2 Corinthians 5:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then he explains his own words: “that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” For many, separation from the body seemed grievous, and he was going against the common voice by saying that we groan because we do not desire to be freed from it. They might say to him: “If the soul suffers and grieves so much when it is separated from the body, how do you say that we groan because we are not quickly freed from it?” Anticipating such an objection. The Apostle says: “I do not claim that we groan in order to put it off.” No one puts it off without sorrow. For this reason Christ says of Peter: “Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish” (Jn 21:18). Rather, we groan in order to clothe it with incorruption. Therefore we are burdened by the body, not because we bear a body, but because we bear a corruptible and passible body. This is what produces sorrow in us. But the coming life will destroy and abolish corruption, namely corruption, not the body. “And how,” you say, “will this happen?” Do not ask about this. God does it. Do not pry. Therefore he added: “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God” (v. 5).

If the Spirit, being, in the opinion of the mad heretics, a creature and a thing made, can give life to those in whom He dwells, then nothing is distinctive in God. For He gives life, and we thereby acknowledge the same action entirely in Creator and creature. How, then, can equal and indistinguishable power be supplied from different and greatly distinct essential qualities? For those who possess one action will also possess one account of how they exist (τον του πώς έστι Λόγον). Therefore either it is time to bring God down within the limits of creatures, or to ascribe to creation the account proper to the Godhead. This follows if, in their opinion, the Spirit, being a creature and a thing made, possesses an action equal to God’s. Then what by nature is absolutely incapable of mixture will be mixed together. But this is absurd, and nothing that belongs essentially to God belongs to the creature in the same way as to Him. Yet the Spirit gives life, while God the Father gives life. How, then, will He be a creature, when He possesses in Himself by nature the distinctive and exclusive property of the divine essence? Therefore the Spirit is from God and is God, not a creature, as some madman thinks, one for whom battle against the truth is always sweet.

For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor 5:1-4). Therefore, though we are weighed down by the corruptible body, we know that the cause of the burden is not the nature or substance of the body, but its corruption. Thus we do not desire to be unclothed of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality. For it will exist then also. Yet since it will not be corruptible, it will not weigh us down.

Giving a deliberate explanation of the precise sense in which it is desirable to cast off the present body, and for what motive, the Apostle says: “For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened.” This means burdened by bodily infirmities and passions. Yet one would fall into error if he thought that we all wish to be delivered from the body. “For we do not want to be unclothed,” that is, from it altogether and forever, “but clothed.” This means changed into an incorruptible and immortal body, according to Chrysostom and Theodoret. This is “that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God.” That is, He prepared us for incorruptible and immortal life in spirit and body. After our fall, when corruption and death entered our nature, He “gave us the pledge of the Spirit” in baptism.

We also received the pledges of the Holy Spirit for our entrance into it. These pledges appear as the indelible and unquenchable longing to be freed from this corruptible life. They move us to pass worthily into that life where there will no longer be corruption and death. There pure, most radiant, heavenly life reigns. Outside Christianity there is also a sorrow that comes from dissatisfaction with this earthly and temporary life. Yet there it remains extremely undefined. In Christians it receives a precise meaning and a definite direction, from corruptible life toward the eternal life of the glorious age to come. Therefore all Christians groan equally, seeking to put off the sinful properties of this life and to be clothed in the holy qualities of the life to come. They do so lest they appear there unprepared, passionate, and sinful. They must be made alive by grace and worthy to be clothed in a new, incorruptible body. “The labors of self-denial give boldness to desire that life,” says Bishop Theophan. “The witness of conscience supports this boldness with the assurance that they will meet God’s mercy there. This desire grows into longing with groaning because of the felt and continually felt burden of the body, especially because the enemy often uses it for deception and for drawing one into what is improper.” Concerning our future change of garment, Chrysostom says: “Though we put off the body. We shall not appear there without a body, but with this same body, which will then become incorruptible.” Blessed Theodoret, explaining the words “we shall not be found naked,” says: “Though every man will be clothed with the garment of incorruption, not all will become partakers of divine glory. Therefore the Apostle calls those naked who are deprived of divine glory. He counts himself, the Corinthians, and all people among them, teaching modesty by this.”

We groan for freedom from such a body, not from the body in general. To be with a body was appointed for man by creative wisdom in the order of creation. To be without a body is unnatural for him. Without it he cannot but feel incomplete, diminished, and deprived. Therefore he cannot taste the full joy of being, even with the assurance that this being is blessed. Therefore, in desiring to be unclothed of this body, we do not desire to be without a body, but only to change our garment. “To be further clothed,” επενδυσασθαι, means to be clothed anew. And in what way? “That what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” This is what we desire. We desire that deathliness be taken from this body: corruption and passibility. In their place, incorruptible, pure, most radiant, heavenly life should dwell in it. This life should enter it, swallow up that deathliness, and transform it altogether. “We groan, not wishing to be rid of the body, but desiring to become free from its passions. For we long not to be unclothed of the body, but to be clothed anew in incorruption” (Theodoret). Chrysostom says: “We do not groan in order to be freed from the body. We do not desire to put off the body altogether. We desire only to be freed from the corruption that is in it. Therefore he says that we want not to be unclothed of the body, but only to be clothed with immortality. Then he himself explains how this is possible: ‘that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.’ For many, the laying aside of the body could seem grievous. Yet, contrary to the common voice, he says, ‘We groan because we desire to be freed from it.’ Another could say to this: ‘If the soul is so pained and grieves when it is separated from the body. How do you say that we groan because we cannot be freed from it for a long time?’ Anticipating this objection, he says: ‘I do not say that we groan in order to put off the body, for no one puts it off without sorrow. We groan in order to clothe it with incorruption. We are burdened by the body, but not because we bear a body. Rather, it is because we bear a corruptible and passible body. This is what produces sorrow in us. But the coming life will destroy and abolish corruption: corruption, not the body.’” “As rising light scatters darkness, so imperishable life destroys corruption” (Theodoret).