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p396 * * * The whole of the beginning of 2 Corinthians is founded on the circumstance, that the apostle had just been in a violent persecution, in which it seemed impossible to escape with life The sentence* referred to declares that this outward danger of being put to death had no power over him whatever, because within he held himself for a dead man, and trusted in Him that raiseth the dead. What was killing to a dead man who only looked for the power of resurrection to be exercised? Απόκριμα I take to be a judicial sentence, not an answer, though it has this sense also. He held himself as a child of Adam under sentence of death. It was a condemned, sentenced, nature. But he says more than this; he had this in himself - he held himself for dead. His own life was condemned for himself. As far as the natural man moves, and wills it, it is flesh; but holding the flesh as actually dead in one's own mind is holding the body to be dead, as far as any mental sentence can go. "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; and the Spirit is life."

{*'2 Corinthians 1:9 - Does the "sentence (answer) of death," spoken of by the apostle, mean nature's death, that is, the penalty of death? or does it mean that, by the cross, we have the sentence of death, so as to have no more hope or expectation, in ourselves?'}

Νέκρωσις* is stated to have a passive or rather neutral sense as well as active, it is not simply deadness. It is not the state of death, but (where not killing) the act of dying: so putting to death even is used in English; only agency is supposed there. I may say, 'his putting to death' was inexcusable, that is, his being put to death. In Romans 4 it is not simply death, as if Sarah were dead, but the losing the power of life which had taken place: he did not think of Sarah's womb losing its vital powers. In 2 Corinthians 4:10 it is not losing, as in Romans 4:19, but he realised in the body the applying death to it, as death was Christ's portion. It is not, as to Christ, the Jews' act of crucifying and slaying, which is in mind. Hence killing does not suit, but the fact of the setting aside of life. No English word exactly answers. Dying is looked at as the fruit of something at work; but it is not the working of the instrument which is looked at, but the effect on the person. He held his body down as dead because, as regards Christ in this world, he knew Him as one who had died to it, for whom putting to death was His portion and the source of all blessing. It is the cross applied to the flesh's life. Νέκρωσις is making a corpse of, depriving of life; this ended with his body because it has so been with Christ. So Peter says, Christ having suffered in the flesh, we are to arm ourselves with the same mind.

[1867.]

{** '2 Corinthians 4:10. What is meant by νέκρωσις (translated in the English Bible "dying") here? Is it "deadness" or the state of death, or "killing," or what else?'}

[53289E]

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