What Does 1 Corinthians 15:49 Mean in the King James?
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
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 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.
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.
“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.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.THE THREAD
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 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.
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