Matt. 26: 61 of "destroying" a temple. We should not be far removed from the

intention of the Apostle if we read "If our earthly house, which is a tent, should collapse",

for that would agree with the very tentative nature of a tent at the best of times. "We

have a building." How are we to understand this? Can we not say "we have" here,

exactly as we can say "our life hath been hid with Christ in God"? The eleventh chapter

of Hebrews, already referred to, contains a happy thought in verse 1, where we read,

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for", especially when we learn from the

papyri that, in the Apostles' day, hupostasis (substance) was used in a lawsuit to refer to

"the title deeds" of a property. We may be living precariously today in a tent, and are

ever moving on, but we carry with us title deeds to a building of God, an house not made

with hands, eternal in the heavens. The Apostle continues:

The use of the words "to be clothed upon", when referring to a building or a house,

sounds slightly incongruous; the word enduo, being once literally translated "endue" as

with power (Luke 24: 49).

While enduo primarily means "to put on clothing" (Matt. 6: 25; 22: 11; Luke 15: 22)

there is a transition from the mere idea of clothes, to what clothes may stand for. To be

clothed in fine linen, white and clean (Rev. 19: 14) is evidently but another way of

saying "arrayed in fine linen clean and white" (Rev. 19: 8), which in this passage is

explained as representing "the righteousness of the saints". In Rev. 19: 13 the coming

King is said to be "clothed with a vesture dipped in blood", which can only be accepted if

seen to be symbolical, as a reference back to Isa. 63: 1-4, together with Rev. 19: 15

will show. The word translated "arrayed" and "clothed" in verses 8 and 13 is the Greek

periballo "to throw around". In Rom. 13: 12 we are exhorted to "put on the armour of

light", which when repeated in verse 14, becomes "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ". So

in Eph. 4: 24 and Col. 3: 10 & 12, we read of "putting on", or being clothed with the

new man, and "putting on", or being clothed with bowels of mercies, and other graces.

The references in II Cor. 5: 3 however, looks two ways, as a contrast to being found

"naked", and in verse 2, being "clothed upon with our house which is from heaven".

This looks back to I Cor. 15: 53 and 54, where the resurrection of the believer in view,

where, if all the references in both epistles be read together, all incongruity vanishes.

To complete the tale, we draw attention to the occurrences of ependuo "to be clothed

upon" in II Cor. 5: 2, 4. The reader will find a number of passages in II Corinthians

that are made the more understandable by linking with the primary occurrences in the

first epistle, but this lies outside the present examination.