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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: Corruption
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CORRUPTION.—Jewish anthropology conceived of man as composed of two elements, the physical body and the soul. At death the soul went to Sheol, and the body decayed. The term ‘corruption’ came, therefore, to stand for the physical aspects of that state which followed death and preceded the resurrection. In this sense it is used in Act_2:27; Act_2:31; Act_13:34-37, 1Co_15:42; 1Co_15:50; cf. also 1Co_15:53-54. There is no evidence that it had a moral force, although some have found such an implication in Gal_6:8, where the reference is rather to a belief that the wicked will not share in the glories of the resurrection. Neither is it a term to indicate annihilation, which idea does not seem to have been held by the Palestinian Jews. Jesus through His resurrection is represented (2Ti_1:10) as having brought life and incorruption to light. The resurrection as a part of salvation is thus placed in sharpest contrast with the condition of the personality following physical death, since, as St. Paul says (2Co_5:1 f.), for a man who is saved, the decomposition of the physical body is but an occasion for the assumption of an incorruptible heavenly body.
Shailer Mathews.