The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Setting and Intent of Paul’s Unusual Portrayal

First, let us get the setting. When the apostle Paul first went to Corinth he sought out and lived with Aquila and Priscilla, who were tentmakers. Then “because he [Paul] was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers” (Acts 18:3). CFF1 326.3

It was but natural, then, that Paul, in this Epistle to the Corinthians, should introduce a figure of speech in which he likens his body to a “tabernacle-tent”—later changing the figure to “clothing.” He compares the human body to a transitory tent, or tabernacle, and stresses the fact that he does not want to be houseless, but wishes to exchange his present, transient tent-house for a new and glorious “eternal house,” a “building of God”—the new and glorified body that he would receive at the coming of the Lord. CFF1 326.4

Or, changing the figure, he does not wish to be divested of his “clothing,” and be “naked” (used as a figure for death), ² but rather, to be “clothed upon” (by resurrection or translation) by his “house which is from heaven.” This is in complete conformity with his message to the Philippians, where he speaks of “heaven“: CFF1 327.1

“Whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (Philippians 3:20, 21, RN.). CFF1 327.2

1. TWO LIVES FOR BELIEVERS—PRESENT AND FUTURE

Paul knew of no other life for the believer than (1) “the life that now is” and (2) “that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8) just the two. The first is, of course, our present temporary mortal life, now possessed; the other is the future immortal life, of which we are heirs and for which we hope (Matthew 19:29; Titus 1:2). The present life is spent in a “natural” body; the future eternal life will be lived in a “spiritual” body (1 Corinthians 15:44). Neither Paul nor any other New Testament writer knew, or wrote, of any disembodied soul life. Such a concept was then held only by one wing of the Jews, and had been introduced from Platonism in the last two centuries before Christ by certain Apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writers. (See Part III, chaps. 36-38, pp. 632-680.) CFF1 327.3

Paul declared that we could not enter the Lord’s presence in the natural body of our humiliation. On the road to Damascus he had had an overpowering glimpse of Christ’s glory, and the sight had blinded him and struck him down to earth (Acts 9:1-9). John, too, who had reclined on the bosom of Jesus when His glory was veiled during His incarnation, fell down at His feet as one dead when that same Jesus unveiled His glory to him in vision on the Isle of Patmos (Revelation 1:17). But John had confidence that he would yet look upon his glorified Lord without fear. And the reason was that “when he shall appear [at the Second Advent], we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). CFF1 327.4

Picture 1: Calvary and the Law:
The Death of Christ Vindicated the Law and Government of God and Provided Life and Immortality for Man. The Cross Is God’s Great Remedy for Sin.
Page 328

That would not be in the clothing of this present mortal flesh, but in a new and glorified body, for, as there is a “natural body,” there is also to be a “spiritual body” to follow (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). CFF1 329.1

There must therefore be a change. And that change will take place on the glorious resurrection-translation day when this mortal puts on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53). Not death, then, but victory over death, was the apostle Paul’s fond hope (1 Corinthians 15:54). He knew that if the Lord delayed His return, mortality would be swallowed up in death for him. He longed not to be “unclothed” by death, but to be “clothed upon” by translation at the Advent, that “mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). CFF1 329.2

If the Lord’s return should find Paul “unclothed,” or “naked,” in the state of death, then his hope was in the resurrection, when death would be swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54). But his ardent longing was for the other swallowing up—the swallowing up of this mortal life by a glorious immortality through translation, without dying at all (2 Corinthians 5:4). He longed to join the elect company of Enoch and Elijah. CFF1 329.3

2. EARTHEN VESSELS MUST BE REPLACED

2 Corinthians 5 should not be separated from chapter 4. In the latter Paul had just spoken of his mortal body, and the sufferings it had endured. This is his portrayal: CFF1 329.4

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (mortal flesh)” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10). CFF1 329.5

His was a battered body—having suffered stonings, scourgings, and other terrible experiences detailed in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28. All those had left their marks on the fragile “earthen vessel.” And there was also his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7)—a bodily infirmity, the exact nature of which is not revealed—to buffet him, and keep him humble. But he testified: “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). CFF1 329.6

However, the earthen vessel could not bear the fullness of that glory any more than new wine could be contained in old bottles (Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37, 38). So Paul longed to exchange the old body for the new one in which he would be forever free from “weariness and painfulness,” “hunger and thirst,” “cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:27). Such was the constraining power that made even his life in this mortal flesh triumphant. CFF1 330.1

But while he was “at home” in this mortal body he was “absent” from his Lord, and confined to this present evil world. He longed to get rid of the old, and to receive the new and glorified body, and dwell in Christ’s presence forever. CFF1 330.2

Now let us examine the full text, with technical definitions interspersed to illuminate the key words and phrases. CFF1 330.3