Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

"Absent from the body"
2 Corinthians 5:8

"We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8, NKJV)

C K Barrett writes that "This paragraph [verses 1-8]... is notoriously difficult"^F1. Is Paul commending absence "from the body" because this will be presence "with the Lord"? If so, how is this accomplished, through the freedom of an immortal soul no longer constrained by the body? Does the body impede our enjoyment of God's presence?

The section begins in 2 Corinthians 5:1, typically for Paul, with the Greek word γαρ gar, "For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God...", a variant on his use of "therefore", ultimately connecting each thought with the one proceeding so that with Paul context in Scripture can mean quite a substantial section of an epistle. In this case he has already referred in 4:7,10-11,16 to the body as a mortal vehicle in which to manifest the life of Jesus, in which we are not to be discouraged as its outward form perishes since we await (5:1) an eternal "house not made with hands".

Paul is often thought of as being against the flesh and the body in the vein of many Greek philosophies and the Hellenistic Jew Philo, but this is patently not true. Instead, he is simply aware of the weakness of the flesh and awaits the shedding of this tent "not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed" in another body, although an improved one. He is not in favour of a "naked" bodiless immortal soul but rather acknowledges the need for a fresh immortal body, which is as yet unseen, not because it is invisible but because it has not yet been revealed. The present "natural" or "earthly" body will be closely followed upon resurrection by a "heavenly" body (1 Corinthians 15:40-44). If there is an extended intervening period between these bodies Paul does not dwell on it. He "groans" about this tent but not because he longs "to be absent from the body" permanently, instead he awaits the glory of the body to come.

For Paul, absence from the body was akin to nakedness and being "unclothed" (5:3-4) something which was acceptable in the Garden of Eden but in terms of the soul being apart from the body was as abhorrent to early Judaism as physical nakedness was to stricter later Judaism. Philo^F2 and Gnosticism, like the Greek Corinthians, had absorbed from Hellenism, in particular Plato^F3 and Pythagoras, the desirability of the soul to be apart from the body and Paul rails against this by affirming the "glory" of the future body and indeed of the present one, albeit of a different degree of glory (1 Corinthians 15:40).

The idea that, "while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord", does not mean that in the body we do not enjoy Christ's indwelling or presence through his Spirit. Rather, it is a chronological reflection that if we are still in this body then Christ has not yet come again and we are thus "absent" in terms of his returning physical presence. Paul only uses this Greek verb εκδημεω ekdêmeô (Strong's #1553) here and in verses 8-9 and it means to be "out of" of one's home or country, to be abroad from one's country. Our future country is the new earth where God will dwell with man, whilst we are still "at home" in this body we will not have reached our final destination.

This idea of reaching another country has echoes of the Israelites' journey to the promised land. Indeed, the metaphor of the "tent" (5:1, cf. John 1:14 of Jesus "tenting" among us, and recall that Paul was a "tentmaker", Acts 18:3) conjures up the picture of the travelling tabernacle in the wilderness. Given this picture of a journey, there is no emphasis on a long wait at a station platform whilst we change trains, to switch the metaphor to a modern one. We journey, then we arrive. We have this earthly body then we have the celestial one. The intervening state is never emphasised as an end in itself.

For Paul, the very best thing would not be to die and "go to heaven" but rather to be here when he comes, to be translated in an instant (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) rather than to die and be raised, and thus have no sense of a temporary sleep in between. Indeed, the Thessalonians were so worried by this falling asleep that they thought they might miss out on seeing Christ again and not be raised at all (1 Thessalonians 4:13-16). Paul does not comfort them with the immortality of the soul but rather with the resurrection of the body.

FOOTNOTES:
F1: Barrett, C.K., The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Black's New Testament Commentaries, (London: A&C Black, 1973), p.150.
F2: Philo, Virt., 76; Leg. All., II.57,59.
F3: Plato, Crat., 403B; Republic, 577B; Gorg., 523D, 524D; Phaedo 67DE, 81C.

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