For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 5:4 Go To 2 Corinthians 5
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Being burdened, as the Syriac takes it, through the weight and load of the body. Yet we may say with S. Gregory Nazianzen: "Take from me, 0 Lord, this heavy robe" (this earthly, burdensome, and troublesome body), "but give me another, one that is lighter."
Not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon. We would not be deprived of the body, but we would be clothed upon with glory, if nevertheless being clothed with a body of flesh we be not found stripped of it by death. The Apostle is in the habit of speaking of the resurrection and the day of judgment as if they were close at hand, and as if he with the others then alive would behold them. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Since the Apostle says that we would not be stripped of our body, Plato was wrong in identifying σω̃μα and ση̃μα, as though the body were a tomb. In this he was followed by Origen, who supposed souls to be enclosed in bodies as in prisons in punishment of their sins. But the soul does not long to be set free from the body, as it would if this theory were true. The body is therefore the friend, companion, and colleague of the soul, and the soul demands its body as form requires matter, and vice versâ. The Apostle would seem to be here condemning this error of Plato and his followers, which was commonly taught in the schools of Corinth.
That mortality might be swallowed up of life. Mortality by immortality.
