themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again."--2
Corinthians v. 14, 15.

It may be, that in reading these verses some of us have understood
them in a sense foreign to that of the apostle. It may have seemed
that the arguments ran thus--Because Christ died upon the cross for
_all_, therefore all must have been in a state of spiritual death
before; and if they were asked what doctrines are to be elicited from
this passage they would reply, "the doctrine of universal depravity,
and the constraining power of the gratitude due to Him who died to
redeem us from it." There is, however, in the first place, this fatal
objection to such an interpretation, that the death here spoken of is
used in two diametrically opposite senses. In reference to Christ,
death literal--in reference to all, death spiritual. Now, in the
thought of St. Paul, the death of Christ was always viewed as
liberation from the power of evil: "in that he died, he died unto sin
once," and again, "he that is dead is free from sin." The literal
death then in one clause, means _freedom_ from sin; the spiritual
death of the next is _slavery_ to it. Wherein then, lies the cogency
of the apostle's reasoning? How does it follow that because Christ
died to evil, all before that must have died to God? Of course that
doctrine is true in itself, but it is _not_ the doctrine of the text.

In the next place, the ambiguity belongs only to the English word--it
is impossible to make the mistake in the original: the word which
stands for _were_, is a word which does not imply a continued state,
but must imply a single finished act. It cannot by any possibility
imply that before the death of Christ men _were_ in a state of
death--it can only mean, they became dead at the moment when Christ
died. If you read it thus, the meaning of the English will emerge--"if