SWALLOWED BY LIFE

Christians do not look forward to death. We look forward to life. Death is plan "B" for the Christian, not plan "A." Plan "A" is to be alive when Christ returns so we can be transformed directly into our resurrection bodies without the stripping that we experience in death. Death strips the body from the soul leaving us naked until the coming of Christ when we receive our resurrection bodies. Paul writes, while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4).

We are groaning in these earthly bodies as people who are weighed down (βαρούμενοι) by a depressing thought (R&R, Linguistic Key, p.466). We know that death is coming for all of us unless Jesus comes back first. What we will experience in death is the cause of our mental burden. The next clause begins with a causal connection (ἐφ᾿ ᾡ) explaining the reason for the depressing weight we carry in life (Turner, Grammar, 3:272). We want to be clothed (ἐπενδύσασθαι) with a new body not stripped (ἐκδύσασθαι) of the old body and left naked until the resurrection (2 Cor. 5:3). We don't want to die and live in a bodiless state. God never designed the soul to be separate from the body as Greek philosophy, and later Gnosticism promoted. God created the soul and body as one whole being in perfect unity. Sin brought the curse of death which is the separation of the soul from the body.

We want to be clothed so that the mortal will be swallowed up by the life. Mortal (θνητὸν) means that which is subject to death (BAGD, p.362). Our bodies, not our souls, are subject to physical death. Paul uses the euphemism of a "tent" (σκήνει) to describe our bodies because a tent is a temporary form of housing. Our bodies will be swallowed up by life at the resurrection. The verb translated "swallowed up" (καταποθῇ) is a picturesque term. The compound verb comes from the preposition κατά meaning "down" and the verb πίνω meaning "to drink." The compound verb means to "drink down" or "swallow" (BAGD, p.416).

The word was also used of waves of water overwhelming someone. The Septuagint uses the word to describe how God drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4). Life drinks down that which is subject to death. Our mortal bodies are absorbed into life when Christ comes back (Hughes, 2 Corinthians, p.170). The same verb is used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:54 when he writes that "death is drowned (swallowed up) in victory."

Our mortal bodies are swallowed by the life. The preposition (ὑπὸ) with a genitive object and a passive verb as in this case denotes the agent that does the swallowing, not the instrument by which we are swallowed (Blass/Debrunner, Grammar, p.122). The swallower of death is the life (τῆς ζωῆς). Normally the definite article is not used with abstract nouns like "life" (Blass/Debrunner, p.134) so the question is why is the article used in this case? The definite article is used with nouns designating persons (Blass/Debrunner, p.133) so "the life" is a substitute for a person, not an abstract noun. Jesus is "the life" (John 14:6) so Jesus, as the life, swallows up our mortal bodies when He returns for us (Hughes, 2 Corinthians, p.170, fn35).

We want to be alive when Christ comes back so we can be drowned by life in Him. When Christ comes back, He immerses us in the tsunami of His life. Jesus, who is life itself, swallows us, who are subject to death, alive, so we never taste the curse of death.