COR 5: 14‒14:21)It has been questioned whether ἀπέθανον in 2 Cor. 5:14, translated in A. V. were dead, refers to the spiritual condition of all the children of Adam, or that only of God's saints; whether the thought is that the condition of every one by nature dead is shown to be such by the death of the Lord Jesus for all, or whether the apostle meant to teach us in this passage that all saints have died with Christ to sin. On grammatical grounds the point cannot be determined. What results may we obtain by studying the context?
From 2 Cor. 2:14 to 7: 1 is a digression on the ministry of the word entrusted to the apostle, which had very opposite results, as it was received or rejected by those to whom he preached (2: 16). The character of this ministry of the new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, is stated in chaps. 3: 1- 9, 10. The circumstances into which it brought him are set forth in 4: 7-18, in which portion he tells us how his inward man was renewed day by day. Next he lets us know that death, which seemed on his road, and, as his end proved, really was before him, had no terrors for him; for he knew, if he died, he had a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and until he should be clothed upon with that, he would, if disembodied, be with the Lord (5: 1-8). But there was something connected with the future which had a powerful bearing on his ministry and general manner of life, and that was the being 'manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ (v. 10). Not that he was afraid of it, though it had a wholesome effect on him (v. 9); but he thought of others, who must be manifested likewise. "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord," he adds,!‘ we persuade men" (v. 11).. The remembrance of that judgment-seat stirred him up to carry on his ministry with all the ability and energy with which God, by the Holy Spirit, enabled him. " We persuade men." He felt he could not do otherwise, when he thought of the future, in which every soul has such real concern. Was he beside himself?-it was for God. Was he sober?-it was for them, for the love of Christ constrained him. Two motives, then, especially actuated him. He was powerfully impressed with the thought of the solemnity of the coming manifestation before the judgment-seat of Christ..He was also constrained by the love of Christ, manifested in dying for all. Were his sympathies, his interests, restricted to saints? No. How could they be, when he recalled to remembrance that every one had to do with the judgment-seat of Christ? How could they be restricted to a class, when he remembered that love of Christ manifested in dying for all?
Now, as we trace out his teaching about ministry in this section of the Epistle, we must see that it embraces in its sphere men, not merely saints. In 2: 15, 16, he writes of them that are saved, and them that perish. In 4: 3 he writes of the lost. In v. 18-21 he acquaints us with the message of reconciliation. In 6: 2 he writes of the day of salvation; hence it is plain that the ministry with which he was entrusted had men, and not merely saints, for its sphere. Nothing less than man in his lost condition does he contemplate, and his salvation is clearly a great object. When, then, he writes of Christ dying for all, ἱπὲρ πάντων the context shows he means what the words imply, all-Christ therefore died on their behalf, for they all were dead. Nothing less than the condition by nature of all men, evidenced by the death of Christ, is his subject in ver. 14. This is in harmony with his teaching throughout this section. Bring in here a limitation, make saints to be all that he has in view, and that he meant that they died with Christ (when he wrote, all died, or were dead), and we have a different field before the eye from that which we have in preceding and following verses. Take this verse in the usual acceptation of Christ dying for all, because all were dead, and we have the harmony of the whole passage preserved.
But is there no limitation? There is, but it is quite in character with all that has gone before. He has spoken of two classes, the saved and the lost, the saved being those on whom the ministry has acted aright. Of such he now speaks, but in harmony with the figure used of death, so he writes of them as the living οἱ ζῶντες. Christ died for all, that the living should not live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again.
Now, can." the living" here mean simply the saints alive in their bodies in contrast with saints who have died? Surely the contrast intended is between their former and their present spiritual condition. Of course, unless alive in their bodies, he would not have written, that they were no longer to live unto themselves, but to Him who died for them, and rose again. But if οἰ ζῶντες, the living, means simply that they were alive in their bodies, confusion is at once introduced; whereas, if the living means those spiritually alive, all flows on evenly and without violence to the sense. For look at the word ἀπέθανον, in ver. 14 as you will, it is a spiritual condition that is described, dead as to their souls by nature,. or dead with Christ, if such could have been the apostle's meaning. Then, a spiritual condition having been described as one of death, a spiritual condition is also described as one of life. All then is easy in sense, and natural likewise. How the living came to be such, the ministry and the word of reconciliation explain. But it addressed them first as dead; and they were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. That there was such a class as the living, was the result of this ministry entrusted to Christ's ambassadors; that it was only a class, arose from the fact that all would not receive it.