The body is not the enemy; corruption and death are

The saying seems unclear at first, but it becomes clearer through what follows. For he says, “For while we are in this tent, we groan, being weighed down, because we do not want to be stripped, but to be clothed over” (2 Corinthians 5:4). Do you see how he does not forget himself, and does not call this body a dwelling, but again a tent? “Because we do not want to be stripped, but to be clothed over.” Here he gave a decisive blow to those who slander the nature of the body and accuse our flesh. Since he said that we groan and do not want to be stripped, so that you would not think he flees the body as something evil, a cause of wickedness, an enemy and adversary, hear how he corrects that suspicion. First, by saying, “We groan, longing to be clothed over with our dwelling place from heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:2). For the one who is clothed over puts on something else over what already exists. Then by saying, “We groan, being weighed down, because we do not want to be stripped, but to be clothed over, longing for it.” What he means is this: We do not want to put off the flesh, he says, but corruption; not the body, but death. The body is one thing, and death is another. The body is one thing, and corruption is another. The body is not corruption, nor is corruption the body. The body is corruptible, but the body is not corruption. The body is mortal, but the body is not death. The body was made by God, but corruption and death were introduced by sin. So I want to strip off what is foreign, he says, not what is my own. And what is foreign is not the body, but corruption. That is why he says, “Because we do not want to be stripped”—that is, of the body—“but to be clothed over” with incorruption for the body. The body stands between corruption and incorruption. It strips off corruption and is clothed over with incorruption. It casts off what it received from sin, and acquires what the grace of God gave. And so that you may learn that when he says “to be stripped,” he is not speaking about the body but about corruption and death, listen to what follows immediately. After saying, “We do not want to be stripped, but to be clothed over,” he did not say, “So that the body may be swallowed up by bodilessness.” But what? “So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4)—that is, so that it may be destroyed, so that it may perish. So he speaks of the destruction not of the body, but of death and corruption. For when life comes upon it, it does not destroy and consume the body, but the corruption and death that have come upon it. So the groaning is not because of the body, but because of the corruption that lies upon it. For the body is heavy, burdensome, and oppressive, not by its own nature, but because of the mortality that was added to it later. But the body is not corruptible; it is incorruptible. For its nobility is so great that even in corruption itself it displays its own dignity. The shadows of the apostles drove away bodiless powers, the dust and ashes prevailed over demons, and the garments that touched their bodies removed diseases and restored health.

Do not tell me about phlegm and bile, sweat and filth, and the other things the accusers of the body mention. These were not part of the body's nature, but of the corruption that came upon it later.