Thanks for the explanation, I now understand your point.
However, there are factors that would change what is actually true. We know that Jesus told the thief on the cross not that he would see Him after "lying naked in the grave" for a time, but rather "today." Which ought to be enough said to support the idea that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."
If we quote Jesus without the comma, it reads: "I say unto thee today shalt thou be with Me in paradise".
The entire Christian world demands "today" must modify "shalt be" when it can just as easily be modifying "say". The placement of the comma determines which is being modified:
"I say unto thee,
today thou shalt be with Me..." means they went to paradise that day.
-- OR --
"I
say unto thee today, thou shalt be..." is simply a promise said on that day that will be fulfilled in the future.
The evidence shows neither Jesus or the thief went anywhere that Friday.
Yet with further reasoning, we should also arrive at the fact that salvation being a matter of God and therefore not subject to the passing of time, a saved person would rather pass unto the Lord as He explained, saying "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." In this passage Jesus does not use the same narrative as is often stated in the Old Testament and also in the New, referring rather to Israel, that He would, "raise them up the last day." The difference, I submit, is that He would and did refer differently to the dead than He has to the living--"the dead in Christ" being Israel who died before salvation came, and "the living in Christ" being those who received eternal life as Paul referred to them, saying, "we who are alive and remain"..."alive" referring to the fact that they had or would pass from death to life even while in the flesh and remaining in the world.
Salvation no where provides for the saved immediately appearing in heaven with Jesus the moment they draw their last breath down here. To the contrary, Paul teaches us to comfort the bereaved saints with words of the resurrection, not words that those who die in Christ are immediately in joy in heaven, which if it were the case, would be the absolute best possible words with which to comfort someone, right?
"Hooray, unplug the tubes and turn off the chemo! Uncle Jim's cast off the old body of cancerous death and is now clothed in the immortal light of heavenly bliss!"
"Hallelujah, yesterday our beloved senile Mother may have not known who we are, but today she's gazing down from heaven, smiling, watching over all of us!"
Is that how Paul told us to comfort one another? No - only words of the resurrection.
There is perhaps more, but it's time for church service...so I submit that without the passing of time for those who die who are no longer of this world, but have already passed from death to life, the saying that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord", is not only true, but does not say enough.
The saying is NOT true: Solomon says the dead "know not anything", "praise not the Lord", as well as countless other Scriptures that teach similarly. If the dead were in heaven, they'd know things, praise God, etc.
Paul is merely expressing his preference to not be "found naked" lying in the grave without a body...unless you prefer to argue that "naked" and "unclothed" refers to "spiritual nakedness", in which case I'd refer you to the OP where I prove that can't be the case.