Clothed with Incorruption

… and from heaven, that is, incorruption, to put on over us. So we groan, not because we desire to be rid of what we now are, but because we pray rather to have incorruption, the dwelling not made with hands, put on over it, “if indeed, having put it on, we shall not be found naked” (2 Corinthians 5:3). For it is true that “a corruptible body weighs down the soul” (Wisdom of Solomon 9:15). We have made our being weighed down by corruption the reason for our groaning, and we long to put on over us the dwelling from above and from heaven, that is, incorruption. And what does “to put on over” mean, if not surely to wrap incorruption around the body we now have? So we groan.

“If indeed, having put it on, we shall not be found naked” (2 Corinthians 5:3).

He does not say “if indeed” in doubt, but rather as a declaration, showing it to be firmly settled that when we put on the dwelling from heaven and from above, we shall not be stripped of the tent that lies beneath, that is, the earthly body. So he has put “if indeed” in place of “when,” and the saying means something like this: “When we have put it on, we shall not undergo the laying aside of the first, nor indeed shall we be stripped of the body that lies beneath.” This he makes clear in what follows.

The mortal is swallowed up by life (2 Corinthians 5:4), not by vanishing or passing into utter non-existence, but rather by being changed into incorruption. For so it was done in the beginning too. It is written that God took dust from the earth and formed man (Genesis 2:7); and so that what is corruptible might be swallowed up by life, for the flesh is corruptible by nature, “He breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). But death came in between through sin (Romans 5:12). Then, as the inspired Paul himself says, the God and Father was pleased “to sum up all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10); for He came to renew us through the Spirit to what we were from the beginning. And it is He who, as God, has prepared us for this very thing and has given us the pledge of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5).

So, as a sure security for the incorruption that will be given us in the last times of the age, the life-giving Spirit has been placed in us by Christ: for now, as a firstfruits, but after the return to life from the dead, in full measure. Then, yes then, when corruption has been wholly abolished, we shall go out, as the prophet says, and leap “like calves set free from bonds” (Malachi 4:2), and indeed we shall say, mocking corruption, “Where is your penalty, O death? Where is your sting, O Hades?” (Hosea 13:14; 1 Corinthians 15:55). For sin and death will have ceased, and Christ will reign over the saints in incorruption. And so that what is corruptible, that is, the flesh, corruptible by nature, might be swallowed up by life, “God breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).

Volume 4, Discourse 1.

“Who has also given us the pledge of the Spirit,” and so on (2 Corinthians 5:5).

Those who have the pledge of the Spirit and are rich in the hope of the resurrection lay hold of what they expect to come as though it were already present, and say: “So from now on we know no one according to the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16); for we are all spiritual, and not in fleshly corruption. For here, I think, he calls the corruption of the flesh “flesh.” Since the Only-begotten has shone upon us, we have been transformed toward the Word who gives life to all things. For just as we were subject to the bonds of death while sin reigned, so, now that the righteousness in Christ has come in, we have shaken off corruption. So no one, then, is in the flesh, that is, in fleshly weakness. And with regard to the others as well, corruption may fittingly be understood by it.

But since he said that he knew no one according to the flesh, he adds, wary of the strange notions of some: “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16). It is as if he chose to say: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among …”