What Does 1 Corinthians 15:42 Mean in the King James?
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same Greek word-family names both corruption and incorruption, so resurrection reveals the body’s release from decay.
THE MEANING
The body that meets decay is the body the verse says is raised, but its condition changes. Your embodied life is not reduced to the form in which it is sown; the movement is from what wears away to what cannot be worn away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Decay is the body’s final truth, and death makes embodiment disposable. This verse says the body enters the ground in one condition and is raised into another.
THE ROOT
φθορά
phthora
GROWS FROM
φθείρω
phtheirō
To wear away, spoil, ruin, or destroy.
The word translated “corruption” is φθορά (phthora, decay or perishing); “incorruption” is ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia, imperishability), from the same word-family with a negating alpha. The Greek keeps decay and its undoing connected: what is raised is no longer governed by what wears it away.
ALSO GROWS
phthartos: Perishable; subject to decay.
φθαρτός
This names the condition in which the body is sown.
aphthartos: Imperishable; not subject to decay.
ἄφθαρτος
This branch shows the changed condition toward which the verse’s raising moves.
aphtharsia: Imperishability; incorruption.
ἀφθαρσία
This is the word translated “incorruption” in the verse, bound to “corruption” by their shared word-family.
ἀνάστασις
anastasis
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι
histēmi
To stand or set upright.
Ἀνάστασις (anastasis, resurrection) carries the image of standing up, from ἀνά (ana, up) and στάσις (stasis, standing), in the family of ἵστημι (histēmi, to stand). The English word holds the event; the Greek also lets you see the body stood up from the dead.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: To rise or stand up.
ἀνίστημι
This verb shares the standing-up image carried by “resurrection.”
stasis: Standing or position.
στάσις
This makes the bodily image inside ἀνάστασις (anastasis) visible.
σπείρεται
speiretai
GROWS FROM
σπείρω
speirō
To sow or scatter seed.
The verb’s seed-bearing sense pictures the body’s placement in decay as part of a process that continues beneath the surface. Seed language holds together what is sown and what is later raised.
ALSO GROWS
sperma: Seed.
σπέρμα
This branch makes the verse’s sowing image concrete: what enters the ground carries a life beyond its present form.
spora: Sowing or seed.
σπορά
This branch keeps the focus on sowing as an act that begins a process.
THE PATTERN
Life passes through seed-like burial into a form no longer subject to decay.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.THE THREAD
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.Both passages place the perishable and imperishable in one Greek word-family, from φθείρω (phtheirō, to decay or spoil). Peter names the seed directly, bringing the shared image into view: what is sown in perishing carries a life beyond decay.
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