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Grammatical Deep Dive

"always carrying in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body"

Or more fluently:

"Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also know the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours."

Click on a Greek word to analyze it.

πάντοτε τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι περιφέροντες, ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι ἡμῶν φανερωθῇ·

Structural & Theological Notes

The double σώματι — a chiasm
ἐν τῷ σώματι appears twice, bracketing the participial clause and the ἵνα clause. This is not redundancy but deliberate emphasis: the body (σῶμα) is the arena in which both sides of the death and resurrection life are made concrete and publicly visible. Paul is not Platonic; salvation impacts not just the spirit but the body as well.
φανερωθῇ — divine passive and eschatological present
The aorist passive subjunctive, based both on the immediate context as well as the broader context of Paul's theology, implies that God is the one who does the action of the verb. He makes this shared life with Jesus a reality in the lives of Paul and his companions.
Rhetorical structure: antithesis in balance
The verse sets νέκρωσιν against ζωήν, and both are τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. This is classic Pauline theology of weakness: the apostle's suffering is the vehicle, God's power is the agent.

Greek Word Analysis

Click on any Greek word above to see its analysis here.