2 Corinthians 5
# 2 Corinthians 5

2 Corinthians 5 is the fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul the Apostle and Timothy (2 Corinthians 1:1) in Macedonia in 55–56 CE.

The 17th-century theologian John Gill summarises the contents of this chapter:

   The apostle, in this chapter, enlarges upon the saints' comfortable assurance, expectation, and desire of the heavenly glory; discourses of the diligence and industry of himself and other Gospel ministers in preaching the word, with the reasons that induced them to it; and closes it with a commendation of the Gospel ministry from the important subject, sum, and substance of it.

## Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 21 verses.

### Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

* Papyrus 46 (c. AD 200)
* Codex Vaticanus (325–350)
* Codex Sinaiticus (330–360)
* Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (c. 450)
* Codex Freerianus (c. 450; extant verses 8–10,17–18)
* Codex Claromontanus (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 also calls the body Ancient Greek: γὴινον σκήνον, gēinon skēnov, "an earthly tabernacle", just as the Jews call the body a house or a "tabernacle." Abarbinel paraphrases Isaiah 18:4 "my dwelling place, which is the body, for that is "the tabernacle of the soul"."
* "House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens": can be interpreted as "glorified body" after resurrection, or "the holy house" in the world to come, which might be intended in Isaiah 56:5 or Proverbs 24:3.
