2 Corinthians 5:4

‘For indeed we who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.'

Then he continues and expands on the thought, having very much in mind those who deny the resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15:12). It is true that in our earthly tents we groan because of our earthly state. But our burden and our groaning is not so that we will be released from an unworthy human body, as the Greeks believed, for we do not desire to be unclothed, but rather we desire that our present bodies with their frailty and weakness will be transformed, and that at the resurrection we will be ‘clothed upon', clothed as with an additional outer garment, and become a superior body.

This is what 1 Corinthians 15:42 is telling us, where it says that the resurrection body will be in some ways a continuation of the spiritual aspects of our old body, receiving an eternal ‘covering' in which it has a part, so that what is mortal may become eternal, ‘mortality swallowed up in (eternal) life'. The picture here is vivid, being swallowed up by ‘life' like Jonah was by the whale. But in this case we become a part of what swallows us up. We become absorbed into eternal life, and that life becomes absorbed into us. (Just as Jonah would eventually have been absorbed into the whale had he stayed in the whale's belly). The reason therefore that we groan is that we are awaiting the redemption of our body that we might be swallowed up in eternal life (Romans 8:23).

We must not overpress illustrations that speak of things beyond our understanding. The idea of being ‘clothed upon' rather indicates that what we have at present is unsatisfactory and comes short and therefore needs enhancing. But it does not mean that we have to be stripped down. God has no intention of unclothing us, Paul says, rather He will improve our situation totally, He will more fully clothe us. Thus death for the Christian is not to be seen as an unclothing, but as resulting in a taking on of something far, far better, which relates to and vastly improves on the old.