nly they do mean pretty nearly that; but they mean it in
connection with the second advent and the accompanying
circumstances and events; for Paul believed that many of the
disciples possibly himself would live until Christ's coming. All
through these two chapters (the fourth and fifth) it is obvious,
from the marked use of the terms "we" and "you," and from other
considerations, that "we" here refers solely to the writer, the
individual Paul. It is the plural of accommodation used by common
custom and consent. In the form of a slight paraphrase we may
unfold the genuine meaning of the passage in hand. "In this body I
am afflicted: not that I would merely be released from it, for
then I should be a naked spirit. But I earnestly desire,
unclothing myself of this earthly body, at the same time to clothe
myself with my heavenly body, that I may lose all my mortal part
and its woes in the full experience of heaven's eternal life. God
has determined that this result shall come to me sooner or later,
and has given me a pledge of it in the witnessing spirit. But it
cannot happen so long as I tarry in the flesh, the Lord delaying
his appearance. Having the infallible earnest of the spirit, I do
not dread the change, but desire to hasten it. Confident of
acceptance in that day at the judgment seat of Christ, before
which we must all then stand, I long for the crisis when, divested
of this body and invested with the immortal form wrought for me by
God, I shall be with the Lord. Still, knowing the terror which
shall environ the Lord at his coming to judgment, I plead with men
to be prepared." Whoever carefully examines the whole connected
passage, from iv. 6 to v. 16, will see, we think, that the above
paraphrase truly exposes its meaning.

The other text alluded to as an apparent exception to the doctrine
of a residence in the lower land of ghosts intervening between
death and the ascension, occurs in the Epistle to the
Philippians: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; but that I
should abide in the flesh is more needful for you." There are
three possible ways of regarding this passage. First, we may
suppose that Paul, seeing the advent of the Lord postponed longer
and longer, changed his idea of the intermediate state of deceased
Christians, and thought they would spend that period of waiting in
heaven, not in Hades. Neander advocates this view. But there is
lit