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2Co_4:10. Extreme concentration of all suffering, as of all victory through the power of God. In this πάντοτε , corresponding to the ἐν παντί of 2Co_4:8 and the ἀεί of 2Co_4:11, is with great emphasis placed first. The νέκρωσις is the putting to death, like the classic θανάτωσις (Thucyd. v. 9. 7). In this case the context decides whether it is to be taken in a literal or, as in Rom_4:19, in a figurative sense. Comp. Astrampsychus in Suidas: νεκροὺς ὁρῶν νέκρωσιν ἕξεις πραγμάτων , Porphyr. de Abstin. iv. p. 418; Aret. pp. 23, 48; also ἀπονέκρωσις in Arrian, Epict. i. 5. Here it stands, as 2Co_4:11 proves, in a literal sense: At all times we bear about the putting to death of Jesus in our body, i.e. at all times, in our apostolic movements, our body is exposed to the same putting to death which Jesus suffered, i.e. to violent deprivation of life for the gospel’s sake. The constant supreme danger of this death, and the constant actual persecutions and maltreatments, make the νέκρωσις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ , in the conception of the sufferer as of the observer, appear as something clinging to the body of the person concerned, which he carries about with it, although, till the final actual martyrdom, it remains incomplete and, in so far, resting on a prolepsis of the conception. On the subject-matter, comp. Rom_8:35 f.; 1Co_15:31; Php_3:10. The gen. τοῦ Ἰησοῦ , however, is not to be taken as propter Jesum (Vatablus and others, including Emmerling), nor ad exemplum Christi (Grotius, Flatt), but quite as in τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ , 2Co_1:5; and it is altogether arbitrary to understand anything more special than the great danger to life generally involved in the continual persecutions and afflictions (2Co_11:23 ff.),—as e.g. Eichhorn takes it to refer to wounds received in the apostolic ministry (Gal_6:17), and Rückert, here again (see on 2Co_1:8), to the alleged sickness, from which Paul had not yet fully recovered. The right view is already given in Chrysostom: οἱ θάνατοι οἱ καθημερινοὶ , διʼ ὧν καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις ἐδείκνυτο . Comp. Pelagius. But τ . νέκρωσιν is chosen (not τ . θάνατον ), because Paul has in mind the course of events leading to the death suffered by Jesus, which is mirrored in his own sufferings for Christ’s sak.
ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ κ . τ . λ .] in order that also the life of Jesus, etc. This is the blessed relation supervening according to God’s purpose. Just as, namely, the continual sufferings and peril of death appear as the νέκρωσις of Jesus in the body of those persecuted, so, in keeping with that view, their rescued life appears as the same ζωή , which, in the case of Jesus, followed after His dying, through the resurrection from death (Rom_5:10). The victorious surmounting of the sufferings and perils of death, from which one emerges saved as regards the body, is, according to the analogy of the conception of the νέκρωσις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ , resurrection; and thus there becomes manifest, in the body of him that is rescued, the same life which Jesus entered on at His bodily resurrection. If, with Chrysostom, Cajetanus, Estius, Mosheim, and others (comp. Flatt and also Hofmann), we should regard the preservation and rescuing as evincing the effectual operation of the bodily glorified Jesus, there would be unnecessarily introduced a different position of matters in the two parts of the verse; as the νέκρωσις itself is thought of in the one case, we must in the other also understand the ζωή itself (not an effect of it). According to de Wette and Osiander, the thought of the apostle is, that in his ineradicable energy of spirit in suffering there is revealed Christ’s power of suffering, in virtue of which He has risen and lives for ever; comp. Beza. In that case a moral revelation of life would be meant, and to this ἐν τῷ σώματι ἡμῶν (comp. 2Co_4:11) would not be suitable.
Notice, further, how, in 2Co_4:10 f., Paul names only the name Ἰησοῦς , and how repeatedly he uses it. “Singulariter sensit dulcedinem ejus,” Bengel. As bearer of the dying and living of the Lord in his body, he has before his eyes and in his heart, with the deepest feeling of fellowship, the concrete human manifestation, Jesus. Even the exalted One is, and remains to him, Jesus. A contrast between the earthly Jesus and the heavenly Christ, for whom the former is again deprived of life (Holsten), is, as the clause of purpose shows, not to be thought of.