1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.



Ver. 1. For we know] Not we think, or hope only; this is the top gallant of faith, the triumph of trust; this is, as Latimer calls it, the deserts of the feast of a good conscience. There are other dainty dishes in this feast, but this is the banquet. The cock on the dunghill knows not the worth of this jewel.



Our earthly house] In the wonderful frame of man’s body the bones are the timberwork, the head the upper lodging, the eyes as windows, the eyelids as casements, the brows as penthouses, the ears as watchtowers, the mouth as a door to take in that which shall uphold the building, and keep it in reparations; the stomach as a kitchen to dress that which is conveyed into it; the guts and baser parts as sinks belonging to the house, &c., as one wittily descants.



Our earthly house of this tabernacle] Our clay cottage. Man is but terra friabilis, a piece of earth neatly made up. The first man is of the earth earthy; and his earthly house is ever mouldering over him, ready to fall upon his head, 1Co_15:47. Hence it is called "the life of his hands," because hardly held up with the labour of his hands, Isa_57:10. Paul, a tentmaker, elegantly compares man’s body to a tent. Plato also in his dialogue of death, calleth the body a tabernacle, ôï ïêçíïò . A house the body is called, as for the singular artifice showed in the framing of it (the woman’s body is, by a specialty, called God’s building, Gen_2:22, because her frame consisteth of rarer room; of a more exact composition, say some, than man’s doth), so, secondly, because the soul dwells in it; the reason whereof (besides God’s will, and for the order of the universe) Lombard gives this, that hereby man might learn and believe a possibility of the union of man with God in glory, notwithstanding the vast distance of nature and excellence.



We have a building of God] The ark, transportative till then, was settled in Solomon’s temple; so shall the soul be in heaven. As when one skin falls off, another comes on; so when our earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved or taken down, we shall have a heavenly house. The soul wears the body as a garment, which when it is worn out, we shall be clothed with a better suit, we shall change our rags for robes, &c. Itaque non plangimus, sod plaudimus, quando vitam claudimus, quia dies iste non tam fatalis quam natalis est.