First, with regard to the Resurrection. The teaching of 1 Corinthians
is further explained. St. Paul shows how entirely he has thrown off
the feeling of terror which environed the ordinary Jewish idea of
death. The sense of union with God by which a few Jews in some rare
flashes of inspiration knew that they would live after death, is here
triumphant. St. Paul regards death as a portal to that happy existence
which can only be described as being "at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. v.
1-8; cf. Phil. i. 23). Union with Christ _now_ absolutely guarantees
union with Him hereafter. The resurrection-body which in 1 Corinthians
he described as "a spiritual body," he poetically calls the "house from
heaven" which God will provide for the redeemed spirit. Then he thinks
of this new body as a _robe_. And as he hopes that Christ will come
again before we have put off our present body in death, he says that he
desires to be clothed with the new body over his present body, "if so
be that being clothed we shall not be found naked." The last phrase is
obscure, but it probably is a fresh rebuke of those Corinthians who
denied the resurrection of the body. If so, it means "assuming, as is
indeed the case, that we shall really be found clothed with a body at
Christ's coming, and not naked (_i.e._ bodiless spirits)."
Secondly, with regard to the work of Christ. In 2 Cor. iv. 4 He is
called the "image of God." Now, St. Paul teaches that we men may
reflect the likeness of Christ to God:
"The truth in God's breast
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed:
Though He is so bright and we so dim,
We are made in His image to witness Him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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