2 Cor. arrives at the conclusion that the resurrec- tion of the believer, his assumption of the glorified spiritual state, takes place immediately after death, and not at the Parousia. There are diffi- culties in this view which will be noticed as we examine the passages in 2 Corinthians. The crucial passage is in the 5th chapter, which forms the conclusion and climax of a long argument starting in ch. 3 and developing the conception of life, ' the ministration of the Spirit.' In 4""''' the Apostle argues that God who raised Christ must on the same principle raise believers and ' present ' them together on some unspecified occasion, appar- ently the Parousia. Meanwhile the spiritual pro- cess is at work, the inner man is being created anew day by day (4'"). Hence ' the taking down ' (KaTdXiiffis, 5') of the earthly tent-dwelling, the outer man of 4'*, need not occasion alarm or grief, because the believer is aware that he possesses an eternal abode with God in the heavens, i.e. the glorified mode of existence already described in 1 Co 15, and implied in 2 Co 4'*-"'. Charles inter- prets this verse, 5', to mean that upon death the believer immediately possesses this glorious dwell- ing. But the contrast between ' unclothed,' iKOvuaadai, and 'clothed upon,' iirevdiiaaaSai, is a serious difficulty. The passage as it stands seems to imply a contrast between two states in the future, one of which is desired, and the other dis- tasteful. The Apostle is not longing for death, since death involves the ' unclothed ' state, being ' found ' naked at the Parousia, but he longs rather to be clothed upon, to be changed wliile still living, that what is mortal in him may be, not put oft', but swallowed up by the life which is already at work. This view, of course, preserves the importance of the Parousia as an object of hope. If the attainment of tlie exceeding and eternal weight of glory follows immediately upon death, then death rather than the Parousia is to be de- sired as the consummation of the Kingdom. The consummation takes on an individualistic form instead of the corporate hope of the Parousia. The principal difficulty in the way of accepting Charles's interpretation is the phrase ' not be found naked,'
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which seems to imply the possibility of such a circumstance, and wouhl seem to refer to the uncloHied condition of the spirit in the interval between death and the Parousia. This unclothed condition would not ultimately prove a bar to entrance upon the blessini;s of Uie Kingdom, since the triunii)h of life was assured by tlio resurrec- tion of Christ, but it was not a desirable condition in itself, altliough to be at home with the Lord was a counterbalancing consideration. Hence the iravTOTe : whatever state may be the immediate lot of the believer, there is ground for full confidence. If Charles's view be accepted, the form of hope con- nected with the Parousia will be the hope of a manifestation of a state already attained in the case of believers who die, and of a transformation for those who survive. The Apostle, however, continues to the end to lay stress upon the latter aspect of the Parousia, as will be seen, and to the present writer it appears ditlicult to accept the view that in 2 Cor. St. Paul advances to the view that believers enter the glorious state immediately upon death.
(c) The third group of Pauline Epistles, Ephe- sians, Philippinns (but for Philippians see note above), and Colossians, certainly represents the last stage in the development of the Pauline esehatology. AVe perceive at once the predomin- ance of the larger thought of consummation ex- pressed in the word dfaK(<f>a\atucrts, the recapitula- tion of all things in Christ. But it is necessary to examine the place assigned to the Parousia in this great and comprehensive conception of a progressive summing-up of all things in Christ. It might seem that the progressive conception of the Kingdom im- plied in Eph 1" excludes a catastrophic concep- tion of its coming such as the Parousia implies. But there are passages which cannot be overlooked in this connexion — Eph I"-" ; the Spirit is the earnest of the inheritance until the redemption of the possession, where the redemption seems to imply the Parousia, although it is possible to interpret the sentence as the entrance of believers upon the inheritance of glory by death or any other means ; 4* : ' the day of redemption ' also suggests the Parousia in the most natural interpretation of the words ; 5" : ' that he might present it to himself ' (cf. 2 Co 4") suggests the Parousia.
In Col 1^ the same sense of ' present ' appears. 3''^ describes the Parousia as the time of manifesta- tion both for Christ and for believers.
In Phil. , probably the latest of the three Epistles, we have the phrase 'the day of Jesus Christ' (1*), 'the day of Clirist ' (1'" 2'«) ; but the principal passage is in S'-'"- -', where the Apostle says that the citizenship of the saints is in heaven, whence they are awaiting as Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform their bodies of humiliation into the likeness of His own body of glory. This passage seems fairly explicit evidence that the Parousia still remained in the mind of the Apostle as the central hope, not merely as a moment of manifesta- tion of glory already attained, but as a crisis of sudden transformation, the ' catastrophic' climax of a process already long at work. He can also still speak of believers as written in ' the book of life ' (4^). _