The Blog

In this section of the chapter, Paul contrasts our earthly bodies and our future resurrection bodies. Paul reassures and clarifies that we will receive new bodies that will be perfect for a Christian’s upcoming eternal blessings.

Paul wrote about this topic because the church at Corinth was in the heart of Greek culture. Many people at the time had a hard time grasping the concept of bodily resurrection. Greeks did not believe in bodily resurrection. Most Greeks saw the afterlife as something that happened only to the soul, with the real person imprisoned in the physical body. They believed that at death the soul is released—there is no immortality for the body, and the soul enters an eternal state. On the other hand, the Bible teaches that the body and soul are not permanently separated.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.