Question: 2 Cor. 1:99But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: (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? W. H. G. W.
Answer: 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 a dead man who only looked for the power of resurrection to be exercised? Αποκριμα 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.