What Does 1 Corinthians 15:49 Mean?
And as we have worn the image of the one made of dust, let us also wear the image of the one from the heavens.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.THE KEY
The same Greek verb says you have carried the dust-shaped image and will carry the heavenly one, the bearer continues while the image changes.
THE MEANING
Your embodied life now carries the image of the earthy, the human shaped from dust; the heavenly image is also what you shall bear. Both belong to one continuous life, so the form you inhabit now is real without being final.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that your present, dust-shaped body is all you will ever be dissolves here: it bears a real image, but not the final one.
THE ROOT
φορέω
phoreō
GROWS FROM
φερ-/φορ- (pher-/phor-)
The Greek word-family means to carry, bring, or bear; φορέω (phoreō) can also mean to wear or carry as a continuing condition.
“wear” in this verse is phoreō. The verse uses the same verb for both images: you have borne one and will bear the other. The bearer remains through the change, while the image carried moves from the earthy to the heavenly.
ALSO GROWS
pherō: Carry, bring, bear
φέρω
This related verb makes clear that bearing the image is an act of carrying it.
phora: Carrying, movement, course
φορά
This noun from the same family gives the image-bearing a sense of movement: the life that carries one image is moving toward another.
χοϊκός
choikos
GROWS FROM
χοῦς
choos
Dust, loose earth; χοϊκός (choikos) means made of dust or earthly.
“made of dust” in this verse is choikos. “Earthy” carries the material of the first human in its word-family: dust. The verse names the present image as ground-shaped, then sets beside it an image whose source is heavenly.
ALSO GROWS
choos: Dust, loose earth
χοῦς
This is the source noun behind “earthy,” bringing the dust of human formation into the verse.
choikos: Made of dust, earthy
χοϊκός
This is the word used for the image already borne, linking the present human form directly to dust.
THE PATTERN
Human life can carry an image shaped by its source and be transformed into a fuller embodied likeness.
And God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.But we all, with uncovered faces, mirror the weight of the LORD, and are being reshaped into the same image, ever increasing in weight, even as from the breath of the LORD.Who will reshape the body of our lowness, that it may become shaped together with the body of his weight, according to the working by which he is able even to set all things under himself.THE THREAD
But we all, with uncovered faces, mirror the weight of the LORD, and are being reshaped into the same image, ever increasing in weight, even as from the breath of the LORD.The word translated “image” in both verses is εἰκών (eikōn), meaning a visible likeness. Here, the heavenly likeness is what you shall bear; in 2 Corinthians, that same likeness is already the shape into which you are being changed.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us