2 Corinthians 1:9

Yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead.

Paul treasured the awful experience through which he had passed for the great lesson which it reinforced; namely, that one's trust should never be in himself but in the Lord, even God who raises the dead. By this reference to raising the dead, there is brought into view the passage in Hebrews 11:19, in which Abraham's offering of Isaac was enabled through his confidence that God was able to raise the dead, giving incidental support to the view that the author of Hebrews and the author of this passage are one and the same person. Where else in all the Bible is Abraham's reliance upon God's ability to raise the dead even hinted at? And how did Paul know it? He himself had trusted God in the same manner when death loomed as a certainty, and at a time when many of God's promises to the blessed apostle were as yet unfilled.