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2Co_5:9. Therefore, because we εὐδοκοῦμεν κ . τ . λ ., 2Co_5:8, we exert ourselves also. Bengel: “ut assequamur quod optamus.”
φιλοτιμ .] denotes the striving, in which the end aimed at is regarded as a matter of honour. See on Rom_15:20. Bengel well says: “haec una ambitio legitima.” But there is no hint of a contrast with the “honour-coveting courage of the heathen in dying” (Hofmann).
εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες , εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες ] is either connected with φιλοτιμ . (Calvin and others, including Billroth, Rückert, de Wette, Ewald, Osiander) or with εὐάρεστοι αὐτῷ εἶναι (so Chrysostom and many others, including Castalio, Beza, Estius, Grotius, Bengel, Emmerling, Flatt, Hofmann). The decision must depend upon the explanation. Chrysostom, Calvin, and others, including Flatt and Billroth, supply with ἐνδημ .: πρὸς τὸν κύριον , and with ἐκδημ .: ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου . In that case it must be connected with εὐάρεστοι αὐτῷ εἶναι (Chrysostom: τὸ γὰρ ζητούμενον τοῦτό ἐστί φησιν · ἄν τε ἐκεῖ ὦμεν , ἄν τε ἐνταῦθα , κατὰ γνώμην αὐτοῦ ζῆν ), not with φιλοτιμούμεθα (Calvin: Paul says, “tam mortuis quam vivis hoc inesse studium”); for they who are at home with Christ are well-pleasing to Him, and, according to Rom_6:7, Paul cannot say of them that they strive to be so. The striving refers merely to the earthly life, and one strives to be well-pleasing to the Lord as ἐκδημῶν ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ , not as ἐνδημῶν πρὸς αὐτόν . For in the case of those who ἐνδημοῦσι πρὸς τὸν κύριον , the continuance of their being well-pleased is a self-evident moral fact. On this account, and because quite an illogical order of the two clauses would be the result (et tunc et nunc!), the whole of Chrysostom’s explanation, and even its mode of connection, is erroneous. The right explanation depends on our completing ἐνδημοῦντες by ἐν τῷ σώματι , and ἐκδημοῦντες by ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ; for that τὸ σῶμα is still the idea which continues operative from 2Co_5:6; 2Co_5:8, is shown by τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος in 2Co_5:10, an expression occasioned by the very reference to the body, which is before the mind in 2Co_5:9. Further, we must clearly maintain that ἐκδημοῦντες , in contrast to ἐνδημοῦντες , does not mean: migrating, i.e. dying, but: peregre absentes, being from home (comp. Soph. Oed. R 114: θεωρὸς ἐκδημῶν , a pilgrim from home), just as in 2Co_5:6 ἐκδημοῦμεν was peregre absumus, and in 2Co_5:8 ἐκδημῆσαι peregre abesse.[219] Hence we must reject all explanations which give the meaning: living or dying (Calovius, Bengel, Ewald, Osiander, who find the totality of life expressed with a bringing into prominence of the last moment of life), or even: “sive diutius corpori immanendum, sive eo exeundum sit” (Erasmus, Paraphr., Emmerling), to which Rückert ultimately comes, introducing Paul’s alleged illness; while de Wette thinks that Paul includes mention of the departure from life only to show that he is prepared for everything. We should rather keep strictly to the meaning of ἐκδημ ., peregre absentes ex corpore (comp. Vulgate: absentes), and explain it: We exert ourselves to be well-pleasing to the Lord, whether we (at His Parousia) are still at-home in the body, or are already from-home out of it, consequently, according to the other figure used before, already ἐκδυσάμενοι , i.e. already dead, so that we come to be judged before Him (more precisely: before His judgment-seat, 2Co_5:10), not through the being changed, like the ἐνδημοῦντες , but through the being raised up. It is thus self-evident that ΕἼΤΕ ἘΝΔΗΜΟῦΝΤΕς Κ . Τ . Λ . must be attached not to ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΟΎΜΕΘΑ , but to ΕὐΆΡΕΣΤΟΙ ΑὐΤῷ ΕἾΝΑΙ , as was done by Chrysostom, although with an erroneous explanation.
[219] In this case, however, there is not the contrast: et nunc et tunc, in this and in that life, as Beza, Grotius, and others suppose, connecting it with εὐάρεστοι εἶναι . For with the present well-pleasing the future is obvious of itself. Grotius felt this, and hence, substituting another meaning in the second clause, he explains it: “nunc vitam nostram ipsi probando, tunc ab ipso praemium accipiendo.” See, against this, Calovius.