2 Corinthians 5:8

2 Corinthians 5:8. we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be abroad from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. [1]

[1] πρ ὸ ς τ ὸ ν Κύριον compare John 1:1, πρὸς τὸν Θεόν.

Note. Since the states contrasted in the previous verses are states of embodiment in mortality now, and hereafter when mortality shall be swallowed up of life it might seem that the exchange from being “at home in the body” to being “at home with the Lord” means the transition from the one body to the other (and so Meyer and others view it). But (with Alford) it appears to us that the homely wav in which the indefinite phrase “absence from the body and presence with the Lord” is introduced, after the more clearly-defined references to the resurrection-body in the preceding verses, was chosen just to avoid that inference; and this is confirmed by what he says in another place, in the actual prospect of death “having a desire to depart (or ‘break up' as from a temporary sojourn) and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23), an expression which all understand of the intermediate state; that state of which our Lord said to the penitent on the cross, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Of this intermediate state Scripture says next to nothing in detail. Indeed this is one of those things in which the silences of Scripture are as remarkable as its utterances. It indulges no prurient curiosity; on some things we yearn intensely to know more, on these we are left quite in the dark, having only conjecture to guide us, and this it is not safe to rest much on. But on its fundamental characteristics we have some clear and precious light: (1) That it will be a state of conscious existence, we are perfectly certain. To be told that that very day “he would be with Christ in paradise” would have been to mock the dying man if he was to be unconscious of the fact; and since the apostle tells us that while he lived he was in daily communion with Christ about his work with its difficulties, triumphs, and prospects how could he say that “to depart and be with Christ was far better” if this was all to be extinguished, and he was to be unconscious even of his own existence? whereas, to be in the immediate and conscious presence of his Lord could not but be felt by him to be “far better.” (2) It will be to be “ at home with the Lord.” This word “at home,” when applied to such a case, conveys to the heart what language cannot express. We may call up the feelings of the weary traveller, far away and long away, with no hope of ever reaching it save through perils of every sort, and then ask what word to him is the sweetest, winsomest, warmest, that can greet his ear. But to us strangers and sojourners here, harassed with cares and worried often out of our peace and rest, to whom “without are fightings and within are fears” not to speak of sorrows and tears the thought that no sooner is the believer's spirit disengaged from its clay tabernacle than it finds itself “ at home with the Lord” transcends all that language can describe: “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still: then are they glad, because they be quiet; so He bringeth them to their desired haven.” Yet even this is but the entrance-gate, the threshold, of resurrection-glory; when that organ which was originally formed to be the inlet of all that the soul receives from without, and the outlet of all that it gives out from within, shall be restored, with capacities suited to the higher sphere which it will then occupy.