Dear Catholic Exchange:
I have a very good friend that is an Evangelical Christian, so we often have many interesting discussions. My question is this:
What is the Catholic response to 2 Cor 5:8? KJV — “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” NAB — “We are courageous, and would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.”
He states that upon our physical death, believers in Christ “go home to be with the Lord” immediately. Of course he totally discounts purgatory. He says your are either “in or out.” As a Catholic, is it the belief that we go immediately home to the Lord without regards to how we lived our lives? One of the priests at my parish stated in remembrance of someone passing that they had gone home to the Lord. I guess I am asking about what happens at the time of death from the Catholic way of teaching, and what Scripture do I use to support it. Unfortunately, he is way more versed in the Bible, but I am working correct this.
Thank you.
Doug Thomas
Torrance, CA
Dear Mr. Thomas
Peace in Christ!
The primary error of using this verse for a proof-text, and imposing an objection to Catholic teaching upon it, is to miss the point of the passage. We really must be mindful of the adage that a text without a context is really a pretext. This text says nothing about purgatory either for or against the doctrine. A careful reading of 1 Corinthians 4-5 would indicate that Paul does not speak of a disembodied existence after death, which frankly is an issue about which far more contemporary readers are interested in than Paul was. He is speaking here of the general resurrection at the climax of history and the new creation over which all Christians will reign in glorified bodies which is the ultimate surety of hope for all Christians who die in Christ. This eternal reign would not work over the old creation in old mortal bodies which only decay; nothing less than the whole universe needs to be remade to be suitable for Christ and His people to rule (see Rom. 8-30, 1 Cor. 15:20-59). The transformation of creation takes its focal point in the body of Christ and the bodies of his followers where the sufferings they undergo make the need for this renewal acutely felt.
In 4:13 Paul reassures them that despite their afflictions “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.” Paul looks forward to the “new creation” which he mentions explicitly in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. The real difficulty for the Corinthians (and for us) is to see how it is they can really be said to be experiencing this “new creation” while suffering and death is so present in their mortal flesh. They await resurrection bodies which are not the bodies in which they live now. These resurrection bodies represent the future hope but they in some sense are even now a reality since sufferings begin the process of the great transformation of all creation. 2 Corinthians 4:11 makes this clear: “for while we live we are always being given up for death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh.” This is the great paradox of Paul’s new creation theology: creation is a future hope and an ongoing reality; it is a case of “not yet” but also “here and now.” Verses 4:16-5:5 discuss how Christians are not only hoping to be remade but are actually being remade in an ongoing way.
Explaining this interim condition in which we now live, wherein we have received newness of creation from the Holy Spirit yet are still burdened with the futility of the old creation, is one of Paul’s many unique contributions to the Bible. It should be pointed out that this text is a necessary correction to the somewhat misleading idea that God’s plan of salvation amounts to our disembodied souls “going to heaven” when we die. This would mean the gospel would have little more to offer than Plato who argued the same thing four centuries earlier. For Paul, being “at home with the Lord” is not so much leaving the old behind as ushering in its radical transformation which has already begun in Christians who have received Christ’s spirit. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ has reconciled us to Himself and gave us this ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-18).” The sanctification and renewal of creation is something which Jesus has brought to us and will bring to us in its fullness when He returns in glory.
Inevitably verses which are marshaled to “refute” Church teachings have been wrenched out of context. Paul’s words to the faithful at Corinth concerning being away from the body and present with the Lord, must be understood to mean also having a glorified body, if the context is to be taken seriously. And if we are to hold, with the faith of the Church in all ages, that the heavenly body is given at the general resurrection on the “last day,” then Paul’s words must be understood not to exclude “in-between” states for those who happen to die before the general judgment.
United in the Faith,
Pete Brown
Information Specialist
Catholics United for the Faith
827 North Fourth Street
Steubenville, OH 43952
800-MY-FAITH (800-693-2484)
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