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INNER MAN*
The inner, invisible being of a human. This Pauline phrase resembles the “hidden man” (KJB) of 1 Peter 3:4 (cf. Rom 2:29), where outward appearance is contrasted with inward reality. It assumes the current Jewish conception of man as a unitary being having both observable and invisible aspects, a physical body including a “psychological” heart. Paul says his members submit to sin’s rule even while his “inmost self” (rsv) delights in divine law (Rom 7:22). In Romans 8:13, he speaks of setting the mind on things of the flesh versus things of the Spirit, describing this same conflict between the inner and outer man.
This inner core of personality is already the locus where the Spirit’s strength is instilled and where Christ dwells in the Christian. So another contrast is between the mortal and already decaying outward man, weakened by age and by sharing the dying of Christ, and the daily renewed inner man, as the life of the risen Jesus is manifested in mortal flesh (2 Cor 4:10-16). Taken with Romans 8:11, this may possibly echo a speculation of intertestamental Judaism that a spiritual counterpart to the present body is already being prepared by the quickening of divine life in the devout inner man.
See also Man.