But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead:
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 1:9 Go To 2 Corinthians 1
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But we had the sentence of death in ourselves. "But," here, has the meaning of "moreover." Nature and inclination presaged and expected nothing but death; and when I thought of the state of my life, my mind answered that I must die if God did not lend miraculous aid. So Ambrose and Theophylact.
The Greek word here rendered "sentence" means, (1.) answer. (2.) According to Photius, it denotes the crisis of an illness. The meaning, then, would be: We were so afflicted that our life was despaired of by nature and by experienced men, who, looking at our case as doctors might, judged it beyond recovery. (3.) It denotes sentence, as in the text. We seemed to have received our sentence, and to be destined accordingly to inevitable death.
