Uncorruptness (ἀ φθαρσία)
The Eng. word is used in the AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] only in 1 Corinthians 15:42; 1 Corinthians 15:50; 1 Corinthians 15:53-54, but the Gr. word occurs also in Romans 2:7, Ephesians 6:24, 2 Timothy 1:10 . The RV [Note: V Revised Version.] renders ‘incorruption’ not only in each of the four verses in 1 Corinthians 15, but in Romans 2:7 and 2 Timothy 1:10, where the AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] has ‘immortality.’ In Ephesians 6:24 the AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] gives ‘sincerity’ and the RV [Note: V Revised Version.] ‘uncorruptness.’ In Titus 2:7 ‘uncorruptness’ (AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] and RV [Note: V Revised Version.]) represents ἀ φθορία (or ἀ διαφθορία). The noun ἀ φθαρσία is derived from the adj. ἄ φθαρτος (a priv. and φθείρω, ‘to corrupt’), which is found in Romans 1:23, 1 Corinthians 9:25; 1 Corinthians 15:53, 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 1:1 P 1:4, 23, 3:4, and in the RV [Note: V Revised Version.] is always rendered ‘incorruptible.’ The RV [Note: V Revised Version.] is correct in this consistent use of ‘incorruptible’ for ἄ φθαρτος, and more correct than the AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] in using ‘incorruption’ for ἀ φθαρσία in those cases where the latter ha s ‘immortality,’ which properly represents ἀ θανασία (1 Corinthians 15:53-54, 1 Timothy 6:16). but corresponding to ‘incorruptible’ for ἄ φθαρτος, ‘incorruptibility’ would have been still better than ‘incorruption’ for ἀ φθαρσία (Tertullian [ de Cultu feminarum, ii. 6] and subsequent writers render incorruptibilitas; Vulg. [Note: ulg. Vulgate.] in most cases incorruptio, which probably suggested ‘incorruption’ of the EV [Note: V English Version.]), since the word really denotes the quality of imperishableness. The fact that ‘incorruption’ is the AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] rendering in 1 Corinthians 15, so familiar to English ears from its place in the order for the burial of the dead in the Book of Common Prayer, may have determined the Revisers to use it in that chapter, and the principle of adopting as far as possible a uniform rendering of particular words (See Revisers’ Preface) would lead them to adhere to it elsewhere. In Ephesians 6:24 they have departed from their usage in other places by substituting ‘uncorruptness’ (AV [Note: V Authorized Version.] ‘sincerity’), but it is questionable whether by doing so they have brought out the writer’s real meaning. It seems quite likely that he was employing the word in its usual sense, and was thinking not of the purity of the Christian’s love for Christ, its freedom from corrupt elements, but of its incorruptibility, i.e. its imperishableness. In Titus 2:7, where ἀ φθορία is applied to the doctrine which Titus was to teach, that word is properly translated ‘uncorruptness.’
It may be noted that when the two terms ‘incorruptibility’ (ἀ φθαρσία) and ‘immortality’ (ἀ θανασία) are set side by side in 1 Corinthians 15:53-54, we are not to understand the former as applying to the body and the latter to the soul. In classical Gr. such a distinction might be valid, but not in the NT. If we read of God in 1 Timothy 6:16 ‘who only hath immortality ,’ we also read in 1:17 that He is ‘the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible.’ Unlike Plato, St. Paul has no doctrine of the natural immortality’ of the soul; and in 1 Corinthians 15 he is dealing specifically with the resurrection of the body, so that ‘incorruptibility’ and ‘immortality’ are practically synonymous.
J. C. Lambert.