, while the
spiritual body is putting on, and if he died so near the coming of
Christ, that the process was not completed, and mortality not
swallowed up of life, he would be found naked, i.e. In the state of
the dead. He therefore expresses no desire to be found unclothed at
that period but clothed upon and present with Christ. This is evident
from verses 6, and 7.

"_Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at
home in the body we are absent from the Lord. We are confident, I say,
and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the
Lord_."

While in the body, though they had many consolations in the faith of
Christ, though "he was with them always even unto the end of the age,"
though "to live was Christ," yet this condition he terms being
_absent_ from the Lord in comparison to being _present_ with him,
which cannot mean in the unclothed state of insensibility, but where
"mortality is swallowed up of life."

Let it be distinctly noticed, that the apostle is speaking of three
states--

1st. as being in this earthly house or body where they were absent
from the Lord--

2nd. as being unclothed and found naked at his coming for which they
had no desire--

3rd. As being absent from the body and present with the Lord where
they should be clothed upon with their house from heaven that
mortality might be swallowed up of life, for which they had a desire.

Verse 9. "_Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent we may be
accepted of him_." Here we perceive that they did not labor to obtain
entrance into his presence, because the immortal resurrection is the
gift of God. But they labored, whether _alive_ on earth or _immortal_
in heaven, that they might be accepted among those, who were worthy to
obtain a crown of righteousness in the first resurrection for having
continued faithful unto the end--that they might be worthy to form a
part of that glorious body of witnesses in heaven who were slain for
the testimony of Jesus. And the body of christians on earth, who
continued faithful to the coming of Christ, were to be fashioned like
those above, and receive the same exalted honor in his gospel kingdom,
and the whole compose one bright body of infallible witnesses, whose
testimony can never be shaken by all the powers infidelity. "To depart
and be with Christ which is far better" must mean in an immortal
existence.

We cannot, for want of room, argue this part of our subject at