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2Co_5:14 f. Paul now proves what was implied in 2Co_5:13, that his whole working was done not in his own interest (comp. μηκέτι ἑαυτοῖς , 2Co_5:15), but for God and the brethren; the love of Christ holds him in bounds, so that he cannot proceed or do otherwise. According to Rückert, Paul wishes to give a reason for the εἰ ἐξέστημεν θεῷ . But he thus arbitrarily overleaps the second half of 2Co_5:13, though this expresses the same thing as the first hal.
ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Χριστοῦ ] not: the love to Christ (Oecumenius, Beza, Grotius, Mosheim, Heumann, Hofmann, Maier), but: the love of Christ to men (so Chrysostom and most others); for the death of Christ floating before the apostle’s mind is to him the highest act of love (Rom_5:6-7; Gal_2:20; Eph_3:19; Rom_8:35; Rom_8:37); and with Paul generally (not so with John) the genitive of a person with ἀγάπη is always the genitivus subjecti (Rom_5:5; Rom_5:8; Rom_8:35; Rom_8:39; 2Co_8:24; 2Co_13:13; Eph_2:4; Php_1:9; also 2Th_3:5; 1Th_1:3 is not here relevant), while, when the person is the object of love, he expresses this by εἰς (Col_1:4; 1Th_3:12), and denotes by the genitive only an abstract as object (2Th_2:10); in Rom_15:30, τοῦ πνεύμ . is the genitivus originis.
συνέχει ἡμᾶς ] cohibet nos, holds us in bounds, so as not to go beyond the limits marked by θεῷ and ὑμῖν , and to follow, possibly, affections and interests of our own. Comp. Calvin (constringere affectus nostros), Loesner, Billroth, Hofmann, Castalio: “tenet nos.” Most, however, follow the Vulgate (urget nos): it urges and drives us.[229] So Emmerling, Vater, Flatt, Schrader, Rückert, Olshausen, Osiander, Neander, and others; also Chrysostom ( ΟὐΚ ἈΦΊΗΣΙ ἩΣΥΧΆΖΕΙΝ ΜΕ ) and Theodoret ( ΠΥΡΠΟΛΟΎΜΕΘΑ ). But contrary to the usage of the word, for ΣΥΝΈΧΕΙΝ always expresses that which holds together, confines, and the like, and so may mean press hard, but not urge and drive (Luk_19:43; Luk_8:37, al.; Php_1:23; also Act_18:5). Comp. Plato, Polit. p. 311 C; Pind. Pyth. i. 37, al.; Philo, Leg. ad Caj. p. 1016 E; also LXX. in Biel and Schleusner, Thes. Ewald: it harasses us, “so that we have no rest except we do everything in it.” Thus συνέχει would revert to the notion of pressing hard, which may be a harassing (Luk_12:50; Wis_17:11, and Grimm’s Handb. in loc.). But this is not given here by the context, as, indeed, that further development of the meaning does not flow from the connectio.
κρίναντας τοῦτο ] after we have come to be of the judgment, namely, after our conversion,[230] Gal_1:16. This judgment contains that, in consequence of which that restraining influence of the love of Christ takes place—the subjective condition of this influenc.
ὅτι εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων κ . τ . λ .] that one for all, etc. Who is meant by εἷς , is clear from ἡ ἀγάπη τ . Χριστοῦ , and was known to all the hearts of the readers; hence there is the less ground for breaking up the simple sentence, and taking εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων as in apposition: “because He, one for all, died” (Hofmann). As for ὅτι , it is simplest, although εἰ after ὅτι is not genuine (see the critical remarks), to take it, not as because, but as that, corresponding, according to the usage elsewhere, to the preparatory τοῦτο (Rom_2:3; Rom_6:6; 2Co_10:7; 2Co_10:11; Eph_5:5, al.); in such a way, however, that ἄρα κ . τ . λ . is likewise included in the dependence on ὅτι , and does not form an independent clause (in opposition to Rückert). For the contents of the judgment as such must lie in ἄρα οἱ πάντες ἀπέθανον , of which the historical fact, εἱς ὑπὲρ πάντ . ἀπέθ ., is only the actual presupposition serving as its ground. The way in which the two clauses are marshalled side by side (without εἰ or because) makes the expression more lively, comp. 1Co_10:17. Hence it is to be translated: that one died for all, consequently they all died, i.e. consequently in this death of the one the death of all was accomplished, the ethical death, namely, in so far as in the case of all the ceasing of the fleshly life, of the life in sin (which ethical dying sets in subjectively through fellowship of faith with the death of Christ), is objectively, as a matter of fact, contained in the death of the Lord. When Christ died the redeeming death for all (comp. 2Co_5:21), all died, in respect of their fleshly life, with Him ( Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι , Gal_2:19; ἀπεθάνετε , Col_3:3); this objective matter of fact which Paul here affirms has its subjective realization in the faith of the individuals, through which they have entered into that death-fellowship with Christ given through His death for all, so that they have now, by means of baptism, become συνταφέντες αὐτῷ (Col_2:12). Comp. Rom_6:4. Here[231] also, as in all passages where ὙΠΈΡ is used of the atoning death (see on Rom_5:6; Gal_3:13), it is not equivalent to ἈΝΤΊ (comp. on 2Co_5:21), for which it is taken by most commentators, including Flatt, Emmerling, Rückert, Olshausen, de Wette, Usteri, Osiander, Gess, Baur, Maier, but: for the sake of all, for their benefit, to expiate their sins (2Co_5:19; Rom_3:25). Since One has died the redeeming death for the good of all, so that the death of this. One as ἱλαστήριον has come to benefit all, all are dead, because otherwise the εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων would not be correctly put. The dying of Christ for the reconciliation of all necessarily presupposes that death-fellowship of all, for Christ could not have died effectively for one who would not have died with Christ; unbelieving, such a one, in spite of the sacrificial death made for all, would still be in his sins.[232] That ὑπέρ here cannot be equivalent to ἀντί is shown particularly by 2Co_5:15 : Τῷ ὙΠῈΡ ΑὐΤῶΝ ἈΠΟΘΑΝΌΝΤΙ ΚΑῚ ἘΓΕΡΘΈΝΤΙ ; for according to this the resurrection of Jesus also (since it would be quite arbitrary to refer ὙΠῈΡ ΑὐΤῶΝ merely to ἈΠΟΘΑΝΌΝΤΙ ) must have been substitutionary, which is nowhere taught, since it is rather the actual proof and confirmation of the atonement (see 1Co_15:17; Rom_4:25; Rom_9:33; Act_13:37 f.; 1Pe_1:3 f.).
ὑπὲρ πάντων ] for all men in general, so that no one is excluded from the effect of his ἱλαστήριον , and every one, so soon as he becomes a believer, attains subjectively to the enjoyment of this effect. This subjective realization, although in the case of those who refuse belief it is frustrated by their guilt, is, in the divine plan of salvation, destined for all, and has already taken place in the case of believers; hence Paul, who himself belonged to the latter, might justly from this his own standpoint in the οἱ πάντες ἀπέθανον , without meaning by ΠΆΝΤΕς only believers (in opposition to my previous explanation), prove the restraining influence of the love of Christ, which he had himself experience.
οἱ πάντες ] with the article; for it applies to all those of whom ὙΠῈΡ Π . ἈΠΈΘ . was just sai.
ἈΠΈΘΑΝΟΝ ] not: they are to die (Thomas, Grotius, Estius, Nösselt, and others); not: they were subjected to death (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Erasmus, Beza, and others; Vatablus: “morte digni”); nor: they must have died (Ewald); nor: “it is just as good as if they had died” (Calovius, Flatt, and others); but: “mors facta in morte Christi” (Bengel), they died, which is to be considered as a real fact, objectively contained in the fact of the death of Jesus, and subjectively accomplished in the consciousness of individuals through faith.
[229] Beza: “totos possidet ac regit, ut ejus afflatu quasi correpti agamus omnia.”
[230] Not at, but after conversion. His conversion took place through Christ seizing on him and overmastering him, and not by way of argument; but subsequently in him who had become a believer there necessarily set in the discursive exercise of reflection, guiding the further judgment regarding the new life which he had acquired. This in opposition to Hofmann’s misconception of my explanation, as if I took κρίναντας as identical with the conversion of the apostle.
[231] Comp. Schweizer in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 462 f.; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 324 f. What Baur remarks, on the other hand, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1859, p. 241 (comp. his neut. Theol. p. 158 f.), that ὑπέρ denotes the ideal substitution, i.e. the most intimate, immediate entering into the other and putting oneself in his place, is not the contents of the idea of the preposition, but that of the idea of sacrifice, under which the death of Jesus is ranked, in the consciousness of the apostle and his readers, as an ἱλαστήριον , offered for the salvation of all ( ὑπὲρ πάντων ).
[232] Certainly the dying of Christ was the “close of the previous sin-tainted life of mankind” (Hofmann, comp. Rich. Schmidt, Paul. Christol. p. 55 f.), but in so far as this dying blotted out the guilt of mankind. This expiation becomes appropriated by individuals through faith, and out of faith there grows the new life of sanctification, in which he who has died ethically with Christ in faith is ethically risen with Him and lives to God.