For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
We do not groan merely to escape affliction; that would be impatient and unworthy. Paul's longing for heaven sprang from a higher motive, an earnest wish to be clothed with a spiritual body, pure and glorious, and to partake of the happiness of the future world itself, not merely to flee present trouble.
AI summary
Believers shrink from the mere act of dying itself, not from its consequences. Faith does not strip us of natural feeling, but places it under higher feeling. We desire our mortal part to be absorbed into the immortal without passing through death, which some of us may yet see at the Lord's coming.
AI summary
Only those still in the body groan; those departed are at rest. We who remain are burdened chiefly by the body of sin we carry, its filth is nauseous, its guilt lies heavy on the conscience, its weight hinders us greatly. We find relief only in looking to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
AI summary