2 Corinthians 5 is the fifth chapter of the

Second Epistle to the Corinthians The Second Epistle to the Corinthians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-author named Saint Timothy, Timothy, and is addressed to the church in Ancient Corin ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

of the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. It was written by

Paul the Apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Apostles in the New Testament, Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the Ministry of Jesus, teachings of Jesus in the Christianity in the 1st century, first ...

and Timothy ( 2 Corinthians 1:1) in

Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...

in 55–56 CE. The 18th-century theologian John Gill (1697-1771) summarises the contents of this chapter:

Text

The original text was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

. This chapter is divided into 21 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early

manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has c ...

containing the text of this chapter are: *

Papyrus 46 Papyrus 46, also known as ''P. Chester Beatty II'', is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. It is designated by the siglum in the Gregory-Aland numberi ...

(c. AD 200) *

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

(325–350) *

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

(330–360) *

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It is designated by the siglum C or 04 in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory-Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering of New ...

(c. 450) *

Codex Freerianus Codex Freerianus, designated by I or 016 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), α 1041 ( von Soden), also called the ''Washington Manuscript of the Pauline Epistles'', is a 5th-century manuscript in an uncial hand on vellum in Greek. It is named afte ...

(c. 450; extant verses 8–10,17–18) *

Codex Claromontanus Codex Claromontanus, symbolized by Dp, D2 or 06 (in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory-Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1026 (Biblical manuscript#Von Soden, von Soden), is a Greek-Latin diglot uncial manuscript of the New Testament, written in an ...

(c. 550).

Verse 1

: ''For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'' "Our earthly house" refers to the body; similarly,

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

also calls the body , , "an earthly tabernacle", just as the Jews call the body a house or a "

tabernacle According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle (), also known as the Tent of the Congregation (, also Tent of Meeting), was the portable earthly dwelling of God used by the Israelites from the Exodus until the conquest of Canaan. Moses was instru ...

". Abarbinel paraphrases "''my dwelling place, which is the body, for that is "the tabernacle of the soul".''" The "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" can be interpreted as the "glorified body" (after the

resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

), or "the holy house" in the world to come, which might be intended in or .''John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible'', 2 Corinthians 5:1
/ref>

Verse 6

:''So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.'' Otto Paul (O. P.) Kretzmann notes that in the life of a Christian believer, "there is a yearning for home, a

homesickness Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from home.Kerns, Brumariu, Abraham. Kathryn A., Laura E., Michelle M.(2009/04/13). Homesickness at summer camp. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home ...

for heaven". Harold H. Buls comments that "this verse touches on the great paradox in the life of the Christian": although believers are homesick, they are cheerful; they long for heaven, but they are content.

Verses 18-19

:''¹⁸ All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.'': ESV MacDonald suggests that the passage from 2 Corinthians 2:14 onwards, in which Paul defends his authority as an apostle, ends here at 2 Corinthians 5:19. She notes that the next section (verse 20 to 2 Corinthians 6:2) is "closely related" to the foregoing text, while also initiating "a new type of exhortation".

Notes

References

Sources

External links

* King James Bible - Wikisource
English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate

''Online Bible'' at GospelHall.org
(ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version,

Bible in Basic English The ''Bible In Basic English'' (also known as the ''BBE'') is a translation of the Bible into Basic English. The BBE was translated by Professor S. H. Hooke using the standard 850 Basic English words. 100 words that were helpful to understand ...

)
Multiple bible versions at ''Bible Gateway''
(NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.) {{Second Epistle to the Corinthians 2 Corinthians 5