CHAP. V.] THINGS NOT SEEN ETERNAL. 347 the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. sees, are eternal. The ever Blessed Trinity, the Holy Angels, the Incorruptible Body, the crown of righteousness-these the eye of flesh cannot see, and these are eternal. "O God, the Protector of all that trust in Thee, without Whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, increase and multiply upon us Thy mercy, that Thou being our Ruler and Guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things. eternal." CHAP. V. 'OR we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building FOR a Job iv. 19. 14. 1. "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have," &c. "We know." Notice the Apostolic certainty. He writes as one who knew and believed that there was not only a resurrection body, but one prepared for him. On what grounds did he know this? On two grounds. First, on the ground of the Resurrection of the Lord; on that was based the truth of the doctrine. But he knew that he had a part in the sufferings here for now in this life he could say, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body." If he suffered now with Jesus, he knew that the Lord would not in death and in eternity desert His fellow-sufferer. "If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved." He calls the present body a tabernacle or tent; but inasmuch as it has an inhabitant, which is the soul, it is a tabernacle and a house-a tabernacle, that is, a tent which may be at any time taken to pieces, and yet a house or dwelling, because it is a shelter for the soul for a period. "Be dissolved"-i.e., broken up as a tent is. He scarcely 348 IN THIS WE GROAN. [II. COR. of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. b Rom. viii. 23. b 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: alludes to what we call the dissolution of the body in the earth, but to the taking down for removal of the goats'-hair tents with which he was so familiar. "We have a building of God, an house not made with hands." Our present earthly frames are buildings of God; but compared with that body that shall be, they, though fearfully and wonderfully made, are as nothing. In the building of the future glorified and spiritual body God will put forth infinitely more power, for it will be a body with the functions and endowments of a spirit. Its very mode of existence exceeds all our present faculties of comprehension. It will be "a house not made with hands," not made by human or even by angelic hands—but it will be of (x) God, proceeding directly from Him. In the term, however, "not made with hands," he alludes to the future body as the house or restingplace of the soul or spirit, for all our houses or resting-places are made with hands. Compare "He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. xi. 10). "Eternal in the heavens." This probably means that it is to be for ever incorruptible in the heaven of heavens; but some have suggested that it is being prepared by God now, to be fitted to the souls at the time of the Lord's appearance; but this seems contrary to the identity of the resurrection body with the suffering one. It seems contrary to St. Paul's words, "He shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body" (Phil. iii. 21). 66 2. For in this we groan." The expression of this groaning we have in Rom. vii. 24, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And the external side of it in the last chapter, "We are troubled on every side," &c.; and in the next chap. (vi. 4), “In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities; " and in xi. 23-28. 46 Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house," &c. с 349 3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. 4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be un d c Rev. iii. 18. & xvi. 15. 53, 54. clothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might d1 Cor. xv. be swallowed up of life. The expression of the same desire in different words is to be found in Rom. viii. 23: "We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies." The Apostle, however, has at the present his mind full of the idea of a tent or tabernacle, easily taken down, and so he uses words which rather imply a dwelling, "Our house is from heaven," i.e. from God, not from the earth, not a house of clay, but from being corruptible we shall put on incorruption. 3. "If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked." There is considerable difference amongst expositors as to what is alluded to by the term "naked." Stanley supposes that the Apostle considers the state of a bodiless soul as one of nakedness, derived from the heathen ideas of spirits in Hades, and he instances the legend of a woman appearing to her husband after death, intreating him to burn dresses for her as a covering for her disembodied spirit; the root-conception of the Apostle being that the new glorified body will be a covering for the soul: but Wesley, Cornelius à Lapide, and others, understand "naked" in the sense of not being clothed with grace and good works; as the Lord casts out the servant who had a place at the feast, but had not on the wedding garment. The word naked is in Rev. iii. 17, 18, and xvi. 15, used to denote the absence of spiritual grace. 4. "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." Blunt quotes, as a most apposite illustration, the words of the book of Wisdom: "For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that runneth upon many things" (Wisdom ix. 15). "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon." This seems to mean that we desire not to be disembodied spirits in the intermediate state, but to be raised up in the likeness of the glorious Body of our Lord. What God promised, that His servant Pauldesired. His desires were not that he should be a mere spirit, even though in 350 e Isai. xxix. e WE ARE ALWAYS CONFIDENT. f [II. COR. 5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 23. Ephes. ii. 10. f Rom. viii. 23. ch. i. 22. Ephes. i. 14. & iv. 30. 6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) heaven, but that his body should be like that of the Lord when He appeared. 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God," &c. "He that hath wrought us "-He Who hath worked for us, and upon us, and in us for this self-same thing, viz., the redemption of our bodies. All the work of God in the world and in the Church, the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of the Eternal Son, all the work of God upon our own souls in our Conversion, Regeneration, Justification, Sanctification, Discipline, Comfort; all the grace of Sacraments, the Burial, and Resurrection with Christ in the one, the feeding on His Body and Blood in the other-all are for this selfsame thing, and a pledge of its certainty. He hath given to us the pledge of the Spirit. This pledge being the indwelling of a Person of the Trinity cannot but be a pledge of the highest blessing which God can bestow on His creature. 6. "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home," &c. Confident, or rather bold, of good courage, because of what God so far has wrought us to be, and because He hath also given to us the pledge or earnest of the Spirit that He will give us yet more glorious things. "Always thus being confident, or of good courage, knowing that whilst we are at home," &c. As long as we sojourn here we are strangers and pilgrims, absent from our true home, and from Him Who presides over it. 7. "For we walk by faith, not by sight." A reminiscence of what he had said in iv. 18, "Whilst we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." Sight here does not mean the faculty of seeing, but the things or appearances which are seen. 8. "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent CHAP. V.] PRESENT WITH THE LORD. h 351 8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with ↳ Phil. i. 23. the Lord. vour. 9 Wherefore we || labour, that, whether present || Or, endeaor absent, we may be accepted of him. 31, 32. Rom. 10 For we must all appear before the judg-Matt. xxv. ment seat of Christ; that every one may receive xiv. 10. k 10. "Appear." Rather, "be made manifest." k Rom. ii. 6. from the body," &c. Does this mean that he desires to be in the unseen state when he will not yet be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven? Yes, because when he departs this life, his sufferings will be at an end, and he will be no longer liable to fall, and there will be imparted to him and those with him some visible Presence of the Lord which has not yet been vouchsafed to men. He will be in the state in which he was caught up out of the body into Paradise, and heard the unspeakable words (xii. 1-3). 9. "Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted," &c. We labour, rather "we are ambitious," a stronger word than labour, implying not only the labours of the body, but the eagerness and earnest desire of the mind. 66 That whether present or absent." Present, of course, means in the body, but must we infer that if absent, i.e. unclothed with our mortal frames, we must yet be ambitious to be acceptable to the Lord? Yes, the angels are ambitious, and do their best with all their powers to serve their king. The unseen state is not one of mere quietude or repose, but it is one in which beings who are formed for active service will be active and zealous in that service. 10. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," &c. This word "appear "should rather be reckoned "be made manifest." All our thoughts, words, and works will then be plainly declared, so that it may be seen that God, in apportioning to us our eternal rewards, deals with us in absolute justice; so we have in 1 Cor. iv. 5: "Until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." Observe that the Apostles will be judged as well as others. In the face of this how can men have the hardihood to say that |