2 Corinthians 4:16

For which cause we faint not. — Ho returns, after a long digression, to the assertion with which 2 Corinthians 4 had opened, but in repeating the words he enters once again on the same line of thought, but under a different succession of imagery. The “outward man,” the material framework of the body, is undergoing a gradual process of decay, but the “inward man,” the higher spiritual life, is “day by day” passing through successive stages of renewal, gaining fresh energies. This verb also, and its derivative “renewal,” are specially characteristic of St. Paul. (Comp. Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:10; Titus 3:5.) The verb in Ephesians 4:23, though not the same, is equivalent in meaning.