Verse 1
"For" (NASB) or "Now" (NIV, Gr. gar) continues the contrast between things presently seen and things not yet seen (2 Corinthians 4:18). Here Paul contrasted our present and future bodies.
"The ’clothed upon’ and ’swallowed up by life’ imagery (2 Corinthians 5:2-4), when read alongside 1 Corinthians 15:53-54, leaves little doubt that this ’house’ is the individual’s resurrection body." [Note: Barnett, pp. 257-58. Cf. Keener, p. 179.]
As a tentmaker, Paul compared the human body to a tent. Jesus referred to His body as a temple, and He predicted that God would raise it up (Mark 14:58; John 2:19-22). Since God had raised up Jesus’ "temple," Paul believed that He would also raise our "tents." In ancient times a tent was a familiar symbol of what was transitory. [Note: Hughes, p. 162.] Our physical bodies are only temporary structures, but God is preparing new bodies for us that are superior to anything that human hands can produce and maintain.
Paul earlier indicated that he expected that the Lord would probably return before he died (1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:51). Here he said that he might die before Jesus Christ returns for His own. Perhaps his recent brush with death in Ephesus made this possibility fresh in his mind (2 Corinthians 1:8-11). No Christian can ever be sure which will come first, the Rapture or death. These statements indicate that Paul believed in Jesus’ imminent return to take Christians to heaven (John 14:1-3).
Imminent means overhanging. The doctrine of imminency does not teach that Jesus Christ will come soon but that He could come soon, even before we die. If the Tribulation must precede the Rapture, the Rapture must be at least seven years away, years that will be full of terrible trouble for believers and the whole world. This is not the picture that Paul’s references to the Rapture seem to present.
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