Mortify
This word translates (Authorized Version and Revised Version ) (Rom 8:13) and (Col 3:5). Elsewhere in the NT the former word is applied only to the infliction of physical death (by the Greek medical writers to mortification in the pathological sense), the latter to senile decay of the vital powers (Rom 4:19, Heb 11:12). In the passages cited the words are synonymous, and are used, as the contexts plainly show, in an ethical sense. Although St. Paul is far from disparaging the necessity of wholesome self-discipline (1Co 9:27), the idea, readily suggested by the associations of the word mortify, of a gradual subjugation of the bodily appetites by the practice of bodily austerities, is here foreign to his thought. His exhortation is to put to death the (evil) practices of the body (Rom 8:13), and this is to be done, not by physical means, but by the spirit; and again to put to death the members which are upon the earth (i.e. the impure and selfish lusts of which the bodily members are the natural instruments-fornication, uncleanness, etc.), and for this end the rules of an arbitrary asceticism are of no value (Col 2:16-23).
The main emphasis of St. Pauls doctrine of sanctification is ever on the positive issue of the believers vital union with Christ-that newness of life which by its native force expels and excludes the lustings of the lower nature (Rom 13:14, Gal 5:18, Eph 5:18, 2Ti 2:22); yet necessarily the negative principle is also involved. By man, in his present state, spiritual life is realizable only through the slaying of sin; union with the Crucified implies crucifixion of the passions and lusts (Gal 5:24). While raised together with Christ, we seek the things that are above (Col 3:1), the converse fact that in Christ we died (Col 3:3) carries with it the converse requirement, as it does also the power, to kill out what is base and sensual and to hold all natural appetites in rigid subordination to the highest ends of life.
Robert Law.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Mortify
MORTIFY.To mortify is in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] metaphorically to put to death. Early writers could use it literally also, as Erasmus, Commune Crede, 81, Christ was mortified, and killed in dede, as touchynge to his fleshe; but was quickened in spirite.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Mortify
morti-f (Rom 8:13 the King James Version and the English Revised Version, , thanatoo, the English Revised Version margin make to die, and Col 3:5, , nekroo, the English Revised Version margin make dead): This sense of mortify is obsolete in modern English, and the American Standard Revised Version in both places substitutes put to death, with great advantage. The context in both passages goes to the heart of Paul’s doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ. This union has given the soul a new life, flowing (through the Spirit) from Christ in the heavenly world, so that the remnants of the old corrupt life-principle are now dangerous excrescences. Hence, they are to be destroyed, just as a surgeon removes the remnants of a diseased condition after the reestablishment of healthy circulation. The interpreter must guard against weakening Paul’s language into some such phrase as subdue all that is inconsistent with the highest ideals, for Paul views the union with Christ as an intensely real, quasi-physical relation.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Mortify
“to put to death” (from thanatos, “death,” akin to thnetos, “mortal,” see above), is translated “mortify” in Rom 8:13 (Amer. RV, “put to death”); in Rom 7:4, “ye were made dead” (Passive Voice), betokens the act of God on the believer, through the death of Christ; here in Rom 8:13 it is the act of the believer himself, as being responsible to answer to God’s act, and to put to death “the deeds of the body.” See DEATH, C, No. 1.
“to make dead” (from nekros, see DEAD, A), is used figuratively in Col 3:5 and translated “mortify” (Amer. RV, “put to death”). See DEAD, B, No. 1.