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Context No. 66 of 4322 · 2 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

2 Corinthians 5:1-5: in context

1For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. 2For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.

Paul has been writing to the church at Corinth about the wear and tear of his work, being struck down, carrying death around in his body, wasting away outwardly. This passage is his image for what happens to that body, and the image is a building trade.

We know, he says, that if the earthly tent we live in is taken down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Paul made his living as a tentmaker, so this is his own trade talking. A tent is a real dwelling, and it is also a thing you strike, fold, and carry. He does not despise it. He says plainly that he does not want to be unclothed but further clothed, so that what is mortal gets swallowed up by life.

The groaning is admitted twice. This is not a serene man looking past his body. He is burdened, he says so, and he wants the permanent thing rather than nothing at all. Then the guarantee: God gave the Spirit as a down payment, the Greek commercial word for a deposit that commits the buyer to the rest. Where am I treating something temporary as if it were the whole house, or else refusing to live in it because it is only a tent?

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