Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Christ himself shares in the death of martyrs. Their sufferings are his sufferings. His life is made manifest in their bodies. Their sufferings are evidence of the fact that they are prepared to receive the life to come which Christ promised. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. The death of Jesus, according to S. Ambrose, but the Greek is rather dying or mortification. The dying meant is the suffering of death like to the suffering of Jesus Christ, which is the road to and the beginning of death, a long and living death. This is the suffering spoken in vers8,9 , suffering inflicted from without, though it may be extended also to any voluntary mortification of mind and body. It is called "the dying of Jesus," (1.) because it is borne by His example; (2.) because it is undergone for His faith; (3.) because we, His servants, bear about in our body, by a kind of representation, the very death and Passion of Christ, just as slaves carry the badge and token of their master. Cf. Galatians 6:17. So in Hebrews 11:26, it is said that Moses bore the reproach of Christ, and preferred it to the riches of Egypt (see note there). "There is no doubt," says Ambrose, "that in His martyrs Christ is slain, and that ...
What is the death of Jesus which they carried about with them? It is the daily deaths which they died, by which the resurrection also was shown. This is another reason for the trials, that Christ’s life might be manifested in human bodies. What looks like weakness and destitution in fact proclaims his resurrection.
And what is the dying of the Lord Jesus, which they bare about? Their daily deaths by which also the resurrection was showed. 'For if any believe not,' he says, 'that Jesus died and rose again, beholding us every day die and rise again, let him believe henceforward in the resurrection.' Do you see how he has discovered yet another reason for the trials? What then is this reason? That his life also may be manifested in our body. He says, 'by snatching us out of the perils. So that this which seems a mark of weakness and destitution, this, [I say,] proclaims His resurrection. For His power had not so appeared in our suffering no unpleasantness, as it is now shown in our suffering indeed, but without being overcome.'
(Marcion's) god is really ungrateful and unjust, if he does not mean to restore this same I substance of ours at the resurrection, wherein so much has been endured in loyalty to him, in which Christ's very death is borne about, wherein too the excellency of his power is treasured.
For he gives prominence to the statement, "That the life also of Christ may be manifested in our body"
