What Does 1 Corinthians 6:17 Mean?
But the one glued to the Lord is one breath.
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
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.THE KEY
Being joined to the Lord is more than closeness: the verse describes a shared, living breath.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of union with the Lord as a present reality: the one joined to him is one spirit. The word for spirit also carries the sense of breath, so this union reaches into the life that animates you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the Lord remains wholly external to the one who is joined to him.
THE ROOT
κολλάω
kollaō
GROWS FROM
κολλ-
koll-
To glue, adhere, or join closely.
“glued” in this verse is kollaō. English “joined” can sound like simple association, but the Greek word carries the image of adhesion. The verse describes a bond that makes union real, not merely a shared opinion.
ALSO GROWS
kolla: Glue or adhesive.
κόλλα
The image of adhesion gives “joined” a closeness that the English word can leave unstated.
proskollaō: To cling or cleave to.
προσκολλάω
This related form uses the same root to describe attachment, echoing the verse’s language of a bond with the Lord.
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνε-
pne-
To breathe or blow; the living breath or wind.
The Greek word rendered “spirit” also names breath and wind. The verse’s “one spirit” therefore holds together inner life and living breath in a way the English word alone may conceal.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
This verb is the action behind pneuma: breath moving, as wind moves.
pnoē: Breath or a breath of air.
πνοή
This related noun makes the breath sense of pneuma visible and deepens what “one spirit” can hold.
THE PATTERN
Union turns what is separate into shared life.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may lean its full weight on the fact that you sent me.There is one body, and one breath, even as you have been called in one hope of your calling.THE THREAD
Or have you not seen that the one glued to a seller of bodies is one body? For, he says, the two will be one flesh.The word translated “joined” is from the same Greek root as in verse 17. The preceding verse shows that joining creates a real union; verse 17 turns that same force toward the Lord.
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