4.
That he uses these words with respect to the body of flesh, and to none other, he declares to the Corinthians manifestly, indubitably, and free from all ambiguity: "Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, 1 that also the life of Jesus Christ might be manifested in our body. For if we who live are delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, it is that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh." 2 And that the Spirit lays hold on the flesh, he says in the same Epistle, "That ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, inscribed not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart." 3 If, therefore, in the present time, fleshly hearts are made partakers of the Spirit, what is there astonishing if, in the resurrection, they receive that life which is granted by the Spirit? Of which resurrection the apostle speaks in the Epistle to the Philippians: "Having been made conformable to His death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection which is from the dead." 4 In what other mortal flesh, therefore, can life be understood as being manifested, unless in that substance which is also put to death on account of that confession which is made of God? --as he has himself declared, "If, as a man, I have fought with beasts 5 at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not? For if the dead rise not, neither has Christ risen. Now, if Christ has not risen, our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain. In that case, too, we are found false witnesses for God, since we have testified that He raised up Christ, whom [upon that supposition]
He did not raise up. 6 For if the dead rise not, neither has Christ risen. But if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, since ye are yet in your sins. Therefore those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men. But now Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of those that sleep; for as by man [came] death, by man also [came] the resurrection of the dead." 7
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Agreeing with the Syriac version in omitting "the Lord" before the word "Jesus," and in reading aei as ei, which Harvey considers the true text. ↩
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2 Cor. iv. 10, etc. ↩
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2 Cor. iii. 3. ↩
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Phil. iii. 11. ↩
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The Syriac translation seems to take a literal meaning out of this passage: "If, as one of the men, I have been cast forth to the wild beasts at Ephesus." ↩
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This is in accordance with the Syriac, which omits the clause, eiper ara nekroi ouk egeirontai. ↩
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1 Cor. xv. 13, etc. ↩
