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2Co_5:1. Γάρ ] gives a reason for 2Co_4:17. For if we were not certain that, etc., 2Co_5:1, we could not maintain that our temporal tribulation works for us an eternal weight of glor.
οἴδαμεν ] is here not the general it is known (Rom_2:2; Rom_3:19; Rom_7:14; Rom_8:28), but Paul is speaking (with the inclusion also of Timothy) of himself, as in the whole context. He is certain of this. Comp. Job_19:25.
ἐὰν ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν κ . τ . λ ] in case our earthly house of the tent (our present body) shall have been broken up (comp. Polyb. vi. 40; 2Es_5:12). Paul here supposes the case, the actual occurrence of which, however, is left quite indefinite by ἐάν , of his not living to see the Parousia. It is true that he was convinced for himself that he would live to see it (1Co_15:51), but the opposite still remained to him a possible case, and he posits it here (comp. on 2Co_4:14) as dependent on emergent circumstances and with an eye to the future decision. This correct view of the use of ἐάν (see Hermann, ad Viger. pp. 822, 834 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 453) is sufficient to set aside the supposition that it is here equivalent to κἄν , etiamsi (Grotius, Mosheim, Schulz, Rosenmüller, also Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 125), which is not the case even in passages such as Mar_8:36; 1Co_4:15; 1Co_13:1-3; 2Co_12:6.
ἐπίγειος ] earthly, i.e. to be found on earth. Comp. 1Co_15:40; Php_2:10; Php_3:19; Jam_3:15; Joh_3:12. But the special notion of transitoriness only comes to be added through the characteristic τοῦ σκήνους , and is not specially implied in ἐπίγειος (in opposition to Flatt and many others), for the present body is as ἐπίγειος , in contrast to the heavenly things, in a general sense temporal.
ἡ οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους ] is to be taken as one conception: the house, which consists in the (known) tent, the tent-house. It is wrongly translated domum corporis by Mosheim and Kypke (Rückert also hesitates as to this). For frequently as the profane authors, especially the Pythagoreans and Platonists, designate the body by σκῆνος (Grotius in loc.; Alberti, Obss. p. 360; Dougtaeus, Anal. II. p. 122 f.; Jacobs, ad Anthol. XII. p. 30), and seem withal to have quite abandoned the conception of the tent (see the passages in Wetstein, and Kypke, II. p. 250), still that conception always lies at the root of the usage, and remains the significant element of the expression. Comp. Etym. M.: σκῆνος καὶ τὸ σῶμα παρὰ τὸ σκήνωμα καὶ σκηνὴν εἶναι τῆς ψυχῆς , οἷον οἰκητήριον . And since Paul nowhere else uses σκῆνος of the body, and was led in quite a special way by the figure of οἰκία , to do so here, we must keep by the literal meaning of σκῆνος , tent, by which is set forth the merely temporary destiny of the earthly body. Comp. 2Pe_1:13-14; Isa_38:12; Wis_9:15, and Grimm in loc. Chrysostom: εἰπὼν οἰκίαν σκήνους καὶ τὸ εὐδιάλυτον καὶ πρόσκαιρον δείξας ἐκτεῦθεν , ἀντέθηκε τὴν αἰωνίαν . There is nothing to indicate a particular allusion, such as to the dwellings of the Israelites in the wilderness (Schneckenburger, comp. Rückert), or even to the tabernacle (Olshausen).
On the two genitives of different reference dependent on one noun, see Winer, p. 180 [E. T. 239]; and in Latin, Kühner, ad Cic. Tusc. ii. 5. 35.
οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ ] a building proceeding from God, furnished to us by God, by which is meant the resurrection-body. The earthly body also is from God (1Co_12:18; 1Co_12:24), but the resurrection-body will be in a special creative sense (1Co_15:38) one, not indeed that has proceeded from God,[204] but that is given by God. Note also the contrast of the transient ( ἡ οἰκία τοῦ σκήν .) and the abiding ( οἰκοδομή ) in the two bodies. ἘΚ ΘΕΟῦ is to be attached to ΟἸΚΟΔ ., not to be connected with ἜΧΟΜΕΝ , by which a heterogeneous contrast would be introduced (according to Hofmann, with the earthly body, “which is made each individual’s own within the self-propagation of the human race”). The present tense, ἔχομεν , is the present of the point of time in which that ΚΑΤΑΛΥΘῆ shall have taken place. Then he who has died has, from the moment of the state of death having set in, instead of the destroyed body, the body proceeding from God, not yet indeed as a real possession, but as an ideal possession, undoubtedly to be realized at the (near) Parousia. Before this realization he has it in heaven ( ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς belongs to ἜΧΟΜΕΝ ), just because the possession is still ideal and proleptic; at the Parousia the resurrection-body will be given to him from heaven (comp. 2Co_5:2) by God, and till then it appears as a possession which is preserved for him for a time in heaven with a view to being imparted in future—like an estate belonging to him (comp. the idea ἔχειν θησαυρὸν ἐν οὐρανῷ , Mat_19:21; Mar_10:21; Luk_18:22) which God, the future giver, keeps for him in heaven. For a like conception of the eternal ΖΩΉ in general, see Col_3:3 f.; comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 375. The whole of this interpretation is confirmed by τὸ οἰκητήρ . ἡμ . τὸ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ , 2Co_5:2, which is correlative to the ἜΧΟΜΕΝ … ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΟὐΡΑΝΟῖς , 2Co_5:1, in which, however, ἘΝ does not again occur, but ἘΚ , because in 2Co_5:2 ΤῸ ΟἸΚΗΤΉΡΙΟΝ … ἘΠΕΝΔΎΣΑΣΘΑΙ expresses the time of the realization of that possession described in 2Co_5:1. As accordingly ἜΧΟΜΕΝ expresses more than the mere expectancy (“in the event of our death we do not wholly perish, but have at the resurrection a spiritual body to expect,” Billroth), it is not to be transformed into accipiemus (Pelagius: “sumemus”), with Emmerling, Flatt, and many of the older expositors, nor is it to be said, with de Wette (comp. Weizel in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 967; also Baur, II. p. 292 f., ed. 2; and Delitzsch, Psychol, p. 435 f.), that Paul has overleaped the middle state between death and resurrection, or has let it fall into the background on account of its shortness (Osiander). The ἔχειν takes place already from the moment of death and during the continuance of the intervening state, not simply from the resurrection. Photius, Anselm, Thomas, Lyra, and others,[205] including Calovius, Wolf, Morus, Rosenmüller, Hofmann, compare Joh_14:2, and on account of the present tense refer this οἰκοδομή to the glorious place of abode of the blessed spirits with God after death on to the resurrection. So also Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 359 (comp. Schneckenburger, l.c.), explains it of a life in heaven immediately after death. But against such a view it may be decisively urged that οἰκία in the two parts of the verse must necessarily have the same reference (namely, to the body); hence also we cannot, with Ewald and Hofmann, think of the heavenly Jerusalem, Gal_4:25 f., Heb_12:22, and of the heavenly commonwealth, Php_3:20. See, on the other hand, τὸ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ , 2Co_5:2, on which Bengel rightly remarks: “itaque hoc domicilium non est coelum ipsum.”[206] But because the οἰκία is ἘΞ ΟὐΡΑΝΟῦ , we can as little think of a pneumatic bodily organ of the intermediate state (Flatt, Auberlen in the Stud. u. Krit. 1852, p. 709, Neander), of which the N. T. gives no teaching or even hint whate2Co 5:Rückert explains it, yet with much vacillation, of the immediate sequence of the exit out of the old and entrance on the new body; but this is against 1Co_15:51-53, according to which the transfiguration of those who live to see the Parousia appears not as investiture with a new body after a previous κατάλυσις of the old, but as a sudden transformation without destruction. This also in opposition to Olshausen, who likewise seems to understand it of the transfiguration of the livin.
ἀχειροποίητον ] This epithet, denoting the supernatural origin, suits indeed only the figure (Mar_14:58; Act_7:48), and not the thing in itself;[207] yet it occurred to the apostle the more naturally, and he could use it with the less scruple and without impropriety, seeing that he had just before represented the earthly body under the figure of a σκῆνος , consequently of an ΟἸΚΊΑ ΧΕΙΡΟΠΟΊΗΤΟς , so that now, by virtue of contrast, the heavenly body stood before his eyes as an ΟἸΚΊΑ ἈΧΕΙΡΟΠΟΊΗΤΟς . Conversely, an adjective may, without incongruity, correspond to the thing itself and not to the figure, as in 1Co_16:9.
ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΟὐΡΑΝΟῖς ] belongs to ἜΧΟΜΕΝ ; see above.
Lastly, it is to be observed that in the two halves of the verse (1) ἘΚ ΘΕΟῦ and ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΟὐΡΑΝ . correspond with ἘΠΊΓΕΙΟς , and (2) ἈΧΕΙΡΟΠ . and ΑἸΏΝΙΟΝ with ΤΟῦ ΣΚΉΝΟΥς .
[204] Klöpper in the Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. 1862, p. 8 f.
[205] Calvin hesitates between the right explanation and this one; he says: “Incertum est, an significet statum beatae immortalitatis, qui post mortem fideles manet, an vero corpus incorruptibile et gloriosum, quale post resurrectionem erit.” Then he wishes to unite the two views: “Malo ita accipere, ut initium hujus aedificii sit beatus animi status post mortem, consummatio autem sit gloria ultimae resurrectionis.” Billroth misunderstands this, as if Calvin were thinking of two different sorts of bodies, one of which we have till the resurrection, the other by means of the resurrection.
[206] On the way of regarding heaven as domicilium, comp. Cic. de Senect. 23. 84; Tusc. i. 11, 24: “animos, quum e corporibus excesserint, in coelum quasi in domicilium suum, pervenire;” also i. 1:22, 51.
[207] “Metaphoricus sensus in talibus spectetur, non primarius,” Dissen, ad Pind. Pyth. iv. 158.