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2 Corinthians 5:1-10 in Context

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2 Corinthians 5:1-10 in Context Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 24/2 (2013):137-152. Article copyright © 2013 by Edwin Reynolds. “Away from the Body and at Home with the Lord”: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 in Context Edwin Reynolds School of Religion Southern Adventist University One of the primary biblical texts that has been used over the years to attempt to defend an intermediate state between this life and the eschatological resurrection of the body is 2 Cor 5:1-10. In an effort to clarify the real teaching of this section of text, it is my purpose to restudy the passage in its larger context to determine what Paul was endeavoring to say. Was he discussing anthropology? Was he discussing eschatology? Was he nuancing his earlier views expressed in 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor 15, as some have argued, moving away from a biblical Jewish view of the state of the dead and the doctrine of the resurrection to a more Hellenistic view which proposes an immortal soul that escapes the body at death and assumes an intermediate state while waiting for the reunion of the soul with the body at the resurrection? Or did he have a different purpose that has often been hijacked for ulterior purposes? What was Paul’s real point in this passage? A Brief Summary of Interpretations There are three main ways in which 2 Cor 5:1-10 has been interpreted. (1) The first is to read Paul’s language there in anthropological terms as an attempt to describe an intermediate state between the death of the body and the resurrection of the body, in which an immortal soul continues in a “naked” state independent of the body until it is reunited with a glorified body at the resurrection of the dead. Jerry W. McCant states, “Throughout the history of the exegesis of this passage, ‘away from the body’ (v. 8) has 137 JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY been assumed to describe the intermediate state.”1 He cites Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian as early exponents of this view, as well as “the consensus of modern opinion.”2 Such an interpretation creates a tension between this passage and Paul’s earlier views expressed in 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor 15. Nonetheless, this has been the prevalent view.3 (2) Other scholars defend the consistency of Paul’s statements regarding the resurrection as it pertains to the body, particularly between 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5. A number of studies have reached this conclusion, including some which continue to argue for an intermediate state.4 (3) A third group of scholars views Paul as talking about neither anthropology nor eschatology in 2 Cor 5 but merely as using the language of life and death for a different purpose, whether to express his confidence that his apostolic ministry is bearing fruit and will be crowned with glory, to express his hope in the face of death, or as part of an apology for his apostleship.5 1 Jerry W. McCant, “Competing Pauline Eschatologies: An Exegetical Comparison of 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 29 (1994): 46. 2 Ibid., footnote 84. 3 See, e.g., Dale Moody, “The Double Face of Death,” Review and Expositor 108 (1951): 358; Joseph Osei-Bonsu, “Does 2 Cor. 5.1-10 Teach the Reception of the Resurrection Body at the Moment of Death?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (1986): 89-95; N. A. Woychuk, “Will We Have Bodies in Heaven?” Bibliotheca Sacra (1950): 99. M. J. Harris propounds a view of an intermediate state at death in which the believer is brought into presence with Christ by a kind of spiritual “resurrection- transformation” that he calls a “superinvestiture.” See M. J. Harris, “2 Corinthians 5:1-10: Watershed in Paul’s Eschatology?” Tyndale Bulletin (1970): 45-48, 56-57; idem, “Paul’s View of Death in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10,” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 323-25; idem, “The New Testament View of Life after Death,” Themelios 11 (1986): 50, Internet, http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/life-after-death_harris.pdf (accessed 25 Mar 2012). 4 Paul Barnett, The Message of 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness, The Bible Speaks Today (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), 97-99; John Gillman, “A Thematic Comparison: 1 Cor 15:50-57 and 2 Cor 5:1-5,” Journal of Biblical Literature 107 (1988): 439-54; Osei-Bonsu, 88-89; N. T. Wright with Patty Pell, 2 Corinthians: 11 Studies for Individuals and Groups, N. T. Wright for Everyone Bible Study Guides (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Connect, 2010), 25. 5 Karel Hanhart, “Paul’s Hope in the Face of Death,” Journal of Biblical Literature 88 (1969): 445-57; McCant, 23-49. 138 REYNOLDS: 2 COR 5:1-10 IN CONTEXT Context of the Passage In order to assess accurately the validity, or lack thereof, of any interpretation, it is important to take very seriously the context of the passage. “Few New Testament texts have been severed from their context as violently as 2 Cor 5:1-10,” observes McCant.6 A major component of Paul’s second extant letter to Corinth is the matter of establishing his apostolic authority among the Corinthians. This theme pervades the epistle. One key evidence of his apostolic authority is what he has endured for the sake of the gospel. He introduces the theme already in chapter one by describing the hardships and troubles that he and his coworkers in ministry have endured for the sake of the gospel of Christ. “If we are distressed,” he says, “it is for your comfort and salvation” (1:6).7 He attributes this distress to the fact that “we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings” (v. 5). Then he adds that his readers can find comfort “when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer” (v. 6; cf. also v. 7). Thus they could understand that all who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ should expect to pay the price through participation in His suffering. They would therefore be sympathetic to his experience and would acknowledge that it was an evidence of his faithfulness to the calling of Christ in his life. Paul goes on to speak about . the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us (vv. 8-10). The Corinthians, then, can hardly accuse Paul of somehow seeking his own glory in his ministry, for who would willingly choose to endure such sufferings if seeking only one’s own glory and power? In 1:12-2:11 Paul discusses his relationships with the Corinthian believers, including his decision not to visit them as he had earlier planned, in order to spare them further grief and pain (1:15-2:2). He cites the reasons for writing to them instead (2:3-4) and gives instructions on how to deal 6 McCant, 43. 7 Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture passages are quoted from the ESV. 139 JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY with someone who had caused the church grief through his actions (2:5-11). Then in 2:12-3:6 he talks again about his ministry of preaching the gospel, first in Troas (2:12), then in Macedonia (2:13), and finally “everywhere”: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2:14). “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2:15-16). This death/life motif, which reappears in chapters 4 and 5, is associated with Paul’s gospel ministry. Paul argues for the genuineness of his ministry in verse 17: “For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” He asks, in 3:1, if it is necessary for him to seek letters of recommendation from them for his ministry, but he quickly responds that such is not necessary because “you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (3:3). This is not because of any competence that he can claim for himself, “but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant” (3:5-6). Paul seems to digress briefly on “the ministry of death” (3:7), the old covenant, versus “the ministry of righteousness” (v. 9), the new covenant, in 3:7-18, but it is not entirely a digression, for he utilizes the contrast to focus on the theme of developing glory as one phase comes to an end and a new phase begins. Paul expresses the transformation this way: Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.
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