Dead do not live
The Bible’s statements about life, death and resurrection are quite clear and consistent: dead people do not live. They are dead. This is the opposite of life.
Those who do not see it this way fall back on a rather limited selection of “differently worded” biblical passages, with which the rest of the testimony of Scripture is then supposed to be invalidated. These biblical passages require special attention. This is about such a biblical passage. What does it really say?
Bible passage
The apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth:
“Surely we know that when our earthly house, this tent dwelling, is broken down, we will have a building from God, an aeonian house, not made with hands, in the heavens.”
2Cor 5,1
Traditional interpretation
When we die and our body (earthly house now) is demolished, we will immediately receive another, an eternal house from heaven that comes from God. When we die, we merely move, from one house to the next house. So we just keep on living even if we die. Death is an illusion. It is only something for the bereaved, but the believer sees further and knows better – here it is after all!
Counterargument
Paul does not give a view of dying. The apostle alludes to the resurrection as he explained a few verses earlier (2 Cor. 4:14). There is an outlook. Even he who perishes and dies in the tribulations of life will one day rise again (2 Cor. 4:16-18). Death is not a friend, but still an enemy, to which only the resurrection offers an answer.
The idea of a house in thesky, on the other hand, is apie in the sky.
Justification
The text is set in a broader context. Beginning in 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul speaks of faith as a treasure that we carry around in “earthen vessels” so that the extraordinary of power may be of God and not of us. We are pressed in everything but not constricted, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, cast down but not perished. This concerns life here on earth.
We know, writes the apostle, that God who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us through Jesus. This is the outlook beyond death: through resurrection we will once receive new life. So we have a concrete expectation, which is the resurrection. For what we have before us here is “short-lived,” but what then awaits us through resurrection is “eonian” (2 Cor. 4:18).
“Surely we know …” (2Cor 5,1) is a reference by Paul to well-known thoughts. In his first letter he wrote extensively about the resurrection. He described the differences between our present experience and the glory we expect (1 Cor. 15:42-49). Paul can refer to this when he now says that when our earthly house, this temporary tent dwelling (our body), is broken down, we [durch Auferstehung] have a building from God, an aeonian house, not made with hands, in the heavens.
In 1Cor 5,2ff Paul describes three states of being:
- Our condition now, a simple and temporary tent dwelling then
- the undressing of the current body (die / death) and finally
- Have a building from God in heaven
Here it becomes clear that the “moving over” does not happen through death, because to die is to “move out.” After that, it is the waiting for the “building of God” which happens in the context through resurrection.
Paul, however, talks about another possibility. Paul does not want to die. Death is not a nice option. He wants to be “not stripped, but covered, so that what is dying may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4). So Paul would prefer to skip death!
How could this happen? This will be the reality for all who are alive when Jesus returns. These people are directly transformed (1 Cor. 15:51-53; 2 Cor. 4:4). Paul expects and longs for Christ’s return (1Th 4:13-18) and in connection with this the transformation of his body and the reunion with Christ.
This is actually the most pleasant option.
