2 Corinthians 5:6

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Therefore we are always confident.—The Greek construction is participial: being therefore always confident; the sentence not being completed, but begun again with the same verb in 2Corinthians 5:8. The two verbs for being “at home” and “absent” are not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The latter conveys the special idea of being absent from a man’s own home or country. The knowledge of the fact that follows is given as the ground of the Apostle’s confidence. It makes him long for the change; not wishing for death, but content to accept it, as it will bring him nearer to his Lord.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-8 The believer not only is well assured by faith that there is another and a happy life after this is ended, but he has good hope, through grace, of heaven as a dwelling-place, a resting-place, a hiding-place. In our Father's house there are many mansions, whose Builder and Maker is God. The happiness of the future state is what God has prepared for those that love him: everlasting habitations, not like the earthly tabernacles, the poor cottages of clay, in which our souls now dwell; that are mouldering and decaying, whose foundations are in the dust. The body of flesh is a heavy burden, the calamities of life are a heavy load. But believers groan, being burdened with a body of sin, and because of the many corruptions remaining and raging within them. Death will strip us of the clothing of flesh, and all the comforts of life, as well as end all our troubles here below. But believing souls shall be clothed with garments of praise, with robes of righteousness and glory. The present graces and comforts of the Spirit are earnests of everlasting grace and comfort. And though God is with us here, by his Spirit, and in his ordinances, yet we are not with him as we hope to be. Faith is for this world, and sight is for the other world. It is our duty, and it will be our interest, to walk by faith, till we live by sight. This shows clearly the happiness to be enjoyed by the souls of believers when absent from the body, and where Jesus makes known his glorious presence. We are related to the body and to the Lord; each claims a part in us. But how much more powerfully the Lord pleads for having the soul of the believer closely united with himself! Thou art one of the souls I have loved and chosen; one of those given to me. What is death, as an object of fear, compared with being absent from the Lord!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore we are always confident - The word used here (θαῤῥοῦντες tharrountes) means to be of good cheer. To have good courage, to be full of hope. The idea is, that Paul was not dejected, cast down, disheartened, discouraged. He was cheerful and happy. He was patient in his trials, and diligent in his calling. He was full of hope, and of the confident expectation of heaven; and this filled him with cheerfulness and with joy. Tyndale renders it: "we are always of goud cheere." And this was not occasional and transitory, it was constant, it was uniform, it always (πάντοτε pantote) existed. This is an instance of the uniform cheerfulness which will be produced by the assured prospect of heaven. It is an instance too when the hope of heaven will enable a man to face danger with courage; to endure toil with patience; and to submit to trials in any form with cheerfulness.

Knowing - see 2 Corinthians 5:1. This is another instance in which the apostle expresses undoubted assurance.

While we are at home in the body - The word used here (ἐνδημοῦντες endēmountes) means literally to be among one's own people, to be at home; to be present at any place. It is here equivalent to saying, "while we dwell in the body;" see 2 Corinthians 5:1. Doddridge renders it, "sojourning in the body;" and remarks that it is improper to render it "at home in the body," since it is the apostle's design to intimate that this is not our home. But Bloomfield says that the word is never used in the sense of sojourning. The idea is not that of being "at home" - for this is an idea which is the very opposite of that which the apostle wishes to convey. His purpose is not at all to represent the body here as our home, and the original word does not imply that. It means here simply to be in the body; to be present in the body; that is, while we are in the body.

We are absent from the Lord - The Lord Jesus; see the notes, Acts 1:24; compare Philippians 1:23. Here he was in a strange world, and among strangers. His great desire and purpose was to be with the Lord; and hence, he cared little how soon the frail tabernacle of the body was taken down, and was cheerful amidst all the labors and sufferings that tended to bring it to the grave, and to release him to go to his eternal home where he would be present forever with the Lord.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Translate as Greek, "Being therefore always confident and knowing," &c. He had intended to have made the verb to this nominative, "we are willing" (rather, "well content"), but digressing on the word "confident" (2Co 5:6, 7), he resumes the word in a different form, namely, as an assertion: "We are confident and well content." "Being confident … we are confident" may be the Hebraic idiom of emphasis; as Ac 7:34, Greek, "Having seen, I have seen," that is, I have surely seen.

always—under all trials. Bengel makes the contrast between "always confident" and "confident" especially at the prospect of being "absent from the body." We are confident as well at all times, as also most of all in the hope of a blessed departure.

whilst … at home … absent—Translate as Greek, "While we sojourn in our home in the body, we are away from our home in the Lord." The image from a "house" is retained (compare Php 3:20; Heb 11:13-16; 13:14).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We are always full of courage and comfort, being confident of this glory, and the swallowing up of mortality in life: for we know, that while we are in our earthly home (which is our body) we are farthest off from that which is our true home, (which is heaven), from the vision and fruition of God; for believers are but strangers and pilgrims on the earth, desiring a better country, that is, an heavenly, Hebrews 11:13,16.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore we are always confident,.... Because God has formed us for immortality and glory, and given us his Spirit as the earnest of it, we take heart, are of good courage, do not sink under our burdens, or despair of happiness, but are fully assured of enjoying what we are desirous of:

knowing that whilst we are at home in the body; or whilst we are inmates or sojourners in the body; for the body is not properly the saints' home; whilst they are in it, they are but pilgrims and strangers; the time of their abode in it is the time of their sojourning: during which time they

are absent from the Lord; not with respect to his general presence, which is everywhere, and attends all creatures, an absence from which is impossible; nor with respect to his spiritual presence, which though not always sensibly enjoyed, yet frequently; nor are the children of God ever deprived of it totally and finally; but with respect to his glorious presence, and the full enjoyment of that. Now the knowledge and consideration of this, that the present state and situation of the saints, whilst in the body, is a state of pilgrimage, and so of absence from the Lord Christ, and from their Father's house, serves to increase their confidence and assurance, that they shall not long continue so, but in a little time shall be at home, and for ever with the Lord.

Geneva Study Bible

{3} Therefore we are always {d} confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

(3) He concludes something here from verse four, and states it in the following way: Therefore, seeing that we know by the Spirit that we are strangers so long as we are here, we patiently suffer this delay (for we are now so with God, that we behold him only by faith, and are therefore now absent from him) but so that we aspire and have a longing always to him. Therefore also we behave ourselves in such a way that we may be acceptable to him, both while we live here, and when we go from here to him. 2Co 5:4

(d) He calls them confident who are always resolved with a quiet and settled mind to suffer any danger at all, not doubting at all that their end will be happy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

2 Corinthians 5:6. The resulting effect of 2 Corinthians 5:5 on the apostle’s tone of mind.

Estius (comp. Erasmus, Annot.) rightly saw that the participle does not stand for the finite verb (as Flatt still holds, with most of the older commentators), but that 2 Corinthians 5:6 is an anacoluthon, as the construction is quite broken off by 2 Corinthians 5:7, but the thought is taken up again with θαῤῥοῦμεν δέ in 2 Corinthians 5:8. See Fritzsche, Diss. II. p. 43 ff.; Winer, p. 533 [E. T. 717 f.]; Buttmann, neut. Gram. p. 252 [E. T. 292]. We must therefore not treat 2 Corinthians 5:7 (Beza and others), nor even 2 Corinthians 5:7-8 (Olshausen, Ewald), as a parenthesis. Paul intended to write: θαῤῥοῦντες οὖν πάντοτε καὶ εἰδότες … κυρίου, εὐδοκοῦμεν μᾶλλον κ.τ.λ., but was carried away from this by the intervening thought of 2 Corinthians 5:7, and accordingly wrote as he has done. Comp. on 2 Corinthians 5:8. Hofmann’s opinion, that θαῤῥοῦμεν δὲ κ.τ.λ. is apodosis to the participial protasis θαῤῥοῦντες οὖν κ.τ.λ., would only be grammatically tenable (comp. on Acts 13:45) if there were no δέ in 2 Corinthians 5:8. This δέ, as is always the case with δέ of the apodosis, even in the examples in Hartung, I. p. 186, would be adversative (on the contrary), which is not suitable here, and is not to be logically supported by the added κ. εὐδοκ. μᾶλλον (see on 2 Corinthians 5:8).

θαῤῥοῦντες] in all afflictions, 2 Corinthians 4:17.

πάντοτε] In no time of trouble does Paul know himself deserted by this confident courage, 2 Corinthians 4:8 ff., 2 Corinthians 6:4 ff.

καὶ εἰδότες κ.τ.λ.] This likewise follows from 2 Corinthians 5:5, and likewise serves as ground for the εὐδοκοῦμεν κ.τ.λ. of 2 Corinthians 5:8; hence it is not, with Calvin, to be explained: quia scimus (as giving a reason for the θαῤῥοῦντες), nor with Estius, Rosenmüller, Emmerling, Flatt, Olshausen, in a limiting sense: while we yet, or although we kno.

ἐνδημοῦντες ἐν τῷ σώμ.] being at home in the body, i.e. while the body is the place of our home. The body is here also conceived as οἰκία (not civitas, as Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, and others hold), and that an οἰκία out of which we have not yet migrated, Erasmus: “qUamdiu domi sumus in hoc corporis habitaculo.” Comp. Plato, Legg. xii. p. 594 B: ἐὰν δὲ ἀποδημῶν οἰκίας δεσπότης τυγχάνῃ, Aesch. Choeph. 569.

ἐκδημοῦμεν ἀπὸ τ. κυρ.] peregre absumus a Domino. For in respect to the future eternal home with Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:17; Php 1:23; Php 3:20; Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 13:14), the temporary home in the earthly body is a sojourn abroad, an ἐκδημία, which keeps us at a distance from Christ. On ἀπὸ τ. κυρ., comp. Romans 9:3; Ameis on Hom. Od. xiv. 525, appendix.

Expositor's Greek Testament

2 Corinthians 5:6-8. IN ANY CASE TO BE WITH CHRIST IS BEST.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. Therefore we are always confident] Because we always possess the inner life of the Spirit, and are therefore always, in a sense, with God.

at home in the body] The body (see note on 2 Corinthians 5:4) is really a home, though not a permanent one. “Quamdiu domi sumus in hoc corporis habitaculo.” Erasmus.

we are absent from the Lord] “God is present with all mankind, because He sustains them by His power; He dwells in them, because ‘in Him they live, and move, and have their being.’ He is present with His faithful ones by the greater energy of His Spirit; He lives in them, dwells in their midst, and so within them. But in the meantime He is absent from us, in that He does not yet present Himself to be seen face to face; because as yet we are exiles from His kingdom, and lack the blessed immortality which the Angels, who are with Him, are privileged to enjoy.” Calvin.

Bengel's Gnomen

2 Corinthians 5:6. Θαῤῥοῦντες) The antithesis is between θαῤῥοῦντες οὖν πάντοτε, and θαῤῥοῦμεν δὲ καὶ εὐδοκοῦμεν μᾶλλον, κ.τ.λ. Its own explanation is subjoined to each of the two parts: we are confident as well at all times and during our whole life; as also we are most of all confident in the hope of a blessed departure.—καὶ) and, even.—ἐνδημοῦντες· ἐκδημοῦμεν) These two words here signify abiding [sojourning in a place]; but 2 Corinthians 5:8, where they are interchanged, departure.—ἐκδημοῦμεν, we live as pilgrims absent from the Lord) In this word, there lies concealed the cause of confidence, for a pilgrim [though abroad yet] has a native country, whether he be about to reach it sooner or later, Hebrews 11:14.—ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, from the Lord) Christ, Php 1:23.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Therefore we are always confident; literally, being of good courage. The sentence in the Greek is unfinished (an anacoluthon), but is resumed after the parenthesis by the repetition, "we are of good courage." Always (2 Corinthians 4:8). We are at home in the body. The tent is pitched in the desert, and even the pillar of fire can only shine through its folds. Yet the tent may become brighter and brighter as life goes on.

"To me the thought of death is terrible,
Having such hold on life. To you it is not
More than a step into the open air
Out of a tent already luminous
With light which shines through its transparent folds."

(Longfellow.) Absent from the Lord (John 14:2, 3). Christ is indeed with us here and always; but the nearness of presence and the clearness of vision in that future life will be so much closer and brighter, that here, by comparison, we are absent from him altogether. 2 Corinthians 5:6

Vincent's Word Studies

At home (ἐνδημοῦντες)

Ἑν in, δῆμος people. Only in this chapter. To be among one's own people, and not to travel abroad.

We are absent (ἐκδημοῦμεν)

Lit., we live abroad. Only in this chapter. Compare Philippians 1:23; Philippians 3:20; Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 13:14. There is a play upon the words which might be expressed by at home, from home.