Paul proceeds to expand the thought of 2 Corinthians 4:16, modifying the idea of an inner personality into that of a house or home for the soul prepared by God in heaven. The earthly frame in which we dwell here has its counterpart in a spiritual frame, the resurrection-body, which awaits us in heaven (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:38 *, God giveth it a body). In 2 Corinthians 5:1 f. he speaks of this as a house which in contrast to the physical body is eternal; in the following verses under the figure of a robe. There has been much discussion as to the precise point at which Paul conceives of this enrobing with the spiritual body as taking place; whether immediately after death or only after the resurrection and judgment; also as to whether he conceives of the new spiritual body as taking the place of the old physical body, or as being super-indued over the physical body when it has been raised from the dead. It would be difficult to affirm, after comparing this passage with 1 Corinthians 15, that Paul was entirely consistent in his answer to these questions if we admit that they had presented themselves to his mind. The probability is that they had not, and that what looks like inconsistency is really due to the fact that he had not carried out any analysis of the stages of post mortem experience. A spirit or soul without a body, that is, a form, was for him inconceivable. And the conviction on which he enlarges, in which he finds comfort here, is that there is prepared by God for every believer, and waiting for him in heaven, a form or frame, a house or home, which is the spiritual counterpart of the physical form, but eternal; and this precludes the probability that even for a moment any believer should be naked, i.e. a disembodied spirit, after life and consciousness have been restored through resurrection. What is here laid down does not preclude that interval of sleep which Paul predicates elsewhere (see S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality 4, p. 450 ff.).
The yearning, therefore, of those who are still dwelling in the tent of a physical body is not a yearning for escape, heavy though the burden is, but for that which follows escape. And of that the Christian has a double pledge. It is God who has been at work, bringing men to this disposition of earnest expectation, and He will not deceive them; and moreover He has given them in the Holy Spirit a pledge of this as well as of all else that is involved in salvation.
So much of this, however, lies still in the future, that the governing condition of our moral life is not the faculty of sight but that of faith, by which we perceive, lay hold of, the unseen (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:18, Hebrews 11:1). And this faith inspires us with high courage even in the face of possible death, for death, we know, puts an end to that absence from the Lord which is involved in being still in the earthly tabernacle. If death comes, Paul will accept it (cf. Php_1:23). Meanwhile, whichever way he looks on his present condition, whether as being at home in the body or as absent from the Lord, he has but one ambition, to be well pleasing to Him. For (so far was Paul from the antinomianism with which he was charged) even the new standing of believers as justified by faith and the gift of the Spirit do not relieve Christians of the responsibility for their actions, which will be exposed for judgment before the judgment-seat of Christ.