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Death and Life in Christ

The Meaning of 2 Corinthians 5.1–10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Ronald Berry
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Extract

In 1 Cor. 15, his fullest doctrinal statement on the resurrection of the dead, Paul teaches that Christians will receive their spiritual body at the Parousia, those who are dead by resurrection and those who are still alive by transformation. The term applied to the dead, , suggests provisional and intermediate state from which they will ‘awake’ at the Lord's coming. Paul does not, however, discuss the nature of this state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 60 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1961

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References

page 63 note 1 Επενδ⋯εσθαι. clearly seems to mean (cf. its cognate noun) ‘to put on over (something else)’, ‘to superimpose’: the reference is to the assumption of the spiritual body over the subsisting physical frame, i.e. to the Parousia's forestalling death. If the sentence referred to a clothing with the spiritual body at death, as Mr Hettlinger believes, the force of the prefix επ would be lost, for there would be no previous ‘clothing’ left, over which the spiritual body might be put on. The final clause of v. 4—‘that our mortality might be swallowed up in life’—confirms this interpretation (cf. 1 Cor. 15–54).

page 64 note 1 If βαρο⋯μενοι is αburdened with affliction’, the Apostle acknowledges that his longing is most acute when death seems most imminent, because of his unwillingness to face ‘nakedness’; if (as I think more likely) it means ‘burdened with anxiety’, he acknowledges that his longing is strained and anxious because the prospect of ‘nakedness’ is unwelcome.

page 64 note 2 Plummer, in loc, says, ‘The force of the καí is to strengthen the doubt expressed by εἴ γε. This is very doubtful; εἴ γε in the NT does not seem to express doubt, but to imply that the clause it introduces is a virtual certainty, an almost axiomatic premiss (cf. Bonnard on Gal. 3.4: ‘Dans le NT εἴ γε semble indiquer que le fait envisagé n'est pas hypothétique mais réel’).

Thus εἴ γε και here means ‘since obviously’, ‘assuming, as is certainly the case, that’. Perhaps ‘on the grounds that’ is the best translation in the present context: ‘… on the grounds that if we put it on we shall not be found naked’.

page 73 note 1 It seems to me quite unwarranted to argue (Robinson, op. cit., p. 52) that the use of the word κολλsigma;θαι in 1 Cor. 6.17 implies that the union of the Christian with his Lord is a ‘physical’ one, simply because the same word is used of sexual union. What of Rom. 12.9? The verb is chosen because it is appropriate to both sexual and spiritual union.

page 73 note 2 That is, we must distinguish between ‘inclusive personality’ (which the phrase ‘in Christ’ ascribes by inference to the Lord) and ‘corporate solidarity’. The two are by no means identical.

page 73 note 3 Surprisingly, Best nevertheless assumes, without any real evidence, that the dead are members of the Body (op. cit., p. 114).

page 74 note 1 Faith and baptism may not always coincide chronologically, of course; but they belong together as dual aspects of a single whole.