; Col 1:19 ; 1Th 2:8 ; Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 370.
] to be-from-home out of the body , is not to be understood of the change at the Parousia (Kaeuffer, ., p. 80 f.), but, in accordance with the context, must be the opposite of , 2Co 5:6 ; consequently in substance not different from , 2Co 5:4 . Hence the only right interpretation is the usual one of dying , in consequence of which we are-from-home out of the body . Comp. Phi 1:23 ; Plato, Phaed. p. 67, B, C. The infinitive is dependent only on , not also on (Hofmann), since with the infinitive means to venture something, to undertake to do something, which would not suit here (comp. Xen. Cyr. viii. 8. 6; Herodian. ii. 10. 13), even apart from the fact that this use of (equivalent to ) is foreign to the N. T. and rare even among Greek writers. The . . . is something greater than the . This passage stands to 2Co 5:4 , where Paul has expressed the desire not to die but to be transformed alive, in the relation not of contradiction, but of climax ; the shrinking from the process of dying is, through the consideration contained in 2Co 5:5 and in the feeling of the courage which it gives (2Co 5:6 ), now overcome, and in place of it there has now come the inclination rather ( ) to see the present relation of and (2Co 5:6 ) reversed , rather, [218] therefore, , which will take place through death, if this should be appointed to him in his apostolic conflicts and sufferings (2Co 4:7 ff.), for in that case his spirit, having migrated from his body, will not, separated from Christ, come into Hades, but will be at home with the Lord in heaven a state the blessedness of which will later, at the day of the Parousia, receive the consummation of glory. The certainty of coming by martyrdom into heaven to Christ is consequently not to be regarded as a certainty only apprehended subsequently by Paul. See Phi 1:26 , Remark.
[218] therefore belongs neither to nor to . . ., as if Paul would say that he has this courage still more than that meant in ver. 6 (Hofmann), but to . We wish that, instead of the present home in the body, etc., there may rather ( potius ) set in the being-from-home out of the body and the being-at-home with the Lord . This “ rather ” no more yields an awkward idea here (as Hofmann objects) than it does in all other passages where it is said that one wills, ought to do, or does, instead of one thing rather the other . Comp. e.g . 1Co 5:2 ; 1Co 6:7 ; Rom 14:13 ; Joh 3:19 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
8 We are confident, I say , and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Ver. 8. And willing rather ] Death is not to be desired as a punishment of sin, but as a period of sin; not as a postern gate to let out our temporal, but as a street door to let in eternal life.
To be present with the Lord ] This Bernard calleth Repatriasse. Plotinus the philosopher could say when he died, that which is divine in me I carry back, , to the original divine, that is, to God. (Synes. Eph 139.) But whether this man believed himself or not, I greatly doubt.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Co 5:8 . . . .: nay (the is resumptive of the thought in 2Co 5:6 , which has been interrupted by 2Co 5:7 , the grammatical structure involving an anacoluthon), we are of good courage (for this is demanded even of the most faithful by the prospect of death) and are well-pleased (see reff. for cases where is used of men, not of God) rather to be away from the home of the body and to be at home with the Lord ( cf. Joh 1:1 for such a use of ). Even if we must die before the Second Advent, we would say, we are content, for this absence from the body will be presence with Christ ( cf Luk 23:43 , Phi 1:21-23 ), though the glory of that Presence shall not be fully manifested until the Day of the Parousia.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2 Corinthians
THE OLD HOUSE AND THE NEW
2Co 5:8
There lie in the words of my text simply these two things; the Christian view of what death is, and the Christian temper in which to anticipate it.
I. First, the Christian view of what death is.
Very clearly and firmly does Paul draw the line between the man and his dwelling-place. Life is more than a result of organisation. Consciousness, thought, feeling, are more than functions of matter. No materialist philosopher has ever been, or ever will be, able to explain within the limits of his system the strange difference between the cause and the effect; how it comes to pass that at the one end of the chain there is an impression upon a nerve, and at the other there is pain; how at the one end there is the throb of an inch of matter in a man’s skull, and at the other end there are thoughts that breathe and words that burn, and that live for ever. That brings us up to the edge of a gulf over which no materialist philosopher has ever been able to cast a bridge. The scalpel cannot cut deep enough to solve this mystery. Conscience as well as instinct cry out against the theory that the worker and the tools are inseparable. For such a theory reduces human actions to mechanical results, and shatters all responsibility. Man is more than his dwelling-place. You crush a shell on the beach with your heel, and you slay its tiny inhabitant. But you can pull down the tent, and pluck up its pegs, and roll up its canvas, and put it away in a dark corner, and the tenant is untouched. The foolish senses crown Death as last, and lord of all. But wisdom says, ‘Life and thought have gone away side by side, leaving doors and windows wide,’ and that is all that has happened.
Still further, my text suggests that to the Christian soul the departure from the one house is the entrance into the other. The home has been the body; the home is now to be Jesus Christ. And very beautiful and significant with meanings, which only experience will fully unfold, is the representation that the Lord Christ Himself assumes the place which the bodily environment has hitherto held.
That teaches us, at all events, that there is a new depth and closeness of union with Jesus waiting the Christian soul, when it lays aside the separating film of flesh. Here the bodily organisation, with its limitations, necessarily shuts us off from the closeness of intercourse which is possible for a naked soul. We know not how much separation may depend upon the immersing of the spirit in the fleshly tabernacle, but this we know, that, though here and now, by faith which dominates sense, souls can live in Christ even whilst they live in the body; yet there shall come a form of union so much more close, intimate, all-pervading, and all-encircling, as that the present union with Him by faith, precious as it is, shall be, as the Apostle calls it in our context, ‘absence from the Lord.’ ‘We have to be discharged,’ says an old thinker, ‘of a great deal of what we call body, and then we shall be more truly ourselves,’ and more truly united to Him who, if we are Christian people at all, is the self of ourselves and the life of our lives. No man knows how close he can nestle to the bosom of Christ when the film of flesh is rent away. Just as when in some crowded street of a great city some grimy building is pulled down, a sudden daylight fills the vacant space, and all the site that had been shut out from the sky for many years is drenched in sunshine, so when ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle’ is ruinated and falls, the light will flood the place where it stood, and to be ‘absent from the body’ shall be to be ‘present with the Lord.’
May we go a step further and suggest that, perhaps, in the bold metaphor of my text, there is an answer to the questions which so often rack loving and parted hearts? ‘Do the dead know aught of what affects us here? and can they do aught but gaze on Him, and love, and rest?’ If it be that there is any such analogy as seems to be dimly shadowed in my text, between the relation of the body on earth to the spirit that inhabits it, and that of Jesus Christ to him who dwells in Him, and is clothed by Him, then it may be that, as the flesh, so the Christ transmits to the spirit that has Him for its home impressions from the outside world, and affords a means of action upon that world. Christ may be, if I might so say, the sensorium of the disembodied spirit; and Christ may be the hand of the man who hath no other instrument by which to express himself. But all that is fancy perhaps, speculation certainly; and yet there seems to be a shadow of a foundation for at least entertaining the possibility of such a thought as that Jesus is the means of knowing and the means of acting to those who rest from their labours in Him, and dwell in peace in His arms. But be that as it may, the reality of a close communion and encircling by the felt presence of Jesus Christ, which, in its blessed closeness, will make the closest communion here seem to be obscure, is certainly declared in the words before us.
Then this transition is regarded in my text as being the work of a moment. It is not a long journey of which the beginning is ‘to go from home, from the body,’ and the end is ‘to go home, to the Lord.’ But it is one and the same motion which, looked at from the one side, is departure, and looked at from the other is arrival. The old saying has it, ‘there is but a step between me and death.’ The truth is, there is but a step between me and life . The mighty angel in the Apocalypse, that stood with one foot on the firm land and the other on the boundless ocean, is but the type of the spirit in the brief moment of transition, when the consciousness of two worlds blends, and it is clothed upon with the house which is from heaven, in the very act of stripping off the earthly house of this tabernacle.
Nor need I remind you, I suppose, in more than a sentence, that this transition obviously leads into a state of conscious communion with Jesus Christ. The dreary figment of an unconscious interval for the disembodied spirit has no foundation, either in what we know of spirit, or in what is revealed to us in Scripture. For the one thing that seems to make it probable-the use of that metaphor of ‘sleeping in Jesus’-is quite sufficiently accounted for by the notions of repose, and cessation of outward activity, and withdrawal of capacity of being influenced by the so-called realities of this lower world, without dragging in the unfounded notion of unconsciousness. My text is incompatible with it, for it is absurd to say of an unconscious spirit, clear of a bodily environment, that it is anywhere; and there is no intelligible sense in which the condition of such a spirit can be called being ‘with the Lord.’
So, then, I think a momentary transition, with uninterrupted consciousness, which leads to a far deeper and more wonderful and blessed sense of unity with Jesus Christ than is possible here on earth, is the true shape in which the act of death presents itself to the Christian thinker.
And remember, dear brethren, that is all we know. Nothing else is certain-nothing but this, ‘with the Lord,’ and the resulting certainty that therefore it is well with them. It is enough for our faith, for our comfort, for our patient waiting. They live in Christ, ‘and there we find them worthier to be loved,’ and certainly lapped in a deeper rest. ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.’
II. In the next place, note the Christian temper in which to anticipate the transition.
So, then, Christian faith does not destroy the natural reluctance to put aside the old companion of our lives. The old house, though it be smoky, dimly lighted, and, by our own careless keeping, sluttish and grimy in many a corner, yet is the only house we have ever known, and to be absent from it is untried and strange. There is nothing wrong in saying ‘we would not be unclothed but clothed upon.’ Nature speaks there. We may reverently entertain the same feelings which our Pattern acknowledged, when He said, ‘I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished.’ And there would be nothing sinful in repeating His prayer with His conditions, ‘If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.’
But then the text suggests to us the large Christian possessions and hope which counterwork this reluctance, in the measure in which we live lives of faith. There is the assurance of that ultimate home in which all the transiency of the present material organisation is exchanged for the enduring permanence which knows no corruption. The ‘tent’ is swept away to make room for the ‘building.’ The earthly house is dissolved in order that there may be reared round the homeless tenant the house eternal, ‘not made with hands,’ God’s own work, which is waiting in the heavens; because the power that shall frame it is there. Not only that great hope of the ‘body of His glory,’ with which at the last all true souls shall be invested, but furthermore, ‘the earnest of the spirit,’ and the blessed experiences therefrom, resulting even here, ought to make the unwelcome necessity less unwelcome. If the firstfruits be righteousness and peace and joy of the Holy Ghost, what shall the harvest be? If the ‘earnest,’ the shilling given in advance, be so precious, what will the whole wealth of the inheritance which it heralds be when it is received?
For such reasons the transitory passage becomes less painful and unwelcome. Who is there that would hesitate to dip his foot into the ice-cold brook if he knew that it would not reach above his ankles, and that a step would land him in blessedness unimagined till experienced?
Therefore the Christian temper is that of quiet willingness and constant courage. There is nothing hysterical here, nothing morbid, nothing overstrained, nothing artificial. The Apostle says: ‘I would rather not. I should like if I could escape it. It is an unwelcome necessity; but when I see what I do see beyond,’ I am ready. Since so it must be, I will go, not reluctantly, nor dragged away from life, nor clinging desperately to it as it slips from my hands, nor dreading anything that may happen beyond; but always courageous, and prepared to go whithersoever the path may take me, since I am sure that it ends in His bosom. He is willing to go from the home of the body, because to do that is to go home to Christ.
There are other references of our Apostle’s, substantially of the same tone as that of my text, but with very beautiful and encouraging differences. When he was nearer his end, when it seemed to him as if the headsman’s block was not very far off, his willingness had intensified into ‘having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.’ And when the end was all but reached, and he knew that death was waiting just round the next turn in the road, he said, with the confidence that in the midst of the struggle would have been vainglory, but at the end of it was a foretaste of the calm of Heaven, ‘I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.’ That is our model, dear brethren,-’always courageous,’ afraid of nothing in life, in death, or beyond, and therefore willing to go from home from the body and to go home to the Lord.
Think of this man thus fronting the inevitable, with no excitement and with no delusions. Remember what Paul believed about death, about sin, about his own sin, about judgment, about hell. And then think of how to him death had made its darkness beautiful with the light of Christ’s face, and all the terror was gone out of it. Do you think so about death? Do you shrink from it? Why? Why do you not take Paul’s cure for the shrinking? If you can say, ‘To me to live is Christ,’ you will have no difficulty in saying, ‘and to die is gain.’ That is the only way by which you can come to such a temper, and then you will be willing to move from the cottage to the palace, and to wait in peace till you are shifted again into ‘the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
willing = well pleased. See 1Co 1:21,
present. As “at home”, 2Co 5:6.
with. App-104.
feast = Ps 89:15
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
2Co 5:8. , indeed) An epitasis [Repetition of a previous enunciation with some strengthening word added; Append.]; comp. 2Co 5:6, note.-) we have so determined [we regard it as a fixed thing], that it will be well-pleasing to us.-, to go home) 2Co 5:6, note.- , to the Lord) Php 1:23.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
2Co 5:8
2Co 5:8
we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.-He was willing to leave the fleshly body, or die, and go home to be with the Lord, clothed with the immortal body.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
and willing: 2Co 5:6, 2Co 12:2, 2Co 12:3, Luk 2:29, Act 21:13, Phi 1:20-24, 2Ti 4:7, 2Ti 4:8, 2Pe 1:14, 2Pe 1:15, 2Pe 3:11, 2Pe 3:12
present: 2Co 5:9, Psa 16:11, Psa 17:15, Psa 73:23-26, Mat 25:21, Mat 25:23, Joh 14:3, Joh 17:24, 1Th 4:17, 1Th 4:18, 1Jo 3:2, Rev 7:14-17, Rev 22:3
Reciprocal: Psa 51:13 – Then Pro 14:32 – the righteous Ecc 3:21 – knoweth Ecc 7:1 – the day Isa 57:2 – He shall Luk 23:43 – with Joh 12:26 – where Act 20:24 – neither 1Co 9:26 – not 1Co 13:10 – General Phi 1:21 – to die Phi 1:23 – a desire Phi 3:20 – our Heb 12:23 – the spirits 1Pe 5:1 – a partaker 2Pe 1:13 – as long Rev 6:9 – the souls Rev 14:13 – Blessed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
HOME AT LAST
At home with the Lord.
2Co 5:8 (R. V.)
That is heaven at last. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. I can tell you two things about that home.
I. It is a home where Christ is.It is home with the Lord. He will unlock the treasures of heaven and unfold its wonders.
II. It is where our loved ones are.
Rev. F. Harper.
Illustrations
(1) One of the most touching scenes in fiction is where Thackeray describes Colonel Newcomes last moments on earth and first moments with Christ. He thought he heard the school-bell ringing, and that his name was being called, and he answered Present as he used to do when he was a boy at the Charterhouse School. At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcomes hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said Adsum and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the Presence of the Master.
(2) When Wordsworth was dying, suddenly he awoke from the stupor in which he lay, his face filled with life and the eyes with the light of a glad surprise. Dora, cried the dying poet, recognising the daughter he had lost.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Co 5:8. Paul’s personal preference is expressed in this verse, which is the same thing that he does in Php 1:23. Were it not for the good he could do while remaining in the world, he would rather die and go to be with the Lord.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Co 5:8. we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be abroad from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.[1]
[1] compare Joh 1:1, .
Note.Since the states contrasted in the previous verses are states of embodimentin mortality now, and hereafter when mortality shall be swallowed up of lifeit might seem that the exchange from being at home in the body to being at home with the Lord means the transition from the one body to the other (and so Meyer and others view it). But (with Alford) it appears to us that the homely wav in which the indefinite phrase absence from the body and presence with the Lord is introduced, after the more clearly-defined references to the resurrection-body in the preceding verses, was chosen just to avoid that inference; and this is confirmed by what he says in another place, in the actual prospect of deathhaving a desire to depart (or break up as from a temporary sojourn) and be with Christ (Php 1:23), an expression which all understand of the intermediate state; that state of which our Lord said to the penitent on the cross, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise (Luk 23:43).
Of this intermediate state Scripture says next to nothing in detail. Indeed this is one of those things in which the silences of Scripture are as remarkable as its utterances. It indulges no prurient curiosity; on some things we yearn intensely to know more, on these we are left quite in the dark, having only conjecture to guide us, and this it is not safe to rest much on. But on its fundamental characteristics we have some clear and precious light:(1) That it will be a state of conscious existence, we are perfectly certain. To be told that that very day he would be with Christ in paradise would have been to mock the dying man if he was to be unconscious of the fact; and since the apostle tells us that while he lived he was in daily communion with Christabout his work with its difficulties, triumphs, and prospectshow could he say that to depart and be with Christ was far better if this was all to be extinguished, and he was to be unconscious even of his own existence? whereas, to be in the immediate and conscious presence of his Lord could not but be felt by him to be far better. (2) It will be to be at home with the Lord. This word at home, when applied to such a case, conveys to the heart what language cannot express. We may call up the feelings of the weary traveller, far away and long away, with no hope of ever reaching it save through perils of every sort, and then ask what word to him is the sweetest, winsomest, warmest, that can greet his ear. But to us strangers and sojourners here, harassed with cares and worried often out of our peace and rest, to whom without are fightings and within are fearsnot to speak of sorrows and tearsthe thought that no sooner is the believers spirit disengaged from its clay tabernacle than it finds itself at home with the Lord transcends all that language can describe: He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still: then are they glad, because they be quiet; so He bringeth them to their desired haven. Yet even this is but the entrance-gate, the threshold, of resurrection-glory; when that organ which was originally formed to be the inlet of all that the soul receives from without, and the outlet of all that it gives out from within, shall be restored, with capacities suited to the higher sphere which it will then occupy.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
The original words, for we are confident and willing, denote first, courage and undaunted boldness with respect to death, and complacency and satifaction in it. We are willing; the translation is too flat; evdoxdmev, we are well pleased. It is a grateful and desirable thing to us to leave the body: yet not in an absolute, but comparative consideration. We are willing rather; that is, rather than not see and enjoy the Lord, rather than be always here sinning and groaning, we had rather be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.
Learn, 1. That our happiness in the world to come lies in our being present with the Lord.
2. That we are present with the Lord as soon as the soul quits and takes its leave and farewell of the body.
3. That a state of separation from the body is much more preferable to the saints than that of dwelling in the body.
4. That this desire, preference, and choice, arises from that confident assurance which they have of a better state, and of their interest in it; We are confident, I say, &c.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 8 That knowledge caused him to desire death with no need to fear because he would be with the Lord.
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. [The soul has two homes, a bodily and a spiritual, and the latter is preferable; but the latter is not attained before the resurrection day. In the state between death and resurrection, of which Paul speaks in 2Co 5:4; the spirit is with Christ, as we are here informed. Though Christ is with us now while we are in the flesh, yet we walk by faith and have no perception of him. After death we have a spiritual perception of his presence, as Paul’s language indicates; but it is only at the resurrection, when we are fully incorporated in our spiritual body, that we shall see him as he is (1Jo 3:2), and know as we are known (1Co 13:12). The disembodied state, though inferior in happiness to the resurrection glory, is yet preferable to our present state. Though such a condition may be lower than the highest heaven, yet it is “home” and “with the Lord.”]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 8
Confident; strong in our hope of life and happiness beyond the grave, and in our desire to attain to it,–referring apparently to the earnest desire alluded to 2 Corinthians 5:2. The term is explained in 2 Corinthians 5:8.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
5:8 We are {f} confident, [I say], and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
(f) And yet we are in such a manner confident and do so pass on our pilgrimage with a valiant and peaceful mind, that yet nonetheless we had rather depart from here to the Lord.