Incorruption is the indestructible, imperishable quality of the resurrection body and of eternal life — the complete opposite of the decay and death that sin introduced into creation. Paul's great resurrection chapter (1 Cor 15) sets up the contrast: what is sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption; what is sown in dishonor will be raised in glory; what is sown in weakness will be raised in power. The body buried in the ground is not the final word — it will be transformed into a body that cannot decay, cannot die, cannot be destroyed. This is not merely immortality of the soul (a Greek concept) but bodily incorruption — the full redemption of the flesh. God does not evacuate creation; he renews it. Peter uses the same term for the inheritance "kept in heaven for you" — imperishable, undefiled, and unfading (1 Pet 1:4).
INCORRUPTION, n. [from incorrupt.] The state of not being subject to corruption or decay; incorruptibility.
• "For this corruptible must put on incorruption." — 1 Corinthians 15:53 (Webster quotes Scripture as his primary definition anchor)
• Webster extends it to moral incorruptibility — the inability to be bribed or morally degraded. But the primary biblical sense is physical and eschatological: the resurrection body that cannot rot, cannot age, cannot perish.
• 1 Corinthians 15:42 — "So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable."
• 1 Corinthians 15:53–54 — "This perishable body must put on the imperishable…Death is swallowed up in victory."
• 1 Peter 1:4 — "An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you."
• Romans 2:7 — "To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life."
• 2 Timothy 1:10 — "[Christ] abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
G861 — aphtharsia (ἀφθαρσία): incorruptibility, imperishability; from a- (not) + phtheirō (to corrupt, destroy, ruin). Used in 1 Cor 15:42, 50, 53, 54; Eph 6:24; 2 Tim 1:10; Titus 2:7.
G862 — aphthartos (ἄφθαρτος): imperishable, incorruptible (adj.); used of God himself in Rom 1:23 — "the glory of the immortal God" — and of the crown believers seek (1 Cor 9:25).
Hebrew parallel: שַׁחַת (shachat, H7845) — the pit of corruption/decay; בְּלִי (beli, without decay) — "You will not let your Holy One see corruption" (Ps 16:10 — quoted of Christ's resurrection in Acts 2:27).
Modern Christianity has largely spiritualized the resurrection to the point of losing bodily incorruption. The popular notion that believers "die and go to heaven" as disembodied souls forever is sub-biblical — the NT hope is bodily resurrection, the resurrection of the dead, not escape from matter. When the body is reduced to a disposable shell, incorruption becomes an abstract comfort rather than a world-shaking physical promise. Gnostic influence persists in the idea that "spiritual" means immaterial — but Scripture says the Spirit himself will give life to our mortal bodies (Rom 8:11). The resurrection is not metaphor. The tomb was empty. The body matters. Incorruption is coming.
Proto-Indo-European *reup- → to break, to snatch → Latin rumpere (to break, burst) → corrumpere (to break down, ruin) → corruptio (decay, putrefaction) → in- (not) + corruptio → incorruptio → English "incorruption" Greek ἄφθαρτος (aphthartos): a- (privative, "not") + phtheirō (φθείρω, to decay, destroy, corrupt) Proto-Indo-European *dʰgʷʰer- → to destroy → Greek phtheirō, phthora (φθορά, destruction, decay) → aphtharsia: the state of being beyond all decay The theological weight: God's nature is aphthartos (incorruptible, Rom 1:23). Believers are destined to share that same quality in the resurrection.