2 Corinthians 5:5

ὁ δὲ κατεργασάμενος κ. τ. λ.: now He that worked us up for this very thing, sc., the change from mortality to life, is God (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:6 and especially 2 Corinthians 1:21 for the form of the sentence), who gave to us the earnest of the Spirit; cf. Romans 8:11. The “Holy Spirit of promise” is “an earnest of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:14; see above on 2 Corinthians 1:22).

Some theologians, e.g., Martensen, take a somewhat different view of 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, and interpret them as implying St. Paul's belief in a body of the intermediate state between death and judgment, distinct at once from the “earthly tabernacle” and the “heavenly house,” which latter will be “superindued” at the Second Advent. But (a) there is no hint elsewhere in the N.T. of such an ad interim body; (b) the “house” which “we have” at death is described in 2 Corinthians 5:1 not as temporary, but as “eternal”. This it is which enables him to face death with courage; he would shrink from any γυμνότης or disembodied condition, and so far as the “body” is concerned he does not contemplate any further change at the Day of Judgment. If it might be so, he is reverently anxious to live until the Parousia, and then to be “superindued”; but even if he is to pass through the gate of death he is content. See Salmond's Christian Doctr. of Immortality, p. 565 ff.