What Does 2 Corinthians 4:16 Mean in the King James?
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
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 outward person can be decaying at the very same time the inward person is being made new.
THE MEANING
Your outward person is wearing down, while your inward person is being renewed day by day. Both are happening together; bodily decline does not erase the renewal taking place within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that outward decline means all of you is only being diminished.
THE ROOT
ἀνακαινοῦται
anakainoutai
GROWS FROM
καιν- (kain-), from καινός (kainos)
newness; new or fresh
“renewed” in this verse is anakainoutai. The verb carries the word-family of newness: the inward person is being made new continually. Renewal here happens day by day, alongside the outward person’s decay, rather than waiting for that decay to end.
ALSO GROWS
anakainoō: to renew, make new
ἀνακαινόω
This is the verb family behind the inward person’s ongoing renewal in this verse.
anakainōsis: renewal
ἀνακαίνωσις
The same word family names the renewing of the mind in Romans 12:2, connecting this inward change with continual transformation.
διαφθείρεται
diaphtheiretai
GROWS FROM
φθείρω
phtheirō
to corrupt, decay, or wear away
The word translated “perish” belongs to a family that speaks of corruption and decay. The verse holds that real wearing away beside real renewal, without pretending the outward decline is unreal.
ALSO GROWS
phthora: corruption, decay
φθορά
This noun from the same root names the decay that marks what is perishable.
phthartos: perishable, subject to decay
φθαρτός
This branch makes explicit the outward person’s vulnerability to wearing away.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places bodily weakness beside an inward life that is strengthened or renewed.
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;THE THREAD
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:“Renewed” here and in Colossians comes from the same Greek verb family, ἀνακαινόω (anakainoō), meaning to renew or make new. Colossians adds that this renewal unfolds in knowledge after the Creator’s image, opening the inward renewal as an ongoing change.
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