For we which live are alway delivered unto death. In the midst of a life such as ours, we are exposed to constant danger of death and to every kind of trouble.
The thought, then, that in all our tribulation we are made like to Christ in His Passion and resurrection is what animates, comforts, and strengthens us. As in our afflicted and mortified body the death of Christ is visibly set forth, so in its deliverance, salvation, and strengthening do we see the life and resurrection of Christ. When we are thrown to the lions and other wild beasts, to be, as all expect, surely devoured by them, they spare us and fawn upon us; when we are cast into the fire it shrinks from us, nay, with genial warmth refreshes us; when we are thrown into the sea to be drowned, the sea bears us up and preserves us from all hurt; when I was stoned at Lystra and left for dead, I was soon after found to be alive. In all these and similar persecutions and afflictions I have fellowship with, I am made like, and I ...
For every where when he has said any thing obscure, he interprets himself again. So he has done here also, giving a clear interpretation of this which I have cited. 'For therefore, we are delivered,' he says, 'in other words, we bear about His dying that the power of His life may be made manifest, who permits not mortal flesh, though undergoing so great sufferings, to be overcome by the snowstorm of these calamities.' And it may be taken too in another way. How? As he says in another place, If we die with him, we shall also live with Him. 2 Timothy 2:11 'For as we endure His dying now, and choose while living to die for His sake: so also will he choose, when we are dead, to beget us then unto life. For if we from life come into death, He also will from death lead us by the hand into life.'
-in other words, not to the present, but to the future? But if it be of the future life of Christ that he speaks, intimating that it is to be made manifest in our body.
But lest any one should here object, that the life of Jesus has even now to be manifested in our body by the discipline of holiness, and patience, and righteousness, and wisdom, in which the Lord's life abounded, the most provident wisdom of the apostle inserts this purpose: "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that His life may be manifested in our mortal body."
