Dictionaries :: Mortify

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Mortify:

mor'-ti-fi (Ro 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margin "make to die," and Col 3:5, nekroo, the English Revised Version margin "make dead"): This sense of mortify is obsolete in modern English, and the American Standard Revised Version in both places substitutes "put to death," with great advantage.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.

Written by Burton Scott Easton

King James Dictionary

Mortify: To Put to Death; to Take Away.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do MORTIFY the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

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.

Mortify:

"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.