Q.-2 Cor. 5:1515And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:15). The brevity of the remark on the late Bp. Lightfoot's view of these verses, followed by the Revisers', may account for my difficulty in apprehending the evidence and argument against it. May I ask for further clearing of the point? F.
A.-Not having the Bp.'s book at hand, I quote the R.V. which conveys his mind! “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.” Every reflecting believer, I think, must feel that the critical text sounds harsh and inconsequent for want of the εί (if) of the vulgar text. And every one used to various readings can see that the εί was peculiarly liable here to be dropt, because of the ι immediately preceding and the είς immediately following. But accepting the text preferred, wherein does the consequence lie that, because one died for all, therefore they all died, in the sense of dying with Him to sin, the marked privilege of all Christians? This very assumption misled Dean Alford unconsciously into misrepresenting the apostles, when he says that He died for all, that all should live to Him. But this is to change what the apostle wrote in contrasting “all dead” with “those that live.” “The all” are men universally; “they that live,” are only such as by faith have life in Christ. And this distinction is fundamental and everywhere sustained by the scriptures. The sense therefore is, for “all,” death through sin and their sins, for whom nevertheless Christ died as the witness of love toward them in their sad and sinful state. The judgment of love is not merely this but that He died for all, that they that live by faith in Him, which assuredly “all” do not, should no longer be as once when dead, but live to Him who for them died and was raised. For the Savior whom the Christian owns is not a mere Jewish Messiah ruling Israel and the nations in righteousness peace and happiness on the earth, but a dead and risen Lord with whom we are associated, rejected by the earth but glorified on high, and we in obedient devotedness sharing His sufferings here and waiting to join Him there.
Thus what we are taught is not that all men have the Christian privilege of having died with Christ to sin, but that their being all dead as sinners was the motive for Christ to die on behalf of all. Where sin brought them without exception, love sent and brought Him. Yet this, however glorifying God's nature and proving Christ's love, were vain to save them unless by faith in Christ they received life in Him to live to Him. Thanks be to God this is verified by His grace in “those that live” (as contradistinguished from “all dead),” whom Christ's love constrains to live to Him who for them died and was raised. Accordingly the apostle shows that not only the evil but the old things at their best are passed away to Christian faith, and for any one in Christ (not surely for man unbelieving and outside Him) “a new creation, and all things of the God that reconciled us to Himself by Christ.”
The perversion to death in Christ to sin, which can apply to none but believers, dissolves the reasoning; for how could this prove the love of Christ dying for all mankind? Whereas no Christian but sees His love for all in dying for all. And what follows is decisive against such a meaning as the Bp. put on it, for it is a part and not “all,” but only “they that live” who enjoy the privilege, and accept the responsibility of Christians. As these learned men give the sentence, “We thus judge, that one died for all, therefore [illatively] all died,” it stands rather unintelligible, and is refuted by the context that follows. Text and translation, if right, lead to no such result.