Click
here to show/hide instructions.
Instructions on how to use the page:
The commentary for the selected verse is is displayed below.
All commentary was produced against the King James, so the same verse from that translation may appear as well. Hovering your mouse over a commentary's scripture reference attempts to show those verses.
Use the browser's back button to return to the previous page.
Or you can also select a feature from the Just Verses menu appearing at the top of the page.
Selected Verse: 2 Corinthians 5:3 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
2Co 5:3 |
King James |
If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
If so be, &c.--Our "desire" holds good, should the Lord's coming find us alive. Translate, "If so be that having ourselves clothed (with our natural body, compare Co2 5:4) we shall not be found naked (stripped of our present body)." |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
If so be that being clothed - This passage has been interpreted in a great many different ways. The view of Locke is given above. Rosenmuller renders it, "For in the other life we shall not be wholly destitute of a body, but we shall have a body." Tyndale renders it, "If it happen that we be found clothed, and not naked." Doddridge supposes it to mean, "since being so clothed upon, we shall not be found naked, and exposed to any evil and inconvenience, how entirely soever we may be stripped of everything we can call our own here below." Hammond explains it to mean, "If, indeed, we shall, happily, be among the number of those faithful Christians, who will be found clothed upon, not naked." Various other expositions may be seen in the larger commentaries. The meaning is probably this:
(1) The word "clothed" refers to the future spiritual body of believers; the eternal habitation in which they shall reside.
(2) the expression implies an earnest desire of Paul to be thus invested with that body.
(3) it is the language of humility and of deep solicitude, as if it were possible that they might fail, and as if it demanded their utmost care and anxiety that they might thus be clothed with the spiritual body in heaven.
(4) it means that in that future state, the soul will not be naked; that is, destitute of any body, or covering. The present body will be laid aside. It will return to corruption, and the disembodied Spirit will ascend to God and to heaven. It will be disencumbered of the body with which it has been so long clothed. But we are not thence to infer that it will be destitute of a body; that it will remain a naked soul. It will be clothed there in its appropriate glorified body; and will have an appropriate habitation there. This does not imply, as Bloomfield supposes, that the souls of the wicked will be destitute of any such habitation as the glorified body of the saints; which may be true - but it means simply that the soul shall not be destitute of an appropriate body in heaven, but that the union of body and soul there shall be known as well as on earth. |
Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
If so be (εἴ γε)
Assuming that.
Being clothed
Compare Job 10:11.
Naked (γυμνοὶ)
Without a body. The word was used by Greek writers of disembodied spirits. See the quotation from Plato's "Gorgias" in note on Luk 12:20; also "Cratylus," 403, where, speaking of Pluto, Socrates says: "The foolish fears which people have of him, such as the fear of being always with him after death, and of the soul denuded (γυμνὴ) of the body going to him." Stanley cites Herodotus' story of Melissa, the Corinthian queen, who appeared to her husband after death, entreating him to burn dresses for her as a covering for her disembodied spirit (v., 92). The whole expression, being clothed - naked is equivalent to we shall not be found naked because we shall be clothed. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
If being clothed - That is, with the image of God, while we are in the body. We shall not be found naked - Of the wedding garment. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
If so be that being clothed - That is, fully prepared in this life for the glory of God;
We shall not be found naked - Destitute in that future state of that Divine image which shall render us capable of enjoying an endless glory. |
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
11 Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.