Our present body is our earthly home. Our resurrection body is our heavenly one.

Paul is talking here about two different worlds. One is the earthly, made with hands and visible. The other is invisible, made without hands and heavenly. On earth, our soul is clothed in flesh and blood, which is the visible and organic body. But once this body is left behind, the soul will move to the heavenly realm, where it will receive its body back, but one that has been transformed into a heavenly body.

Once again, Paul is alluding to the resurrection, which many of the Corinthians did not understand or accept. The earthly tent is our body. Admittedly, it was not made with hands, but Paul is simply comparing it with the houses we live in. He was not trying to make an exact contrast between the earthly and the heavenly but rather to exalt the latter in every possible way.

In regard to our bodily nature we must understand that there is not one body which we now use in lowliness and corruption and weakness and a different one which we are to use hereafter in incorruption and power and glory, but that this same body, having cast off the weaknesses of its present existence, will be transformed into a thing of glory and made spiritual. The result is that what was a vessel of dishonor shall itself be purified and become a vessel of honor and a habitation of blessedness. And we must believe that our body remains in this condition forever unchangeably by the will of the Creator. We are made certain of this fact by the statement of the apostle Paul in which he says, We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Should anyone say that the cause of vices and evil habits lies in the flesh because when the soul is influenced by the flesh it lives in such a manner, he cannot have sufficiently considered human nature as a whole. . . . But notice that the apostle who, in discussing the corruptible body, had used the words even though our outer man is decaying, goes on, a little further, to declare: For we know that if the earthly house in which we dwell be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made by human hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . On the one hand, our corruptible body may be a burden on our soul; on the other hand, the cause of this encumbrance is not in the nature and substance of the body. Therefore, aware as we are of its corruption, we do not desire to be divested of the body but rather to be clothed with its immortality. In immortal life we shall have a body, but it will no longer be a burden since it will no longer be corruptible.

The heavenly dwelling is the incorruptible body which we shall put on in the resurrection. We are groaning now because what is to come is far better than what we now have.

Our groanings are like those of a woman in labor, awaiting a new birth.

The heavenly body is not some different one but the one we have now, which will be transformed.

People are earnest in their prayers that they should not be excluded from the glory which is promised. This is what being found naked means. For when the soul is clothed in a body, it must also be clothed with the glory by which it is transformed into brightness.

The unbeliever and the evil man, even if by chance he puts on a heavenly body, will still be found naked, because he has done nothing to acquire the clothing of the inner man.

When we discard our present body, we shall receive in heaven the same body in an incorruptible form. It is however possible to be clothed in this body and yet still be found naked, that is, without glory or security. The resurrection is common to all, but the glory is not. Some will rise to honor and others to dishonor, some to a kingdom and others to punishment.

Everyone, righteous and unrighteous alike, will put on immortality. But if the latter are consigned to hell, that is the same thing as being found naked.

Paul is saying here that we are oppressed by bodily sufferings and death.

We do not want to be delivered from the body but only from the corruption which is in it. Our body is a burden to us, not because it is a body but because it is corruptible and liable to suffering. But when the new life comes, it will take away this corruption—the corruption, I say, not the body itself.

The Spirit is our guarantee because he is the agent of our adoption.

God has given us the Spirit as a guarantee so that we might know that he will not allow the temple of his Spirit to perish.

Here Paul shows that these things were prepared from the beginning. It is not now that they have been decreed but from the moment of creation, when he fashioned Adam. God did not create the first man in order that he should die but in order to make him immortal. To prove this, Paul adds that we have been given the Spirit as a guarantee. God is presented as having made a commitment to us to fulfill his promises. Paul does this in order to make what he says more credible to those less attentive.

Since God the Creator foresaw the sin of Adam, he prepared a remedy for it. For he himself has given us the first fruits of the Spirit, so that by the miracles which the Spirit does in our midst we may be reassured that the promises of future glory are true.

However, now we see obscurely but then face to face; now we see partially but then completely.^[1] But the present ability to see in the Scriptures obscurely and partially something which, nonetheless, is in accord with Catholic faith is the work of the pledge which was received by the virgin church at her bridegroom’s lowly coming. She will be wed at his final coming when he will come in glory and when she will then behold face to face, for he has given to us a pledge which is the Holy Spirit, as the apostle says.

For this period in God’s plan, in which the Lord has deigned to appear in time and visibly as a man and has given to us as a pledge the Holy Spirit, by whose sevenfold working we are given life (apostolic authority having been added like the seasoning of a few fish), what else therefore does this period in God’s plan effect but the possibility of attaining the prize of the heavenly calling without [our] powers failing us? For we walk by faith and not by sight.

God is still present, but because we cannot see him we are said to be absent from him as long as we are in the body.

As long as we are in this present body, we are tossed about by events in this world and do not know how it will all end. But once we have left the body, we know that we are going to be with God, since we are freed from the uncertain and hostile cares of this world. Here we are pilgrims, and as wanderers we should not worry too much about the things of this world. Let us be content with what is necessary and concentrate all our desire and longing on getting to our Father’s home.

We have been expelled in the person of Adam from our abode in paradise, and we have our lodging in this land because we do not possess the blessedness of that native land; so we are seen to be foreigners in this world. As Paul likewise says, While we are in this body, we are absent from the Lord.

We who in this world are exiled from the Lord walk about on earth, it is true, but we are hastening on our way to heaven. For here we do not have a lasting place, but we are wayfarers and pilgrims, like all our fathers.

Man indeed brought death to himself and to the Son of Man, but the Son of Man, by dying and rising again, brought life to man. . . . He wished to suffer this in the sight of his enemies, that they might think him, as it were, forsaken, and that the grace of the New Testament might be entrusted to us, to make us learn to seek another happiness, which we now possess by faith, but then we shall behold it. For while we are in the body, says the apostle, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Therefore, we now live in hope, but then we shall enjoy reality.

By faith we hope in God, for his form is not visible to us. But we believe that we shall dwell with him and that we shall see him as far as it is possible for a human being to see him. For Moses saw him when he was still in the body,^[1] and the angels see him in the way that is possible for them.

We cannot now see what we shall be like, but we discern it by faith alone. That is why after the death of the body we want to stand in the presence of God.

Therefore, amid the shadows of this life in which we are absent from the Lord as long as we walk by faith and not by sight, the Christian soul should consider itself desolate and should not cease from praying and from attending with the eye of faith to the word of the divine and sacred Scriptures.

Nevertheless, when we hear at the same time of the justified and the glorified, let us not assign both the work of justification and glorification to the same moment in the present time. For the grace of justification is given in the present time, but the grace of glorification is saved as a future grace. The one is of faith, the other of sight. Paul says that now we walk by faith, not by sight. What the saints believe now, then they will see.

Paul has put the greatest thing of all last, for to be with Christ is greater than having an incorruptible body. By avoiding direct mention of painful things like death and the end, Paul has dealt with them in such a way as to make his hearers long for them by calling them presence with God. Similarly, he has passed over the sweet things of this life and expressed them in painful terms, calling them absence from the Lord. He did this in order that we should not fondly linger among what we now have but be prepared to depart for something much better.

I pray that our souls may never be disquieted, and even more that in the presence of the tribunals and of the naked swords drawn against our necks they may be guarded by the peace of God, which passes all understanding, and may be quieted when they consider that those who are foreigners from the body are at home with the Lord of all.

We have to put our energy into good works in order to please God.

Departing is not good in itself, but only if it is in God’s grace. Likewise, staying here is not the worst of evils, unless we are offending him.

If we are going to receive what we have done in the body, it is clear that we shall not be judged without a body, good or bad. Paul does not say in the flesh, because the deeds of the flesh always deserve punishment, but in the body, because sometimes the body acts spiritually and sometimes it acts carnally.

Having alarmed and shaken his hearers by mentioning the judgment seat, Paul softens what he says by mentioning the possibility of receiving good rewards, as well as bad.

Christ judges all things because when he is with God he is above all.

From this we learn that the soul was not punished for sins committed before it acquired a body. In fact, the soul did not exist before the body.

Those who drag in a doctrine of moral indifference do violence to some few passages of Scripture, thinking that they support their own love of pleasure; in particular, the passage Sin shall have no authority over you; for you are not subject to sin but to grace.^[1] But there are other such passages, which there is no good reason to record for these purposes, as I am not equipping a pirate ship! Let me quickly cut through their attempt. The admirable apostle in person will refute their charge in the words with which he continues the previous quotation: Well then! Shall we sin because we are no longer under law but under grace? God forbid! With these inspired prophetic words, at a single stroke he undoes the sophistical skill at the service of pleasure. So they have not understood, it seems, that we must all appear before Christ’s tribunal, where each must receive what is due to him for his physical conduct, good or bad, that is, where a person may receive recompense for what he has done by means of his body.

Human beings . . . because they have been made rational will render an account to God for themselves and for all the things which they have received for use in this present life and, according to the nature of their works, will receive either punishment or glory. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or bad. . . . Therefore, eternal life will be given in the future only to the one to whom forgiveness of sins has been given in this world. Only he will receive forgiveness of sins here who renounces his sins and hastens to the highest and true God with true conversion of heart. For that [judgment] will not be a time of forgiveness but of retribution. There mercy will not justify the sinner, but justice will distinguish the just and the sinner.

Why do we ourselves not believe that we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may obtain the things proper to the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil? If we would believe these things entirely, there would be applied to us what was written, Redemption of a man’s soul is his wealth.^[1] But how can we either know or believe or understand these things when we indeed do not come together to hear them? For who of you, when the Scriptures are read, really pays attention? God through the prophet threatens indeed in great anger, I will send famine upon the earth; not a famine of bread or the thirst of water but a famine of hearing the word of God.^[2] But now God has not sent a famine upon his church nor a thirst to hear the word of God. For we have living bread which came down from heaven.^[3] We have living water springing up into eternal life.^[4] Why in this time of fruitfulness do we destroy ourselves by famine and thirst? It is the mark of a lazy and lingering soul to suffer want in all this abundance.

It is because he knows the judgment which is to come that Paul does everything he can to avoid giving offense in his ministry to the Corinthians.

Paul is saying this because of some people who used to take a personal pride in making it known that they had been taught by men who had always been with the Lord.

Paul is concerned to avoid giving the impression that he is praising himself. Nothing would be more offensive to his hearers than that. Since he was forced to defend himself, he insists that he is doing it for their sakes, not for his own glory. His main purpose was to stop those who were abusing their position and thereby harming the church.

What Paul has said is sane from his hearers’ point of view, as long as it is understood in the sense in which it was uttered, but if it is thought to have been spoken out of boastfulness, it is insane. For all pride is a kind of insanity.

What Paul means is that even if people think he is mad, everything he does is for the glory of God.

Because of the love of Christ the apostles were not silent about the gifts they received from him. Those who love him are surrounded by such gifts. They were not boasting about them but inviting their hearers to become Christ’s disciples.

Paul explains that although he is beside himself, the love of God controls him.

But how is it that one died for all, one who is worth all others, if the suffering is considered simply that of some man? If he suffered according to his human nature, since he made the sufferings of his body his own. . . . The death of him alone according to the flesh is known to be worth the life of all, not the death of one who is as we are, even though he became like to us, but we say that he, being God by nature, became flesh and was made man according to the confession of the Fathers.

Paul said: Therefore all died; and Christ died for all, in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. All people, consequently, without a single exception, were dead through sin, original sin or original with personal sin superadded, either by ignorance of or conscious refusal to do what is right. And for all these dead souls one living man died—a man utterly free from sin—with the intention that those who come alive by forgiveness of their sins live no longer for themselves but for him who died for all on account of our sins and rose again for our justification.

As the apostle says, and as we have often repeated: Since one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again. The living are those for whom he who was living died in order that they might live; more plainly, they are freed from the chains of death, they for whom the one free among the dead died. Or, still more plainly: they have been freed from sin, for whom he who was never in sin died. Although he died once, he dies for each at that time when each, whatever his age, is baptized in his death; that is, the death of him who was without sin benefits each man at the time when, having been baptized in his death, he who was dead in sin shall also die to sin.

All this, in fact, blessed Paul had in mind, that fervent lover of Christ, who like a winged bird traversed the whole world. . . . See his uprightness, see the extraordinary degree of his virtue, see his fervent love. The love of Christ, he says, constrains us, that is, urges, impels, coerces us. Then, wishing to explain what had been said by him, he says, convinced of this, that if one person [died] indeed for all, then all have died, he did die for all so that the living might live no longer for themselves but for the one who died and rose for them. Do you see how appropriate it was for him to say, The love of Christ constrains us? He is saying, you see, if he died for the sake of us all, he died for the purpose that we the living might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose for us. Accordingly, let us heed the apostolic exhortation, not living for ourselves but for him who died and rose for us.

What Paul says here appears to be one thing, but if you look carefully you will see that it is two. First, we live because of Christ. Second, Christ died for us. Either of these would be enough by itself to put us in his debt, but taken together, our liability is overwhelming. Indeed, we could even say that there are three things here, because it was for our sake that he rose again and took the first fruits of the resurrection up to heaven with him.^[1]

What is the mark of those who eat the bread and drink the cup of Christ? That they keep in perpetual remembrance him who died for us and rose again. What is the mark of those who keep such remembrance? That they live not for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again. What is the mark of a Christian? That his justice abound in all things more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, according to the rule of the doctrine which has been handed down in the Lord’s gospel. What is the mark of the Christian? That they love one another as Christ has loved us. What is the mark of the Christian? To set the Lord always in his sight. What is the mark of the Christian? To watch daily and hourly and stand prepared in that state of perfection which is pleasing to God, knowing that at what hour he thinks not, the Lord will come.