Text -- 1 Corinthians 15:25-58 (NET)

15:25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 15:26 The last enemy to be eliminated is death. 15:27 For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. 15:28 And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all. 15:29 Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they baptized for them? 15:30 Why too are we in danger every hour? 15:31 Every day I am in danger of death! This is as sure as my boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. 15:32 If from a human point of view I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what did it benefit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 15:34 Sober up as you should, and stop sinning! For some have no knowledge of God– I say this to your shame!

The Resurrection Body

15:35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 15:36 Fool! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. 15:37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed– perhaps of wheat or something else. 15:38 But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. 15:39 All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another. 15:40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly body is one sort and the earthly another. 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory. 15:42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 15:44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 15:45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 15:46 However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. 15:47 The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. 15:48 Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are heavenly. 15:49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven. 15:50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 15:51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– 15:52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 15:53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 15:54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 15:55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 15:58 So then, dear brothers and sisters, be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: 1Co 15:25

Till he hath put ( achri hou thēi ).

Second aorist active subjunctive of tithēmi , "till he put"(no sense in saying "hath put,"merely effective aorist tense for climax. Achri ‛hou' , mechri ‛hou' , heōs ‛hou' all are used for the same idea of indefinite future time.

Robertson: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy that shall be abolished is death ( eschatos echthros katargeitai ho thanatos ).

A rather free translation. Literally, "death (note article, and so subject) is done away (prophetic or futuristic use of present tense of same verb as in 1Co 15:24), the last enemy"(predicate and only one "last"and so no article as in 1Jo 2:18).

Robertson: 1Co 15:27

He put ( hupetaxen ).

First aorist active of hupotassō , to subject. Supply God (theos ) as subject (Psa 8:7). See Heb 2:5-9 for similar use. Cf. Psa 8:1-9.

Robertson: 1Co 15:27

But when he saith ( hotan de eipēi ).

Here Christ must be supplied as the subject if the reference is to his future and final triumph. The syntax more naturally calls for God as the subject as before. Either way makes sense. But there is no need to take eipēi (second aorist active subjunctive) as a futurum exactum , merely "whenever he shall say."

Robertson: 1Co 15:27

Are put in subjection ( hupotetaktai ).

Perfect passive indicative, state of completion, final triumph.

Robertson: 1Co 15:27

It is evident that ( dēlon hoti ).

Supply estin (is) before hoti .

Robertson: 1Co 15:27

He is excepted who did subject ( ektos tou hupotaxantos ).

"Except the one (God) who did subject (articular aorist active participle) the all things to him (Christ)."

Robertson: 1Co 15:28

And when all things have been subjected ( hotan de hupotagēi ta panta ).

Second aorist passive subjunctive of hupotassō , not perfect. Merely, "when the all things are subjected unto him."The aorist subjunctive has given translators a deal of needless trouble in this passage. It is prophecy, of course.

Robertson: 1Co 15:28

That God may be all in all ( hina ēi ho theos panta en pasin ).

The final goal of all God’ s redemptive plans as Paul has so well said in Rom 11:36. Precisely this language Paul will use of Christ (Col 3:11).

Robertson: 1Co 15:29

Else ( epei ).

Otherwise, if not true. On this use of epei with ellipsis see note on 1Co 5:10; note on 1Co 7:14.

Robertson: 1Co 15:29

Which are baptized for the dead ( hoi baptizomenoi huper tōn nekrōn ).

This passage remains a puzzle. Stanley gives thirteen interpretations, no one of which may be correct. Over thirty have been suggested. The Greek expositors took it to be about the dead (huper in sense of peri as often as in 2Co 1:6) since baptism is a burial and a resurrection (Rom 6:2-6). Tertullian tells of some heretics who took it to mean baptized in the place of dead people (unsaved) in order to save them. Some take it to be baptism over the dead. Others take it to mean that Paul and others were in peril of death as shown by baptism (see 1Co 15:30).

Robertson: 1Co 15:29

At all ( holōs ).

See note on 1Co 5:1.

Robertson: 1Co 15:30

Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour? ( ti kai hēmeis kinduneuomen pasan hōraṅ ).

We also as well as those who receive baptism which symbolizes death. Old verb from kindunos (peril, danger), in N.T. only here and Luk 8:23. Paul’ s Epistles and Acts (especially chapter Acts 19) throw light on Paul’ s argument. He was never out of danger from Damascus to the last visit to Rome. There are perils in Ephesus of which we do not know (2Co 1:8.) whatever may be true as to an Ephesian imprisonment. G. S. Duncan ( St. Paul’ s Ephesian Ministry , 1930) even argues for several imprisonments in Ephesus. The accusative of time (pasan hōran ) naturally means all through every hour (extension).

Robertson: 1Co 15:31

I protest by that glorying in you ( nē tēn humeteran kauchēsin ).

No word for "I protest."Paul takes solemn oath by the use of nē (common in Attic) with the accusative. Only here in N.T., but in lxx (Genesis 42:15f.). For other solemn oaths by Paul see 2Co 1:18; 2Co 1:23; 2Co 11:10.; 2Co 11:31; Rom 9:1. For kauchēsis see note on 1Th 2:19. The possessive pronoun (humeteran ) is objective as emēn in 1Co 11:24.

Robertson: 1Co 15:31

I die daily ( kath' hēmeran apothnēskō ).

I am in daily peril of death (2Co 4:11; 2Co 11:23; Rom 8:36).

Robertson: 1Co 15:32

After the manner of men ( kata anthrōpon ).

Like men, for applause, money, etc. (1Co 4:9.; Phi 3:7).

Robertson: 1Co 15:32

If I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus ( ei ethēriomachēsa en Ephesōi ).

Late verb from thēriomachos , a fighter with wild beasts. Found in inscriptions and in Ignatius. Those who argue for an Ephesian imprisonment for Paul and Ephesus as the place where he wrote the imprisonment epistles (see Duncan’ s book just mentioned) take the verb literally. There is in the ruins of Ephesus now a place called St. Paul’ s Prison. But Paul was a Roman citizen and it was unlawful to make such a one be a thēriomachos . If he were cast to the lions unlawfully, he could have prevented it by claiming his citizenship. Besides, shortly after this Paul wrote II Corinthians, but he does not mention so unusual a peril in the list in 2Co 11:23. The incident, whatever it was, whether literal or figurative language, took place before Paul wrote I Corinthians.

Robertson: 1Co 15:32

What doth it profit me? ( ti moi to opheloṡ ).

What the profit to me?

Robertson: 1Co 15:32

Let us eat and drink ( phagōmen kai piōmen ).

Volitive second aorist subjunctives of esthiō and pinō . Cited from Isa 22:13. It is the outcry of the people of Jerusalem during the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. At Anchiale near Tarsus is a statue of Sardanapalus with the inscription: "Eat, drink, enjoy thyself. The rest is nothing."This was the motto of the Epicureans. Paul is not giving his own view, but that of people who deny the resurrection.

Robertson: 1Co 15:33

Be not deceived ( mē planāsthe ).

Do not be led astray (planaō ) by such a false philosophy of life.

Robertson: 1Co 15:33

Evil company ( homiliai kakai ).

Evil companionships. Old word, homilia , from homilos (a crowd, gang, bunch). Only here in N.T. Good manners (ēthē ). Old word (kin to ethos ) custom, usage, morals. Good morals here. This line of poetry (iambic) occurs in Menander. It may be a current proverb. Paul could have gotten it from either source.

Robertson: 1Co 15:34

Awake up righteously ( eknēpsate dikaiōs ).

Wake up as if from drunkenness. Eknēphō , only here in N.T. sin not (mē hamartanete ). Stop sinning.

Robertson: 1Co 15:34

No knowledge of God ( agnōsian theou ).

Old word for ignorance, in N.T. only here and 1Pe 2:15. Ignorance of God, agnosticism. Some today (agnostics) even take pride in it instead of shame (entropēn , turning in on oneself). See note on 1Co 6:5 for entropē .

Robertson: 1Co 15:35

But some one will say ( alla erei tis ).

Paul knows what the sceptics were saying. He is a master at putting the standpoint of the imaginary adversary.

Robertson: 1Co 15:35

How ( pōs ).

This is still the great objection to the resurrection of our bodies. Granted that Jesus rose from the dead, for the sake of argument, these sceptics refuse to believe in the possibility of our resurrection. It is the attitude of Matthew Arnold who said, "Miracles do not happen."Scientifically we know the "how"of few things. Paul has an astounding answer to this objection. Death itself is the way of resurrection as in the death of the seed for the new plant (1Co 15:36.).

Robertson: 1Co 15:35

With what manner of body ( poiōi sōmati ).

This is the second question which makes plainer the difficulty of the first. The first body perishes. Will that body be raised? Paul treats this problem more at length (verses 38-54) and by analogy of nature (Cf. Butler’ s famous Analogy ). It is a spiritual, not a natural, body that is raised. Sōma here is an organism.

Robertson: 1Co 15:35

Flesh ( sarx )

is the sōma for the natural man, but there is spiritual (pneumatikon ) sōma for the resurrection.

Robertson: 1Co 15:36

Thou foolish one ( aphrōn ).

Old word (a privative, phrēn ), lack of sense. It is a severe term and justified by the implication "that the objector plumes himself on his acuteness"(Robertson and Plummer). Proleptic position of su (thou) sharpens the point. Sceptics (agnostics) pose as unusually intellectual (the intelligentsia), but the pose does not make one intelligent.

Robertson: 1Co 15:36

Except it die ( ean mē apothanēi ).

Condition of third class, possibility assumed. This is the answer to the "how"question. In plant life death precedes life, death of the seed and then the new plant.

Robertson: 1Co 15:37

Not the body which shall be ( ou to sōma to genēsomenon ).

Articular future participle of ginomai , literally, "not the body that will become."The new body (sōma ) is not yet in existence, but only the seed (kokkos , grain, old word, as in Mat 13:31).

Robertson: 1Co 15:37

It may chance ( ei tuchoi ).

Fourth class condition as in 1Co 14:10 which see. Paul is rich in metaphors here, though usually not so (Howson, Metaphors of St. Paul ). Paul was a city man. We sow seeds, not plants (bodies). The butterfly comes out of the dying worm.

Robertson: 1Co 15:38

A body of its own ( idion sōma ).

Even under the microscope the life cells or germ plasm may seem almost identical, but the plant is quite distinct. On sperma , seed, old word from speirō , to sow, see Mat 13:24.

Robertson: 1Co 15:39

The same flesh ( hē autē sarx ).

Paul takes up animal life to show the great variety there is as in the plant kingdom. Even if evolution should prove to be true, Paul’ s argument remains valid. Variety exists along with kinship. Progress is shown in the different kingdoms, progress that even argues for a spiritual body after the body of flesh is lost.

Robertson: 1Co 15:39

Of beasts ( ktēnōn ).

Old word, from ktaomai , to possess, and so property. See note on Luk 10:34.

Robertson: 1Co 15:39

Of birds ( ptēnōn ).

Old word from petomai , to fly, winged, flying. Only here in N.T.

Robertson: 1Co 15:40

Celestial ( epourania ).

Old word, from epi , upon, ouranos , heaven, existing in heaven. Paul now rises higher in the range of his argument, above the merely terrestrial (epigeia , upon earth, epi , ge ) bodies. He has shown differences in the bodies here on earth in plants and in the animal kingdom and now he indicates like differences to be seen in the heavens above us.

Robertson: 1Co 15:40

Is one ( hetera men )

- is another (hetera de ). Antithesis that admits glory for bodies on earth and bodies in the heavens. Experience does not argue against a glory for the spiritual body (Phi 3:21).

Robertson: 1Co 15:41

For one star differeth from another star in glory ( astēr gar asteros diapherei en doxēi ).

A beautiful illustration of Paul’ s point. Asteros is the ablative case after diapherei (old verb diapherō , Latin differo , our differ , bear apart). On astēr see Mat 2:7 and on astron see Luk 21:25. Stars differ in magnitude and brilliancy. The telescope has added more force to Paul’ s argument.

Robertson: 1Co 15:41

In glory ( en doxēi ).

Old word from dokeō , to think, to seem. So opinion, estimate, then the shekinah glory of God in the lxx, glory in general. It is one of the great words of the N.T. Jesus is termed the glory in Jam 2:1.

Robertson: 1Co 15:42

So is the resurrection of the dead ( houtōs kai hē anastasis tōn nekrōn ).

Paul now applies his illustrations to his argument to prove the kind of body we shall have after the resurrection. He does it by a series of marvellous contrasts that gather all his points. The earthly and the risen beings differ in duration, value, power (Wendt).

Robertson: 1Co 15:42

It is sown ( speiretai ).

In death, like the seed (1Co 15:37).

Robertson: 1Co 15:42

In incorruption ( en aphtharsiāi ).

Late word from a privative and phtheirō , to corrupt. In lxx, Plutarch, Philo, late papyrus of a Gnostic gospel, and quotation from Epicurus. Vulgate incorruptio . The resurrection body has undergone a complete change as compared with the body of flesh like the plant from the seed. It is related to it, but it is a different body of glory.

Robertson: 1Co 15:43

In weakness ( en astheneiāi ).

Lack of strength as shown in the victory of death.

Robertson: 1Co 15:43

In power ( en dunamei ).

Death can never conquer this new body, "conformed to the body of His glory"(Phi 3:21).

Robertson: 1Co 15:44

A natural body ( sōma psuchikon ).

See note on 1Co 2:14 for this word, a difficult one to translate since psuchē has so many meanings. Natural is probably as good a rendering as can be made, but it is not adequate, for the body here is not all psuchē either as soul or life. The same difficulty exists as to a spiritual body (sōma pneumatikon ). The resurrection body is not wholly pneuma . Caution is needed here in filling out details concerning the psuchē and the pneuma . But certainly he means to say that the "spiritual body"has some kind of germinal connection with the "natural body,"though the development is glorious beyond our comprehension though not beyond the power of Christ to perform (Phi 3:21). The force of the argument remains unimpaired though we cannot follow fully into the thought beyond us.

Robertson: 1Co 15:44

If there is ( ei estin ).

"If there exists"(estin means this with accent on first syllable), a condition of first class assumed as true.

Robertson: 1Co 15:44

There is also ( estin kai ).

There exists also.

Robertson: 1Co 15:45

Became a living soul ( egeneto eis psuchēn zōsan ).

Hebraistic use of eis in predicate from lxx. God breathed a soul (psuchē ) into "the first man."

Robertson: 1Co 15:45

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit ( ho eschatos Adam eis pneuma zōopoioun ).

Supply egeneto (became). Christ is the crown of humanity and has power to give us the new body. In Rom 5:12-19 Paul calls Christ the Second Adam.

Robertson: 1Co 15:46

Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ( all' ou prōton to pneumatikon , alla to psuchikon ).

Literally, "But not first the spiritual, but the natural."This is the law of growth always.

Robertson: 1Co 15:47

Earthly ( cho‹kos ).

Late rare word, from chous , dust.

Robertson: 1Co 15:47

The second man from heaven ( ho deuteros anthrōpos ex ouranou ).

Christ had a human (psuchikon ) body, of course, but Paul makes the contrast between the first man in his natural body and the Second Man in his risen body. Paul saw Jesus after his resurrection and he appeared to him "from heaven."He will come again from heaven.

Robertson: 1Co 15:48

As is the earthly ( hoios ho choikos ).

Masculine gender because of anthrōpos and correlative pronouns (hoios , toioutoi ) of character or quality. All men of dust (cho‹koi ) correspond to "the man of dust"(ho cho‹kos ), the first Adam.

Robertson: 1Co 15:48

As is the heavenly ( hoios ho epouranios ).

Christ in his ascended state (1Th 4:16; 2Th 1:7; Eph 2:6, Eph 2:20; Phi 3:20.).

Robertson: 1Co 15:49

We shall also bear ( phoresomen kai ).

Old MSS. (so Westcott and Hort) read phoresōmen kai . Volitive aorist active subjunctive, Let us also bear. Ellicott strongly opposes the subjunctive. It may be merely the failure of scribes to distinguish between long o and short o. Paul hardly means to say that our attaining the resurrection body depends on our own efforts! A late frequentative form of pherō .

Robertson: 1Co 15:50

Cannot inherit ( klēronomēsai ou dunantai ).

Hence there must be a change by death from the natural body to the spiritual body. In the case of Christ this change was wrought in less than three days and even then the body of Jesus was in a transition state before the Ascension. He ate and could be handled and yet he passed through closed doors. Paul does not base his argument on the special circumstances connected with the risen body of Jesus.

Robertson: 1Co 15:51

A mystery ( mustērion ).

He does not claim that he has explained everything. He has drawn a broad parallel which opens the door of hope and confidence.

Robertson: 1Co 15:51

We shall not all sleep ( pantes ou koimēthēsometha ).

Future passive indicative of koimaomai , to sleep. Not all of us shall die, Paul means. Some people will be alive when he comes. Paul does not affirm that he or any then living will be alive when Jesus comes again. He simply groups all under the phrase "we all."

Robertson: 1Co 15:51

But we shall all be changed ( pantes de allagēsometha ).

Second future passive indicative of allassō . Both living and dead shall be changed and so receive the resurrection body. See this same idea at more length in 1Th 4:13-18.

Robertson: 1Co 15:52

In a moment ( en atomōi ).

Old word, from a privative and temnō , to cut, indivisible: Scientific word for atom which was considered indivisible, but that was before the day of electrons and protons. Only here in N.T.

Robertson: 1Co 15:52

In the twinkling of an eye ( en ripēi ophthalmou ).

Old word ripē from riptō , to throw. Only here in N.T. Used by the Greeks for the flapping of a wing, the buzz of a gnat, the quivering of a harp, the twinkling of a star.

Robertson: 1Co 15:52

At the last trump ( en tēi eschatēi salpiggi ).

Symbolical, of course. See 1Th 4:16; note on Mat 24:31.

Robertson: 1Co 15:53

Must put on ( dei endusasthai ).

Aorist (ingressive) middle infinitive, put on as a garment.

Robertson: 1Co 15:53

Immortality ( athanasian ).

Old word from athanatos , undying, and that from a privative and thnēskō , to die. In N.T. only here and 1Ti 6:16 where God is described as having immortality.

Robertson: 1Co 15:54

Shall have put on ( endusētai ).

First aorist middle subjunctive with hotan whenever, merely indefinite future, no futurum exactum , merely meaning, "whenever shall put on,"not "shall have put on."

Robertson: 1Co 15:54

Is swallowed up ( katepothē ).

First aorist passive indicative of katapinō , old verb to drink down, swallow down. Perfective use of katȧ where we say "up,""swallow up."Timeless use of the aorist tense. Paul changes the active voice katepien in Isa 25:8 to the passive. Death is no longer victory. Theodotion reads the Hebrew verb ( bulla , for billa ,) as passive like Paul. It is the "final overthrow of the king of Terrors"(Findlay) as shown in Heb 2:15.

Robertson: 1Co 15:55

Victory ( nikos ).

Late form of nikē .

Robertson: 1Co 15:55

O death ( thanate ).

Second instance. Here Paul changes Hades of the lxx for Hebrew Sheol (Hos 13:14) to death. Paul never uses Hades.

Robertson: 1Co 15:55

Thy sting ( sou to kentron ).

Old word from kentreō , to prick, as in Act 26:14. In Rev 9:10 of the sting of locusts, scorpions. The serpent death has lost his poison fangs.

Robertson: 1Co 15:56

The power of sin ( hē dunamis tēs hamartias ).

See Rom 4:15; Rom 5:20; Rom 6:14; Chapter 7; Gal 2:16; 3:1-5:4 for Paul’ s ideas here briefly expressed. In man’ s unrenewed state he cannot obey God’ s holy law.

Robertson: 1Co 15:57

But thanks be to God ( tōi de theōi charis ).

Exultant triumph through Christ over sin and death as in Rom 7:25.

Robertson: 1Co 15:58

Be ye steadfast, unmovable ( hedraioi ginesthe , ametakinētoi ).

"Keep on becoming steadfast, unshaken."Let the sceptics howl and rage. Paul has given rational grounds for faith and hope in Christ the Risen Lord and Saviour. Note practical turn to this great doctrinal argument.

Robertson: 1Co 15:58

Work ( ergon )

, labour (kopos , toil). The best answer to doubt is work.

Vincent: 1Co 15:27

When He saith ( ὅταν εἴπη )

God, speaking through the Psalmist (Psa 8:6). Some, however, give a future force to the verb, and render but when He shall have said ; i.e., when, at the end, God shall have said, " All things are put under Him. The subjection is accomplished." See Rev., margin.

Vincent: 1Co 15:29

What shall they do ( τί ποιήσουσιν )

What will they effect or accomplish. Not, What will they have recourse to? nor, How will it profit them? The reference is to the living who are baptized for the dead.

Vincent: 1Co 15:29

Baptized for the dead ( βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν )

Concerning this expression, of which some thirty different explanations are given, it is best to admit frankly that we lack the facts for a decisive interpretation. None of the explanations proposed are free from objection. Paul is evidently alluding to a usage familiar to his readers; and the term employed was, as Godet remarks, in their vocabulary, a sort of technical phrase. A large number of both ancient and modern commentators adopt the view that a living Christian was baptized for an unbaptized dead Christian. The Greek expositors regarded the words the dead as equivalent to the resurrection of the dead , and the baptism as a manifestation of belief in the doctrine of the resurrection. Godet adopts the explanation which refers baptism to martyrdom - the baptism of blood - and cites Luk 12:50, and Mar 10:38. In the absence of anything more satisfactory I adopt the explanation given above.

Vincent: 1Co 15:31

I protest, etc.

I protest is not expressed, but merely implied, in the particle of adjuration, νὴ by . The order of the Greek is noteworthy. I die daily , by your rejoicing , etc.

Vincent: 1Co 15:31

Your rejoicing ( τὴν ὑμέτεραν καύχησιν )

Rev., better, that glorying in you which I have . Paul would say: " You Corinthian Christians are the fruit of my apostolic labor which has been at a daily risk to life; and as truly as I can point to you as such fruit, so truly can I say, 'I die daily." '

Vincent: 1Co 15:31

I die daily

I am in constant peril of my life. Compare 2Co 4:11; 2Co 11:23; Rom 8:36. So Clytaemnestra: " I have no rest by night, nor can I snatch from the day a sweet moment of repose to enfold me; but Time, ever standing over me, was as a jailer who conducted me to death" (Sophocles, " Electra," 780, 781). And Philo: " And each day, nay, each hour, I die beforehand, enduring many deaths instead of one, the last."

Vincent: 1Co 15:32

After the manner of men ( κατὰ ἄνθρωπον )

As men ordinarily do, for temporal reward; and not under the influence of any higher principle or hope.

Vincent: 1Co 15:32

I have fought with beasts ( ἐθηριομάχησα )

Only here in the New Testament. Figuratively. Paul, as a Roman citizen, would not have been set to fight with beasts in the arena; and such an incident would not have been likely to be passed over by Luke in the Acts. Compare similar metaphors in 1Co 4:9, 2Ti 4:17; Tit 1:12; Psa 22:12, Psa 22:13, Psa 22:20, Psa 22:21. Some, however, think it is to be taken literally. They refer to the presence at Ephesus of the Asiarchs (Act 19:31), who had charge of the public games, as indicating that the tumult took place at the season of the celebration of the games in honor of Diana; to the fact that the young men at Ephesus were famous for their bull-fights; and to the words at Ephesus as indicating a particular incident. On the assumption that he speaks figuratively, the natural reference is to his experience with the ferocious mob at Ephesus. There was a legend that Paul was thrown, first of all, to a lion; then to other beasts, but was left untouched by them all. In the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans occur these words: " From Syria even unto Rome, I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both night and day, being bound to ten leopards. I mean a band of soldiers, who, even when they receive benefits, show themselves all the worse" (5). Compare Epistle to Tralles, 10: " Why do I pray that I may fight with wild beasts?" So in the Epistle to Smyrna he says: " I would put you on your guard against these monsters in human shape " (θηρίων τῶν ἀνθρωπομόρφων ); and in the Antiochene " Acts of Martyrdom" it is said: " He (Ignatius) was seized by a beastly soldiery, to be led away to Rome as a prey for carnivorous beasts" (ii.).

Vincent: 1Co 15:32

Let us eat and drink, etc.

Cited, after the Septuagint, from Isa 22:13. It is the exclamation of the people of Jerusalem during the siege by the Assyrians. The traditional founder of Tarsus was Sardanapalus, who was worshipped, along with Semiramis, with licentious rites which resembled those of the Feast of Tabernacles. Paul had probably witnessed this festival, and had seen, at the neighboring town of Anchiale, the statue of Sardanapalus, represented as snapping his fingers, and with the inscription upon the pedestal, " Eat, drink, enjoy thyself. The rest is nothing." Farrar cites the fable of the Epicurean fly, dying in the honey-pot with the words, " I have eaten and drunk and bathed, and I care nothing if I die." Among the inscriptions from the catacombs, preserved in the Vatican are these: " To the divine shade of Titus, who lived fifty-seven years. Here he enjoys everything. Baths and wine ruin our constitutions, but they make life what it is. Farewell, farewell." " While I lived I lived well. My play is now ended - soon yours will be. Farewell and applaud me." Compare Wisdom of Solomon, 2:1-9.

Vincent: 1Co 15:33

Communications ( ὁμιλίαι )

Wrong. Lit., companionships . Rev., company .

Vincent: 1Co 15:33

Manners ( ἤθη )

Only here in the New Testament. Originally ἦθος means an accustomed seat or haunt ; thence custom , usage ; plural, manners , morals , character . The passage, " Evil company doth corrupt good manners," is an iambic line; either the repetition of a current proverb, or a citation of the same proverb from the poet Menander. Compare Aeschylus: " Alas for the ill-luck in mortals that brings this honest man into company with those who have less regard for religion. In every matter, indeed, nothing is worse than evil-fellowship" (ὁμιλίας ) (" Seven against Thebes," 593-595).

Vincent: 1Co 15:34

Awake ( ἐκνήψατε )

Only here in the New Testament. It means to awake from a drunken stupor. Compare Joe 1:5, Sept. The kindred verb ἀνανήφω return to soberness (A.V. and Rev., recover ), occurs at 2Ti 2:26.

Vincent: 1Co 15:34

Have not the knowledge ( ἀγνωσίαν ἔχουσιν )

Lit., have an ignorance . Stronger than ἀγνοεῖν to be ignorant . They have and hold it. For the form of expression, see on have sorrow , Joh 16:29. The word for ignorance is found only here and 1Pe 2:15 (see note).

Vincent: 1Co 15:35

How - with what ( πῶς - ποίῳ )

Rev., correctly, with what manner of . There are two questions: the first as to the manner, the second as to the form in which resurrection is to take place. The answer to the first, How , etc., is, the body is raised through death (1Co 15:36); to the second, with what kind of a body , the answer, expanded throughout nearly the whole chapter, is, a spiritual body .

Vincent: 1Co 15:35

Body ( σώματι )

Organism. The objection assumes that the risen man must exist in some kind of an organism; and as this cannot be the fleshly body which is corrupted and dissolved, resurrection is impossible. Σῶμα body is related to σάρξ flesh , as general to special; σῶμα denoting the material organism, not apart from any matter, but apart from any definite matter; and σάρξ the definite earthly, animal organism. See on Rom 6:6. The question is not, what will be the substance of the risen body, but what will be its organization (Wendt)?

Vincent: 1Co 15:36

Thou sowest ( σὺ οπείρεις )

Thou is emphatic. Every time thou sowest, thou sowest something which is quickened only through dying. Paul is not partial to metaphors from nature, and his references of this character are mostly to nature in connection with human labor. Dean Howson says: " We find more of this kind of illustration in the one short epistle of St. James than in all the writings of St. Paul" (" Metaphors of St. Paul." Compare Farrar's " Paul," i., 20, 21).

Vincent: 1Co 15:36

Die

Become corrupted. Applied to the seed in order to keep up the analogy with the body.

Vincent: 1Co 15:37

Not that body that shall be

Or, more literally, that shall come to pass . Meeting the objector's assumption that either the raised body must be the same body, or that there could be no resurrection. Paul says: " What you sow is one body, and a different body arises;" yet the identity is preserved. Dissolution is not loss of identity. The full heads of wheat are different from the wheat-grain, yet both are wheat. Clement of Rome, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, arguing for the resurrection of the body, cites in illustration the fable of the phoenix, the Arabian bird, the only one of its kind, and which lives for a hundred years. When the time of its death draws near it builds itself a nest of frankincense, myrrh, and other spices, and entering it, dies. In the decay of its flesh a worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has acquired strength, it takes up the nest with the bones of its parent and bears them to Heliopolis in Egypt.

Vincent: 1Co 15:37

Bare ( γυμνὸν )

Naked. The mere seed, without the later investiture of stalk and head.

Vincent: 1Co 15:37

It may chance ( εἰ τύχοι )

Lit., if it happen to be : i.e., whatever grain you may chance to sow.

Vincent: 1Co 15:38

As it hath pleased ( καθὼς ἠθέλησεν )

Lit., even as He willed ; at the creation, when He fixed the different types of grain, so that each should permanently assume a form according to its distinctive type - a body of its own : that wheat should always be wheat, barley barley, etc. Compare Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12.

Vincent: 1Co 15:39

All flesh is not the same flesh

Still arguing that it is conceivable that the resurrection-body should be organized differently from the earthly body, and in a way which cannot be inferred from the shape of the earthly body. There is a great variety of organization among bodies which we know: it may fairly be inferred that there may be a new and different organization in those which we do not know. Flesh is the body of the earthly, living being, including the bodily form. See on Rom 7:5, sec. 3.

Vincent: 1Co 15:40

Celestial bodies ( σώματα ἐπουράνια )

Not angels. For the meaning of σώματα bodies is not limited to animate beings (see 1Co 15:37, 1Co 15:38), and " the scoffers who refused to believe in the existence of the future body would hardly have admitted the existence of angelic bodies. To convince them on their own ground, the apostle appeals exclusively to what is seen" (Godet). The sense is, the heavenly bodies , described more specifically in 1Co 15:41.

Vincent: 1Co 15:40

Bodies terrestrial ( σώματα ἐπίγεια )

Looking back to 1Co 15:39, and grouping men, beasts, birds, fishes under this term. It is to be observed that the apostle makes two general categories - terrestrial and celestial bodies, and shows the distinctions of organization subsisting between the members of each - men, beasts, fishes, birds, and the sun, moon, stars; and that he also shows the distinction between the two categories regarded as wholes. " The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is different."

Vincent: 1Co 15:41

Glory ( δόξα )

Lustre; beauty of form and color.

" As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue

The one revolveth, through his course immense

Might love his fellow of the damask hue,

For like and difference."

" - the triple whirl

Of blue and red and argent worlds that mount

.....

Or float across the tube that Herschel sways,

Like pale-rose chaplets, or like sapp'hire mist,

Or hang or droop along the heavenly ways,

Like scarves of amethyst."

Jean Ingelow , " Honors ."

Herodotus, describing the Median city of Agbatana, says that it is surrounded by seven walls rising in circles, one within the other, and having their battlements of different colors - white, black, scarlet, blue, orange, silver, and gold. These seven colors were those employed by the Orientals to denote the seven great heavenly bodies: Saturn black, Jupiter orange, Mars scarlet, the sun gold, Mercury blue, the Moon green or silver, and Venus white. The great temple of Nebuchadnezzar at Borsippa was built in seven platforms colored in a similar way. See the beautiful description of the Astrologer's Chamber in Schiller's " Wallenstein," Part I., act ii., sc. 4. There is no allusion to the different degrees of glory among the risen saints.

Vincent: 1Co 15:42

So also

Having argued that newness of organization is no argument against its possibility, Paul now shows that the substantial diversity of organism between the earthly and the new man is founded in a diversity of the whole nature in the state before and in the state after the resurrection. Earthly beings are distinguished from the risen as to duration , value , power , and a natural as distinguished from a spiritual body.

Vincent: 1Co 15:42

It is sown

Referring to the interment of the body, as is clear from 1Co 15:36, 1Co 15:37.

Vincent: 1Co 15:43

Weakness

Compare Homer: " The feeble hands of the dead" (" Odyssey," v., 21); and the shade of Agamemnon stretching out his hands to Ulysses, " for no firm force or vigor was in him" (Id., xi., 393). See Isa 14:10.

Vincent: 1Co 15:44

A natural body ( σώμα ψυχικόν )

See on 1Co 2:14. The word ψυχικόν natural occurs only twice outside this epistle; Jam 3:15; Jud 1:19. The expression natural body signifies an organism animated by a ψυχή soul (see on Rom 11:4); that phase of the immaterial principle in man which is more nearly allied to the σάρξ flesh , and which characterizes the man as a mortal creature; while πνεῦμα spirit is that phase which looks Godward, and characterizes him as related to God. " It is a brief designation for the whole compass of the non-corporeal side of the earthly man" (Wendt). " In the earthly body the ψυχή soul, not the πνεῦμα spirit is that which conditions its constitution and its qualities, so that it is framed as the organ of the ψυχή . In the resurrection-body the πνεῦμα spirit , for whose life-activity it is the adequate organ, conditions its nature" (Meyer). Compare Plato: " The soul has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing; when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and is the ruler of the universe; while the imperfect soul loses her feathers, and drooping in her flight, at last settles on the solid ground - there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, not having seen nor surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal creature having a body, and having also a soul which are united throughout all time" (" Phaedrus," 246).

Vincent: 1Co 15:44

Spiritual body ( σώμα πνευματικόν )

A body in which a divine πνεῦμα spirit supersedes the ψυχή soul , so that the resurrection-body is the fitting organ for its indwelling and work, and so is properly characterized as a spiritual body .

" When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh

Is reassumed, then shall our persons be

More pleasing by their being all complete;

For will increase whate'er bestows on us

Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme,

Light which enables us to look on Him;

Therefore the vision must perforce increase,

Increase the ardor which from that is kindled,

Increase the radiance from which this proceeds.

But even as a coal that sends forth flame,

And by its vivid whiteness overpowers it

So that its own appearance it maintains,

Thus the effulgence that surrounds us now

Shall be o'erpowered in aspect by the flesh,

Which still to-day the earth doth cover up;

Nor can so great a splendor weary us,

For strong will be the organs of the body

To everything which hath the power to please us."

" Paradiso ," xiv ., 43-60 .

Vincent: 1Co 15:44

There is

The best texts insert if . If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. The existence of the one forms a logical presumption for the existence of the other.

Vincent: 1Co 15:45

A living soul ( ψυχὴν ζῶσαν )

See Gen 2:7. Here ψυχή passes into its personal sense - an individual personality (see Rom 11:4), yet retaining the emphatic reference to the ψυχή as the distinctive principle of that individuality in contrast with the πνεῦμα spirit following. Hence this fact illustrates the general statement there is a natural body : such was Adam's, the receptacle and organ of the ψυχή soul .

Vincent: 1Co 15:45

Last Adam

Christ. Put over against Adam because of the peculiar relation in which both stand to the race: Adam as the physical, Christ as the spiritual head. Adam the head of the race in its sin, Christ in its redemption. Compare Rom 5:14.

Vincent: 1Co 15:45

Quickening spirit ( πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν )

Rev., life-giving . Not merely living , but imparting life. Compare Joh 1:4; Joh 3:36; Joh 5:26, Joh 5:40; Joh 6:33, Joh 6:35; Joh 10:10; Joh 11:25; Joh 14:6. The period at which Christ became a quickening Spirit is the resurrection, after which His body began to take on the characteristics of a spiritual body. See Rom 6:4; 1Pe 1:21.

Vincent: 1Co 15:46

Not first - spiritual - natural

A general principle, illustrated everywhere in human history, that the lower life precedes the higher.

Vincent: 1Co 15:47

Earthy ( χοΐ́κός )

Only in this chapter. The kindred noun χοῦς dust appears Mar 6:11; Rev 18:19. From χέω to pour ; hence of earth thrown down or heaped up: loose earth. Compare Gen 2:7, Sept., where the word is used.

Vincent: 1Co 15:47

From heaven ( ἐζ οὐρανοῦ )

Ἑξ out of , marking the origin, as ἐκ γῆς out of the earth . Meyer acutely remarks that " no predicate in this second clause corresponds to the earthy of the first half of the verse, because the material of the glorified body of Christ transcends alike conception and expression." The phrase includes both the divine origin and the heavenly nature; and its reference, determined by the line of the whole argument, is to the glorified body of Christ - the Lord who shall descend from heaven in His glorified body. See Phi 3:20, Phi 3:21.

Vincent: 1Co 15:49

We shall bear ( φαορέσομεν )

The great weight of authority is in favor of φορέσωμεν let us bear . This reading presents a similar difficulty to that of let us have in Rom 5:1 (see note). The context and the general drift of the argument are certainly against it. The perceptive or hortative subjunctive is, as Ellicott remarks, singularly out of place and unlooked for. It may possibly be a case of itacism , i.e., the confusing of one vowel with another in pronunciation leading to a loose mode of orthography.

Vincent: 1Co 15:51

We shall not all sleep ( πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα )

Not, there is not one of us now living who shall die before the Lord's coming, but, we shall not all die. There will be some of us Christians living when the Lord comes, but we shall be changed. The other rendering would commit the apostle to the extent of believing that not one Christian would die before the coming of Christ.

Vincent: 1Co 15:52

Moment ( ἀτόμῳ )

Only here in the New Testament. Atomos , from ἀ not and τέμνω to cut , whence our atom . An undivided point of time. The same idea of indivisibility appears in ἀκαρής (not in the New Testament), from ἀ not and κείρω to shear ; primarily of hair too short to be cut, and often used in classical Greek of time, as in the phrase ἐν ἀκαρεῖ χρονοῦ in a moment of time .

Vincent: 1Co 15:52

Twinkling ( ῥιπῇ )

Only here in the New Testament. Originally the swing or force with which a thing is thrown; a stroke or beat . Used in the classics of the rush of a storm, the flapping of wings; the buzz of a gnat; the quivering of a harpstring; the twinkling of the stars. Generally of any rapid movement, as of the feet in running, or the quick darting of a fish.

Vincent: 1Co 15:53

This corruptible

As if pointing to his own body. Compare these hands , Act 20:34; this tabernacle , 2Co 5:1.

Vincent: 1Co 15:53

Put on ( ἐνδύσασθαι )

The metaphor of clothing. Compare 2Co 5:2-4. Incorruption and immortality are to invest the spiritually-embodied personality like a garment.

Vincent: 1Co 15:54

Is swallowed up ( κατεπόθη )

From Isa 25:8. The quotation agrees with the Hebrew: He shall swallow up death forever , rather than with the Septuagint, Death has prevailed and swallowed men up , which reverses the meaning of the Hebrew. Compare 2Co 5:4.

Vincent: 1Co 15:54

In victory ( εἰς νῖκος )

Lit., unto victory, so that victory is to be established.

Vincent: 1Co 15:55

O death, where, etc.

From Hos 13:14, a free version of the Sept.: " Where is thy penalty , O Death? Where thy sting , O Hades? Heb.: Where are thy plagues , O Death? Where thy pestilence , O Sheol?

Vincent: 1Co 15:55

O grave ( ἅδη )

Which is the reading of the Septuagint. The correct reading is θάνατε O death . So Rev. Hades does not occur in Paul's writings. In Rom 10:7 he uses abyss . Edwards thinks that this is intentional, and suggests that Paul, writing to Greeks, may have shunned the ill-omened name which people dreaded to utter. So Plato: " People in general use the word ( Pluto ) as a euphemism for Hades , which their fears lead them to derive erroneously from ἀειδής the invisible " (" Cratylus," 403).

Vincent: 1Co 15:55

Sting ( κέντρον )

In the Septuagint for the Hebrew pestilence . See on Rev 9:9. The image is that of a beast with a sting; not death with a goad , driving men.

Vincent: 1Co 15:57

Giveth

The present participle marking the certainty of the future victory. Contrast Sir Walter Raleigh's words in concluding his " History of the World." " It is therefore Death alone that can make any man suddenly know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar - a naked beggar - which hath interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness; and they acknowledge it.

" O eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man; and covered it all over with these two narrow words: Hic Jacet."

Vincent: 1Co 15:58

Steadfast, unmovable

The former refers to their firm establishment in the faith; the latter to that establishment as related to assault from temptation or persecution. Fixedness is a condition of abounding in work . All activity has its center in rest.

Wesley: 1Co 15:25

Because so it is written.

Wesley: 1Co 15:25

the Father hath put all his enemies under his feet. Psa 110:1.

Wesley: 1Co 15:26

Namely, after Satan, Heb 2:14, and sin, 1Co 15:56, are destroyed. In the same order they prevailed. Satan brought in sin, and sin brought forth death. And Christ, when he of old engaged with these enemies, first conquered Satan, then sin, in his death; and, lastly, death, in his resurrection. In the same order he delivers all the faithful from them, yea, and destroys these enemies themselves. Death he so destroys that it shall be no more; sin and Satan, so that they shall no more hurt his people.

Wesley: 1Co 15:27

Under the Son. Psa 8:6-7

Wesley: 1Co 15:28

Shall deliver up the mediatorial kingdom.

Wesley: 1Co 15:28

one God may be all in all - All things, (consequently all persons,) without any interruption, without the intervention of any creature, without the opposition of any enemy, shall be subordinate to God. All shall say, "My God, and my all." This is the end. Even an inspired apostle can see nothing beyond this.

Wesley: 1Co 15:29

Perhaps baptized in hope of blessings to be received after they are numbered with the dead. Or, "baptized in the room of the dead" - Of them that are just fallen in the cause of Christ: like soldiers who advance in the room of their companions that fell just before their face.

Wesley: 1Co 15:30

The apostles.

Wesley: 1Co 15:30

It is plain we can expect no amends in this life.

Wesley: 1Co 15:31

Which love makes my own.

Wesley: 1Co 15:31

I am daily in the very jaws of death. Beside that I live, as it were, in a daily martyrdom.

Wesley: 1Co 15:32

That is, to use a proverbial phrase, expressive of the most imminent danger

Wesley: 1Co 15:32

With the savage fury of a lawless multitude, Act 19:29, &c. This seems to have been but just before.

Wesley: 1Co 15:32

We might, on that supposition, as well say, with the Epicureans, Let us make the best of this short life, seeing we have no other portion.

Wesley: 1Co 15:33

By such pernicious counsels as this.

Wesley: 1Co 15:33

He opposes to the Epicurean saying, a well-known verse of the poet Menander.

Wesley: 1Co 15:33

Discourse contrary to faith, hope, or love, naturally tends to destroy all holiness.

Wesley: 1Co 15:34

An exclamation full of apostolical majesty.

Wesley: 1Co 15:34

Which flows from the true knowledge of God, and implies that your whole soul be broad awake.

Wesley: 1Co 15:34

That is, and ye will not sin Sin supposes drowsiness of soul. There is need to press this.

Wesley: 1Co 15:34

With all their boasted knowledge, they are totally ignorant of what it most concerns them to know.

Wesley: 1Co 15:34

For nothing is more shameful, than sleepy ignorance of God, and of the word and works of God; in these especially, considering the advantages they had enjoyed.

Wesley: 1Co 15:35

But some one possibly will say, How are the dead raised up, after their whole frame is dissolved? And with what kind of bodies do they come again, after these are mouldered into dust?

Wesley: 1Co 15:36

To the inquiry concerning the manner of rising, and the quality of the bodies that rise, the Apostle answers first by a similitude, 1Co 15:36-42, and then plainly and directly, 1Co 15:42-43. That which thou sowest, is not quickened into new life and verdure, except it die - Undergo a dissolution of its parts, a change analogous to death. Thus St. Paul inverts the objection; as if he had said, Death is so far from hindering life, that it necessarily goes before it.

Wesley: 1Co 15:37

Produced from the seed committed to the ground, but a bare, naked grain, widely different from that which will afterward rise out of the earth.

Wesley: 1Co 15:38

Not thou, O man, not the grain itself, giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, from the time he distinguished the various Species of beings; and to each of the seeds, not only of the fruits, but animals also, (to which the Apostle rises in the following verse,) its own body; not only peculiar to that species, but proper to that individual, and arising out of the substance of that very grain.

Wesley: 1Co 15:39

As if he had said, Even earthy bodies differ from earthy, and heavenly bodies from heavenly. What wonder then, if heavenly bodies differ from earthy? or the bodies which rise from those that lay in the grave?

Wesley: 1Co 15:40

As the sun, moon, and stars; and there are earthy - as vegetables and animals. But the brightest lustre which the latter can have is widely different from that of the former.

Wesley: 1Co 15:41

Yea, and the heavenly bodies themselves differ from each other.

Wesley: 1Co 15:42

So great is the difference between the body which fell, and that which rises.

Wesley: 1Co 15:42

A beautiful word; committed, as seed, to the ground.

Wesley: 1Co 15:42

Just ready to putrefy, and, by various degrees of corruption and decay, to return to the dust from whence it came.

Wesley: 1Co 15:42

Utterly incapable of either dissolution or decay.

Wesley: 1Co 15:43

Shocking to those who loved it best, human nature in disgrace! It is raised in glory - Clothed with robes of light, fit for those whom the King of heaven delights to honour.

Wesley: 1Co 15:43

Deprived even of that feeble strength which it once enjoyed.

Wesley: 1Co 15:43

Endued with vigour, strength, and activity, such as we cannot now conceive.

Wesley: 1Co 15:44

Maintained by food, sleep, and air, like the bodies of brutes: but it is raised of a more refined contexture, needing none of these animal refreshments, and endued with qualities of a spiritual nature, like the angels of God.

Wesley: 1Co 15:45

God gave him such life as other animals enjoy: but the last Adam, Christ, is a quickening spirit - As he hath life in himself, so he quickeneth whom he will; giving a more refined life to their very bodies at the resurrection. Gen 2:7

Wesley: 1Co 15:47

The first man, being from the earth, is subject to corruption and dissolution, like the earth from which he came.

Wesley: 1Co 15:47

St. Paul could not so well say, "Is from heaven, heavenly:" because, though man owes it to the earth that he is earthy, yet the Lord does not owe his glory to heaven. He himself made the heavens, and by descending from thence showed himself to us as the Lord. Christ was not the second man in order of time; but in this respect, that as Adam was a public person, who acted in the stead of all mankind, so was Christ. As Adam was the first general representative of men, Christ was the second and the last. And what they severally did, terminated not in themselves, but affected all whom they represented.

Wesley: 1Co 15:48

Who continue without any higher principle.

Wesley: 1Co 15:48

Who receive a divine principle from heaven.

Wesley: 1Co 15:49

Holiness and glory.

Wesley: 1Co 15:50

But first we must be entirely changed; for such flesh and blood as we are clothed with now, cannot enter into that kingdom which is wholly spiritual: neither doth this corruptible body inherit that incorruptible kingdom.

Wesley: 1Co 15:51

A truth hitherto unknown; and not yet fully known to any of the sons of men.

Wesley: 1Co 15:51

Christians. The Apostle considers them all as one, in their succeeding generations.

Wesley: 1Co 15:51

Suffer a separation of soul and body.

Wesley: 1Co 15:51

Who do not die, be changed - So that this animal body shall become spiritual.

Wesley: 1Co 15:52

Amazing work of omnipotence! And cannot the same power now change us into saints in a moment? The trumpet shall sound - To awaken all that sleep in the dust of the earth.

Wesley: 1Co 15:54

That is, totally conquered, abolished for ever.

Wesley: 1Co 15:55

Which once was full of hellish poison. O hades, the receptacle of separate souls, where is thy victory - Thou art now robbed of all thy spoils; all thy captives are set at liberty. Hades literally means the invisible world, and relates to the soul; death, to the body. The Greek words are found in the Septuagint translation of Hos 13:14. Isa 25:8

Wesley: 1Co 15:56

Without which it could have no power. But this sting none can resist by his own strength.

Wesley: 1Co 15:56

As is largely declared, Rom 7:7, &c.

Wesley: 1Co 15:57

Over sin, death, and hades.

Wesley: 1Co 15:58

In yourselves.

Wesley: 1Co 15:58

By others; continually increasing in the work of faith and labour of love.

Wesley: 1Co 15:58

Whatever ye do for his sake shall have its full reward in that day. Let us also endeavour, by cultivating holiness in all its branches, to maintain this hope in its full energy; longing for that glorious day, when, in the utmost extent of the expression, death shall be swallowed up for ever, and millions of voices, after the long silence of the grave, shall burst out at once into that triumphant song, O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?

JFB: 1Co 15:25

Because Scripture foretells it.

JFB: 1Co 15:25

There will be no further need of His mediatorial kingdom, its object having been realized.

JFB: 1Co 15:25

(Luk 19:27; Eph 1:22).

JFB: 1Co 15:26

Greek, "is done away with" (Rev 20:14; compare Rev 1:18). It is to believers especially this applies (1Co 15:55-57); even in the case of unbelievers, death is done away with by the general resurrection. Satan brought in sin, and sin brought in death! So they shall be destroyed (rendered utterly powerless) in the same order (1Co 15:56; Heb 2:14; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:10, Rev 20:14).

JFB: 1Co 15:27

Including death (compare Eph 1:22; Phi 3:21; Heb 2:8; 1Pe 3:22). It is said, "hath put," for what God has said is the same as if it were already done, so sure is it. Paul here quotes Psa 8:6 in proof of his previous declaration, "For (it is written), 'He hath put all things under His feet.'"

JFB: 1Co 15:27

As His footstool (Psa 110:1). In perfect and lasting subjection.

JFB: 1Co 15:27

Namely, God, who by His Spirit inspired the Psalmist.

JFB: 1Co 15:28

Not as the creatures are, but as a Son voluntarily subordinate to, though co-equal with, the Father. In the mediatorial kingdom, the Son had been, in a manner, distinct from the Father. Now, His kingdom shall merge in the Father's, with whom He is one; not that there is thus any derogation from His honor; for the Father Himself wills "that all should honor the Son, as they honor the Father" (Joh 5:22-23; Heb 1:6).

JFB: 1Co 15:28

As Christ is all in all (Col 3:11; compare Zec 14:9). Then, and not till then, "all things," without the least infringement of the divine prerogative, shall be subject to the Son, and the Son subordinate to the Father, while co-equally sharing His glory. Contrast Psa 10:4; Psa 14:1. Even the saints do not fully realize God as their "all" (Psa 73:25) now, through desiring it; then each shall feel, God is all to me.

JFB: 1Co 15:29

If there be no resurrection.

JFB: 1Co 15:29

How wretched is their lot!

JFB: 1Co 15:29

Third person; a class distinct from that in which the apostle places himself, "we" (1Co 15:30); first person. ALFORD thinks there is an allusion to a practice at Corinth of baptizing a living person in behalf of a friend who died unbaptized; thus Paul, without giving the least sanction to the practice, uses an ad hominem argument from it against its practicers, some of whom, though using it, denied the resurrection: "What account can they give of their practice; why are they at the trouble of it, if the dead rise not?" [So Jesus used an ad hominem argument, Mat 12:27]. But if so, it is strange there is no direct censure of it. Some Marcionites adopted the practice at a later period, probably from taking this passage, as ALFORD does; but, generally, it was unknown in the Church. BENGEL translates, "over (immediately upon) the dead," that is, who will be gathered to the dead immediately after baptism. Compare Job 17:1, "the graves are ready for me." The price they get for their trouble is, that they should be gathered to the dead for ever (1Co 15:13, 1Co 15:16). Many in the ancient Church put off baptism till near death. This seems the better view; though there may have been some rites of symbolical baptism at Corinth, now unknown, perhaps grounded on Jesus' words (Mat 20:22-23), which Paul here alludes to. The best punctuation is, "If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for them" (so the oldest manuscripts read the last words, instead of "for the dead")?

JFB: 1Co 15:30

Apostles (1Co 15:9; 1Co 4:9). A gradation from those who could only for a little time enjoy this life (that is, those baptized at the point of death), to us, who could enjoy it longer, if we had not renounced the world for Christ [BENGEL].

JFB: 1Co 15:31

By the glorying which I have concerning you, as the fruit of my labors in the Lord. Some of the earliest manuscripts and fathers read "our," with the same sense. BENGEL understands "your rejoicing," to be the enjoyable state of the Corinthians, as contrasted with his dying daily to give his converts rejoicing or glorying (1Co 4:8; 2Co 4:12, 2Co 4:15; Eph 3:13; Phi 1:26). But the words, "which I have," favor the explanation--"the rejoicing which I have over you." Many of the oldest manuscripts and Vulgate insert "brethren" here.

JFB: 1Co 15:31

This ought to stand first in the sentence, as it is so put prominently forward in the Greek. I am day by day in sight of death, exposed to it, and expecting it (2Co 4:11-12; 2Co 1:8-9; 2Co 11:23).

JFB: 1Co 15:32

Punctuate thus: "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink," &c. [BENGEL]. If "merely as a man" (with the mere human hope of the present life; not with the Christian's hope of the resurrection; answering to "If the dead rise not," the parallel clause in the next sentence), I have fought with men resembling savage beasts. Heraclitus, of Ephesus, had termed his countrymen "wild beasts" four hundred years before. So Epimenides called the Cretians (Tit 1:12). Paul was still at Ephesus (1Co 16:8), and there his life was daily in danger (1Co 4:9; compare 2Co 1:8). Though the tumult (Act 19:29-30) had not yet taken place (for after it he set out immediately for Macedonia), this Epistle was written evidently just before it, when the storm was gathering; "many adversaries" (1Co 16:9) were already menacing him.

JFB: 1Co 15:32

Seeing I have renounced all that, "as a mere man," might compensate me for such sufferings, gain, fame, &c.

JFB: 1Co 15:32

Quoted from the Septuagint, (Isa 22:13), where the prophet describes the reckless self-indulgence of the despisers of God's call to mourning, Let us enjoy the good things of life now, for it soon will end. Paul imitates the language of such skeptics, to reprove both their theory and practice. "If men but persuade themselves that they shall die like the beasts, they soon will live like beasts too" [SOUTH].

JFB: 1Co 15:33

A current saying, forming a verse in MENANDER, the comic poet, who probably took it from Euripides [SOCRATES, Ecclesiastical History, 3.16]. "Evil communications" refer to intercourse with those who deny the resurrection. Their notion seems to have been that the resurrection is merely spiritual, that sin has its seat solely in the body, and will be left behind when the soul leaves it, if, indeed, the soul survive death at all.

JFB: 1Co 15:33

Not only good-natured, but pliant. Intimacy with the profligate society around was apt to corrupt the principles of the Corinthians.

JFB: 1Co 15:34

Literally, "out of the sleep" of carnal intoxication into which ye are thrown by the influence of these skeptics (1Co 15:32; Joe 1:5).

JFB: 1Co 15:34

In contrast with "sin" in this verse, and corrupt manners (1Co 15:33).

JFB: 1Co 15:34

Do not give yourselves up to sinful pleasures. The Greek expresses a continued state of abstinence from sin. Thus, Paul implies that they who live in sinful pleasures readily persuade themselves of what they wish, namely, that there is to be no resurrection.

JFB: 1Co 15:34

The same as in 1Co 15:12.

JFB: 1Co 15:34

And so know not His power in the resurrection (Mat 22:29). Stronger than "are ignorant of God." An habitual ignorance: wilful, in that they prefer to keep their sins, rather than part with them, in order to know God (compare Joh 7:17; 1Pe 2:15).

JFB: 1Co 15:34

That you Corinthian Christians, who boast of your knowledge, should have among you, and maintain intercourse with, those so practically ignorant of God, as to deny the resurrection.

JFB: 1Co 15:35

It is folly to deny a fact of REVELATION, because we do not know the "how." Some measure God's power by their petty intelligence, and won't admit, even on His assurance, anything which they cannot explain. Ezekiel's answer of faith to the question is the truly wise one (Eze 37:3). So Jesus argues not on principles of philosophy, but wholly from "the power of God," as declared by the Word of God (Mat 19:26; Mar 10:27; Mar 12:23; Luk 18:27).

JFB: 1Co 15:35

The dead are said to depart, or to be deceased: those rising again to come. The objector could not understand how the dead are to rise, and with what kind of a body they are to come. Is it to be the same body? If so, how is this, since the resurrection bodies will not eat or drink, or beget children, as the natural bodies do? Besides, the latter have mouldered into dust. How then can they rise again? If it be a different body, how can the personal identity be preserved? Paul answers, In one sense it will be the same body, in another, a distinct body. It will be a body, but a spiritual, not a natural, body.

JFB: 1Co 15:36

With all thy boasted philosophy (Psa 14:1).

JFB: 1Co 15:36

"thou," emphatical: appeal to the objector's own experience: "The seed which thou thyself sowest." Paul, in this verse and in 1Co 15:42, answers the question of 1Co 15:35, "How?" and in 1Co 15:37-41, 1Co 15:43, the question, "With what kind of body?" He converts the very objection (the death of the natural body) into an argument. Death, so far from preventing quickening, is the necessary prelude and prognostication of it, just as the seed "is not quickened" into a new sprout with increased produce, "except it die" (except a dissolution of its previous organization takes place). Christ by His death for us has not given us a reprieve from death as to the life which we have from Adam; nay, He permits the law to take its course on our fleshly nature; but He brings from Himself new spiritual and heavenly life out of death (1Co 15:37).

JFB: 1Co 15:37

A body beautiful and no longer a "bare grain" [BENGEL]. No longer without stalk or ear, but clothed with blade and ears, and yielding many grains instead of only one [GROTIUS]. There is not an identity of all the particles of the old and the new body. For the perpetual transmutation of matter is inconsistent with this. But there is a hidden germ which constitutes the identity of body amidst all outward changes: the outward accretions fall off in its development, while the germ remains the same. Every such germ ("seed," 1Co 15:38) "shall have its own body," and be instantly recognized, just as each plant now is known from the seed that was sown (see on 1Co 6:13). So Christ by the same image illustrated the truth that His death was the necessary prelude of His putting on His glorified body, which is the ground of the regeneration of the many who believe (Joh 12:24). Progress is the law of the spiritual, as of the natural world. Death is the avenue not to mere revivification or reanimation, but to resurrection and regeneration (Mat 19:28; Phi 3:21). Compare "planted," &c., Rom 6:5.

JFB: 1Co 15:38

At creation, when He gave to each of the (kinds of) seeds (so the Greek is for "to every seed") a body of its own (Gen 1:11, "after its kind," suited to its species). So God can and will give to the blessed at the resurrection their own appropriate body, such as it pleases Him, and such as is suitable to their glorified state: a body peculiar to the individual, substantially the same as the body sown.

JFB: 1Co 15:39-41

Illustrations of the suitability of bodies, however various, to their species: the flesh of the several species of animals; bodies celestial and terrestrial; the various kinds of light in the sun, moon, and stars, respectively.

JFB: 1Co 15:39-41

Animal organism [DE WETTE]. He implies by the word that our resurrection bodies shall be in some sense really flesh, not mere phantoms of air [ESTIUS]. So some of the oldest creeds expressed it, "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh." Compare as to Jesus' own resurrection body, Luk 24:39; Joh 20:27; to which ours shall be made like, and therefore shall be flesh, but not of animal organism (Phi 3:21) and liable to corruption. But 1Co 15:50 below implies, it is not "flesh and blood" in the animal sense we now understand them; for these "shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

JFB: 1Co 15:39-41

Not flesh of the same nature and excellency. As the kinds of flesh, however widely differing from one another, do not cease to be flesh, so the kinds of bodies, however differing from one another, are still bodies. All this is to illustrate the difference of the new celestial body from its terrestrial seed, while retaining a substantial identity.

JFB: 1Co 15:39-41

Quadrupeds.

JFB: 1Co 15:39-41

Most of the oldest manuscripts read thus, "another FLESH of birds . . . another of fishes": the order of nature.

JFB: 1Co 15:40

Not the sun, moon, and stars, which are first introduced in 1Co 15:41, but the bodies of angels, as distinguished from the bodies of earthly creatures.

JFB: 1Co 15:40

(Luk 9:26).

JFB: 1Co 15:40

(Mat 6:28-29; 1Pe 1:24).

JFB: 1Co 15:41

The analogy is not to prove different degrees of glory among the blessed (whether this may be, or not, indirectly hinted at), but this: As the various fountains of light, which is so similar in its aspect and properties, differ (the sun from the moon, and the moon from the stars; and even one star from another star, though all seem so much alike); so there is nothing unreasonable in the doctrine that our present bodies differ from our resurrection bodies, though still continuing bodies. Compare the same simile, appropriate especially in the clear Eastern skies (Dan 12:3; Mat 13:43). Also that of seed in the same parable (Mat 13:24; Gal 6:7-8).

JFB: 1Co 15:42

Following up the image of seed. A delightful word instead of burial.

JFB: 1Co 15:42

Liable to corruption: corruptible: not merely a prey when dead to corruption; as the contrast shows, "raised in incorruption," that is, not liable to corruption: incorruptible.

JFB: 1Co 15:43

Answering to "our vile body" (Phi 3:21); literally, "our body of humiliation": liable to various humiliations of disease, injury, and decay at last.

JFB: 1Co 15:43

The garment of incorruption (1Co 15:42-43) like His glorious body (Phi 4:21), which we shall put on (1Co 15:49, 1Co 15:53; 2Co 5:2-4).

JFB: 1Co 15:43

Liable to infirmities (2Co 13:4).

JFB: 1Co 15:43

Answering to a "spiritual body" (1Co 15:44; compare Luk 1:17, "Spirit and power"). Not liable to the weaknesses of our present frail bodies (Isa 33:24; Rev 21:4).

JFB: 1Co 15:44

Literally, "an animal body," a body moulded in its organism of "flesh and blood" (1Co 15:50) to suit the animal soul which predominates in it. The Holy Spirit in the spirit of believers, indeed, is an earnest of a superior state (Rom 8:11), but meanwhile in the body the animal soul preponderates; hereafter the Spirit shall predominate, and the animal soul be duly subordinate.

JFB: 1Co 15:44

A body wholly moulded by the Spirit, and its organism not conformed to the lower and animal (Luk 20:35-36), but to the higher and spiritual, life (compare 1Co 2:14; 1Th 5:23).

JFB: 1Co 15:44

The oldest manuscripts read, "IF there is a natural (or animal-souled) body, there is also a spiritual body." It is no more wonderful a thing, that there should be a body fitted to the capacities and want of man's highest part, his spirit (which we see to be the case), than that there should be one fitted to the capacities and wants of his subordinate part, the animal soul [ALFORD].

JFB: 1Co 15:45

In accordance with the distinction just mentioned between the natural or animal-souled body and the spiritual body.

JFB: 1Co 15:45

(Gen 2:7); "Man became (was made to become) a living soul," that is, endowed with an animal soul, the living principle of his body.

JFB: 1Co 15:45

The LAST Head of humanity, who is to be fully manifested in the last day, which is His day (Joh 6:39). He is so called in Job 19:25; see on Job 19:25 (compare Rom 5:14). In contrast to "the last," Paul calls "man" (Gen 2:7) "the FIRST Adam."

JFB: 1Co 15:45

Not only living, but making alive (Joh 5:21; Joh 6:33, Joh 6:39-40, Joh 6:54, Joh 6:57, Joh 6:62-63; Rom 8:11). As the natural or animal-souled body (1Co 15:44) is the fruit of our union with the first Adam, an animal-souled man, so the spiritual body is the fruit of our union with the second Adam, who is the quickening Spirit (2Co 3:17). As He became representative of the whole of humanity in His union of the two natures, He exhausted in His own person the sentence of death passed on all men, and giveth spiritual and everlasting life to whom He will.

JFB: 1Co 15:46

Adam had a soul not necessarily mortal, as it afterwards became by sin, but "a living soul," and destined to live for ever, if he had eaten of the tree of life (Gen 3:22); still his body was but an animal-souled body, not a spiritual body, such as believers shall have; much less was he a "life-giving spirit," as Christ. His soul had the germ of the Spirit, rather than the fulness of it, such as man shall have when restored "body, soul, and spirit," by the second Adam (1Th 5:23). As the first and lower Adam came before the second and heavenly Adam, so the animal-souled body comes first, and must die before it be changed into the spiritual body (that is, that in which the Spirit predominates over the animal soul).

JFB: 1Co 15:47

Inasmuch as being sprung from the earth, he is "earthy" (Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19, "dust thou art"); that is, not merely earthly or born upon the earth, but terrene, or of earth; literally, "of heaped earth" or clay. "Adam" means red earth.

JFB: 1Co 15:47

Omitted in the oldest manuscripts and versions.

JFB: 1Co 15:47

(Joh 3:13, Joh 3:31). Humanity in Christ is generic. In Him man is impersonated in his true ideal as God originally designed him. Christ is the representative man, the federal head of redeemed man.

JFB: 1Co 15:48

Namely, Adam.

JFB: 1Co 15:48

All Adam's posterity in their natural state (Joh 3:6-7).

JFB: 1Co 15:48

Christ.

JFB: 1Co 15:48

His people in their regenerate state (Phi 3:20-21). As the former precedes the latter state, so the natural bodies precede the spiritual bodies.

JFB: 1Co 15:49

Greek, "even as" (see Gen 5:3).

JFB: 1Co 15:49

Or wear as a garment [BENGEL]. The oldest manuscripts and versions read, "We must also bear," or "let us also bear." It implies the divine appointment (compare "must," 1Co 15:53) and faith assenting to it. An exhortation, and yet implying a promise (so Rom 8:29). The conformity to the image of the heavenly Representative man is to be begun here in our souls, in part, and shall be perfected at the resurrection in both bodies and souls.

JFB: 1Co 15:50

(See on 1Co 15:37; 1Co 15:39). "Flesh and blood" of the same animal and corruptible nature as our present (1Co 15:44) animal-souled bodies, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore the believer acquiesces gladly in the unrepealed sentence of the holy law, which appoints the death of the present body as the necessary preliminary to the resurrection body of glory. Hence he "dies daily" to the flesh and to the world, as the necessary condition to his regeneration here and hereafter (Joh 3:6; Gal 2:20). As the being born of the flesh constitutes a child of Adam, so the being born of the Spirit constitutes a child of God.

JFB: 1Co 15:50

Not merely is the change of body possible, but it is necessary. The spirit extracted from the dregs of wine does not so much differ from them, as the glorified man does from the mortal man [BENGEL] of mere animal flesh and blood (Gal 1:16). The resurrection body will be still a body though spiritual, and substantially retaining the personal identity; as is proved by Luk 24:39; Joh 20:27, compared with Phi 3:21.

JFB: 1Co 15:50

Which is not at all merely animal, but altogether spiritual. Corruption doth not inherit, though it is the way to, incorruption (1Co 15:36, 1Co 15:52-53).

JFB: 1Co 15:51

Calling attention to the "mystery" heretofore hidden in God's purposes, but now revealed.

JFB: 1Co 15:51

Emphatical in the Greek; I show (Greek, "tell," namely, by the word of the Lord, 1Th 4:15) YOU, who think you have so much knowledge, "a mystery" (compare Rom 11:25) which your reason could never have discovered. Many of the old manuscripts and Fathers read, "We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed"; but this is plainly a corrupt reading, inconsistent with 1Th 4:15, 1Th 4:17, and with the apostle's argument here, which is that a change is necessary (1Co 15:53). English Version is supported by some of the oldest manuscripts and Fathers. The Greek is literally "We all shall not sleep, but," &c. The putting off of the corruptible body for an incorruptible by an instantaneous change will, in the case of "the quick," stand as equivalent to death, appointed to all men (Heb 9:27); of this Enoch and Elijah are types and forerunners. The "we" implies that Christians in that age and every successive age since and hereafter were designed to stand waiting, as if Christ might come again in their time, and as if they might be found among "the quick."

JFB: 1Co 15:52

At the sounding of the trumpet on the last day [VATABLUS] (Mat 24:31; 1Th 4:16). Or the Spirit by Paul hints that the other trumpets mentioned subsequently in the Apocalypse shall precede, and that this shall be the last of all (compare Isa 27:13; Zec 9:14). As the law was given with the sound of a trumpet, so the final judgment according to it (Heb 12:19; compare Exo 19:16). As the Lord ascended "with the sound of a trumpet" (Psa 47:5), so He shall descend (Rev 11:15). The trumpet was sounded to convoke the people on solemn feasts, especially on the first day of the seventh month (the type of the completion of time; seven being the number for perfection; on the tenth of the same month was the atonement, and on the fifteenth the feast of tabernacles, commemorative of completed salvation out of the spiritual Egypt, compare Zec 14:18-19); compare Psa 50:1-7. Compare His calling forth of Lazarus from the grave "with a loud voice," Joh 11:43, with Joh 5:25, Joh 5:28.

JFB: 1Co 15:52

Immediately, in consequence.

JFB: 1Co 15:53

Pointing to his own body and that of those whom he addresses.

JFB: 1Co 15:53

As a garment (2Co 5:2-3).

JFB: 1Co 15:53

Here only, besides 1Ti 6:16, the word "immortality" is found. Nowhere is the immortality of the soul, distinct from the body, taught; a notion which many erroneously have derived from heathen philosophers. Scripture does not contemplate the anomalous state brought about by death, as the consummation to be earnestly looked for (2Co 5:4), but the resurrection.

JFB: 1Co 15:54

Not before. Death has as yet a sting even to the believer, in that his body is to be under its power till the resurrection. But then the sting and power of death shall cease for ever.

JFB: 1Co 15:54

In Hebrew of Isa 25:8, from which it is quoted, "He (Jehovah) will swallow up death in victory"; that is, for ever: as "in victory" often means in Hebrew idiom (Jer 3:5; Lam 5:20). Christ will swallow it up so altogether victoriously that it shall never more regain its power (compare Hos 6:2; Hos 13:14; 2Co 5:4; Heb 2:14-15; Rev 20:14; Rev 21:4).

JFB: 1Co 15:55

Quoted from Hos 13:14, substantially; but freely used by the warrant of the Spirit by which Paul wrote. The Hebrew may be translated, "O death, where are thy plagues? Where, O Hades, is thy destruction?" The Septuagint, "Where is thy victory (literally, in a lawsuit), O death? Where is thy sting, O Hades? . . . Sting" answers to the Hebrew "plagues," namely, a poisoned sting causing plagues. Appropriate, as to the old serpent (Gen 3:14-15; Num 21:6). "Victory" answers to the Hebrew "destruction." Compare Isa 25:7, "destroy . . . veil . . . over all nations," namely, victoriously destroy it; and to "in victory" (1Co 15:54), which he triumphantly repeats. The "where" implies their past victorious destroying power and sting, now gone for ever; obtained through Satan's triumph over man in Eden, which enlisted God's law on the side of Satan and death against man (Rom 5:12, Rom 5:17, Rom 5:21). The souls in Hades being freed by the resurrection, death's sting and victory are gone. For "O grave," the oldest manuscripts and versions read, "O death," the second time.

JFB: 1Co 15:56

If there were no sin, there would be no death. Man's transgression of the law gives death its lawful power.

JFB: 1Co 15:56

Without the law sin is not perceived or imputed (Rom 3:20; Rom 4:15; Rom 5:13). The law makes sin the more grievous by making God's will the clearer (Rom 7:8-10). Christ's people are no longer "under the law" (Rom 6:14).

JFB: 1Co 15:57

The victory was in no way due to ourselves (Psa 98:1).

JFB: 1Co 15:57

A present certainty.

JFB: 1Co 15:57

Which death and Hades ("the grave") had aimed at, but which, notwithstanding the opposition of them, as well as of the law and sin, we have gained. The repetition of the word (1Co 15:54-55) is appropriate to the triumph gained.

JFB: 1Co 15:58

Sound doctrine kindles Christian love.

JFB: 1Co 15:58

Not turning aside from the faith of the resurrection of yourselves.

JFB: 1Co 15:58

Not turned aside by others (1Co 15:12; Col 1:23).

JFB: 1Co 15:58

The promotion of Christ's kingdom (Phi 2:30).

JFB: 1Co 15:58

As the deniers of the resurrection would make it (1Co 15:14, 1Co 15:17).

JFB: 1Co 15:58

Applying to the whole sentence and its several clauses: Ye, as being in the Lord by faith, know that your labor in the Lord (that is, labor according to His will) is not to be without its reward in the Lord (through His merits and according to His gracious appointment).

Clarke: 1Co 15:25

For he must reign, etc. - This is according to the promise, Psa 110:1 : "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."Therefore the kingdom cannot be given up till all rule and government be cast down. So that while the world lasts, Jesus, as the Messiah and Mediator, must reign; and all human beings are properly his subjects, are under his government, and are accountable to him.

Clarke: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy - Death, shall be destroyed; καταργειται, shall be counter-worked, subverted, and finally overturned. But death cannot be destroyed by there being simply no farther death; death can only be destroyed and annihilated by a general resurrection; if there be no general resurrection, it is most evident that death will still retain his empire. Therefore, the fact that death shall be destroyed assures the fact that there shall be a general resurrection; and this is a proof, also, that after the resurrection there shall be no more death.

Clarke: 1Co 15:27

For he hath put all things under his feet - The Father hath put all things under the feet of Christ according to the prophecy, Psa 110:1-7

Clarke: 1Co 15:27

He is excepted - i.e. The Father, who hath put all things under him, the Son. This observation seems to be introduced by the apostle to show that he does not mean that the Divine nature shall be subjected to the human nature. Christ, as Messiah, and Mediator between God and man, must ever be considered inferior to the Father: and his human nature, however dignified in consequence of its union with the Divine nature, must ever be inferior to God. The whole of this verse should be read in a parenthesis.

Clarke: 1Co 15:28

The Son also himself be subject - When the administration of the kingdom of grace is finally closed; when there shall be no longer any state of probation, and consequently no longer need of a distinction between the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory; then the Son, as being man and Messiah, shall cease to exercise any distinct dominion and God be all in all: there remaining no longer any distinction in the persons of the glorious Trinity, as acting any distinct or separate parts in either the kingdom of grace, or the kingdom of glory, and so the one infinite essence shall appear undivided and eternal. And yet, as there appears to be a personality essentially in the infinite Godhead, that personality must exist eternally; but how this shall be we can neither tell nor know till that time comes in which we shall See Him as He Is. 1Jo 3:2.

Clarke: 1Co 15:29

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead - This is certainly the most difficult verse in the New Testament; for, notwithstanding the greatest and wisest men have labored to explain it, there are to this day nearly as many different interpretations of it as there are interpreters. I shall not employ my time, nor that of my reader, with a vast number of discordant and conflicting opinions; I shall make a few remarks

1.    The doctrine of the resurrection of our Lord was a grand doctrine among the apostles; they considered and preached this as the demonstration of the truth of the Gospel

2.    The multitudes who embraced Christianity became converts on the evidence of this resurrection

3.    This resurrection was considered the pledge and proof of the resurrection of all believers in Christ to the possession of the same glory into which he had entered

4.    The baptism which they received they considered as an emblem of their natural death and resurrection. This doctrine St. Paul most pointedly preaches, Rom 6:3-5 : Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life: for, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in his resurrection

5.    It is evident from this that all who died in the faith of Christ died in the faith of the resurrection; and therefore cheerfully gave up their lives to death, as they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance, Heb 10:34

6.    As is the body, so are the members; those who were properly instructed, and embraced Christianity, believed that as all who had died in the faith of Christ should rise again, so they were baptized in the same faith

7.    As so many of the primitive followers of Christ sealed the truth with their blood, and Satan and his followers continued unchanged, every man who took on him the profession of Christianity, which was done by receiving baptism, considered himself as exposing his life to the most imminent hazard, and offering his life with those who had already offered and laid down theirs

8.    He was therefore baptized in reference to this martyrdom; and, having a regard to those dead, he cheerfully received baptism, that, whether he were taken off by a natural or violent death, he might be raised in the likeness of Jesus Christ’ s resurrection, and that of his illustrious martyrs

9.    As martyrdom and baptism were thus so closely and intimately connected, βαπτιζεσθαι, to be baptized, was used to express being put to a violent death by the hands of persecutors. So Mat 20:22, Mat 20:23 : "But Jesus answered and said, Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? etc."(Can ye go through my sufferings?) "They say unto him, We are able. He saith unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of my cup,"(ye shall bear your part of the afflictions of the Gospel), "and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with (that is, ye shall suffer martyrdom.) See also Mar 10:38. So Luk 12:50; "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!"That is, I must die a violent death for the salvation of men

10.    The sum of the apostle’ s meaning appears to be this: If there be no resurrection of the dead, those who, in becoming Christians, expose themselves to all manner of privations, crosses, severe sufferings, and a violent death, can have no compensation, nor any motive sufficient to induce them to expose themselves to such miseries. But as they receive baptism as an emblem of death in voluntarily going under the water, so they receive it as an emblem of the resurrection unto eternal life, in coming up out of the water; thus they are baptized for the dead, in perfect faith of the resurrection. The three following verses seem to confirm this sense.

Clarke: 1Co 15:30

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? - Is there any reason why we should voluntarily submit to so many sufferings, and every hour be in danger of losing our lives, if the dead rise not? On the conviction of the possibility and certainty of the resurrection, we are thus baptized for the dead. We have counted the cost, despise sufferings, and exult at the prospect of death, because we know we shall have a resurrection unto eternal life.

Clarke: 1Co 15:31

I protest by your rejoicing - Νη την ὑμετεραν καυχησιν· By your exaltation or boasting. Dr. Lightfoot understands this of "the boasting of the Corinthians against the apostle; that he considered himself continually trampled on by them; rejected and exposed to infamy and contempt; but that he took this as a part of the reproach of Christ; and was happy in the prospect of death and a glorious resurrection, when all those troubles and wrongs would terminate for ever."Instead of ὑμετεραν, Your exultation or boasting, ἡμετεραν, Our exultation, is the reading of the Codex Alexandrinus, and several others, with the Ethiopic, Origen, and Theophylact. This will lead to an easier sense: I declare by the exultation which I have in Christ Jesus, as having died for my offenses, and risen again for my justification, that I neither fear sufferings nor death; and am daily ready to be offered up, and feel myself continually exposed to death. But the common reading is probably to be preferred; for your glorying is the same as glorying on your account: I profess by the glorying or exultation which I have on account of your salvation, that I anticipate with pleasure the end of my earthly race

Clarke: 1Co 15:31

I die daily - A form of speech for, I am continually exposed to death. The following passages will illustrate this. So Philo, p. 990. Flaccus, who was in continual fear of death, says: καθ ’ ἑκαστην ἡμεραν, μαλλον δε ὡραν, προαποθνησκω, πολλους θανατους ὑπομενων ανθ ’ ἑνος του τελευταιου· "Every day, rather every hour, I anticipate death; enduring many deaths before that last one comes."So Libanius, speaking of his own miseries and those of the people of Antioch, Epist. 1320, page 615, says: ετι ζωντες τεθνηκαμεν· "Though living, we are dead."Livy has a similar form of expression to signify continual danger, xxix. 17: Quotidie capitur urbs nostra, quotidie diripitur . "Daily is our city taken, daily is it pillaged."

Clarke: 1Co 15:32

If, after the manner of men, etc. - Much learned criticism has been employed on this verse, to ascertain whether it is to be understood literally or metaphorically. Does the apostle mean to say that he had literally fought with wild beasts at Ephesus? or, that he had met with brutish, savage men, from whom he was in danger of his life? That St. Paul did not fight with wild beasts at Ephesus, may be argued

1.    From his own silence on this subject, when enumerating his various sufferings, 2Co 11:23, etc

2.    From the silence of his historian, Luke, who, in the acts of this apostle, gives no intimation of this kind; and it certainly was too remarkable a circumstance to be passed over, either by Paul in the catalogue of his own sufferings, or by Luke in his history

3.    From similar modes of speech, which are employed metaphorically, and are so understood

4.    From the improbability that a Roman citizen, as Paul was, should be condemned to such a punishment, when in other cases, by pleading his privilege, he was exempted from being scourged, etc. And

5.    From the positive testimony of Tertullian and Chrysostom, who deny the literal interpretation

On the other hand, it is strongly argued that the apostle is to be literally understood; and that he did, at some particular time, contend with wild beasts at Ephesus, from which he was miraculously delivered

1.    That the phrase κατα ανθρωπον signifies as men used to do, and never means according to the manner of men, as implying their purpose, or, to use their forms of speech, etc

2.    From the circumstances of the case in Ephesus usually referred to, viz. the insurrection by Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen; where, though Paul would have been in danger had he gone into the theater, he was in little or none, as he did not adventure himself

3.    From his having endured much greater conflicts at Lystra and at Philippi than at Ephesus, at the former of which he was stoned to death, and again miraculously raised to life: see the notes on Act 14:19, etc. And yet he calls not those greater dangers by this name

4.    That it cannot refer to the insurrection of Demetrius and his fellows, for St. Paul had no contention with them, and was scarcely in any danger, though Gaius and Aristarchus were: see the whole of Acts 19. And

5.    As we do not read of any other imminent danger to which he was exposed at Ephesus, and that already mentioned is not sufficient to justify the expression, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, therefore we must conclude that he was at some time, not directly mentioned by his historian or himself, actually exposed to wild beasts at Ephesus

6.    That this is the case he refers to, 2Co 1:8-10 : For we would not, brethren, have you if ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, καθ ’ ὑπερβολην εβαρηθημεν ὑπερ δυναμιν, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who delivered us from so great a death: for these expressions refer to some excessive and unprecedented danger, from which nothing less than a miraculous interference could have saved him; and that it might have been an actual exposure to wild beasts, or any other danger equally great, or even greater

Clarke: 1Co 15:32

What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? - I believe the common method of pointing this verse is erroneous; I propose to read it thus: If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it advantage me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die

What the apostle says here is a regular and legitimate conclusion from the doctrine, that there is no resurrection: For if there be no resurrection, then there can be no judgment - no future state of rewards and punishments; why, therefore, should we bear crosses, and keep ourselves under continual discipline? Let us eat and drink, take all the pleasure we can, for tomorrow we die; and there is an end of us for ever. The words, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die, are taken from Isa 22:13, as they stand now in the Septuagint; and are a pretty smooth proverbial saying, which might be paralleled from the writings of several epicurean heathens, φαγωμεν και πιωμεν· αυριον γαρ αποθνησκομεν . The words of Isaiah are אכול ושתו כי מחר נמות akol reshatho , ki machar namuth : "In eating and drinking, for to-morrow we die;"i.e. Let us spend our time in eating and drinking, etc. See a similar speech by Trimalchio in Petronius Arbiter, Satiric. cap. xxxvii: -

Heu, heu nos miseros! quam totus homuncio nil est

Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet orcus

Ergo vivamus, dum licet esse bene

Alas! alas! what wretches we are! all mankind are a worthless pack: thus shall we all be, after death hath taken us away. Therefore, while we may, let us enjoy life.

Clarke: 1Co 15:33

Be not deceived - Do not impose on yourselves, and permit not others to do it

Clarke: 1Co 15:33

Evil communications corrupt good manners - There are many sayings like this among the Greek poets; but this of the apostle, and which according to the best MSS. makes an Iambic verse, is generally supposed to have been taken from Menander’ s lost comedy of Thais

Φθειρουσιν ηθη χρησθ ’ ὁμιλιαι κακαι·

Bad company good morals doth corrupt

There is a proverb much like this among the rabbins

תרי אורי יכישי ותר רטיכא אוקרן יכישי לרטיכא

"There were two dry logs of wood, and one green log; but the dry logs burnt up the green log.

There is no difficulty in this saying; he who frequents the company of bad or corrupt men will soon be as they are. He may be sound in the faith, and have the life and power of godliness, and at first frequent their company only for the sake of their pleasing conversation, or their literary accomplishments: and he may think his faith proof against their infidelity; but he will soon find, by means of their glozing speeches, his faith weakened; and when once he gets under the empire of doubt, unbelief will soon prevail; his bad company will corrupt his morals; and the two dry logs will soon burn up the green one

The same sentiment in nearly the same words is found in several of the Greek writers; Aeschylus, Sept. Theb. ver. 605: Εν παντι πραγει δ ’ εσθ ’ ὁμιλιας κακης κακιον ουδεν· "In every matter there is nothing more deleterious than evil communication."- Diodorus Siculus, lib. xvi. cap. 54: Ταις πονηραις ὁμιλιαις διεφθειρε τα ηθη των ανθρωπων· "With these evil communications he corrupted the morals of men.

Ταυτα μεν οὑτως ισθι· κακοισι δε μη προσομιλο

Ανδρασιν, αλλ ’ αιει των αγαθων εχεο·

Και μετα τοισιν πινε και εσθιε, και μετα τοισιν

Ἱζε, και ἁνδανε τοις, ὡν μεγαλη δυναμις.

Εσθλων μεν γαρ απ ’ εσθλα μαθησεαι· ην δε κακοισι

Συμμιχθῃς, απολεις και τον εοντα νοον.

Theogn. Sent., ver. 31-36

Know this: Thou must not keep company with the wicked, but converse always with good men. With such eat, drink, and associate. Please those who have the greatest virtue. From good men thou mayest learn good things; but if thou keep company with the wicked, thou wilt lose even the intelligence which thou now possessest.

Clarke: 1Co 15:34

Awake to righteousness - Shake off your slumber; awake fully, thoroughly, δικαιως, as ye ought to do: so the word should be rendered; not awake to righteousness. Be in earnest; do not trifle with God, your souls, and eternity

Clarke: 1Co 15:34

Sin not - For this will lead to the destruction both of body and soul. Life is but a moment; improve it. Heaven has blessings without end

Clarke: 1Co 15:34

Some have not the knowledge of God - The original is very emphatic: αγνωσιαν γαρ Θεου τινες εχουσι, some have an ignorance of God; they do not acknowledge God. They have what is their bane; and they have not what would be their happiness and glory. To have an ignorance of God - a sort of substantial darkness, that prevents the light of God from penetrating the soul, is a worse state than to be simply in the dark, or without the Divine knowledge. The apostle probably speaks of those who were once enlightened, had once good morals, but were corrupted by bad company. It was to their shame or reproach that they had left the good way, and were now posting down to the chambers of death.

Clarke: 1Co 15:35

But some man will say - Αλλα ερει τις . It is very likely that the apostle, by τις some, some one, some man, means particularly the false apostle, or teacher at Corinth, who was chief in the opposition to the pure doctrine of the Gospel, and to whom, in this covert way, he often refers

The second part of the apostle’ s discourse begins at this verse. What shall be the nature of the resurrection body

1.    The question is stated, 1Co 15:35

2.    It is answered

first, by a similitude, 1Co 15:36-38

secondly, by an application, 1Co 15:33-41; an

thirdly, by explication, 1Co 15:42-50.

Clarke: 1Co 15:36

Thou fool - Αφρον . If this be addressed, as it probably is, to the false apostle, there is a peculiar propriety in it; as this man seems to have magnified his own wisdom, and set it up against both God and man; and none but a fool could act so. At the same time, it is folly in any to assert the impossibility of a thing because he cannot comprehend it

Clarke: 1Co 15:36

That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die - I have shown the propriety of this simile of the apostle in the note on Joh 12:24 (note), to which I must refer the reader. A grain of wheat, etc., is composed of the body or lobes, and the germ. The latter forms an inconsiderable part of the mass of the grain; the body, lobes, or farinaceous part, forms nearly the whole. This body dies - becomes decomposed, and forms a fine earth, from which the germ derives its first nourishment; by the nourishment thus derived the germ is quickened, receives its first vegetable life, and through this means is rendered capable of deriving the rest of its nourishment and support from the grosser earth in which the grain was deposited. Whether the apostle would intimate here that there is a certain germ in the present body, which shall become the seed of the resurrection body, this is not the place to inquire; and on this point I can with pleasure refer to Mr. Drew’ s work on the "Resurrection of the Human Body;"where this subject, as well as every other subject connected with this momentous question, is considered in a very luminous and cogently argumentative point of view.

Clarke: 1Co 15:37

Thou sowest not that body that shall be - This is decomposed, and becomes the means of nourishing the whole plant, roots, stalk, leaves, ear, and full corn in the ear.

Clarke: 1Co 15:38

But God giveth it a body - And is there any other way of accounting for it but by the miraculous working of God’ s power? For out of that one bare grain is produced a system of roots, a tall and vigorous stalk, with all its appendages of leaves, etc., besides the full corn in the ear; the whole making several hundred times the quantum of what was originally deposited. There are no proofs that what some call nature can effect this: it will ever be a philosophical as well as a Scriptural truth, that God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him; and so doth he manage the whole of the work, that every seed shall have its own body: that the wheat germ shall never produce barley; nor the rye, oats. See the note on Gen 1:12.

Clarke: 1Co 15:39

All flesh is not the same flesh - Though the organization of all animals is, in its general principles, the same, yet there are no two different kinds of animals that have flesh of the same flavour, whether the animal be beast, fowl, or fish. And this is precisely the same with vegetables

In opposition to this general assertion of St. Paul, there are certain people who tell us that fish is not flesh; and while their religion prohibits, at one time of the year, the flesh of quadrupeds and fowls, it allows them to eat fish, fondly supposing that fish is not flesh: they might as well tell us that a lily is not a vegetable, because it is not a cabbage. There is a Jewish canon pronounced by Schoettgen which my readers may not be displeased to find inserted here: Nedarim, fol. 40: הנודר מן הבשר יהא אסור בבור רגים והגים He who is bound by a vow to abstain from flesh, is bound to abstain from the flesh of fish and of locusts. From this it appears that they acknowledged that there was one flesh of beasts and another of fishes, and that he was religiously bound to abstain from the one, who was bound to abstain from the other.

Clarke: 1Co 15:40

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial - The apostle certainly does not speak of celestial and terrestrial bodies in the sense in which we use those terms: we invariably mean by the former the sun, moon, planets, and stars; by the latter, masses of inanimate matter. But the apostle speaks of human beings, some of which were clothed with celestial, others with terrestrial bodies. It is very likely, therefore, that he means by the celestial bodies such as those refined human bodies with which Enoch, Elijah, and Christ himself, appear in the realms of glory: to which we may add the bodies of those saints which arose after our Lord’ s resurrection; and, after having appeared to many, doubtless were taken up to paradise. By terrestrial bodies we may understand those in which the saints now live

Clarke: 1Co 15:40

But the glory of the celestial is one - The glory - the excellence, beauty, and perfection. Even the present frail human body possesses an indescribable degree of contrivance, art, economy, order, beauty, and excellence; but the celestial body, that in which Christ now appears, and according to which ours shall be raised, (Phi 3:21), will exceed the excellence of this beyond all comparison. A glory or splendor will belong to that which does not belong to this: here there is a glory of excellence; there, there will be a glory of light and effulgence; for the bodies of the saints shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. See Mat 13:43.

Clarke: 1Co 15:41

There is one glory of the sun - As if he had said: This may be illustrated by the present appearance of the celestial bodies which belong to our system. The sun has a greater degree of splendor than the moon; the moon than the planets; and the planets than the stars. And even in the fixed stars, one has a greater degree of splendor than another, which may proceed either from their different magnitudes, or from the comparative proximity of some of them to our earth; but from which of these causes, or from what other cause unknown, we cannot tell, as it is impossible to ascertain the distance of any of the fixed stars; even the nearest of them being too remote to afford any sensible parallax, without which their distances cannot be measured. See the concluding observations, (1Co 15:58 (note), points 1-8)

Clarke: 1Co 15:42

So also is the resurrection of the dead - That is, the bodies of the dead, though all immortal, shall possess different degrees of splendor and glory, according to the state of holiness in which their respective souls were found. The rabbins have some crude notions concerning different degrees of glory, which the righteous shall possess in the kingdom of heaven. They make out seven degrees: -

"The first of which is possessed by צדיקים tsaddikim , the just, who observe the covenant of the holy, blessed God, and subjugate all evil affections.

"The second is possessed by those who are ישרים yesharim , the upright; whose delight it is to walk in the ways of God and please him.

"The third is for תמימים temimim , the perfect: those who, with integrity, walk in the ways of God, and do not curiously pry into his dispensations.

"The fourth is for קדושים kedoshim , the holy ones; those who are the excellent of the earth, in whom is all God’ s delight."Psa 16:3

"The fifth is for בעלי תשובה baaley teshubah , the chief of the penitents; who have broken through the brazen doors, and returned to the Lord.

"The sixth is for תינוקות של בית רבן rof si ht tinukoth shel beith raban , the scholars and tender ones; who have not transgressed.

"The seventh is for חסידים chasidim , the godly: and this is the innermost of all the departments."These seven degrees require a comment by themselves

There is a saying among the rabbins very like that of the apostle in this and the preceding verse Siphri, in Yalcut Simeoni, page 2, fol. 10: "The faces of the righteous shall be, in the world to come, like suns, moons, the heaven, stars, lightnings: and like the lilies and candlesticks of the temple.

Clarke: 1Co 15:42

It is sown in corruption - The body is buried in a state of degradation, decay, and corruption. The apostle uses the word sown to intimate that the body shall rise again, as a seed springs up that has been sown in the earth

Clarke: 1Co 15:42

It is raised in incorruption - Being no more subject to corruption, dissolution, and death.

Clarke: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in dishonor - Being now stripped of all the glory it had as a machine, fearfully and wonderfully made by the hands of God; and also consigned to death and destruction because of sin. This is the most dishonorable circumstance

Clarke: 1Co 15:43

It is raised in glory - It is raised a glorious body, because immortal, and for ever redeemed from the empire of death

Clarke: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in weakness - The principles of dissolution, corruption, and decay, have prevailed over it; disease undermined it; and death made it his prey

Clarke: 1Co 15:43

It is raised in power - To be no more liable to weakness, through labor; decay, by age; wasting, by disease; and dissolution, by death.

Clarke: 1Co 15:44

It is sown a natural body - Σωμα ψυχικον· An animal body, having a multiplicity of solids and fluids of different kinds, with different functions; composed of muscles, fibres, tendons, cartilages, bones, arteries, veins, nerves, blood, and various juices, requiring continual support from aliment; and hence the necessity of labor to provide food, and skill to prepare it; which food must be masticated, digested, and refined; what is proper for nourishment secreted, brought into the circulation, farther elaborated, and prepared to enter into the composition of every part; hence growth and nutrition; without which no organized body can possibly exist

Clarke: 1Co 15:44

It is raised a spiritual body - One perfect in all its parts; no longer dependent on natural productions for its support; being built up on indestructible principles, and existing in a region where there shall be no more death; no more causes of decay leading to dissolution; and consequently, no more necessity for food, nutrition, etc. The body is spiritual, and has a spiritual existence and spiritual support

What the apostle says here is quite consistent with the views his countrymen had on this subject

In Sohar Chadash, fol. 43, it is said: "So shall it be in the resurrection of the dead; only, the old uncleanness shall not be found.

R. Bechai, on the law, fol. 14, says: "When the godly shall arise, their bodies shall be pure and innocent; obedient to the instinct of the soul: there shall be no adversary, nor any evil disease.

Rab. Pinchas says: "The holy blessed God shall make the bodies of the righteous as beautiful as the body of Adam was when he entered into paradise.

Rab. Levi says: "When the soul is in heaven, it is clothed with celestial light; when it returns to the body, it shall have the same light; and then the body shall shine like the splendor of the firmament of heaven. Then shall men gain the knowledge of what is perfect."Sohar. Gen., fol. 69

The Jews have an opinion that the os coxendicis , the lower joint of the backbone, survives the corruption of the body; and that it is out of this bone that the resurrection body is formed. In the place last quoted, fol. 70, we have the following teachings on this subject: "Let us borrow an example from what relates to the purifying of silver. First, the ore is cast into the burning furnace, that it may be separated from its earthly impurities; it is then silver, but not perfect silver. They put it into the furnace a second time, and then all its scoriae are separated from it, and it becomes perfect silver, without any adulteration. Thus does the holy blessed God: he first buries our bodies under the earth, where they putrefy and corrupt, that nothing remains but that one bone: from this a new body is produced, which is indeed a body, but not a perfect body. But in that great day, when all bodies are hidden in the earth, and the soul departs, then even that bone decays, and the body which was formed out of it remains, and is as the light of the sun, and the splendor of heaven. Thus, as the silver was purified, so is the body: and no imperfect mixture remains."See Schoettgen

These things must not be treated as rabbinical dotages; the different similes used for the apostle have the same spirit and design: as the seed which is sown in the earth rots, and out of the germ contained in it God in his providence produces a root, stalk, leaves, ear, and a great numerical increase of grains; is it not likely that God, out of some essential parts of the body that now is, will produce the resurrection body; and will then give the soul a body as it pleaseth him; and so completely preserve the individuality of every human being, as he does of every grain; giving to each its own body? 1Co 15:38. So that as surely as the grain of wheat shall produce wheat after it is cast in the earth, corrupts, and dies; so surely shall our bodies produce the same bodies as to their essential individuality. As the germination of seeds is produced by his wisdom and power, so shall the pure and perfect human body be in the resurrection. Hence he does not say the body is buried, but the body is sown; it is sown in weakness, it is sown in dishonor, etc., etc

Clarke: 1Co 15:44

There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body - This very saying is found in so many words, in Yalcut Rubeni, fol. 126: "There are different kinds of men." אית אדם דאיהו אדם דנשמתא ואיה אדם רגופא "There is a spiritual Adam, and there is also a corporeal Adam."

Clarke: 1Co 15:45

The first man Adam was made a living soul - These forms of expression are also common among the Jews: hence we find אדם הראשון Adam harishon , "Adam the first;"and אדם קדמאי Adam kadmai , "Adam the last."They assert that there are two Adams: 1. The mystical heavenly Adam; and 2. The mystical earthly Adam. See Sohar Exod., fol. 29; and the several examples in Schoettgen. The apostle says this is written: The first man Adam was made a living soul: this is found Gen 2:7, in the words נשמת חיים nishmath chaiyim , the breath of lives; which the apostle translates ψυχην ζωσαν, a living soul

Clarke: 1Co 15:45

The last Adam - a quickening spirit - This is also said to be written; but where, says Dr. Lightfoot, is this written in the whole sacred book? Schoettgen replies, In the very same verse, and in these words: ויהי האדם לנפש חיה vayehi ha - Adam lėnephesh chaiyah , and Adam became a living soul; which the apostle translates πνευμα ζωοποιουν, a quickening, or life-giving spirit. Among the cabalistic Jews נפש nephesh is considered as implying greater dignity than נשמה nishma . The former may be considered as pointing out the rational, the latter the sensitive soul. All these references to Jewish opinions and forms of speech the apostle uses to convince them that the thing was possible; and that the resurrection of the body was generally credited by all their wise and learned men. The Jews, as Dr. Lightfoot observes, speak frequently of the Spirit of the Messiah; and they allow that it was this Spirit that moved on the face of the waters, Gen 1:2. And they assert that the Messiah shall quicken those who dwell in the dust

"It ought not to be passed by,"says the same author, "that Adam, receiving from God the promise of Christ - The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, and believing it, named his wife חוה Chauvah , that is, life; so the Septuagint, και εκαλεσεν Αδαμ το ονονα της γυναικος αυτου Ζωη· And Adam called the name of his wife, Life. What! Is she called Life that brought death into the world? But Adam perceived τον εσχατον Αδαμ, the last Adam exhibited to him in the promise, to be πνευμα ζωο, ποιουν, a quickening or life-giving spirit; and had brought in a better life of the soul; and should at last bring in a better life of the body. Hence is that saying, Joh 1:4 : Εν αυτῳ ζωη ην, In Him was Life."Some contend that the first Adam and the last Adam mean the same person in two different states: the first man with the body of his creation; the same person with the body of his resurrection. See on 1Co 15:49 (note).

Clarke: 1Co 15:46

That was not first which is spiritual - The natural or animal body, described 1Co 15:44, was the first; it was the body with which Adam was created. The spiritual body is the last, and is that with which the soul is to be clothed in the resurrection.

Clarke: 1Co 15:47

The first man is of the earth - That is: Adam’ s body was made out of the dust of the earth; and hence the apostle says he was χοΐκος, of the dust; for the body was made עפר מן האדמה aphar min haadamah , dust from the ground; Gen 2:7

Clarke: 1Co 15:47

The second man is - from heaven - Heavenly, ουρανιος, as several good MSS. and versions read. The resurrection body shall be of a heavenly nature, and not subject to decay or death. What is formed of earth must live after an earthly manner; must be nourished and supported by the earth: what is from heaven is of a spiritual nature; and shall have no farther connection with, nor dependence upon, earth. I conceive both these clauses to relate to man; and to point out the difference between the animal body and the spiritual body, or between the bodies which we now have and the bodies which we shall have in the resurrection. But can this be the meaning of the clause, the second man is the Lord from heaven? In the quotation I have omitted ὁ Κυριος, the Lord, on the following authorities: Manuscripts - BCD*EFG, and two others. Versions - Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian in the margin, Vulgate, and Itala. Fathers-Origen, who quotes it once and omits it once; Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregories, Nyssen and Nazianzen; Isidore, Cyril, Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Zeno, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Ambrosiaster, Philaster, Leo, Pacianus, Primasius, Sedulius, Bede, and others. See these authorities more at large in Wetstein. Some of the most eminent of modern critics leave out the word, and Tertullian says that it was put in by the heretic Marcion. I do think that the word is not legitimate in this place. The verse is read by the MSS., versions, and fathers referred to, thus: The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is of heaven, heavenly; Κυριος being omitted and ουρανιος added. The first man and the second man of this verse are the same as the first Adam and the second Adam of 1Co 15:45, and it is not clear that Christ is meant in either place. Some suppose that there is a reference here to what Eve said when she brought forth Cain: I have gotten a man from the Lord, קניתי איש את יהוה kanithi ish eth Yehovah , I have possessed or obtained a man, the Lord; that is, as Dr. Lightfoot explains it, that the Lord himself should become man: and he thinks that Eve had respect to the promise of Christ when she named her son; as Adam had when he named his wife. If Eve had this in view, we can only say she was sadly mistaken: indeed the conjecture is too refined

The terms first man of the earth, and second man from heaven, are frequent among the Jews: אדם לעילא the superior Adam; and אדם תתאה Adam the inferior; that is, the earthly and the heavenly Adam: Adam before the resurrection, and Adam after it.

Clarke: 1Co 15:48

As is the earthy, etc. - As Adam was, who was formed from the earth, so are all his descendants; frail, decaying, and subject to death

Clarke: 1Co 15:48

As is the heavenly - As is the heavenly state of Adam and all glorified beings, so shall be the state of all those who, at the resurrection, are found fit for glory.

Clarke: 1Co 15:49

And as we have borne the image of the earthy - As being descendants from Adam we have all been born in his likeness, and subject to the same kind of corruption, disgrace, and death; we shall also be raised to a life immortal, such as he now enjoys in the kingdom of God. This interpretation proceeds on the ground that what is here spoken belongs to Adam in his twofold state: viz. of mortality and immortality; of disgrace and honor; of earth and heaven

But by many commentators the words are understood to refer to Adam and Christ, in 1Co 15:46-49. By these, Christ is called the second Adam, the quickening Spirit, the second man, and the heavenly; whose image of righteousness and true holiness we are to bear

But when I consider, 1st. How all these terms are used and applied in the Jewish writings, it appears to me that as this was not their import among them, so it was not the design of Paul; and it would be very difficult to find any place where Jesus Christ is called the second Adam in either Old or New Testament. The discourse of the apostle, Rom 5:14-19, will not prove it, though in those verses there is a comparison drawn between Adam and Christ; but that comparison refers to the extent of the sin and condemnation brought upon all men by the transgression of the first; and the redemption purchased for all men by the sacrifice of the last; and the superabundant grace procured by that sacrifice. But here, the comparison most evidently is between the state of man in this mortal life, and his state after the resurrection. Here, all men are corrupt and mortal, and here, all men die. There, all men shall be incorrupt and immortal, and, whether holy or unholy, shall be eternally immortal

Of the image of Adam, in his heavenly or paradisaical state, the rabbins talk largely: they say that "God created Adam with a double image, earthly and heavenly; that he was the most perfect of all beings; that his splendor shone from one extremity of the earth to the other; that all feared before him; that he knew all wisdom, both earthly and heavenly; but when he sinned, his glory was diminished, and his wisdom departed from him."Yalcut Rubeni, fol. 10

They add farther, that "in the time in which Adam received בדיוקנה עילאה the heavenly image, all creatures came to him, and acknowledged him king of the earth."Ibid., fol. 21

From all this, and much more might be produced on the subject, (see Schoettgen), it appears that the apostle follows, as far as it could comport with his design, the sentiments of his countrymen, and that he adopts their very phraseology; and that it is through the medium of these sentiments and this phraseology that he is to be understood and interpreted. Others may understand all these passages differently; and still consider them as a parallel between Adam and Christ, which is the general view of interpreters. The view which I have taken of them appears to me to be much more consistent with the nature of the discourse, and the scope and design of the apostle. The common opinion is orthodox: what I here propose is no heresy. There are many difficulties in the chapter, and not a few in the verses immediately under consideration.

Clarke: 1Co 15:50

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom - This is a Hebrew periphrasis for man, and man in his present state of infirmity and decay. Man, in his present state, cannot inherit the kingdom of God; his nature is not suited to that place; he could not, in his present weak state, endure an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Therefore, it is necessary that he should die, or be changed; that he should have a celestial body suited to the celestial state. The apostle is certainly not speaking of flesh and blood in a moral sense, to signify corruption of mind and heart; but in a natural sense; as such, flesh and blood cannot inherit glory, for the reasons already assigned.

Clarke: 1Co 15:51

I show you a mystery - That is, a thing which you have never known before. But what is this mystery? Why, that we shall not all sleep; we shall not all die; but we shall all be changed: of this the Jews had not distinct notions. For, as flesh and blood cannot inherit glory, and all shall not be found dead at the day of judgment, then all must be changed - undergo such a change that their bodies may become spiritual, like the bodies of those who shall be raised from the dead.

Clarke: 1Co 15:52

In a moment - Εν ατομῳ· In an atom; that is, an indivisible point of time. In the twinkling of an eye; as soon as a man can wink; which expressions show that this mighty work is to be done by the almighty power of God, as he does all his works, He calls, and it is done. The resurrection of all the dead, from the foundation of the world to that time, and the change of all the living then upon earth, shall be the work of a single moment

Clarke: 1Co 15:52

At the last trump - This, as well as all the rest of the peculiar phraseology of this chapter, is merely Jewish, and we must go to the Jewish writers to know what is intended. On this subject, the rabbins use the very same expression. Thus Rabbi Akiba: "How shall the holy blessed God raise the dead? We are taught that God has a trumpet a thousand ells long, according to the ell of God: this trumpet he shall blow, so that the sound of it shall extend from one extremity of the earth to the other. At the first blast the earth shall be shaken; at the second, the dust shall be separated; at the third, the bones shall be gathered together; at the fourth, the members shall wax warm; at the fifth, the heads shall be covered with skin; at the sixth, the souls shall be rejoined to their bodies; at the seventh, all shall revive and stand clothed."See Wetstein. This tradition shows us what we are to understand by the last trump of the apostle; it is the seventh of Rab. Akiba, when the dead shall be all raised, and, being clothed upon with their eternal vehicles, they shall be ready to appear before the judgment seat of God

Clarke: 1Co 15:52

For the trumpet shall sound - By this the apostle confirms the substance of the tradition, there shall be the sound of a trumpet on this great day; and this other scriptures teach: see Zec 9:14; Mat 24:31; Joh 5:25; 1Th 4:16, in which latter place, the apostle treats this subject among the Thessalonians, as he does here among the Corinthians. See the notes at 1Th 4:16

Clarke: 1Co 15:52

Shall be raised incorruptible - Fully clothed with a new body, to die no more

Clarke: 1Co 15:52

We shall be changed - That is, those who shall then be found alive.

Clarke: 1Co 15:53

For this corruptible, etc. - Because flesh and blood cannot inherit glory; therefore, there must be a refinement by death, or a change without it.

Clarke: 1Co 15:54

Death is swallowed up in victory - Κατεποθη ὁ θανατος εις νικος . These words are a quotation from Isa 25:8, where the Hebrew is בלע המות לנצח billa hammaveth lanetsach : He (God) hath swallowed up death in victory; or, for ever. These words in the Septuagint are thus translated: κατεπιεν ὁ θανατος ισχυσας· Death having prevailed, or conquered, hath swallowed up. But in the version of Theodotion, the words are the same with those of the apostle. The Hebrew לנצח lanetsach the Septuagint sometimes translate εις νικος, in victory, but most commonly εις τελος, for ever; both, as Bishop Pearce observes, in such kind of phrases, signifying the same thing, because eternity conquers all things; and accordingly, in 2Sa 2:26, where the Septuagint have μη εις νικος καταφαγεται ἡ ῥομφαια, our English version has, Shall the sword devour For Ever? And the same may be seen in Job 36:7; Lam 5:20; Amo 1:11; Amo 8:7; from which authority the bishop translates the clause here, Death is swallowed up For Ever

Death is here personified and represented as a devouring being, swallowing up all the generations of men; and by the resurrection of the body and the destruction of the empire of death, God is represented as swallowing him up; or that eternity gulps him down; so that he is endlessly lost and absorbed in its illimitable waste. How glorious a time to the righteous, when the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick; when God shall have wiped away all tears from off all faces, and when there shall be no more death. This time must come. Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

Clarke: 1Co 15:55

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? - Που σου, Θανατε, το κεντρον· που σου, ᾁδη, το νικος· These words are generally supposed to be taken from Hos 13:14, where the Hebrew text stands thus: אהי דבריך מות אהי קטבך שאול ehi debareyca maueth ; ehikatabca sheol : which we translate, O death! I will be thy plagues; O grave! I will be thy destruction; and which the Septuagint translate very nearly as the apostle, που ἡ δικη σου, Θαντε; που το κεντρον σον, ᾁδη ; O death, where is thy revenge, or judicial process? O grave, where is thy sting? And it may be remarked that almost all the MSS., versions, and many of the fathers, interchange the two members of this sentence as they appear in the Septuagint, attributing victory to death; and the sting, to hades or the grave; only the Septuagint, probably by mistake or corruption of copyists, have δικη, dike , revenge or a judicial process, for νικος, nikos , victory: a mistake which the similarity of the words, both in letters and sound, might readily produce. We may observe, also, that the אהי ehi (I will be) of the Hebrew text the Septuagint, and the apostle following them, have translated που, where, as if the word had been written איה where , the two last letters interchanged; but אהי ehi , is rendered where in other places; and our translators, in the 10th verse of this same chapter (Hos 13:10) render אהי מלך ehi malca , "I will be thy king,"but have this note in the margin, "Rather, where is thy king? King Hoshea being then in prison."The apostle, therefore, and the Septuagint, are sufficiently vindicated by the use of the word elsewhere: and the best Jewish commentators allow this use of the word. The Targum, Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate, and some MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi, confirm this reading

Having vindicated the translation, it is necessary to inquire into the meaning of the apostle’ s expressions. Both Death and Hades are here personified: Death is represented as having a sting, dagger, or goad, by which, like the driver of oxen, he is continually irritating and urging on; (these irritations are the diseases by which men are urged on till they fall into Hades, the empire of Death); to Hades, victory is attributed, having overcome and conquered all human life, and subdued all to its own empire. By the transposition of these two members of the sentence, the victory is given to Death, who has extinguished all human life; and the sting is given to Hades, as in his empire the evil of death is fully displayed by the extinction of all animal life, and the destruction of all human bodies. We have often seen a personification of death in ancient paintings - a skeleton crowned, with a dart in his hand; probably taken from the apostle’ s description. The Jews represent the angel of death as having a sword, from which deadly drops of gall fall into the mouths of all men

Hades, which we here translate grave, is generally understood to be the place of separate spirits. See the note on Mat 11:23.

Clarke: 1Co 15:56

The sting of death is sin - The apostle explains himself particularly here: death could not have entered into the world if sin had not entered first; it was sin that not only introduced death, but has armed him with all his destroying force; the goad or dagger of death is sin; by this both body and soul are slain

Clarke: 1Co 15:56

The strength of sin is the law - The law of God forbids all transgression, and sentences those who commit it to temporal and eternal death. Sin has its controlling and binding power from the law. The law curses the transgressor, and provides no help for him; and if nothing else intervene, he must, through it, continue ever under the empire of death.

Clarke: 1Co 15:57

But thanks be to God - What the law could not do, because it is law, (and law cannot provide pardon), is done by the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: he has died to slay death; he has risen again to bring mankind from under the empire of hades. All this he has done through his mere unmerited mercy; and eternal thanks are due to God for this unspeakable gift. He has given us the victory over sin, Satan, death, the grave, and hell.

Clarke: 1Co 15:58

Be ye steadfast - Ἑδραιοι, from ἑδρα, a seat; be settled; confide in the truth of this doctrine of the resurrection, and every thing that pertains to it, as confidently as a man sits down on a Seat, which he knows to be solid, firm, and safe; and on which he has often sat

Clarke: 1Co 15:58

Unmovable - Αμετακινητοι, from α, negative, and μετακινεω, to move away; let nothing shake your faith; let nothing move you away from this hope of the Gospel which is given unto you. What I tell you I receive from God; your false teachers cannot say so: in a declaration of God you may unshakingly confide

Clarke: 1Co 15:58

Always abounding in the work of the Lord - The work of the Lord is obedience to his holy word; every believer in Christ is a workman of God. He that works not, to bring glory to God and good to man, is not acknowledged as a servant of Christ; and if he be not a servant, he is not a son; and if not a son, then not an heir. And he must not only work, but abound in that work; ever exceeding his former self; and this, not for a time, but always; beginning, continuing, and ending every act of life to God’ s glory and the good of his fellows

Clarke: 1Co 15:58

Your labor is not in vain - Your labor in the Lord is not in vain; you must not only work, but you must labor - put forth all your strength; and you must work and labor in the Lord - under his direction, and by his influence; for without him ye can do nothing. And this labor cannot be in vain; you shall have a resurrection unto eternal life: not because you have labored, but because Christ died and gave you grace to be faithful

1.    The chapter through which the reader has passed is a chapter of great importance and difficulty; and on its difficulties much has been written in the preceding notes. Though I have used all the helps in my power to guide me in explaining it, I have, upon the whole, been obliged to think for myself, and claim only the praise of severe labor, ever directed by honest intention and an earnest desire to find out the truth

2.    There are many questions connected with the doctrine of the resurrection which I could not introduce here without writing a book instead of short notes on a very long chapter. On such subjects, I again beg leave to direct the reader to Mr. Samuel Drew’ s Essay on that subject

3.    One remark I cannot help making; the doctrine of the resurrection appears to have been thought of much more consequence among the primitive Christians than it is now! How is this? The apostles were continually insisting on it, and exciting the followers of God to diligence, obedience, and cheerfulness through it. And their successors in the present day seldom mention it! So apostles preached, and so primitive Christians believed; so we preach, and so our hearers believe. There is not a doctrine in the Gospel on which more stress is laid; and there is not a doctrine in the present system of preaching which is treated with more neglect

4.    Though all men shall rise again, yet it will be in widely different circumstances: some will rise to glory and honor; others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those alone who here received the salvation of God, and continued faithful unto death, shall have a resurrection to everlasting glory; not every believer, but every loving obedient believer, shall enter into the paradise of God, and have a body fashioned like unto his Lord’ s glorious body

5.    All glorified spirits will not have the same degree of glory. Two things will necessarily cause great difference

1.    The quantum of mind; an

2.    The quantum of grace

(1.) It is idle to suppose that God has made all human souls with the same capacities: he has not. There is an infinite diversity; he who has the greatest mind can know most, do most, suffer most, and enjoy most

(2.) The quantum of grace will be another great cause of diversity and glory. He who received most of Christ here, and was most devoted to his service, shall have the nearest approach to him in his own kingdom. But all equally holy and equally faithful souls shall not have equal degrees of glory; for the glory will be according to the capacity of the mind, as well as the degree of grace and improvement. The greater the capacity, provided it be properly influenced by the grace of Christ, the greater will be the enjoyment

6.    That there will be great diversity in the states of glorified saints is the apostle’ s doctrine; and he illustrates it by the different degrees of splendor between the sun, moon, planets, and stars. This needs little application. There are some of the heavenly bodies that give heat, light, and splendor, as the Sun; and are of the utmost service to the world: some that give light, and comparative splendor, without heat, as the Moon; and yet are of very great use to mankind: others, again, which give a steady but not a splendid light, at the Planets; and are serviceable in their particular spheres: and lastly, others which twinkle in their respective systems, as the stars of different magnitudes

7.    One star, says the apostle, differs from another in glory, i.e. in splendor, according to what is called their different magnitudes. I will state a remarkable fact: The northern and southern hemispheres of the heavens have been divided into 102 constellations, and in these constellations Professor Bode has set down the places of 17, 240 stars; simple, nebulous, conglobate, and double. The stars have been distinguished by their apparent magnitudes or rather splendor, into stars of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, etc., magnitudes: of these 17, 240, only sixteen are, by astronomers in general, agreed to be of the first magnitude, all of which are set down in the following catalogue, with some of those that are remarkable in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth magnitudes. The reader will observe that the name of the constellation or star is first mentioned; the Greek letters, etc., are those by which they are distinguished on maps and globes; and they are, by astronomers, referred to by these letters and numbers. My inferences follow the table.

Calvin: 1Co 15:25

25.For he must reign He proves that the time is not yet come when Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, with the view of showing at the same time that the end has not yet come, when all things will be put into a right and tranquil state, because Christ has not yet subdued all his enemies. Now that must be brought about, because the Father has placed him at his right hand with this understanding, that he is not to resign the authority that he has received, until they have been subdued under his power. And this is said for the consolation of the pious, that they may not be impatient on account of the long delay of the resurrection. This statement occurs in Psa 110:1

Paul, however, may seem to refine upon the word until beyond what the simple and natural meaning of the word requires; for the Spirit does not in that passage give intimation of what shall be afterwards, but simply of what must be previously. I answer, that Paul does not conclude that Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, on the ground of its having been so predicted in the Psalm, but he has made use of this quotation from the Psalm, for the purpose of proving that the day of delivering up the kingdom had not yet arrived, because Christ has still to do with his enemies. Paul, however, explains in passing what is meant by Christ’s sitting at the right hand of the Father, when in place of that figurative expression he makes use of the simple word reign.

The last enemy — death We see that there are still many enemies that resist Christ, and obstinately oppose his reign. But death will be the last enemy ⁵⁴ that will be destroyed. Hence Christ must still be the administrator of his Father’s kingdom. Let believers, therefore, be of good courage, and not give up hope, until everything that must precede the resurrection be accomplished. It is asked, however, in what sense he affirms that death shall be the last enemy ⁵⁵ that will be destroyed, when it has been already destroyed by Christ’s death, or at least, by his resurrection, which is the victory over death, and the attainment of life? I answer, that it was destroyed in such a way as to be no longer deadly to believers, but not in such a way as to occasion them no uneasiness. The Spirit of God, it is true, dwelling in us is life; but we still carry about with us a mortal body. (1Pe 1:24.) The substance of death in us will one day be drained off, but it has not been so as yet. We are born again of incorruptible seed, (1Pe 1:23,) but we have not yet arrived at perfection. Or to sum up the matter briefly in a similitude, the sword of death which could penetrate into our very hearts has been blunted. It wounds nevertheless still, but without any danger; ⁵⁶ for we die, but by dying we enter into life. In fine, as Paul teaches elsewhere as to sin, (Rom 6:12,) such must be our view as to death — that it dwells indeed in us, but it does not reign

Calvin: 1Co 15:27

27.He hath put all things under his feet Some think that this quotation is taken from Psa 8:6 , and I have no objection to this, though there would be nothing out of place in reckoning this statement to be an inference that is drawn by Paul from the nature of Christ’s kingdom. Let us follow, however, the more generally received opinion. Paul shows from that Psalm, that God the Father has conferred upon Christ the power of all things, because it is said, Thou hast put all things under his feet The words are in themselves plain, were it not that there are two difficulties that present themselves — first, that the Prophet speaks here not of Christ alone, but of the whole human race; and secondly, that by all things he means only those things that have to do with the convenience of the life of the body, as we find in Gen 2:19. The solution of the former difficulty is easy; for as Christ is the first-born of every creature, (Col 1:15,) and the heir of all things, (Heb 1:2,) God, the Father, has not conferred upon the human race the use of all creatures in such a way as to hinder that in the mean time the chief power, and, so to speak, the rightful dominion, remain in Christ’s hands. Farther, we know, that Adam lost the right that had been conferred upon him, so that we can no longer call anything our own. For the earth was cursed, (Gen 3:17,) and everything that it contains; and it is through Christ alone that we recover what has been taken from us. ⁵⁷ It is with propriety, therefore, that this commendation belongs to Christ personally — that the Father has put all things under his feet, inasmuch as we rightfully possess nothing except in him. For how shall we become heirs of God, if we are not his sons, and by whom are we made his sons but by Christ.

The solution of the second difficulty is as follows — that the Prophet, it is true, especially mentions fowls of heaven, fishes of the sea, and beasts of the field, because this kind of dominion is visible, and is more apparent to the eye; but at the same time the general statement reaches much farther — to the heavens and the earth, and everything that they contain. Now the subjection must have a corrrespondence with the character of him who rules — that is, it has a suitableness to his condition, so as to correspond with it. Now Christ does not need animals for food, or other creatures for any necessity. He rules, therefore, that all things may be subservient to his glory, inasmuch as he adopts us as participants in his dominion. The fruit of this openly appears in visible creatures; but believers feel in their consciences an inward fruit, which, as I have said, extends farther.

All things put under him, except him who put all things under him He insists upon two things — first, that all things must be brought under subjection to Christ before he restores to the Father the dominion of the world, and secondly, that the Father has given all things into the hands of his Son in such a way as to retain the principal right in his own hands. From the former of these it follows, that the hour of the last judgment is not yet come — from the second, that Christ is now the medium between us and the Father in such a way as to bring us at length to him. Hence he immediately infers as follows: After he shall have subjected all things to him, then shall the Son subject himself to the Father. “Let us wait patiently until Christ shall vanquish all his enemies, and shall bring us, along with himself, under the dominion of God, that the kingdom of God may in every respect be accomplished in us. ”

This statement, however, is at first view at variance with what we read in various passages of Scripture respecting the eternity of Christ’s kingdom. For how will these things correspond — Of his kingdom there will be no end, (Dan 7:14; Luk 1:33; 2Pe 1:11,) and He himself shall be subjected? The solution of this question will open up Paul’s meaning more clearly. In the first place, it must be observed, that all power was delivered over to Christ, inasmuch as he was manifested in the flesh. It is true that such distinguished majesty would not correspond with a mere man, but, notwithstanding, the Father has exalted him in the same nature in which he was abased, and has

given, him a name, before which every knee must bow, etc. (Phi 2:9.)

Farther, it must be observed, that he has been appointed Lord and highest King, so as to be as it were the Father’s Vicegerent in the government of the world — not that he is employed and the Father unemployed (for how could that be, inasmuch as he is the wisdom and counsel of the Father, is of one essence with him, and is therefore himself God?) But the reason why the Scripture testifies, that Christ now holds dominion over the heaven and the earth in the room of the Father is — that we may not think that there is any other governor, lord, protector, or judge of the dead and living, but may fix our contemplation on him alone. ⁵⁸ We acknowledge, it is true, God as the ruler, but it is in the face of the man Christ. But Christ will then restore the kingdom which he has received, that we may cleave wholly to God. ⁵⁹ Nor will he in this way resign the kingdom, but will transfer it in a manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity, because a way of approach will then be opened up, from which our infirmity now keeps us back. Thus then Christ will be subjected to the Father, because the vail being then removed, we shall openly behold God reigning in his majesty, ⁶⁰ and Christ’s humanity will then no longer be interposed to keep us back from a closer view of God. ⁶¹

Calvin: 1Co 15:28

28.That God may be all in all Will it be so in the Devil and wicked men also? By no means — unless perhaps we choose to take the verb to be as meaning, to be known, and openly beheld. In that case the meaning will be: “For the present, as the Devil resists God, as wicked men confound and disturb the order which he has established, and as endless occasions of offense present themselves to our view, it does not distinctly appear that God is all in all; but when Christ will have executed the judgment which has been committed to him by the Father, and will have cast down Satan and all the wicked, the glory of God will be conspicuous in their destruction. The same thing may be said also respecting powers that are sacred and lawful in their kind, for they in a manner hinder God’s being seen aright by us in himself. Then, on the other hand, God, holding the government of the heaven and the earth by himself, and without any medium, will in that respect be all, and will consequently at last be so, not only in all persons, but also in all creatures.”

This is a pious interpretation, ⁶² and, as it corresponds sufficiently well with the Apostle’s design, I willingly embrace it. There would, however, be nothing out of place in understanding it as referring exclusively to believers, in whom God has now begun his kingdom, and will then perfect it, and in such a way that they shall cleave to him wholly. Both meanings sufficiently refute of themselves the wicked frenzies of some who bring forward this passage in proof of them. Some imagine, that God will be all in all in this respect, that all things will vanish and dissolve into nothing. Paul’s words, however, mean nothing but this, that all things will be brought back to God, as their alone beginning and end, that they may be closely bound to him. Others infer from this that the Devil and all the wicked will be saved — as if God would not altogether be better known in the Devil’s destruction, than if he were to associate the Devil with himself, and make him one with himself. We see then, how impudently madmen of this sort wrest this statement of Paul for maintaining their blasphemies.

Calvin: 1Co 15:29

29.Else what shall they do He resumes his enumeration of the absurdities, which follow from the error under which the Corinthians labored. He had set himself in the outset to do this, but he introduced instruction and consolation, by means of which he interrupted in some degree the thread of his discourse. To this he now returns. In the first place he brings forward this objection — that the baptism which those received who are already regarded as dead, will be of no avail if there is no resurrection. Before expounding this passage, it is of importance to set aside the common exposition, which rests upon the authority of the ancients, and is received with almost universal consent. Chrysostom, therefore, and Ambrose, who are followed by others, are of opinion ⁶³ that the Corinthians were accustomed, when any one had been deprived of baptism by sudden death, to substitute some living person in the place of the deceased — to be baptized at his grave. They at the same time do not deny that this custom was corrupt, and full of superstition, but they say that Paul, for the purpose of confuting the Corinthians, was contented with this single fact, ⁶⁴ that while they denied that there was a resurrection, they in the mean time declared in this way that they believed in it. For my part, however, I cannot by any means be persuaded to believe this, ⁶⁵ for it is not to be credited, that those who denied that there was a resurrection had, along with others, made use of a custom of this sort. Paul then would have had immediately this reply made to him: “Why do you trouble us with that old wives’ superstition, which you do not yourself approve of?” Farther, if they had made use of it, they might very readily have replied: “If this has been hitherto practiced by us through mistake, rather let the mistake be corrected, than that it should have weight attached to it for proving a point of such importance.”

Granting, however, that the argument was conclusive, can we suppose that, if such a corruption as this had prevailed among the Corinthians, the Apostle, after reproving almost all their faults, would have been silent as to this one? He has censured above some practices that are not of so great moment. He has not scrupled to give directions as to women’s having the head covered, and other things of that nature. Their corrupt administration of the Supper he has not merely reproved, but has inveighed against it with the greatest keenness. Would he in the meantime have uttered not a single word in reference to such a base profanation of baptism, which was a much more grievous fault? He has inveighed with great vehemence against those who, by frequenting the banquets of the Gentiles, silently countenanced their superstitions. Would he have suffered this horrible superstition of the Gentiles to be openly carried on in the Church itself under the name of sacred baptism? But granting that he might have been silent, what shall we say when he expressly makes mention of it? Is it, I pray you, a likely thing that the Apostle would bring forward in the shape of an argument a sacrilege ⁶⁶ by which baptism was polluted, and converted into a mere magical abuse, and yet not say even one word in condemnation of the fault? When he is treating of matters that are not of the highest importance, he introduces nevertheless this parenthesis, that he speaks as a man. (Rom 3:5; Rom 6:19; Gal 3:15.) Would not this have been a more befitting and suitable place for such a parenthesis? Now from his making mention of such a thing without any word of reproof, who would not understand it to be a thing that was allowed? For my part, I assuredly understand him to speak here of the right use of baptism, and not of an abuse of it of that nature.

Let us now inquire as to the meaning. At one time I was of opinion, that Paul here pointed out the universal design of baptism, for the advantage of baptism is not confined to this life; but on considering the words afterwards with greater care, I perceived that Paul here points out something peculiar. For he does not speak of all when he says, What shall they do, who are baptized ? etc. Besides, I am not fond of interpretations, that are more ingenious than solid. What then? I say, that those are baptized for dead, who are looked upon as already dead, and who have altogether despaired of life; and in this way the particle ὑπέρ will have the force of the Latin pro , as when we say, habere pro derelicto ; — to reckon as abandoned ⁶⁷ This signification is not a forced one. Or if you would prefer another signification, to be baptized for the dead will mean — to be baptized so as to profit the dead — not the living, ⁶⁸ Now it is well known, that from the very commencement of the Church, those who had, while yet catechumens, ⁶⁹ fallen into disease, ⁷⁰ if their life was manifestly in danger, were accustomed to ask baptism, that they might not leave this world before they had made a profession of Christianity; and this, in order that they might carry with them the seal of their salvation.

It appears from the writings of the Fathers, that as to this matter, also, there crept in afterwards a superstition, for they inveigh against those who delayed baptism till the time of their death, that, being once for all purged from all their sins, they might in this state meet the judgment of God. ⁷¹ A gross error truly, which proceeded partly from great ignorance, and partly from hypocrisy! Paul, however, here simply mentions a custom that was sacred, and in accordance with the Divine institution — that if a catechumen, who had already in his heart embraced the Christian faith, ⁷² saw that death was impending over him, he asked baptism, partly for his own consolation, and partly with a view to the edification of his brethren. For it is no small consolation to carry the token of his salvation sealed in his body. There is also an edification, not to be lost sight of — that of making a confession of his faith. They were, then, baptized for the dead, inasmuch as it could not be of any service to them in this world, and the very occasion of their asking baptism was that they despaired of life. We now see that it is not without good reason that Paul asks, what they would do if there remained no hope after death? ⁷³ This passage shows us, too, that those impostors who had disturbed the faith of the Corinthians, had contrived a figurative resurrection, making the farthest goal of believers to be in this world, His repeating it a second time, Why are they also baptized for the dead? gives it greater emphasis: “Not only are those baptized who think that they are to live longer, but those too who have death before their eyes; and that, in order that they may in death reap the fruit of their baptism.”

Calvin: 1Co 15:30

30.Why are we also? “If our resurrection and ultimate felicity are in this world, why do we of our own accord abandon it, and voluntarily encounter death?” The argument might also be unfolded in this manner: “To no purpose would we stand in peril every hour, if we did not look for a better life, after death has been passed through.” He speaks, however, of voluntary dangers, to which believers expose their lives for the purpose of confessing Christ. “This magnanimity of soul, I say, in despising death, would be ascribed to rashness rather than firmness, if the saints perished at death, for it is a diabolical madness to purchase by death an immortal fame.” ⁷⁴

Calvin: 1Co 15:31

31.I die daily Such a contempt of death he declares to be in himself, that he may not seem to talk bravely when beyond the reach of danger. “I am every day,” says he, “incessantly beset with death. What madness were it in me to undergo so much misery, if there were no reward in reserve for me in heaven? Nay more, if my glory and bliss lie in this world, why do I not rather enjoy them, than of my own accord resign them?” He says that he dies daily, because he was constantly beset with dangers so formidable and so imminent, that death in a manner was impending over him. A similar expression occurs in Psa 44:22, and we shall, also, find one of the same kind occurring in the second Epistle. (2Co 11:23.)

By our glory The old translation reads propter, (because of,) ⁷⁵ but it has manifestly arisen from the ignorance of transcribers; for in the Greek particle ⁷⁶ there is no ambiguity. It is then an oath, by which he wished to arouse the Corinthians, to be more attentive in listening to him, when reasoning as to the matter in hand. ⁷⁷ “Brethren, I am not some philosopher prattling in the shade. ⁷⁸ As I expose myself every day to death, it is necessary that I should think in good earnest of the heavenly life. Believe, therefore, a man who is thoroughly experienced.”

It is also a form of oath that is not common, but is suited to the subject in hand. Corresponding to this was that celebrated oath of Demosthenes, which is quoted by Fabius, ⁷⁹ when he swore by the Shades of those who had met death in the field of Marathon, while his object was to exhort them to defend the Republic. ⁸⁰ So in like manner Paul here swears by the glory which Christians have in Christ. Now that glory is in heaven. He shows, then, that what they called in question was a matter of which he was so well assured, that he was prepared to make use of a sacred oath — a display of skill which must be carefully noticed.

Calvin: 1Co 15:32

32.If according to the manner of men He brings forward a notable instance of death, from which it might be clearly seen that he would have been worse than a fool, if there were not a better life in reserve for us beyond death; for it was an ignominious kind of death to which he was exposed. “To what purpose were it,” says he, “for me to incur infamy in connection with a most cruel death, if all my hopes were confined to this world?” According to the manner of men, means in this passage, in respect of human life, so that we obtain a reward in this world.

Now by those that fought with beasts, are meant, not those that were thrown to wild beasts, as Erasmus mistakingly imagined, but those that were condemned to be set to fight with wild beasts — to furnish an amusement to the people. There were, then, two kinds of punishment, that were totally different — to be thrown to wild beasts, and to fight with wild beasts. For those that were thrown to wild beasts were straightway torn in pieces; but those that fought with wild beasts went forth armed into the arena, that if they were endued with strength, courage, and agility, they might effect their escape by dispatching the wild beasts. Nay more, there was a game in which those who fought with wild beasts were trained, like the gladiators ⁸¹ Usually, however, very few escaped, because the man who had dispatched one wild beast, was required to fight with a second, ⁸² until the cruelty of the spectators was satiated, or rather was melted into pity; and yet there were found men so abandoned and desperate, as to hire themselves out for this! ⁸³ And this, I may remark by the way, is that kind of hunting that is punished so severely by the ancient canons, as even civil laws brand it with a mark of infamy. ⁸⁴

I return to Paul. ⁸⁵ We see what an extremity God allowed his servant to come to, and how wonderfully, too, he rescued him. Luke, ⁸⁶ however, makes no mention of this fight. Hence we may infer that he endured many things that have not been committed to writing.

Let us eat and drink This is a saying of the Epicureans, who reckon man’s highest good as consisting in present enjoyment. Isaiah also testifies that it is a saying made use of by profligate persons, (Isa 22:13,) who, when the Prophets of God threaten them with ruin, ⁸⁷ with the view of calling them to repentance, making sport of those threatenings, encourage themselves in wantonness and unbridled mirth, and in order to show more openly their obstinacy, say, “Since die we must, let us meanwhile enjoy the time, and not torment ourselves before the time with empty fears.” As to what a certain General said to his army, ⁸⁸ “My fellowsoldiers, let us dine heartily, for we shall sup to-day in the regions below,” ⁸⁹ that was an exhortation to meet death with intrepidity, and has nothing to do with this subject. I am of opinion, that Paul made use of a jest in common use among abandoned and desperately wicked persons, or (to express it shortly) a common proverb among the Epicureans to the following purpose: “If death is the end of man, there is nothing better than that he should indulge in pleasure, free from care, so long as life lasts.” Sentiments of this kind are to be met with frequently in Horace. ⁹⁰

Calvin: 1Co 15:33

33.Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners As nothing is easier than to glide into profane speculation, under the pretext of inquiring, ⁹¹ he meets this danger, by warning them that evil communications have more effect than we might suppose, in polluting our minds and corrupting our morals. ⁹² To show this, he makes use of a quotation from the poet Menander, ⁹³ as we are at liberty to borrow from every quarter everything that has come forth from God. And as all truth is from God, there is no doubt that the Lord has put into the mouth of the wicked themselves, whatever contains true and salutary doctrine. I prefer, however, that, for the handling of this subject, recourse should be had to Basil’s Oration to the Young. Paul, then, being aware that this proverb was in common use among the Greeks, chose rather to make use of it, that it might make its way into their minds more readily, than to express the same thing in his own words. For they would more readily receive what they had been accustomed to — as we have experience of in proverbs with which we are familiar.

Now it is a sentiment that is particularly worthy of attention, for Satan, when he cannot make a direct assault upon us, ⁹⁴ deludes us under this pretext, that there is nothing wrong in our raising any kind of disputation with a view to the investigation of truth. Here, therefore, Paul in opposition to this, warns us that we must guard against evil communications, as we would against the most deadly poison, because, insinuating themselves secretly into our minds, they straightway corrupt our whole life. Let us, then, take notice, that nothing is more pestilential than corrupt doctrine and profane disputations, which draw us off, even in the smallest degree, from a right and simple faith; ⁹⁵ for it is not without good reason that Paul exhorts us not to be deceived. ⁹⁶

Calvin: 1Co 15:34

34.Awake righteously As he saw that the Corinthians were in a manner intoxicated, ⁹⁷ through excessive carelessness, he arouses them from their torpor. By adding, however, the adverb righteously, he intimates in what way he would have them wake up For they were sufficiently attentive and clear-sighted as to their own affairs: nay more, there can be no doubt that they congratulated themselves on their acuteness; but in the mean time they were drowsy, where they ought most of all to have been on the watch. He says accordingly, awake righteously — that is, “Direct your mind and aim to things that are good and holy.”

He adds at the same time the reason, — For some, says he, among you are in ignorance of God This required to be stated: otherwise they might have thought that the admonition was unnecessary; for they looked upon themselves as marvellously wise. Now he convicts them of ignorance of God, that they may know that the main thing was wanting in them. A useful admonition to those who lay out all their agility in flying through the air, while in the mean time they do not see what is before their feet, and are stupid where they ought, most of all, to have been clear-sighted.

To your shame Just as fathers, when reproving their children for their faults, put them to shame, in order that they may by that shame cover their shame. When, however, he declared previously that he did not wish to shame them, (1Co 4:14,) his meaning was that he did not wish to hold them up to disgrace, by bringing forward their faults to public view in a spirit of enmity and hatred. ⁹⁸ In the mean time, however, it was of advantage for them to be sharply reproved, as they were still indulging themselves in evils of such magnitude. Now Paul in reproaching them with ignorance of God, strips them entirely of all honor.

Calvin: 1Co 15:35

35.How will they be raised up? There is nothing that is more at variance with human reason than this article of faith. For who but God alone could persuade us that bodies, which are now liable to corruption, will, after having rotted away, or after they have been consumed by fire, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, will not merely be restored entire, but in a greatly better condition. Do not all our apprehensions of things straightway reject this as a thing fabulous, nay, most absurd? ¹⁰⁰ Paul, with the view of removing entirely this appearance of absurdity, makes use of an anhypophora, ¹⁰¹ that is, he brings forward by way of objection, in the person of another, what appears at first view to be at variance with the doctrine of a resurrection. For this question is not that of one who inquires doubtingly as to the mode, but of one who argues from impossibility — that is, what is said as to the resurrection is a thing incredible. Hence in his reply he repels such an objection with severity. Let us observe, then, that the persons who are here introduced as speaking, are those who endeavor to disparage, in a way of scoffing, a belief in the resurrection, on the ground of its being a thing that is impossible.

Calvin: 1Co 15:36

36.Thou fool, that which thou sowest The Apostle might have replied, that the mode, which is to us incomprehensible, is nevertheless easy with God. Hence, we must not here form our judgment according to our own understanding, but must assign to the stupendous and secret power of God the honor of believing, that it will accomplish what we cannot comprehend. He goes to work, however, in another way. For he shows, that the resurrection is so far from being against nature, that we have every day a clear illustration of it in the course of nature itself — in the growth of the fruits of the earth. For from what but from rottenness spring the fruits that we gather out of the earth? For when the seed has been sown, unless the grains die, there will be no increase. Corruption, then, being the commencement and cause of production, we have in this a sort of picture of the resurrection. Hence it follows, that we are beyond measure spiteful and ungrateful in estimating the power of God, if we take from him what is already manifest before our eyes.

Calvin: 1Co 15:37

37.Thou sowest not that body that will spring up This comparison consists of two parts — first, that it is not to be wondered that bodies rise from rottenness, inasmuch as the same thing takes place as to seed; and secondly, that it is not at variance with reason, that our bodies should be restored in another condition, since, from bare grain, God brings forth so many ears of corn, clothed with admirable contrivance, and stored with grains of superior quality. As, however, he might seem to intimate, by speaking in this way, that many bodies will therefore rise out of one, he modifies his discourse in another way, by saying that God forms the body as it pleases him, meaning that in that also there is a difference in respect of quality.

He adds, to every seed its own body By this clause he restricts what he had said respecting another body; for he says that, while the body is different, it is in such a way as to retain, nevertheless, its particular kind.

Calvin: 1Co 15:39

39.All flesh is not, etc. Here we have another comparison leading to the same conclusion, though there are some that explain it otherwise. For when he says, that under the name of flesh is comprehended the body of a man as well as of a beast, and yet the flesh in those two cases is different, he means by this that the substance indeed is the same, but there is a difference as to quality. The sum is this — that whatever diversity we see in any particular kind is a sort of prelude of the resurrection, because God clearly shows, that it is no difficult thing with him to renew our bodies by changing the present condition of things. ¹⁰²

Calvin: 1Co 15:41

41.There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon Not only is there a difference between heavenly bodies and earthly, but even the heavenly bodies have not all the same glory; for the sun surpasses the moon, and the other stars differ from each other. This dissimilarity, accordingly, appears ¹⁰³ in the resurrection of the dead. A mistake, however, is commonly fallen into in the application; ¹⁰⁴ for it is supposed that Paul meant to say, that, after the resurrection, the saints will have different degrees of honor and glory. This, indeed, is perfectly true, and is proved by other declarations of Scripture; but it has nothing to do with Paul’s object. For he is not arguing as to what difference of condition there will be among the saints after the resurrection, but in what respect our bodies at present differ from those that we will one day receive. ¹⁰⁵

He removes, then, every idea of absurdity, by instituting this comparison: The substance of the sun and moon is the same, but there is a great difference between them in point of dignity and excellence. Is it to be wondered, then, if our body puts on a more excellent quality? ¹⁰⁶ “I do not teach that anything will take place at the resurrection but what is already presented before the eyes of all.” That such is the meaning of the words is clear from the context. For whence and for what purpose would Paul make such a transition, were he now comparing them with one another in respect of the difference of their condition, while up to this point he has been comparing the present condition of all with their future condition, and immediately proceeds with that comparison?

Calvin: 1Co 15:43

43.It is sown in corruption That there may be no doubt remaining, Paul explains himself, by unfolding the difference between their present condition, and that which will be after the resurrection. What connection, then, would there be in his discourse, if he had intended in the first instance ¹⁰⁷ to distinguish between the different degrees of future glory among the saints? There can, therefore, be no doubt, that he has been, up to this point, following out one subject. He now returns to the first similitude that he had made use of, but applies it more closely to his design. Or, if you prefer it, keeping up that similitude, he figuratively compares the time of the present life to the seed-time, and the resurrection to the harvest; and he says, that our body is now, indeed, subject to mortality and ignominy, but will then be glorious and incorruptible. He says the same thing in other words in Phi 3:21

Christ will change our vile body,
that he may make it like to his own glorious body.

Calvin: 1Co 15:44

44.It is sown an animal body As he could not express each particular by enumerating one by one, he sums up all comprehensively in one word, by saying that the body is now animal, ¹⁰⁸ but it will then be spiritual. Now that is called animal which is quickened by ( anima ) the soul: that is spiritual which is quickened by the Spirit. ¹⁰⁹ Now it is the soul that quickens the body, so as to keep it from being a dead carcase. Hence it takes its title very properly from it. After the resurrection, on the other hand, that quickening influence, which it will receive from the Spirit, will be more excellent. ¹¹⁰ Let us, however, always bear in mind, what we have seen previously — that the substance of the body is the same, ¹¹¹ and that it is the quality only that is here treated of. Let the present quality of the body be called, for the sake of greater plainness, animation; ¹¹² let the future receive the name of inspiration. For as to the soul’s now quickening the body, that is effected through the intervention of many helps; for we stand in need of drink, food, clothing, sleep, and other things of a similar nature. Hence the weakness of animation is clearly manifested. The energy of the Spirit, on the other hand, for quickening, will be much more complete, and, consequently, exempted from necessities of that nature. This is the simple and genuine meaning of the Apostle; that no one may, by philosophizing farther, indulge in airy speculations, as those do, who suppose that the substance of the body will be spiritual, while there is no mention made here of substance, and no change will be made upon it.

Calvin: 1Co 15:45

45.As it is written, The first Adam was made Lest it should seem to be some new contrivance as to the animal body, ¹¹³ he quotes Scripture, which declares that Adam became a living soul, (Gen 2:7) — meaning, that his body was quickened by the soul, so that he became a living man. It is asked, what is the meaning of the word soul here? It is well known, that the Hebrew word נפש , (nephesh,) which Moses makes use of, is taken in a variety of senses; but in this passage it is taken to mean either vital motion, or the very essence of life itself. The second of these I rather prefer. I observe that the same thing is affirmed as to beasts — that they were made a living soul, (Gen 1:20;) but as the soul of every animal must be judged of according to its kind, there is nothing to hinder that a soul, that is to say, vital motion, may be common to all; and yet at the same time the soul of man may have something peculiar and distinguishing, namely, immortal essence, as the light of intelligence and reason.

The last Adam This expression we do not find anywhere written. ¹¹⁴ Hence the phrase, It is written, must be understood as referring exclusively to the first clause; but after bringing forward this testimony of Scripture, the Apostle now begins in his own person to draw a contrast between Christ and Adam. “Moses relates that Adam was furnished with a living soul; Christ, on the other hand, is endowed with a life-giving Spirit. Now it is a much greater thing to be life, or the source of life, than simply to live.” ¹¹⁵ It must be observed, however, that Christ did also, like us, become a living soul; but, besides the soul, the Spirit of the Lord was also poured-out upon him, that by his power he might rise again from the dead, and raise up others, This, therefore, must be observed, in order that no one may imagine, (as Apollinaris ¹¹⁶ did of old,) that the Spirit was in Christ in place of a soul. And independently of this, the interpretation of this passage may be taken from the eighth chapter of the Romans, where the Apostle declares, that the body, indeed, is dead, on account of sin, and we carry in us the elements of death; but that the Spirit of Christ, who raised him up from the dead, dwelleth also in us, and that he is life, to raise up us also one day from the dead. (Rom 8:10.) From this you see, that we have living souls, inasmuch as we are men, but that we have the life-giving Spirit of Christ poured out upon us by the grace of regeneration. In short, Paul’s meaning is, that the condition that we obtain through Christ is greatly superior to the lot of the first man, because a living soul was conferred upon Adam in his own name, and in that of his posterity, but Christ has procured for us the Spirit, who is life.

Now as to his calling Christ the last Adam, the reason is this, that as the human race was created in the first man, so it is renewed in Christ. I shall express it again, and more distinctly: All men were created in the first man, because, whatever God designed to give to all, he conferred upon that one man, so that the condition of mankind was settled in his person. He by his fall ¹¹⁷ ruined himself and those that were his, because he drew them all, along with himself, into the same ruin: Christ came to restore our nature from ruin, and raise it up to a better condition than ever. They ¹¹⁸ are then, as it were, two sources, or two roots of the human race. Hence it is not without good reason, that the one is called the first man, and the other the last. This, however, gives no support to those madmen, who make Christ to be one of ourselves, as though there were and always had been only two men, and that this multitude which we behold, were a mere phantom! A similar comparison occurs in Rom 5:12

Calvin: 1Co 15:46

46.But this is not first, which is spiritual “It is necessary,” says he, “that before we are restored in Christ, we derive our origin from Adam, and resemble him. Let us, therefore, not wonder, if we begin with the living soul, for as being born precedes in order being born again, so living precedes rising again.”

Calvin: 1Co 15:47

47.The first Adam was from the earth The animal life comes first, because the earthy man is first. ¹¹⁹ The spiritual life will come afterwards, as Christ, the heavenly man, came after Adam. Now the Manichees perverted this passage, with the view of proving that Christ brought a body from heaven into the womb of the Virgin. They mistakingly imagined, however, that Paul speaks here of the substance of the body, while he is discoursing rather as to its condition, or quality. Hence, although the first man had an immortal soul, and that too, not taken from the earth, yet he, nevertheless, savoured of the earth, from which his body had sprung, and on which he had been appointed to live. Christ, on the other hand, brought us from heaven a life-giving Spirit, that he might regenerate us into a better life, and elevated above the earth. ¹²⁰ In fine, we have it from Adam — that we live in this world, as branches from the root: Christ, on the other hand, is the beginning and author of the heavenly life.

But some one will say in reply, Adam is said to be from the earth — Christ from heaven; the nature of the comparison ¹²¹ requires this much, that Christ have his body from heaven, as the body of Adam was formed from the earth; or, at least, that the origin of man’s soul should be from the earth, but that Christ’s soul had come forth from heaven. I answer, that Paul had not contrasted the two departments of the subject with such refinement and minuteness, (for this was not necessary;) but when treating of the nature of Christ and Adam, he made a passing allusion to the creation of Adam, that he had been formed from the earth,, and at the same time, for the purpose of commending Christ’s excellence, he states, that he is the Son of God, who came down to us from heaven, and brings with him, therefore, a heavenly nature and influence. This is the simple meaning, while the refinement of the Manichees is a mere calumny.

We must, however, reply to another objection still. For Christ, so long as he lived in the world, lived a life similar to ours, and therefore earthly: hence it is not a proper contrast. The solution of this question will serve farther to refute the contrivance ¹²² of the Manichees. For we know, that the body of Christ was liable to death, and that it was exempted from corruption, not by its essential property, (as they speak,) ¹²³ but solely by the providence of God. Hence Christ was not merely earthy as to the essence of his body, but was also for a time in an earthly condition; for before Christ’s power could show itself in conferring the heavenly life, it was necessary that he should die in the weakness of the flesh, (2Co 13:4.) Now this heavenly life appeared first in the resurrection, that he might quicken us also.

Calvin: 1Co 15:49

49.As we have borne Some have thought, that there is here an exhortation to a pious and holy life, into which Paul was led by way of digression; and on that account they have changed the verb from the future tense into the hortative mood. Nay more, in some Greek manuscripts the reading is φορέσωμεν (let us bear,) ¹²⁴ but as that does not suit so well in respect of connection, let us adopt in preference what corresponds better with the object in view and the context. ¹²⁵ Let us observe, in the first place, that this is not an exhortation, but pure doctrine, and that he is not treating here of newness of life, but pursues, without any interruption, the thread of his discourse respecting the resurrection of the flesh. The meaning accordingly will be this: “As the animal nature, which has the precedency in us, is the image of Adam, so we shall be conformed to Christ in the heavenly nature; and this will be the completion of our restoration. For we now begin to bear the image of Christ, and are every day more and more transformed into it; ¹²⁶ but that image consists in spiritual regeneration. But then it will be fully restored both in body and in soul, and what is now begun will be perfected, and accordingly we will obtain in reality what we as yet only hope for.” If, however, any one prefers a different reading, this statement will serve to spur forward the Corinthians; and if there had been a lively meditation of sincere piety and a new life, it might have been the means of kindling up in them at the same time the hope of heavenly glory.

Calvin: 1Co 15:50

50.Now this I say This clause intimates, that what follows is explanatory of the foregoing statement. “What I have said as to bearing the image of the heavenly Adam means this — that we must be renewed in respect of our bodies, inasmuch as our bodies, being liable to corruption, cannot inherit God’s incorruptible kingdom. Hence there will be no admission for us into the kingdom of Christ, otherwise than by Christ’s renewing us after his own image.” Flesh and blood, however, we must understand, according to the condition in which they at present are, for our flesh will be a participant in the glory of God, but it will be — as renewed and quickened by the Spirit of Christ.

Calvin: 1Co 15:51

Hitherto he has included two things in his reasoning. In the first place, he shows that there will be a resurrection from the dead: secondly, he shows of what nature it will be. Now, however, he enters more thoroughly into a description of the manner of it. This he calls a mystery, because it had not been as yet so clearly unfolded in any statement of revelation; but he does this to make them more attentive. For that wicked doctrine had derived strength from the circumstance, that they disputed as to this matter carelessly and at their ease; ¹²⁷ as if it were a matter in which they felt no difficulty. Hence by the term mystery, he admonishes them to learn a matter, which was not only as yet unknown to them, but ought to be reckoned among God’s heavenly secrets.

51.We shall not indeed all sleep Here there is no difference in the Greek manuscripts, but in the Latin versions there are three different readings. The first is, We shall indeed all die, but we shall not all be changed. The second is, We shall indeed all rise again, but we shall not all be changed. ¹²⁸ The third is, We shall not indeed all sleep, but we shall all be changed. This diversity, I conjecture, had arisen from this — that some readers, who were not the most discerning, dissatisfied with the true reading, ventured to conjecture a reading which was more approved by them. ¹²⁹ For it appeared to them, at first view, to be absurd to say, that all would not die, while we read elsewhere, that it is appointed unto all men once to die. (Heb 9:27.) Hence they altered the meaning in this way — All will not be changed, though all will rise again, or will die; and the change they interpret to mean — the glory that the sons of God alone will obtain. The true reading, however, may be judged of from the context.

Paul’s intention is to explain what he had said — that we will be conformed to Christ, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. A question presented itself, ¹³⁰ what then will become of those who will be still living at the day of the Lord? His answer is, that although all will not die, yet they will be renewed, that mortality and corruption may be done away. It is to be observed, however, that he speaks exclusively of believers; for although the resurrection of the wicked will also involve change, yet as there is no mention made of them here, we must consider everything that is said, as referring exclusively to the elect. We now see, how well this statement corresponds with the preceding one, for as he had said, that we shall bear the image of Christ, he now declares, that this will take place when we shall be changed, so that

mortality may be swallowed up of life, (2Co 5:4,)

and that this renovation is not inconsistent with the fact, that Christ’s advent will find some still alive.

We must, however, unravel the difficulty — that it is appointed unto all men once to die; and certainly, it is not difficult to unravel it in this way — that as a change cannot take place without doing away with the previous system, that change is reckoned, with good reason, a kind of death; but, as it is not a separation of the soul from the body, it is not looked upon as an ordinary death. It will then be death, inasmuch as it will be the destruction of corruptible nature: it will not be a sleep, inasmuch as the soul will not quit the body; but there will be a sudden transition from corruptible nature into a blessed immortality.

Calvin: 1Co 15:52

52.In a moment This is still of a general nature; that is, it includes all. For in all the change will be sudden and instantaneous, because Christ’s advent will be sudden. And to convey the idea of a moment, he afterwards makes use of the phrase twinkling (or jerk) of the eye, for in the Greek manuscripts there is a twofold, reading — ῥοπὣ (jerk,) or ῥιπὣ (twinkling.) ¹³¹ It matters nothing, however, as to the sense. Paul has selected a movement of the body, that surpasses all others in quickness; for nothing is more rapid than a movement of the eye, though at the same time he has made an allusion to sleep, with which twinkling of the eye is contrasted. ¹³²

With the last trump Though the repetition of the term might seem to place it beyond a doubt, that the word trumpet is here taken in its proper acceptation, yet I prefer to understand the expression as metaphorical. In 1Th 4:16, he connects together the voice of the archangel and the trump of God: As therefore a commander, with the sound of a trumpet, summons his army to battle, so Christ, by his far sounding proclamation, which will be heard throughout the whole world, will summon all the dead. Moses tells us, (Exo 19:16,) what loud and terrible sounds were uttered on occasion of the promulgation of the law. Far different will be the commotion then, when not one people merely, but the whole world will be summoned to the tribunal of God. Nor will the living only be convoked, but even the dead will be called forth from their graves. ¹³³ Nay more, a commandment must be given to dry bones and dust that, resuming their former appearance and reunited to the spirit, they come forth straightway as living men into the presence of Christ.

The dead shall rise What he had declared generally as to all, he now explains particularly as to the living and the dead. This distinction, therefore, is simply an exposition of the foregoing statement — that all will not die, but all will be changed “Those who have already died,” says he, “will rise again incorruptible.” See what a change there will be upon the dead! “Those,” says he, “who will be still alive will themselves also be changed.” You see then as to both. ¹³⁴ You now then perceive how it is, that change will be common to all, but not sleep. ¹³⁵

When he says, We shall be changed, he includes himself in the number of those, who are to live till the advent of Christ. As it was now the last times, (1Jo 2:18,) that day (2Ti 1:18) was to be looked for by the saints every hour. At the same time, in writing to the Thessalonians, he utters that memorable prediction respecting the scattering ¹³⁶ that would take place in the Church before Christ’s coming. (2Th 2:3.) This, however, does not hinder that he might, by bringing the Corinthians, as it were, into immediate contact with the event, associate himself and them with those who would at that time be alive.

Calvin: 1Co 15:53

53.For this corruptible must Mark, how we shall live in the kingdom of God both in body and in soul, while at the same time flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God — for they shall previously be delivered from corruption. Our nature then, as being now corruptible and mortal, is not admissible into the kingdom of God, but when it shall have put off corruption, and shall have been beautified with in-corruption, it will then make its way into it. This passage, too, distinctly proves, that we shall rise again in that same flesh that we now carry about with us, as the Apostle assigns a new quality to it which will serve as a garment. If he had said, This corruptible must be renewed, the error of those fanatics, who imagine that mankind will be furnished with new bodies, would not have been so plainly or forcibly overthrown. Now, however, when he declares that this corruptible shall be invested with glory, there is no room left for cavil.

Calvin: 1Co 15:54

54.Then shall be brought to pass the saying This is not merely an amplification, ( ἐπεξεργασία ,) ¹³⁷ but a confirmation, too, of the preceding statement. For what was foretold by the Prophets must be fulfilled. Now this prediction will not be fulfilled, until our bodies, laying aside corruption, will put on incorruption Hence this last result, also, is necessary. To come to pass, is used here in the sense of being fully accomplished, for what Paul quotes is now begun in us, and is daily, too, receiving further accomplishment; but it will not have its complete fulfillment until the last day.

It does not, however, appear quite manifest, from what passage he has taken this quotation, for many statements occur in the Prophets to this effect. Only the probability is, that the first clause is taken either from Isa 25:8, where it is said that death will be for ever destroyed by the Lord, ¹³⁸ or, (as almost all are rather inclined to think,) from Hos 13:14, where the Prophet, bewailing the obstinate wickedness of Israel, complains that he was like an untimely child, that struggles against the efforts of his mother in travail, that he may not come forth from the womb, and from this he concludes, that it was owing entirely to himself, that he was not delivered from death. I will ransom them, says he, from the power of the grave: I will rescue them from death. It matters not, whether you read these words in the future of the indicative, or in the subjunctive ¹³⁹ for in either way the meaning amounts to this — that God was prepared to confer upon them salvation, if they would have allowed the favor to be conferred upon them, and that, therefore, if they perished, it was their own fault.

He afterwards adds, I will be thy destruction, O death! thy ruin, O grave! In these words God intimates, that he accomplishes the salvation of his people ¹⁴⁰ only when death and the grave are reduced to nothing. For no one will deny, that in that passage there is a description of completed salvation. As, therefore, we do not see such a destruction of death, it follows, that we do not yet enjoy that complete salvation, which God promises to his people, and that, consequently, it is delayed until that day. Then, accordingly, will death be swallowed up, that is, it will be reduced to nothing, ¹⁴¹ that we may have manifestly, in every particular, and in every respect, (as they say,) a complete victory over it. ¹⁴²

Calvin: 1Co 15:55

As to the second clause, in which he triumphs over death and the grave, it is not certain whether he speaks of himself, or whether he meant there also to quote the words of the Prophet. For where we render it, “I will be thy destruction, O death! — thy ruin, O grave !” the Greeks have translated it, “ Where, O death, is thy suit? ¹⁴³ where, O grave, thy sting?” Now although this mistake of the Greeks is excusable from the near resemblance of the words, ¹⁴⁴ yet if any one will attentively examine the context, he will see that they have gone quite away from the Prophet’s intention. The true meaning, then, will be this — that the Lord will put an end to death, and destroy the grave. It is possible, however, that, as the Greek translation was in common use, Paul alluded to it, and in that there is nothing inconsistent, though he has not quoted literally, for instead of victory he has used the term action, or law-suit. ¹⁴⁵ I am certainly of opinion, that the Apostle did not deliberately intend to call in the Prophet as a witness, with the view of making a wrong use of his authority, but simply accommodated, in passing, to his own use a sentiment that had come into common use, as being, independently of this, of a pious nature. ¹⁴⁶ The main thing is this — that Paul, by an exclamation of a spirited nature, designed to rouse up the minds of the Corinthians, and lead them on, as it were, to a near view of the resurrection. Now, although we do not as yet behold the victory with our eyes, and the day of triumph has not yet arrived, (nay more, the dangers of war must every day be encountered,) yet the assurance of faith, as we shall have occasion to observe ere long, is not at all thereby diminished.

Calvin: 1Co 15:56

56.The sting of death is sin In other words, “Death has no dart with which to wound us except sin, since death proceeds from the anger of God. Now it is only with our sins that God is angry. Take away sin, therefore, and death will no more be able to harm us.” This agrees with what he said in Rom 6:23, that the wages of sin is death. Here, however, he makes use of another metaphor, for he compared sin to a sting, with which alone death is armed for inflicting upon us a deadly wound. Let that be taken away, and death is disarmed, so as to be no longer hurtful. Now with what view Paul says this will be explained by him ere long.

The strength of sin is the law It is the law of God that imparts to that sting its deadly power, because it does not merely discover our guilt, but even increases it. A clearer exposition of this statement may be found in Rom 7:9, where Paul teaches us that we are alive, so long as we are without the law, because in our own opinion it is well with us, and we do not feel our own misery, until the law summons us to the judgment of God, and wounds our conscience with an apprehension of eternal death. Farther, he teaches us that sin has been in a manner lulled asleep, but is kindled up by the law, so as to rage furiously. Meanwhile, however, he vindicates the law from calumnies, on the ground that it is holy, and good, and just, and is not of itself the parent of sin or the cause of death. Hence he concludes, that whatever there is of evil is to be reckoned to our own account, inasmuch as it manifestly proceeds from the depravity of our nature. Hence the law is but the occasion of injury. The true cause of ruin is in ourselves. Hence he speaks of the law here as the strength or power of sin, because it executes upon us the judgment of God. In the mean time he does not deny, that sin inflicts death even upon those that know not the law; but he speaks in this manner, because it exercises its tyranny upon them with less violence. For the law came that sin might abound, (Rom 5:20,) or that it might become beyond measure sinful. (Rom 7:13.)

Calvin: 1Co 15:57

57.But thanks be to God From this it appears, why it it was that he made mention both of sin and of the law, when treating of death. Death has no sting with which to wound except sin, and the law imparts to this sting a deadly power. But Christ has conquered sin, and by conquering it has procured victory for us, and has redeemed us from the curse of the law. (Gal 3:13.) Hence it follows, that we are no longer lying under the power of death. Hence, although we have not as yet a full discovery of those benefits, yet we may already with confidence glory in them, because it is necessary that what has been accomplished in the Head should be accomplished, also, in the members. We may, therefore, triumph over death as subdued, because Christ’s victory is ours.

When, therefore, he says, that victory has been given to us, you are to understand by this in the first place, that it is inasmuch as Christ has in his own person abolished sin, has satisfied the law, has endured the curse, has appeased the anger of God, and has procured life; and farther, because he has already begun to make us partakers of all those benefits. For though we still carry about with us the remains of sin, it, nevertheless, does not reign in us: though it still stings us, it does not do so fatally, because its edge is blunted, so that it does not penetrate into the vitals of the soul. Though the law still threatens, yet there is presented to us on the other hand, the liberty that was procured for us by Christ, which is an antidote to its terrors. Though the remains of sin still dwell in us, yet the Spirit who raised up Christ from the dead is life, because of righteousness. (Rom 8:10.) Now follows the conclusion.

Calvin: 1Co 15:58

58.Wherefore, my brethren Having satisfied himself that he had sufficiently proved the doctrine of the resurrection, he now closes his discussion with an exhortation; and this has much more force, than if he had made use of a simple conclusion with an affirmation. Since your labor, says he, is not in vain in the Lord, be steadfast, and abound in good works Now he says that their labor is not in vain, for this reason, that there is a reward laid up for them with God. This is that exclusive hope which, in the first instance, encourages believers, and afterwards sustains them, so that they do not stop short in the race. Hence he exhorts them to remain steadfast, because they rest on a firm foundation, as they know that a better life is prepared for them in heaven.

He adds — abounding in the work of the Lord; for the hope of a resurrection makes us not be weary in well doing, as he teaches in Col 1:10. For amidst so many occasions of offense as constantly present themselves to us, who is there that would not despond, or turn aside from the way, were it not that, by thinking of a better life he is by this means kept in the fear of God? Now, on the other hand, he intimates, that if the hope of a resurrection is taken away, then, the foundation (as it were) being rooted up, the whole structure of piety falls to the ground. ¹⁴⁷ Unquestionably, if the hope of reward is taken away and extinguished, alacrity in running will not merely grow cold, but will be altogether destroyed.

Defender: 1Co 15:25

This ultimate triumph, coming after His seeming defeat on the cross, was implied in the promise of Gen 3:15, and amplified in Psa 2:2, Psa 2:9; Psa 8:2, Psa 8:6; 22:1-18, Psa 22:28; Psa 118:22; and most explicitly in Psa 110:1, Psa 110:2."

Defender: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy to be destroyed will be the first enemy who rebelled against God in the beginning and who has been deceiving the world with his lies ever since. Satan, who now has "the power of death" (Heb 2:14) will finally be incarcerated forever in the "lake of fire" (Rev 20:10)."

Defender: 1Co 15:29

This is the only reference in the Bible to anyone being "baptized for the dead," and it has obviously become a very controversial verse, with many suggested interpretations. It could not mean that a dead unbeliever could somehow be saved by proxy baptism, for baptism does not save even living believers. It could not even save unbaptized believers, for they were already saved by grace through faith alone, whether or not they were baptized (Eph 2:8, Eph 2:9; Luk 23:43). This vicarious baptism for the dead could not have saved anyone, yet Paul seems to have mentioned it with approval, or at least not with disapproval, merely pointing out that it was meaningless if there was no future resurrection of the dead. But this might imply that he thought it was meaningful in light of the certain future resurrection. Since neither he nor any other New Testament writer mentions this practice anywhere else, and since it is not practiced today (except by certain cults), it remains somewhat enigmatic as to purpose and value, and no expositor should be dogmatic. The difficulty probably has to do with the precise intent of the preposition huper, here translated "for." This word can be translated in various ways, depending on context. The context here is dealing with the future resurrection, and immersion in water beautifully symbolizes death and resurrection, both that of Christ and of the believer being baptized (see note on Rom 6:3-5). There would certainly be no point in submitting to the inconvenience of immersion if the events it symbolized were non-existent. It merely would increase one's jeopardy of persecution and earlier death (1Co 15:30), all to no avail if there were no resurrection. A possible translation, therefore, could be "baptism with respect (only) to the dead." That is, such baptism might depict one's future death, but not his future resurrection, if there were no such thing. It would only be a baptism for the dead, not one showing both death and resurrection."

Defender: 1Co 15:32

This passage is quoted from Isa 22:13. With respect to Paul's encounter with beasts at Ephesus, there is no mention of this either in the book of Acts or in Paul's list of his travails in 2Co 11:23-33. Possibly he was referring to the mob acting like beasts at the uproar in Ephesus (Act 19:28-34)."

Defender: 1Co 15:33

This might be paraphrased as a warning that false doctrine inevitably leads to wicked behavior. Denying a future accounting to God (implicit in denying the resurrection) leads to the philosophy of fatalistic eating, drinking and merry-making. Denying creation in favor of animalistic evolution leads to animalistic conduct, and so on."

Defender: 1Co 15:38

This statement is both a refutation of evolution and a confirmation of the Genesis revelation that each kind of plant was only to reproduce "after its kind" (Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12). God has designed each kind and has implanted a unique genetic code in each DNA molecule. This code controls the reproduction process, and assures that each kind will reproduce after no other kind (Jam 3:12)."

Defender: 1Co 15:39

Not only the plants but also the animals reproduce after their own kind. There is not continuity of all forms of animal and human life, as evolutionary theory supposes. This revelation is firmly supported by the distinct genetic gaps between different kinds of animals and by the ubiquitous gaps between those same kinds in the fossil record."

Defender: 1Co 15:40

This strong distinction between the earth, the planets, the moon and the sun is also firmly verified by modern astronomical discoveries. The chemical and physical structures of the earth and the other planets, as well as the moon, are vastly different from each other, and the same is true of all their many satellites. It seems completely impossible that they could all have evolved out of the same dust cloud about five billion years ago, as evolutionists contend."

Defender: 1Co 15:41

Here is still another modern scientific confirmation of Biblical revelation. All stars look alike to the naked eye. Even when seen through a telescope, they seem to be just points of light. However, analysis of their light spectra reveals that each is unique and different from all others. Each has its own distinctive ratio of apparent brightness to temperature, so each is different "in glory" from all others."

Defender: 1Co 15:43

In 1Co 15:35-45, death and resurrection are compared to seed-sowing and harvest. When a seed is planted in the ground, it is as though it had died and was being buried. For a long time after its death, the seed cannot be seen, but finally it rises again as a beautiful sheaf of grain. Jesus made the same analogy: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (Joh 12:24; note also Mar 4:26-29). The human body, because of sin and the curse, eventually dies and is buried, but one day (like the planted seed) it will appear again. The same basic body, now immortal and glorified, its only real inhabitant, its eternal created spirit, has been born again in Christ."

Defender: 1Co 15:44

The spiritual body rising from the dead will no longer be under bondage to gravitational and electromagnetic forces, as at present, but only to spiritual forces of which we now have no real knowledge. We do know, however, that our spiritual bodies will be like that of the resurrected body of Christ (Phi 3:20, Phi 3:21; 1Jo 3:2), able to move through solid walls (Joh 20:26), and move with tremendous speed between earth and God's throne in heaven (Joh 20:17-19)."

Defender: 1Co 15:45

Paul here quotes Gen 2:7, again confirming the historicity of the special creation of Adam and, therefore, of the Genesis record of creation as a whole.

Defender: 1Co 15:45

This is a clear affirmation that Adam was, indeed, the first man, thus refuting the various quasi-evolutionary theories involving pre-Adamite men.

Defender: 1Co 15:45

The "last Adam," was the Lord Jesus. As in Rom 5:12-19, the divinely inspired apostle showed Adam to be a contrasting type of Christ. Both were true men, yet their bodies were formed directly by God without genetic inheritance from human parents. Adam was the first man made a living soul, the federal head of the human race; the Lord Jesus was the first begotten from the dead, the captain of our salvation, the first man made a life-giving spirit. Adam brought sin and death into the world; Christ brought everlasting righteousness and eternal life."

Defender: 1Co 15:51

This "mystery," not revealed in previous ages, assures us that Christ's second coming will be initiated by simultaneous resurrection and glorification of the dead in Christ and glorification of the bodies of those still living at the time. Note that all will be raised! There is no basis for the so-called "partial rapture" theory. This same mystery had been unveiled previously to the Thessalonian believers (1Th 4:13-17), but his epistle to that church did not include the more detailed specifications for the spiritual body as described here. That body would be immortal (no longer subject to death) and incorruptible (no longer subject even to decay, pain, disease, or other physical effects of the curse). Paul would soon point out essentially this same truth to the churches at Philippi (Phi 3:20, Phi 3:21) and Colosse (Col 3:4). In none of these is there any instruction to look first for the Antichrist, the great tribulation, or for anything except Christ Himself!"

Defender: 1Co 15:52

"Moment" is the Greek atomos, believed at that time to be the very smallest particle of matter. The coming of Christ is to be very sudden, and without advance notice, so that we should be abiding in Him at all times (1Jo 2:28; Heb 9:28; 2Ti 4:8).

Defender: 1Co 15:52

Paul is not referring to the last of the seven trumpets in the Apocalypse (Rev 8:2; Rev 11:15), for the book of Revelation had not yet been written and Paul obviously intended for the Corinthians to understand what he meant. The sounding of an angelic trumpet at the resurrection day had also been mentioned in 1Th 4:16. Trumpets were traditionally associated with calls to action (1Co 14:8; Jdg 6:20), and this particular trumpet sounded in heaven will call all saints, living and dead, to ascend into heaven to meet the returning Christ. It is, therefore, "the last trump" of this present age of the church."

Defender: 1Co 15:53

At present, the whole creation is in "the bondage of corruption" (Rom 8:21), and this certainly includes our mortal bodies. Scientifically, this condition is known as the law of increasing entropy, theologically as the curse on the ground (Gen 3:17) because of sin. This law will be set aside as far as our present bodies are concerned, at this first phase of Christ's second coming, then finally repealed in entirety at the final phase (Rev 22:3)."

Defender: 1Co 15:54

In 1Co 15:55, "death" and "grave" are the same Greek word, thanatos (Isa 25:8; Hos 13:14)."

Defender: 1Co 15:58

No matter how great the temptation to compromise, do not yield! No matter how demanding and difficult may be the work to which God has called us, do not quit! There will be a day of resting and reward, but not yet (Heb 4:9, Heb 4:11; Heb 6:10)."

TSK: 1Co 15:25

Psa 2:6-10, Psa 45:3-6, Psa 110:1; Mat 22:44; Mar 12:36; Luk 20:42, Luk 20:43; Act 2:34; Eph 1:22; Heb 1:13, Heb 10:12, Heb 10:13

TSK: 1Co 15:26

1Co 15:55; Isa 25:8; Hos 13:14; Luk 20:36; 2Ti 1:10; Heb 2:14; Rev 20:14, Rev 21:4

TSK: 1Co 15:27

Psa 8:6; Mat 11:27, Mat 28:18; Joh 3:35, Joh 13:3; Eph 1:20; Phi 2:9-11; Heb 1:13, Heb 2:8, Heb 10:12; 1Pe 3:22; Rev 1:18

TSK: 1Co 15:28

all things : Psa 2:8, Psa 2:9, Psa 18:39, Psa 18:47, Psa 21:8, Psa 21:9; Dan 2:34, Dan 2:35, Dan 2:40-45; Mat 13:41-43; Phi 3:21; Rev 19:11-21, Rev 20:2-4, Rev 20:10-15

then : 1Co 3:23, 1Co 11:3; Joh 14:28

all in all : 1Co 12:6; Eph 1:23; Col 3:11

TSK: 1Co 15:29

what : 1Co 15:16, 1Co 15:32; Rom 6:3, Rom 6:4; Mat 20:22

TSK: 1Co 15:30

1Co 15:31; Rom 8:36-39; 2Co 4:7-12, 2Co 6:9, 2Co 11:23-27; Gal 5:11

TSK: 1Co 15:31

protest : Gen 43:3; 1Sa 8:9; Jer 11:7; Zec 3:6; Phi 3:3

your : ""Some read, our.""2Co 1:12, 2Co 2:14; 1Th 2:19, 1Th 3:9

die : 1Co 4:9-13; Act 20:23; Rom 8:36; 2Co 4:10,2Co 4:11, 2Co 11:23

TSK: 1Co 15:32

after : or, to speak after, Rom 6:19; Gal 3:15

beasts : 2Pe 2:12; Jud 1:10

Ephesus : Act 19:1, 23-41; 2Co 1:8-10

what : Job 35:3; Psa 73:13; Mal 3:14, Mal 3:15; Luk 9:25

let : Ecc 2:24, Ecc 11:9; Isa 22:13, Isa 56:12; Luk 12:19

TSK: 1Co 15:33

Be : 1Co 6:9; Mat 24:4, Mat 24:11, Mat 24:24; Gal 6:7; Eph 5:6; 2Th 2:10; Rev 12:9, Rev 13:8-14

evil : 1Co 5:6; Pro 9:6, Pro 13:20; 2Ti 2:16-18; Heb 12:15; 2Pe 2:2, 2Pe 2:18-20

TSK: 1Co 15:34

Awake : Joe 1:5; Jon 1:6; Rom 13:11; Eph 5:14

sin not : Psa 4:4, Psa 119:11; Joh 5:14, Joh 8:11

some : 1Co 8:7; Rom 1:28; 1Th 4:5

I speak : 1Co 6:5; Heb 5:11, Heb 5:12

TSK: 1Co 15:35

How : Job 11:12, Job 22:13; Psa 73:11; Ecc 11:5; Eze 37:3, Eze 37:11; Joh 3:4, Joh 3:9, Joh 9:10

with : 1Cor. 15:38-53; Mat 22:29, Mat 22:30; Phi 3:21

TSK: 1Co 15:36

fool : Luk 12:20, Luk 24:25; Rom 1:22; Eph 5:15

that : Joh 12:24

TSK: 1Co 15:38

1Co 3:7; Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12; Psa 104:14; Isa 61:11; Mar 4:26-29

TSK: 1Co 15:39

Gen 1:20-26

TSK: 1Co 15:41

Gen 1:14; Deu 4:19; Job 31:26; Psa 8:3, Psa 19:4-6, Psa 148:3-5; Isa 24:23

TSK: 1Co 15:42

is : 1Co 15:50-54; Dan 12:3; Mat 13:43; Phi 3:20,Phi 3:21

in corruption : Gen 3:19; Job 17:14; Psa 16:10, Psa 49:9, Psa 49:14; Isa 38:17; Act 2:27, Act 2:31; Act 13:34-37; Rom 1:23, Rom 8:21

it is : 1Co 15:52-54; Luk 20:35, Luk 20:36; 1Pe 1:4

TSK: 1Co 15:43

in dishonour : Dan 12:1; Mat 13:43; Phi 3:20,Phi 3:21

weakness : Job 14:10 *marg. Psa 102:23; 2Co 13:4

in power : 1Co 6:14; Mat 22:29, Mat 22:30; Mar 12:24, Mar 12:25; 2Co 13:14; Phi 3:10

TSK: 1Co 15:44

there is a spiritual : Luk 24:31; Joh 20:19, Joh 20:26

TSK: 1Co 15:45

The first : 1Co 15:47-49; Gen 2:7; Rom 5:12-14; Rev 16:3

a quickening : Joh 1:4, Joh 4:10,Joh 4:14, Joh 5:21, Joh 5:25-29, Joh 6:33, Joh 6:39, Joh 6:40,Joh 6:54, Joh 6:57, Joh 6:63, Joh 6:68, Joh 10:10,Joh 10:28; Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26, Joh 14:6, Joh 14:19, Joh 17:2, Joh 17:3; Act 3:15; Rom 5:17, Rom 5:21, Rom 8:2, Rom 8:10,Rom 8:11; Phi 3:21; Col 3:4; 1Jo 1:1-3, 1Jo 5:11, 1Jo 5:12; Rev 21:6, Rev 22:1, Rev 22:17

TSK: 1Co 15:46

that which is natural : Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9, Col 3:10

TSK: 1Co 15:47

first : 1Co 15:45; Gen 2:7, Gen 3:19; Joh 3:13, Joh 3:31; 2Co 5:1

the Lord : Isa 9:6; Jer 23:6; Mat 1:23; Luk 1:16, Luk 1:17, Luk 2:11; Joh 3:12, Joh 3:13, Joh 3:31, Joh 6:33; Act 10:36; Eph 4:9-11; 1Ti 3:16

TSK: 1Co 15:48

such are they also that are earthy : 1Co 15:21, 1Co 15:22; Gen 5:3; Job 14:4; Joh 3:6; Rom 5:12-21

and as : Phi 3:20,Phi 3:21

TSK: 1Co 15:49

as : Gen 5:3

we shall : Mat 13:43; Rom 8:29; 2Co 3:18, 2Co 4:10,2Co 4:11; 1Jo 3:2

TSK: 1Co 15:50

this : 1Co 1:12, 1Co 7:29; 2Co 9:6; Gal 3:17, Gal 5:16; Eph 4:17; Col 2:4

that : 1Co 6:13; Mat 16:17; Joh 3:3-6; 2Co 5:1

TSK: 1Co 15:51

I show : 1Co 2:7, 1Co 4:1, 1Co 13:2; Eph 1:9, Eph 3:3, Eph 5:32

We shall not : 1Co 15:6, 1Co 15:18, 1Co 15:20; 1Th 4:14-17

changed : Phi 3:21

TSK: 1Co 15:52

a moment : Exo 33:5; Num 16:21, Num 16:45; Psa 73:19; 2Pe 3:10

last : Exo 19:16, Exo 20:18; Num 10:4; Isa 18:3, Isa 27:13; Eze 33:3, Eze 33:6; Zec 9:14; Rev 8:2, Rev 8:13, Rev 9:13, Rev 9:14

for : Mat 24:31; Joh 5:25; 1Th 4:16

the dead : 1Co 15:42, 1Co 15:50

TSK: 1Co 15:53

put : Rom 13:12-14; 2Co 5:2-4; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; 1Jo 3:2

TSK: 1Co 15:54

this mortal : Rom 2:7, Rom 6:12, Rom 8:11; 2Co 4:11; 2Th 1:10

Death : Isa 25:8; Luk 20:36; Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15; Rev 20:14, Rev 21:4

TSK: 1Co 15:55

O death : Hos 13:14

sting : Act 9:5; Rev 9:10 *Gr.

grave : or, hell, Luk 16:23; Act 2:27; Rev 20:13, Rev 20:14 *Gr.

is thy victory : Job 18:13, Job 18:14; Psa 49:8-15, Psa 89:48; Ecc 2:15, Ecc 2:16, Ecc 3:19, Ecc 8:8, Ecc 9:5, Ecc 9:6; Rom 5:14

TSK: 1Co 15:56

sting : Gen 3:17-19; Psa 90:3-11; Pro 14:32; Joh 8:21, Joh 8:24; Rom 5:15, Rom 5:17, Rom 6:23; Heb 9:27

the strength : Rom 3:19, Rom 3:20, Rom 4:15, Rom 5:13, Rom 5:20, Rom 7:5-13; Gal 3:10-13

TSK: 1Co 15:57

thanks : Act 27:35; Rom 7:25; 2Co 1:11, 2Co 2:14, 2Co 9:15; Eph 5:20

giveth : 1Co 15:51; 2Ki 5:1 *marg. 1Ch 22:11; Psa 98:1; Pro 21:31 *marg. Joh 16:33; Rom 8:37; 1Jo 5:4, 1Jo 5:5; Rev 12:11, Rev 15:2, Rev 15:3

TSK: 1Co 15:58

Therefore : 2Co 7:1; 2Pe 1:4-9, 2Pe 3:14

be ye : Rth 1:18; Psa 55:22, Psa 78:8, Psa 78:37, Psa 112:6; Col 1:23, Col 2:5; 1Th 3:3; Heb 3:14; 2Pe 3:17, 2Pe 3:18

abounding : Phi 1:9, Phi 4:17; Col 2:7; 1Th 3:12, 1Th 4:1; 2Th 1:3

the work : 1Co 16:10; Joh 6:28, Joh 6:29; Phi 2:30; 1Th 1:3; Tit 2:14; Heb 13:21

ye know : 1Co 3:8; 2Ch 15:7; Psa 19:11; Gal 6:9; Heb 6:10

is not : Psa 73:13; Gal 4:11; Phi 2:16; 1Th 3:5

in the : Mat 10:40-42, Mat 25:31-40; Phi 1:11; Heb 13:15, Heb 13:16

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: 1Co 15:25

For he must reign - It is fit, or proper ( δει dei ), that he should reign until this is accomplished. It is proper that the mediatorial kingdom should continue till this great work is effected. The word "must"here refers to the propriety of this continuance of his reign, and to the fact that this was contemplated and predicted as the work which he would accomplish. He came to subdue all his enemies; see \endash Psa 2:6-10; or Psa 110:1, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool."Paul, doubtless, had this passage in his eye as affirming the necessity that he should reign until all his foes should be subdued. That this refers to the Messiah is abundantly clear from Mat 22:44-45.

Barnes: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death - The other foes of God should be subdued "before"the final resurrection. The enmity of the human heart should be subdued by the triumphs of the gospel. The scepter of Satan should be broken and wrested from him. The false systems of religion that had tyrannized over people should be destroyed. The gospel should have spread everywhere, and the world be converted to God. And nothing should remain but to "subdue"or destroy death, and that would be by the resurrection. It would be:

\caps1 (1) b\caps0 ecause the resurrection would be a triumph over death, showing that there was one of greater power, and that the sceptre would be wrested from the hands of death.

\caps1 (2) b\caps0 ecause death would cease to reign. No more would ever die. All that should be raised up would live forever; and the effects of sin and rebellion in this world would be thus forever ended, and the kingdom of God restored. Death is here personified as a tyrant, exercising despotic power over the human race; and "he"is to be subdued.

Barnes: 1Co 15:27

For he hath put - God has put by promise, purpose, or decree.

All things under his feet - He has made all things subject to him; or has appointed him to be head over all things; compare Mat 28:18; Joh 17:2; Eph 1:20-22. It is evident that Paul here refers to some promise or prediction respecting the Messiah, though he does not expressly quote any passage, or make it certain to what he refers. The "words""hath put all things under his feet"are found in Psa 8:6, as applicable to "man,"and as designed to show the dignity and dominion of man. Whether the psalm has any reference to the Messiah, has been made a question. Those who are disposed to see an examination of this question, may find it in Stuart on the Hebrews, on Heb 2:6-8; and in Excurses ix. of the same work, pp. 568-570. Ed. 1833. In the passage before us, it is not "necessary"to suppose that Paul meant to say that the psalm had a particular reference to the Messiah. All that is implied is, that it was the intention of God to subdue all things to him; this was the general strain of the prophecies in regard to him; this was the purpose of God; and this idea is accurately expressed in the words of the psalm; or these words will convey the "general sense"of the prophetic writings in regard to the Messiah. It may be true, also, that although the passage in Psa 8:1-9 has no immediate and direct reference to the Messiah, yet it includes him as one who possessed human nature.

The psalm may be understood as affirming that all things were subjected to "human nature;"that is, human nature had dominion and control over all. But this was more particularly and eminently true of the Messiah than of any other man. In all other cases, great as was the dignity of man, yet his control over "all things"was limited and partial. In the Messiah it was to be complete and entire. His dominion, therefore, was a complete fulfillment, that is, "filling up"( πλήρωμα plērōma ) of the words in the psalm. Under him alone was there to be an entire accomplishment of what is there said; and as that psalm was to be fulfilled, as it was to be true that it might be said of man that all things were subject to him, it was to be fulfilled mainly in the person of the Messiah, whose human nature was to be exalted above all things; compare Heb 2:6-9

But when he saith - When God says, or when it is said; when that promise is made respecting the Messiah.

It is manifest - It must be so; it must be so understood and interpreted.

That he is excepted ... - That God is excepted; that it cannot mean that the appointing power is to be subject to him. Paul may have made this remark for several reasons. Perhaps:

(1) To avoid the possibility of cavil, or misconstruction of the phrase, "all things,"as if it meant that God would be included, and would be subdued to him; as among the pagan, Jupiter is fabled to have expelled his father Saturn from his throne and from heaven.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 t might be to prevent the supposition, from what Paul had said of the extent of the Son’ s dominion, that he was in any respect superior to the Father. It is implied by this exception here, that when the necessity for the special mediatorial kingdom of the Son should cease, there would be a resuming of the authority and dominion of the Father, in the manner in which it subsisted before the incarnation.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 he expression may also be regarded as intensive or emphatic; as denoting, in the most absolute sense, that there was nothing in the universe, but God, which was not subject to him. God was the only exception; and his dominion, therefore, was absolute over all other beings and things.

Barnes: 1Co 15:28

And when ... - In this future time, when this shall be accomplished. This implies that the time has not yet arrived, and that his dominion is now exercised, and that he is carrying forward his plans for the subjugation of all things to God.

Shall be subdued unto him - Shall be brought under subjection. When all his enemies shall be overcome and destroyed; or when the hearts of the redeemed shall be entirely subject to God. When God’ s kingdom shall be fully established over the universe. It shall then be seen that he is Lord of all. In the previous verses he had spoken of the promise that all things should be subjected to God; in this, he speaks of its being actually done.

Then shall the Son also himself be subject ... - It has been proposed to render this, "even then shall the Son,"etc.; implying that he had been all along subject to God; had acted under his authority; and that this subjection would continue even then in a sense similar to that in which it had existed; and that Christ would then continue to exercise a delegated authority over his people and kingdom. See an article "on the duration of Christ’ s kingdom,"by Prof. Mills, in Bib. Rep. vol. iii. p. 748ff. But to this interpretation there are objections:

(1) It is not the obvious interpretation.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 t does not seem to comport with the design and scope of the passage, which most evidently refers to some change, or rendering back of the authority of the Messiah; or to some resumption of authority by the Divinity, or by God as God, in a different sense from what existed under the Messiah.

\caps1 (3) s\caps0 uch a statement would be unnecessary and vain. Who could reasonably doubt that the Son would be as much subject to God when all things had been subdued to him as he was before?

\caps1 (4) i\caps0 t is not necessary to suppose this in order to reconcile the passage with what is said of the perpetuity of Christ’ s kingdom and his eternal reign. That he would reign; that his kingdom would be perpetual, and that it would be unending, was indeed clearly predicted; see 2Sa 7:16; Psa 45:6; Isa 9:6-7; Dan 2:44; Dan 7:14; Luk 1:22-23; Heb 1:8. But these predictions may be all accomplished on the supposition that the special mediatorial kingdom of the Messiah shall be given up to God, and that he shall be subject to him. For:

(a)    His kingdom will be perpetual, in contradistinction from the kingdoms of this world. They are fluctuating, changing, short in their duration. His shall not cease, and shall continue to the end of time.

(b)    His kingdom shall be perpetual, because those who are brought under the laws of God by him shall remain subject to those laws forever. The sceptre never shall be broken, and the kingdom shall abide to all eternity.

©    Christ, the Son of God, in his divine nature, as God, shall never cease to reign.

As Mediator, he may resign his commission and his special office, having made an atonement, having recovered his people, having protected and guided them to heaven. Yet as one with the Father; as the "Father of the everlasting age"Isa 9:6, he shall not cease to reign. The functions of a special office may have been discharged, and delegated power laid down, and that which appropriately belongs to him in virtue of his own nature and relations may be resumed and executed forever; and it shall still be true that the reign of the Son of God, in union, or in oneness with the Father, shall continue forever.

\caps1 (5) t\caps0 he interpretation which affirms that the Son shall then be subject to the Father in the sense of laying down his delegated authority, and ceasing to exercise his mediatorial reign, has been the common interpretation of all times. This remark is of value only, because, in the interpretation of plum words, it is not probable that people of all classes and ranks in different ages would err.

The Son also himself - The term "Son of God"is applied to the Lord Jesus with reference to his human nature, his incarnation by the Holy Spirit, and his resurrection from the dead; see the note on Rom 1:4. (For the evidence of the eternal sonship, see the Supplementary Note on the same passage.) It refers, I apprehend, to that in this place. It does not mean that the second person in the Trinity, as such, should be subject to the first; but it means the Incarnate Son, the Mediator, the man that was born and that was raised from the dead, and to whom this wide dominion had been given, should resign that dominion, and that the government should be re-assumed by the Divinity as God. As man, he shall cease to exercise any distinct dominion. This does not mean, evidently, that the union of the divine and human nature will be dissolved; nor that important purposes may not be answered by that continued union forever; nor that the divine perfections may not shine forth in some glorious way through the man Christ Jesus; but that the purpose of government shall no longer be exercised in that way; the mediatorial kingdom, as such, shall no longer be continued, and power shall be exercised by God as God. The redeemed will still adore their Redeemer as their incarnate God, and dwell upon the remembrance of his work and upon his perfections Rev 1:5-6; Rev 5:12; Rev 11:15; but not as exercising the special power which he now has, and which was needful to effect their redemption.

That God may be all in all - That God may be supreme; that the Divinity, the Godhead, may rule; and that it may be seen that he is the Sovereign over all the universe. By the word "God"( ὁ Θεὸς ho Theos ), Whitby and Hammond, I think correctly, understand the Godhead, the Divine Nature, the Divinity, consisting of the three persons, without respect to any special office or kingdom.

Barnes: 1Co 15:29

Else what shall they do ... - The apostle here resumes the argument for the resurrection which was interrupted at 1Co 15:19. He goes on to state further consequences which must follow from the denial of this doctrine, and thence infers that the doctrine must be true. There is, perhaps, no passage of the New Testament in respect to which there has been a greater variety of interpretation than this; and the views of expositors now by no means harmonize in regard to its meaning. It is possible that Paul may here refer to some practice or custom which existed in his time respecting baptism, the knowledge of which is now lost. The various opinions which have been entertained in regard to this passage, together with an examination of them, may be seen in Pool’ s Synopsis, Rosenmuller, and Bloomfield. It may be not useless just to refer to some of them, that the perplexity of commentators may be seen:

(1) It has been held by some that by "the dead"here is meant the Messiah who was put to death, the plural being used for the singular, meaning "the dead one."

\caps1 (2) b\caps0 y others, that the word "baptized"here is taken in the sense of washing, cleansing, purifying, as in Mat 8:4; Heb 9:10; and that the sense is, that the dead were carefully washed and purified when buried, with the hope of the resurrection, and, as it were, preparatory to that.

\caps1 (3) b\caps0 y others, that to be "baptized for the dead"means to be baptized as dead, being baptized into Christ, and buried with him in baptism, and that by their immersion they were regarded as dead.

\caps1 (4) b\caps0 y others, that the apostle refers to a custom of vicarious baptism, or being baptized for those who were dead, referring to the practice of having some person baptized in the place of one who had died without baptism. This was the opinion of Grotius, Michaelis, Tertullian, and Ambrose. Such was the estimate which was formed, it is supposed, of the importance of baptism, that when one had died without being baptized, some other person was baptized over his dead body in his place. That this custom prevailed in the church after the time of Paul, has been abundantly proved by Grotius, and is generally admitted. But the objections to this interpretation are obvious:

(a)    There is no evidence that such a custom prevailed in the time of Paul.

(b)    It cannot be believed that Paul would give countenance to a custom so senseless and so contrary to the Scripture, or that he would make it the foundation of a solemn argument.

©    It does not accord with the strain and purpose of his argument. If this custom had been referred to, his design would have led him to say, "What will become of them for whom others have been baptized? Are we to believe that they have perished?"

(d)    It is far more probable that the custom referred to in this opinion arose from an erroneous interpretation of this passage of Scripture, than that it existed in the time of Paul.

\caps1 (5) t\caps0 here remain two other opinions, both of which are plausible, and one of which is probably the true one. One is, that the word baptized is used here as it is in Mat 20:22-23; Mar 10:39; Luk 12:50, in the sense of being overwhelmed with calamities, trials, and sufferings; and as meaning that the apostles and others were subjected to great trials on account of the dead, that is, in the hope of the resurrection; or with the expectation that the dead would rise. This is the opinion of Lightfoot, Rosenmuller, Pearce, Homberg, Krause, and of Prof. Robinson (see the Lexicon article Βαπτίζω Baptizō ), and has much that is plausible. That the word is thus used to denote a deep sinking into calamities, there can be no doubt. And that the apostles and early Christians subjected themselves, or were subjected to great and overwhelming calamities on account of the hope of the resurrection, is equally clear. This interpretation, also, agrees with the general tenor of the argument; and is an argument for the resurrection. And it implies that this was the full and constant belief of all who endured these trials, that there would be a resurrection of the dead. The argument would be, that they should be slow to adopt an opinion which would imply that all their sufferings were endured for nothing, and that God had supported them in this in vain; that God had plunged them into all these sorrows, and had sustained them in them only to disappoint them. That this view is plausible, and that it suits the strain of remark in the following verses, is evident. But there are objections to it:

(a)    It is not the usual and natural meaning of the word "baptize."

(b)    A metaphorical use of a word should not be resorted to unless necessary.

©    The literal meaning of the word here will as well meet the design of the apostle as the metaphorical.

(d)    This interpretation does not relieve us from any of the difficulties in regard to the phrase "for the dead;"and,

(e)    It is altogether more natural to suppose that the apostle would derive his argument from the baptism of all who were Christians, than from the figurative baptism of a few who went into the perils of martyrdom - The other opinion, therefore, is, that the apostle here refers to baptism as administered to all believers.

This is the most correct opinion; is the most simple, and best meets the design of the argument. According to this, it means that they had been baptized with the hope and expectation of a resurrection of the dead. They had received this as one of the leading doctrines of the gospel when they were baptized. It was a part of their full and firm belief that the dead would rise. The argument according to this interpretation is, that this was an essential article of the faith of a Christian; that it was embraced by all; that it constituted a part of their very profession; and that for anyone to deny it was to deny that which entered into the very foundation of the Christian faith.

If they embraced a different doctrine, if they denied the doctrine of the resurrection, they struck a blow at the very nature of Christianity, and dashed all the hopes which had been cherished and expressed at their baptism. And what could they do? What would become of them! What would be the destiny of all who were thus baptized? Was it to be believed that all their hopes at baptism were vain and that they would all perish? As such a belief could not be entertained, the apostle infers that, if they held to Christianity at all, they must hold to this doctrine as a part of their very profession. According to this view, the phrase "for the dead"means, with reference to the dead; with direct allusion to the condition of the dead, and their hopes; with a belief that the dead will rise. It is evident that the passage is elliptical, and this seems to be as probable as any interpretation which has been suggested. Mr. Locke says, frankly, "What this baptizing for the dead was, I know not; but it seems, by the following verses, to be something wherein they exposed themselves to the danger of death."Tyndal translates it, "over the dead."Doddridge renders it, "in the room of the dead, who are just fallen in the cause of Christ, but are yet supported by a succession of new converts, who immediately offer themselves to fill up their places, as ranks of soldiers that advance to the combat in the room of their companions who have just been slain in their sight."

Barnes: 1Co 15:30

And why stand we in jeopardy - Why do we constantly risk our lives, and encounter danger of every kind? This refers particularly to Paul himself and the other apostles, who were constantly exposed to peril by land or by sea in the arduous work of making known the gospel. The argument here is plain. It is, that such efforts would be vain, useless, foolish, unless there was to be a glorious resurrection. They had no other object in encountering these dangers than to make known the truths connected with that glorious future state; and if there were no such future state, it would be wise for them to avoid these dangers. "It would not be supposed that we would encounter these perils constantly, unless we were sustained with the hope of the resurrection, and unless we had evidence which convinced our own minds that there would be such a resurrection."

Every hour - Constantly; compare 2Co 11:26. So numerous were their dangers, that they might be said to occur every hour. This was particularly the case in the instance to which he refers in Ephesus, 1Co 15:32.

Barnes: 1Co 15:31

I protest - ( νὴ nē ). This is a particle of swearing, and denotes a strong asseveration. The subject was important; it deeply interested his feelings; and he makes in regard to it a strong protestation; compare Joh 3:5. "I solemnly affirm, or declare."

By your rejoicing - Many manuscripts here read "by our rejoicing, but the correct reading is doubtless that which is in the present Greek text, by your rejoicing. The meaning of the phrase, which is admitted by all to be obscure, is probably, "I protest, or solemnly declare by the glorying or exultation which I have on your account; by all my ground of glorying in you; by all the confident boasting and expectation which I have of your salvation."He hoped for their salvation. He had labored for that. He had boasted of it, and confidently believed that they would be saved. Regarding that as safe and certain, he says it was just as certain that he died daily on account of the hope and belief of the resurrcction. "By our hopes and joys as Christians; by our dearest expectations and grounds of confidence I swear, or solemnly declare, that I die daily."People swear or affirm by their objects of dearest affection and desire; and the meaning here is, "So certainly as I confidently expect your salvation, and so certainly as we look to eternal life, so certain is it that I am constantly exposed to die, and suffer that which may he called a daily death."

Which I have in Christ Jesus - The rejoicing, boasting, glorying in regard to you which I am permitted to cherish through the grace and favor of the Saviour. His boasting, or confident expectation in regard to the Corinthians, he enjoyed only by the mercy of the Lord Jesus, and he delighted to trace it to him.

I die daily - compare Rom 8:36. I endure so many sufferings and persecutions, that it may be said to be a daily dying. I am constantly in danger of my life; and my sufferings each day are equal to the pains of death. Probably Paul here referred particularly to the perils and trials which he then endured at Ephesus; and his object was to impress their minds with the firmness of his belief in the certainty of the resurrection, on account of which he suffered so much, and to show them that all their hopes rested also on this doctrine.

Barnes: 1Co 15:32

If after the manner of men - Margin, "To speak after the manner of men"( κατὰ ἄνθρωπον kata anthrōpon ). There has been a great difference of opinion in regard to the meaning of these words. The following are some of the interpretations proposed:

(1) If I have fought after the manner of people, who act only with reference to this life, and on the ordinary principles of human conduct, as people fought with wild beasts in the amphitheater.

\caps1 (2) o\caps0 r if, humanly speaking, or speaking after the manner of people, I have fought, referring to the fact that he had contended with mcn who should be regarded as wild beasts.

\caps1 (3) o\caps0 r, that I may speak of myself as people speak, that I may freely record the events of my life, and speak of what has occurred.

\caps1 (4) o\caps0 r, I have fought with wild beasts as far as it was possible for man to do it while life survived.

\caps1 (5) o\caps0 r, as much as was in the power of man, who had destined me to this; if, so far as depended on man’ s will, I fought, supposing that the infuriated multitude demanded that I should be thus punished. So Chrysostom understands it.

\caps1 (6) o\caps0 r, that Paul actually fought with wild beasts at Ephesus.

\caps1 (7) o\caps0 thers regard this as a supposable case; on the supposition that I had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus. Amidst this variety of interpretation, it is not easy to determine the true sense of this difficult passage.

The following thoughts, however, may perhaps make it clear:

(1) Paul refers to some real occurrence at Ephesus. This is manifest from the whole passage. It is not a supposable case.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 t was some one case when his life was endangered, and when it was regarded as remarkable that he escaped and survived; compare 2Co 1:8-10.

\caps1 (3) i\caps0 t was common among the Romans, and the ancients generally, to expose criminals to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheater for the amusement of the populace.

In such cases it was but another form of dooming them to certain death, since there was no human possibility of escape; see Adam’ s Rom. Ant., p. 344. That this custom prevailed at the East, is apparent from the following extract front Rosenmuller; and there is no improbability in the supposition that Paul was exposed to this - "The barbarous custom of making men combat with wild beasts has prevailed in the East down to the most modern times. Jurgen Andersen, who visited the states of the Great Mogul in 1646, gives an account in his Travels of such a combat with animals, which he witnessed at Agra, the residence of the Great Mogul. His description affords a lively image of those bloody spectacles in which ancient Rome took so much pleasure, and to which the above words of the apostle refer. Alumardan-chan, the governor of Cashmire, who sat among the chans, stood up, and exclaimed, ‘ It is the will and desire of the great mogul, Schah Choram, that if there are any valiant heroes who will show their bravery by combating with wild beasts, armed with shield and sword, let them come forward; if they conquer, the mogul will load them with great favor, and clothe their countenance with gladness.’ Upon this three persons advanced, and offered to undertake the combat.

Alamardan-charn again cried aloud, ‘ None should have any other weapon than a shield and a sword; and whosoever has any breastplate under his clothes should lay it aside, and fight honorably.’ Hereupon a powerful lion was let into the garden, and one of the three men above mentioned advanced against him; the lion, upon seeing his enemy, ran violently up to him; the man, however, defended himself bravely, and kept off the lion for a good while, until his arms grew tired; the lion then seized the shield with one paw, and with the other his antagonist’ s right arm, so that he was not able to use his weapon; the latter, seeing his life in danger, took with his left hand his Indian dagger, which he had sticking in his girdle, and thrust it as far as possible into the lion’ s mouth; the lion then let him go; the man, however, was not idle, but cut the lion almost through with one stroke, and after that entirely to pieces.

Upon this victory the common people began to shout, and call out, ‘ Thank God. he has conquered.’ But the mogul said, smiling, to this conqueror, ‘ Thou art a brave warrior, and hast fought admirably! But did I not command to fight honorably only with shield and sword? But, like a thief, thou hast stolen the life of the lion with thy dagger.’ And immediately he ordered two men to rip up his belly, and to place him upon an elephant, and, as an example to others, to lead him about, which was done on the spot. Soon after, a tiger was set loose; against which a tall, powerful man advanced with an air of defiance, as if he would cut the tiger up. The tiger, however, was far too sagacious and active, for, in the first attack, he seized the combatant by the neck, tore his throat, and then his whole body in pieces. This enraged another good fellow, but little, and of ordinary appearance, from whom one would not have expected it: he rushed forward like one mad, and the tiger on his part undauntedly flew at his enemy; but the man at the first attack cut off his two fore paws; so that he fell, and the man cut his body to pieces.

Upon this the king cried, ‘ What is your name?’ He answered, ‘ My name is Geyby.’ Soon after one of the king’ s servants came and brought him a piece of gold brocade, and said, ‘ Geyby, receive the robe of honor with which the mogul presents you.’ He took the garment with great reverence, kissed it three times, pressing it each time to his eyes and breast, then held it up, and in silence put up a prayer for the health of the mogul; and when he concluded it, he cried, ‘ May God let him become as great as Tamerlane, from whom he is descended. May he live 700 years, and his house continue to eternity!’ Upon this he was summoned by a chamberlain to go from the garden up to the king; and when he came to the entrance, he was received by two chans, who conducted him between them to kiss the mogul’ s feet. And when he was going to retire, the king said to him, ‘ Praised be thou, Geyby-chan, for thy valiant deeds, and this name shalt thou keep to eternity. I am your gracious master, and thou art my slave’ "- Bush’ s Illustrations.

\caps1 (4) i\caps0 t is the most natural interpretation to suppose that Paul, on some occasion, had such a contest with a wild beast at Ephesus. It is that which would occur to the great mass of the readers of the New Testament as the obvious meaning of the passage.

\caps1 (5) t\caps0 he state of things in Ephesus when Paul was there Acts 19 was such as to make it nowise improbable that he would be subjected to such a trial.

\caps1 (6) i\caps0 t is no objection to this supposition that Luke has not recorded this occurrence in the Acts of the Apostles. No conclusion adverse to this supposition can be drawn from the mere silence of the historian. Mere silence is not a contradiction. There is no reason to suppose that Luke designed to record all the perils which Paul endured. Indeed, we know from 2Co 11:24-27, that there must have been many dangers which Paul encountered which are not referred to by Luke. It must have happened, also, that many important events must have taken place during Paul’ s abode at Ephesus which are not recorded by Luke; Acts 19. Nor is it any objection to this supposition that Paul does not, in 2Co 11:24-27, mention particularly this contest with a wild beast at Ephesus. His statement there is general. He does not descend into particulars. Yet, in 2Co 11:23, he says that he was "in deaths oft,"- a statement which is in accordance with the supposition that in Ephesushe may have been exposed to death in some cruel manner.

\caps1 (7) t\caps0 he phrase κατὰ ἄνθρωπον kata anthrōpon , as a "man,"may mean, that, "to human appearance,"or so far as man was concerned, bad it not been for some divine interposition, he would have been a prey to the wild beasts. Had not God interposed and kept him from harm, as in the case of the viper at Melita Act 28:5, he would have been put to death. He was sentenced to this; was thrown to the wild beast; had every human prospect of dying; it was done on account of his religion; and but for the interposition of God, he would have died. This I take to be the fair and obvious meaning of this passage, demanded alike by the language which is used and by the tenor of the argument in which it is found.

What advantageth it me? - What benefit shall I have? Why should I risk my life in this manner? see the note on 1Co 15:19.

Let us eat and drink - These words are taken from Isa 22:13. In their original application they refer to the Jews when besieged by Sennacherib and the army of the Assyrians. The prophet says, that instead of weeping, and fasting, and humiliation, as became them in such circumstances, they had given themselves up to feasting and revelry, and that their language was, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die that is, there is no use in offering resistance, or in calling upon God. We must die; and we may as well enjoy life as long as it lasts, and give ourselves up to unrestrained indulgence. Paul does not quote these words as having any original reference to the subject of the resurrection, but as language appropriately expressing the idea, that if there is no future state; if no resurrection of the dead; if no happy result of toils and sufferings in the future world, it is vain and foolish to subject ourselves to trials and privations here. We should rather make the most of this life; enjoy all the comfort we can; and make pleasure our chief good, rather than look for happiness in a future state. This seems to be the language of the great mass of the world. They look to no future state. They have no prospect, no desire of heaven; and they, therefore, seek for happiness here, and give themselves up to unrestrained enjoyment in this life.

Tomorrow - Very soon. We have no security of life; and death is so near that it may be said we must die tomorrow.

We die - We must die. The idea here is, "We must die, without the prospect of living again, unless the doctrine of the resurrection be true."

Barnes: 1Co 15:33

Be not deceived - By your false teachers, and by their smooth and plausible arguments. This is an exhortation. He had thus far been engaged in an argument on the subject. He now entreats them to beware lest they be deceived - a danger to which they were very liable from their circumstances. There was, doubtless, much that was plausible in the objections to the doctrine of the resurrection; there was much subtilty and art in their teachers, who denied this doctrine; perhaps, there was something in the character of their own minds, accustomed to subtle and abstruse inquiry rather than to an examination of simple facts, that exposed them to this danger.

Evil communications - The word rendered "communications"means, properly, a being together; companionship; close contact; converse. It refers not to discourse only, but to contact, or companionship. Paul quotes these words from Menander (in Sentent. Comicor. Greek p. 248, ed. Steph.), a Greek poet. He thus shows that he was, in some degree at least, familiar with the Greek writers; compare the note on Act 17:28. Menander was a celebrated comic poet of Athens, educated under Theophrastus. His writings were replete with elegance, refined wit, and judicious observations. Of one hundred and eight comedies which he wrote, nothing remains but a few fragments. He is said to have drowned himself, in the 52nd year of his age, 293 b.c., because the compositions of his rival Philemon obtained more applause than his own. Patti quoted this sentiment from a Greek poet, perhaps, because it might be supposed to have weight with the Greeks. It was a sentiment of one of their own writers, and here was an occasion in which it was exactly applicable. It is implied in this, that there were some persons who were endeavoring to corrupt their minds from the simplicity of the gospel. The sentiment of the passage is, that the contact of evil-minded men, or that the close friendship and conversation of those who hold erroneous opinions, or who are impure in their lives, tends to corrupt the morals, the heart, the sentiments of others. The particular thing to which Paul here applies it is the subject of the resurrection. Such contact would tend to corrupt the simplicity of their faith, and pervert their views of the truth of the gospel, and thus corrupt their lives. It is always true that such contact has a pernicious effect on the mind and the heart. It is done:

(1) By their direct effort to corrupt the opinions, and to lead others into sin.

\caps1 (2) b\caps0 y the secret, silent influence of their words, and conversation, and example. We have less horror at vice by becoming familiar with it; we look with less alarm on error when we hear it often expressed; we become less watchful and cautious when we are constantly with the frivilous, the worldly, the unprincipled, and the vicious. Hence, Christ sought that there should be a pure society, and that his people should principally seek the friendship and conversation of each other, and withdraw from the world. It is in the way that Paul here refers to, that Christians embrace false doctrines; that they lose their spirituality, love of prayer, fervor of piety, and devotion to God. It is in this way that the simple are beguiled, the young corrupted, and that vice, and crime, and infidelity spread over the world.

Barnes: 1Co 15:34

Awake to righteousness - See the note on Rom 13:11. The word here translated "awake"denotes, properly, to awake up from a deep sleep or torpor; and is usually applied to those who awake, or become sober after drunkenness. The phrase "to righteousness"( δικαίως dikaiōs ) may mean either "rouse to the ways of righteousness; to a holy life; to sound doctrine,"etc.; or it may mean "as it is right and just that you should do."Probably the latter is the correct idea, and then the sense will be, "Arouse from stupidity on this subject; awake from your conscious security; be alarmed, as it is right and proper that you should do, for you are surrounded by dangers, and by those who would lead you into error and vice; rouse from such wild and delusive opinions as these persons have, and exercise a constant vigilance as becomes those who are the friends of God and the expectants of a blessed resurrection."

And sin not - Do not err; do not depart from the truth and from holiness; do not embrace a doctrine which is not only erroneous, but the tendency of which is to lead into sin. It is implied here, that if they suffered themselves to embrace a doctrine which was a denial of the resurrection, the effect would be that they would fall into sin or that a denial of that doctrine led to a life of self-indulgence and transgression. This truth is everywhere seen and against this effect Paul sought to, guard them. He did not regard the denial of the doctrine of the resurrection as a harmless speculation, but as leading to most dangerous consequences in regard to their manner of life or their conduct.

For some have not - Some among you. You are surrounded by strangers to God; you have those among you who would lead you into error and sin.

I speak this to your shame - To your shame as a church; because you have had abundant opportunities to know the truth, and because it is a subject of deep disgrace that there are any in your bosom who deny the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and who are strangers to the grace of God.

Barnes: 1Co 15:35

But some man will say - An objection will be made to the statement that the dead will be raised. This verse commences the second part of the chapter, in which the apostle meets the objections to the argument. and shows in what manner the dead will be raised. See the Analysis. That objections were made to the doctrine is apparent from 1Co 15:12.

How are the dead raised up? - ( Πῶς Pōs .) In what way or manner; by what means. This I regard as the first objection which would be made, or the first inquiry on the subject which the apostle answers. The question is one which would be likely to be made by the subtle and doubting Greeks. The apostle, indeed, does not draw it out at length, or state it fully, but it may be regarded probably as substantially the same as that which has been made in all ages. "How is it possible that the dead should be raised? They return to their native dust. They become entirely disorganized. Their dust may be scattered; how shall it be re-collected? Or they may be burned at the stake, and how shall the particles which composed their bodies be recollected and re-organized? Or they may be devoured by the beasts of the field, the fowls of heaven, or the fishes of the sea, and their flesh may have served to constitute the food of other animals, and to form their bodies; how can it be re-collected and re-organized? Or it may have been the food of plants, and like other dust have been used to constitute the leaves or the flowers of plants, and the trunks of trees; and how can it be remoulded into a human frame?"This objection the apostle answers in 1Co 15:36-38.

And with what body do they come? - This is the second objection or inquiry which he answers. It may be understood as meaning, "What will be the form, the shape, the size, the organization of the new body? Are we to suppose that all the matter which at any time entered into its composition here is to be recollected, and to constitute a colossal frame? Are we to suppose that it will be the same as it is here, with the same organization, the same necessities, the same needs? Are we to suppose that the aged will be raised as aged, and the young as young, and that infancy will be raised in the same state, and remain such for ever? Are we to suppose that the bodies will be gross, material, and needing support and nourishment, or, that there will be a new organization?"All these and numerous other questions have been asked, in regard to the bodies at the resurrection; and it is by no means improbable that they were asked by the subtle and philosophizing Greeks, and that they constituted a part of the reasoning of those who denied the doctrine of the resurrection. This question, or objection, the apostle answers 1Co 15:39-50. It has been doubted, indeed, whether he refers in this verse to two inquiries - to the possibility of the resurrection, and to the kind of bodies that should be raised; but it is the most obvious interpretation of the verse, and it is certain that in his argument he discusses both these points.

Barnes: 1Co 15:36

Thou fool - Foolish, inconsiderate man! The meaning is, that it was foolish to make this objection, when the same difficulty existed in an undeniable fact which fell under daily observation. A man was a fool to urge that as an objection to religion which must exist in the undeniable and everyday facts which they witnessed. The idea is, "The same difficulty may be started about the growth of grain. Suppose a man who had never seen it, were to be told that it was to be put into the earth; that it was to die; to be decomposed; and that from the decayed kernel there should be seen to start up first a slender, green, and tender spire of grass, and that this was to send up a strong stalk, and was to produce hundreds of similar kernels at some distant period. These facts would be as improbable to him as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. When he saw the kernel laid in the ground; when he saw it decay; when apparently it was returning to dust, he would ask, How can these be connected with the production of similar grain? Are not all the indications that it will be totally corrupted and destroyed?"

Yet, says Paul, this is connected with the hope of the harvest, and this fact should remove all the objection which is derived from the fact that the body returns to its native dust. The idea is, that there is an analogy, and that the main objection in the one case would lie equally well against the acknowledged and indisputable fact in the other. It is evident, however, that this argument is of a popular character, and is not to be pressed to the quick; nor are we to suppose that the resemblance will be in all respects the same. It is to be used as Paul used it. The objection was, that the body died, and returned to dust, and could not, therefore, rise again. The reply of Paul is, "You may make the same objection to grain that is sown. That dies also. The main body of the kernel decays. In itself there is no prospect that it will spring up. Should it stop here, and had you never seen a grain of wheat grow; had you only seen it in the earth, as you have seen the body in the grave, there would be the same difficulty as to how it would produce other grains, which there is about the resurrection of the body."

Is not quickened - Does not become alive; does not grow.

Except it die - See the note on Joh 12:24. The main body of the grain decays that it may become food and nourishment to the tender germ. Perhaps it is implied here also that there was a fitness that people should die in order to obtain the glorious body of the resurrection, in the same way as it is fit that the kernel should die, in order that there may be a new and beautiful harvest.

Barnes: 1Co 15:37

And that which thou sowest - The seed which is sown.

Not that body that shall be - You sow one kernel which is to produce many others. They shall not be the same that is sown. They will be new kernels raised from that; of the same kind, indeed, and showing their intimate and necessary connection with that which is sown. It is implied here that the body which will be raised will not be the same in the sense that the same particles of matter shall compose it, but the same only in the sense that it will have sprung up from that; will constitute the same order, rank, species of being, and be subject to the same laws, and deserve the same course of treatment as that which died; as the grain produced is subject to the same laws, and belongs to the same rank, order, and species as that which is sown. And as the same particles of matter which are sown do not enter into that which shall be in the harvest, so it is taught that the same particles of matter which constitute the body when it dies, do not constitute the new body at the resurrection.

But bare grain - Mere grain; a mere kernel, without any husk, leaf, blade, or covering of any kind. Those are added in the process of reproduction. The design of this is to make it appear more remarkable, and to destroy the force of the objection. It was not only not the grain that should be produced, but it was without the appendages and ornaments of blade, and flower, and beard of the new grain. How could anyone tell but what it would be so in the resurrection? How could any know but what there might be appendages and ornaments there, which were not connected with the body that died?

It may chance of wheat ... - For example; or suppose it be wheat or any other grain. The apostle adduces this merely for an example; not to intimate that there is any chance about it.

Barnes: 1Co 15:38

But God giveth it a body ... - God gives to the seed sown its own proper body, formation, and growth. The word body here, as applied to grain, seems to mean the whole system, or arrangement of roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, and kernels that start out of the seed that is sown The meaning is, that such a form is produced from the seed sown as God pleases. Paul here traces the result to God, to show that there is no chance, and that it did not depend on the nature of things, but was dependent on the wise arrangement of God. There was nothing in the decaying kernel itself that would produce this result; but God chose that it should be so. There is nothing in the decaying body of the dead which in itself should lead to the resurrection; but God chose it should be so.

As it hath pleased him - As he chose. It is by his arrangement and agency. Though it is by regular laws, yet it is as God pleases. He acts according to his own pleasure, in the formation of each root, and stalk, and kernel of grain. It is, probably, here intimated that God would give to each one of the dead at the resurrection such a body as he should choose, though it will be, doubtless, in accordance with general laws.

And to every seed his own body - That which appropriately belongs to it; which it is suited to produce; which is of the same kind. He does not cause a stalk of rye to grow from a kernel of wheat; nor of maize from barley; nor of hemp from lenthes. He has fixed proper laws, and he takes care that they shall be observed. So it will be in the resurrection. Everyone shall have his own, that is, his proper body - a body which shall belong to him, and be suited to him. The wicked shall not rise with the body of the just, or with a body adapted to heaven; nor shall the saint rise with a body adapted to perdition. There shall be a fitness or appropriateness in the new body to the character of him who is raised. The argument here is designed to meet the inquiry how should the body be raised, and it is that there is nothing more remarkable and impossible in the doctrine of the resurrection, than in the fact constantly before us, that grain that seems to rot sends up a shoot or stalk, and is reproduced in a wonderful and beautiful manner. In a manner similar to this, the body will be raised; and the illustration of Paul meets all the difficulties about the fact of the resurrection. It cannot be shown that one is more difficult than the other; and as the facts of vegetation are constantly passing before our eyes, we ought not to deem it strange if similar facts shall take place hereafter in regard to the resurrection of the dead.

Barnes: 1Co 15:39

All flesh is not the same flesh - This verse and the following are designed to answer the question 1Co 15:35, "with what bodies do they come?"And the argument here is, that there are many kinds of bodies; that all are not alike; that while they are bodies, yet they partake of different qualities, forms, and properties; and that, therefore, it is not absurd to suppose that God may transform the human body into a different form, and cause it to be raised up with somewhat different properties in the future world. Why, the argument is, why should it be regarded as impossible? Why is it to be held that the human body may not undergo a transformation, or that it will be absurd to suppose that it may be different in some respects from what it is now? Is it not a matter of fact that there is a great variety of bodies even on the earth? The word flesh here is used to denote body, as it often is. 1Co 5:5; 2Co 4:11; 2Co 7:1; Phi 1:22, Phi 1:24; Col 2:5; 1Pe 4:6.

The idea here is, that although all the bodies of animals may be composed essentially of the same elements, yet God has produced a wonderful variety in their organization, strength, beauty, color, and places of abode, as the air, earth, and water. It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose that the body that shall be raised shall be precisely like that which we have here. It is certainly possible that there may be as great a difference between that and our present body, as between the most perfect form of the human frame here and the lowest repthe. It would still be a body, and there would be no absurdity in the transformation. The body of the worm; the chrysalis, and the butterfly is the same. It is the same animal still. Yet how different the gaudy and frivilous butterfly from the creeping and offensive caterpillar! So there may be a similar change in the body of the believer, and yet be still the same. Of a sceptic on this subject we would ask, whether, if there had been a revelation of the changes which a caterpillar might undergo before it became a butterfly - a new species of existence adapted to a new element, requiring new food, and associated with new and other beings - if he had never seen such a transformation, would it not be attended with all the difficulty which now encompasses the doctrine of the resurrection? The sceptic would no more have believed it on the authority of revelation than he will believe the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. And no infidel can prove that the one is attended with any more difficulty or absurdity than the other.

Barnes: 1Co 15:40

There are also celestial bodies - The planets; the stars; the host of heaven; see 1Co 15:41.

And bodies terrestrial - On earth; earthly. He refers here to the bodies of human beings, beasts, birds, etc.; perhaps, also, of trees and vegetables. The sense is, "There is a great variety of bodies. Look upon the heavens, and see the splendor of the sun, the moon, and the stars. And then look upon the earth, and see the bodies there - the bodies of people, and brutes, and insects. You see here two entire classes of bodies. You see how they differ. Can it be deemed strange if there should be a difference between our bodies when on earth and when in heaven? Do we not, in fact, see a vast difference between what strikes our eye here on earth and in the sky? And why should we deem it strange that between bodies adapted to live here and bodies adapted to live in heaven, there should be a difference, like that which is seen between the objects which appear on earth and those which appear in the sky?"The argument is a popular one; but it is striking, and meets the object which he has in view.

The glory of the celestial is one - The splendor, beauty, dignity, magnificence of the heavenly bodies differs much from those on earth. That is one thing; the beauty of earthly objects is another and a different thing. Beautiful as may be the human frame; beautiful as may be the plumage of birds; beautiful as may be the flower, the fossil, the mineral, the topaz, or the diamond; yet they differ from the heavenly bodies, and are not to be compared with them. Why should we deem it strange that there may be a similar difference between the body as adapted to its residence here and as adapted to its residence in heaven?

Barnes: 1Co 15:41

There is one glory of the sun ... - The sun has one degree of splendor, and the moon another, and so also the stars. They differ from each other in magnitude, in brightness, in beauty. The idea in this verse differs from that in the former. In that 1Co 15:40 Paul says, that there was a difference between the different classes of bodies; between those in heaven and those on earth. He here says, that in the former class, in the heavenly bodies themselves, there was a difference. They not only differed from those on earth, but they differed from each other. The sun was more splendid than the moon, and one star more beautiful than another. The idea here is, therefore, not only that the bodies of the saints in heaven shall differ from those on earth, but that they shall differ among themselves, in a sense somewhat like the difference of the splendor of the sun, the moon, and the different stars. Though all shall be unlike what they were on earth, and all shall be glorious, yet there may be a difference in that splendor and glory. The argument is, since we see so great differences in fact in the works of God, why should we doubt that he is able to make the human body different from what it is now, and to endow it with immortal and eternal perfection?

Barnes: 1Co 15:42

So also is the resurrection - In a manner similar to the grain that is sown, and to the different degrees of splendor and magnificence in the bodies in the sky and on the earth. The dead shall be raised in a manner analogous to the springing up of grain; and there shall be a difference between the body here and the body in the resurrection.

It is sown - In death. As we sow or plant the kernel in the earth.

In corruption - In the grave; in a place where it shall be corrupt; in a form tending to putrefaction, disorganization, and dust.

It is raised in incorruption - It will be so raised. In the previous verses 1Co 15:36-41 he had reasoned from analogy, and had demonstrated that it was possible that the dead should rise, or that there was no greater difficulty attending it than actually occurred in the events which were in fact constantly taking place. He here states positively what would be, and affirms that it was not only possible, but that such a resurrection would actually occur. They body would be raised "in incorruption,""uncorruptible"1Co 15:52; that is, no more liable to decay, sickness, disorganization, and putrefaction. This is one characteristic of the body that shall be raised, that it shall be no more liable, as here, to wasting sickness, to disease, and to the loathsome corruption of the grave. That God can form a body of that kind, no one can doubt; that he actually will, the apostle positively affirms. That such will be the bodies of the saints is one of the most cheering prospects that can be presented to those who are here wasted away by sickness, and who look with dread and horror on the loathsome putrefaction of the tomb.

Barnes: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in dishonour - In the grave, where it is shut out from human view; hurried away from the sight of friends; loathsome and offensive as a mass turning to decay. There is, moreover, a kind of disgrace and ignominy attending it here, as under the curse of God, and, on account of sin, sentenced to the offensiveness of the grave.

It is raised in glory - In honor; in beauty; honored by God by the removal of the curse, and in a form and manner that shall be glorious. This refers to the fact that everything like dishonor, vileness, ignominy, which attends it here shall be removed there, and that the body shall bear a resemblance to the glorified body of Jesus Christ, Eph 3:21. It shall be adapted to a world of glory; and everything which here rendered it vile, valueless, cumbersome, offensive, or degraded, shall be there removed. Of course, every idea which we can get from this is chiefly negative, and consists in denying that the body will have there the qualities which here render it vile or loathsome. The word "glory"( δόξα doxa ) means dignity, splendor, honor, excellence, perfection; and is used here as denoting the combination of all those things which shall rescue it from ignominy and disgrace.

It is sown in weakness - Weak, feeble, liable to decay. Here disease prostrates the strength, takes away its power, consigns it to the dust. It denotes the many weaknesses, frailties, and liabilities to sickness, to which we are here exposed, Its feeble powers are soon prostrate; its vital functions soon cease in death.

It is raised in power - This does not denote power like that of God, nor like the angels. It does not affirm that it shall be endued with remarkable and enormous physical strength, or that it shall have the power of performing what would now be regarded as miraculous. It is to be regarded as the opposite of the word "weakness,"and means that it shall be no longer liable to disease; no more overcome by the attacks of sickness; no more subject to the infirmities and weaknesses which it here experiences. It shall not be prostrate by sickness, nor overcome by fatigue. It shall be capable of the service of God without weariness and languor; it shall need no rest as it does here (see Rev 7:15; compare Rev 22:5); but it shall be in a world where there shall be no fatigue, lassitude, disease; but where there shall be ample power to engage in the service of God forever. There is, however, no improbability in supposing that the physical powers of man, as well as his intellectual, may be greatly augmented in heaven. But on this point there is no revelation.

Barnes: 1Co 15:44

It is sown a natural body - ( σῶμα ψυχικὸν sōma psuchikon ). This word, "natural,"denotes properly that which is endowed with "animal"life, having breath, or vitality. The word from which it is derived ( ψυχή psuchē ) denotes properly the breath; vital breath; the soul, as the vital principle; the animal soul, or the vital spirit; the soul, as the seat of the sentient desires, passions, and propensities; and then a living thing, an animal. It may be applied to any animal, or any living thing, whether brutes or men. It is distinguished from the soul or spirit ( Πνεῦμα Pneuma ), inasmuch as that more commonly denotes the rational spirit, the immortal soul, that which thinks, reasons, reflects, etc. The word "natural"here, therefore, means that which has "animal"life; which breathes and acts by the laws of the animal economy; that which draws in the breath of life; which is endowed with senses, and which has need of the supports of animal life, and of the refreshments derived from food, exercise, sleep, etc.

The apostle here, by affirming that the body will be spiritual, intends to deny that it will need that which is now necessary to the support of the animal functions; it will not be sustained in that way; it will lay aside these special animal organizations, and will cease to convey the idea which we now attach to the word animal, or to possess that which we now include under the name of vital functions. Here the body of man is endowed simply with animal functions. It is the dwelling-place indeed of an immortal mind; but as a body it has the properties of animal life, and is subject to the same laws and inconveniences as the bodies of other animals. It is sustained by breath, and food, and sleep; it is endowed with the organs of sense, the eye, the ear, the smell, the touch, by which alone the soul can hold communication with the external world; it is liable to disease, languor, decay, death. These animal or vital functions will cease in heaven, and the body be raised in a different mode of being, and where all the inconveniences of this mere animal life shall be laid aside.

It is raised a spiritual body - Not a mere spirit, for then it would not be a body. The word spiritual ( πνευματικόν pneumatikon ) here stands opposed to the word natural, or animal. it will not be a body that is subject to the laws of the vital functions, or organized or sustained in that way. It will still be a "body"( σῶμα sōma ), but it will have so far the nature of spirit as to be without the vital functions which here control the body. This is all that the word here means. It does not mean refined, sublimated, or transcendental; it does not mean that it will be without shape or form; it does not mean that it will not be properly a body. The idea of Paul seems to be this: "We conceive of soul or spirit as not subject to the laws of vital or animal agency. It is independent of them. It is not sustained or nourished by the functions of the animal organization. It has an economy of its own; living without nourishment; not subject to decay; not liable to sickness, pain, or death. So will be the body in the resurrection. It will not be subject to the laws of the vital organization. It will be so much like a spirit as to be continued without food or nutriment; to be destitute of the special physical organization of flesh, and blood, and bones; of veins, and arteries, and nerves, as here 1Co 15:50.; and it will live in the manner in which we conceive spirits to live; sustained, and exercising its powers, without waste, weariness, decay, or the necessity of having its powers recruited by food and sleep."All, therefore, that has been said about a refined body, a body that shall be spirit, a body that shall be pure, etc., whatever may be its truth, is not sustained by this passage. It will be a body without the vital functions of the animal economy; a body sustained in the manner in which we conceive the spirit to be.

There is a natural body - This seems to be added by Paul in the way of strong affirmation arising from earnestness, and from a desire to prevent misconception. The affirmation is, that there is a natural body; that is apparent: it is everywhere seen. No one can doubt it. So, with equal certainty, says Paul, there is a spiritual body. It is just as certain and indisputable. This assertion is made, not because the evidence of both is the same, but is made on his apostolic authority, and is to be received on that authority. That there was an animal body was apparent to all; that there was a spiritual body was a position which he affirmed to be as certain as the other. The only proof which he alleges is in 1Co 15:45, which is the proof arising from revelation.

Barnes: 1Co 15:45

And so it is written, - Gen 2:7. It is only the first part of the verse which is quoted.

The first man Adam was made a living soul - This is quoted exactly from the translation by the Septuagint, except that the apostle has added the words "first"and "Adam."This is done to designate whom he meant. The meaning of the phrase "was made a living soul"( ἐγένετο εις ψυκὴν ζωσαν egeneto eis psuchēn zōsan - in Hebrew, נפשׁ חיה nephesh chayaah is, became a living, animated being; a being endowed with life. The use of the word "soul"in our translation, for ψυχὴ psuchē , and נפשׁ nephesh , does not quite convey the idea. We apply the word "soul,"usually, to the intelligent and the immortal part of man; that which reasons, thinks, remembers, is conscious, is responsible, etc. The Greek and Hebrew words, however, more properly denote that which is alive, which is animated, which breathes, which has an animal nature, see the note on 1Co 15:44. And this is precisely the idea which Paul uses here, that the first man was made an animated being by having breathed into him the breath of life Gen 2:7, and that it is the image of this animated or vital being which we bear, 1Co 15:48. Neither Moses nor Paul deny that in addition to this, man was endowed with a rational soul, an immortal nature; but that is not the idea which they present in the passage in Genesis which Paul quotes.

The last Adam - The second Adam, or the "second man,"1Co 15:47. That Christ is here intended is apparent, and has been usually admitted by commentators. Christ here seems to be called Adam because he stands in contradistinction from the first Adam; or because, as we derive our animal and dying nature from the one, so we derive our immortal and undying bodies from the other. From the one we derive an animal or vital existence; from the other we derive our immortal existence, and resurrection from the grave. The one stands at the head of all those who have an existence represented by the words, "a living soul;"the other of all those who shall have a spiritual body in heaven. He is called "the last Adam;"meaning that there shall be no other after him who shall affect the destiny of man in the same way, or who shall stand at the head of the race in a manner similar to what had been done by him and the first father of the human family. They sustain special relations to the race; and in this respect they were "the first"and "the last"in the special economy. The name "Adam"is not elsewhere given to the Messiah, though a comparison is several times instituted between him and Adam. (See the Supplementary Note on 1Co 15:22; also Rom 5:12, note.)

A quickening spirit - ( εἰς πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν eis pneuma zōopoioun . A vivifying spirit; a spirit giving or imparting life. Not a being having mere vital functions, or an animated nature, but a being who has the power of imparting life. This is not a quotation from any part of the Scriptures, but seems to be used by Paul either as affirming what was true on his own apostolic authority, or as conveying the substance of what was revealed respecting the Messiah in the Old Testament. There may be also reference to what the Saviour himself taught, that he was the source of life; that he had the power of imparting life, and that he gave life to all whom he pleased: see the note at Joh 1:4; note at Joh 5:26, "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself."1Co 15:21, "for as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will."

The word "spirit,"here applied to Christ, is in contradistinction from "a living being,"as applied to Adam, and seems to be used in the sense of spirit of life, as raising the bodies of his people from the dead, and imparting life to them. He was constituted not as having life merely, but as endowed with the power of imparting life; as endowed with that spiritual or vital energy which was needful to impart life. All life is the creation or production of "spirit"( Πνεῦμα Pneuma ); as applied to God the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Spirit is the source of all vitality. God is a spirit, and God is the source of all life. And the idea here is, that Christ had such a spiritual existence such power as a spirit; that he was the source of all life to his people. The word "spirit"is applied to his exalted spiritual nature, in distinction from his human nature, in Rom 1:4; 1Ti 3:16; 1Pe 3:18. The apostle does not here affirm that he had not a human nature, or a vital existence as a man; but that his main characteristic in contradistinction from Adam was, that he was endowed with an elevated spiritual nature, which was capable of imparting vital existence to the dead.

Barnes: 1Co 15:46

Howbeit - There is a due order observed, 1Co 15:23. The decaying, the dying, the weak, the corruptible, in the proper order of events, was first. This order was necessary, and this is observed everywhere. It is seen in the grain that dies in the ground, and in the resurrection of man. The imperfect is succeeded by the perfect; the impure by the pure; the vile and degraded by the precious and the glorious. The idea is, that there is a tendency toward perfection, and that God observes the proper order by which that which is most glorious shall be secured. It was not his plan that all things in the beginning should be perfect; but that perfection should be the work of time, and should be secured in an appropriate order of events. The design of Paul in this verse seems to be to vindicate the statement which he had made, by showing that it was in accordance with what was everywhere observed, that the proper order should be maintained. This idea is carried through the following verses.

Barnes: 1Co 15:47

The first man - Adam.

Is of the earth - Was made of the dust; see Gen 2:7.

Earthy - Partaking of the earth; he was a mass of animated clay, and could be appropriately called "dust;"Gen 3:19. Of course, he must partake of a nature that was low, mean, mortal, and corruptible.

The second man - Christ; see the note on 1Co 15:45. He is called the second man, as being the second who sustained a relation to people that was materially to affect their conduct and destiny; the second and the last 1Co 15:45, who should sustain a special headship to the race.

The Lord from heaven - Called in 1Co 2:8, the "Lord of glory;"see note on that place. This expression refers to the fact that the Lord Jesus had a heavenly origin, in contradistinction from Adam, who was formed from the earth. The Latin Vulgate renders this, "the second man from heaven is heavenly;"and this idea seems to accord with the meaning in the former member of the verse. The sense is, evidently, that as the first man had an earthly origin, and was, therefore, earthy, so the second man being from heaven, as his proper home, would have a body adapted to that abode; unlike that which was earthy, and which would be suited to his exalted nature, and to the world where he would dwell. And while, therefore, the phrase "from heaven"refers to his heavenly origin, the essential idea is, that he would have a body that was adapted to such an origin and such a world - a body unlike that which was earthy. That is, Christ had a glorified body to which the bodies of the saints must yet be made like.

Barnes: 1Co 15:48

As is the earthy - Such as Adam was.

Such are they also ... - Such are all his descendants; all who derive their nature from him. That is, they are frail, corruptible, mortal; they live in an animal body as he did, and like him, they are subject to corruption and decay.

And as is the heavenly - As is he who was from heaven; as is the Lord Jesus now in is glorified body. "Such are they also, etc."Such will they be also. They will be like him; they will have a body like his. This idea is more fully expressed in Phi 3:21, "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body."

Barnes: 1Co 15:49

And as we have borne the image of the earthy - As like our first father, we are frail, decaying, dying; as we are so closely connected with him as to be like him. This does not refer, mainly, to one bearing his moral character, but to the fact that we are, like him, subject to sickness, frailty, sorrow, and death.

We shall also bear the image of the heavenly - The Lord Jesus Christ, who was from heaven, and who is in heaven. As we are so closely connected with Adam as to resemble him. so by the divine arrangement, and by faith in the Lord Jesus, we are so closely connected with him that we shall resemble him in heaven. And as he is now free from frailty, sickness. pain, sorrow, and death, and as he has a pure and spiritual body, adapted to a residence in heaven, so shall we be in that future world. The argument here is, that the connection which is formed between the believer and the Saviour is as close as that which subsisted between him and Adam; and as that connection with Adam involved the certainty that he would be subjected to pain, sin, sickness, and death, so the connection with Christ involves the certainty that he will like him be free from sin, sickness, pain, and death, and like him will have a body that is pure, incorruptible, and immortal.

Barnes: 1Co 15:50

Now this I say, brethren - "I make this affirmation in regard to this whole subject. I do it as containing the substance of all that I have said. I do it in order to prevent all mistake in regard to the nature of the bodies which shall be raised up."This affirmation is made respecting all the dead and all the living, that there must be a material and important change in regard to them before they can be prepared for heaven. Paul had proved in the previous verses that it was possible for God to give us bodies different from those which we now possess; he here affirms, in the most positive manner, that it was indispensable that we should have bodies different from what we now have.

Flesh and blood - Bodies organized as ours now are. "Flesh and blood"denotes such bodies as we have here, bodies that are fragile. weak, liable to disease, subject to pain and death. They are composed of changing particles; to be repaired and strengthened daily; they are subject to decay, and are wasted away by sickness, and of course they cannot be suited to a world where there shall be no decay and and no death.

Cannot inherit - Cannot be admitted as heir to the kingdom of God. The future world of glory is often represented as an heirship; see the note on Rom 8:17.

The kingdom of God - Heaven; appropriately called his kingdom, because he shall reign there in undivided and perfect glory forever.

Neither doth corruption ... - Neither can that which is in its nature corruptible, and liable to decay, be adapted to a world where all is incorruptible. The apostle here simply states the fact. He does not tell us why it is impossible. It may be because the mode of communication there is not by the bodily senses; it may be because such bodies as ours would not be suited to relish the pure and exalted pleasures of an incorruptible world; it may be because they would interfere with the exalted worship, the active service, and the sleepless employments of the heavenly world; it may be because such a body is constituted to derive pleasure from objects which shall not be found in heaven. It is adapted to enjoyment in eating and drinking, and the pleasures of the eye, the ear, the taste, the touch; in heaven the soul shall be awake to more elevated and pure enjoyments than these, and, of course, such bodies as we here have would impede our progress and destroy our comforts, and be ill adapted to all the employments and enjoyments of that heavenly world.

Barnes: 1Co 15:51

Behold I show you - This commences the third subject of inquiry in the chapter, the question, what will become of those who are alive when the Lord Jesus shall return to raise the dead? This was an obvious inquiry, and the answer was, perhaps, supposed to be difficult. Paul answers it directly, and says that they will undergo an instantaneous change, which will make them like the dead that shall be raised.

A mystery - On the meaning of this word, see the note on 1Co 2:7. The word here does not mean anything which was in its nature unintelligible, but that which to them had been hitherto unknown. "I now communicate to you a truth which has not been brought into the discussion, and in regard to which no communication has been made to you."On this subject there had been no revelation. Though the Pharisees held that the dead would rise, yet they do not seem to have made any statement in regard to the living who should remain when the dead should rise. Nor, perhaps, had the subject occupied the attention of the apostles; nor had there been any direct communication on it from the Lord Jesus himself. Paul then here says, that he was about to communicate a great truth which till then had been unknown, and to resolve a great inquiry on which there had as yet been no revelation.

We shall not all sleep - We Christians; grouping all together who then lived and should live afterward, for his discussion has relation to them all. The following remarks may, perhaps, remove some of the difficulty which attends the interpretation of this passage. The objection which is made to it is, that Paul expected to live until the Lord Jesus should return; that he, therefore, expected that the world would soon end, and that in this he was mistaken, and could not be inspired. To this, we may reply:

(1) He is speaking of Christians as such - of the whole church that had been redeemed - of the entire mass that should enter heaven; and he groups them all together, and connects himself with them, and says, "We shall not die; we Christians, including the whole church, shall not all die,"etc. That he did not refer only to those whom he was then addressing, is apparent from the whole discussion. The argument relates to Christians - to the church at large; and the affirmation here has reference to that church considered as one church that was to be raised up on the last Day.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 hat Paul did not expect that the Lord Jesus would soon come, and that the world would soon come to an end, is apparent from a similar place in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. In 1Th 4:15, he uses language remarkably similar to that which is used here: "We which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord,"etc. This language was interpreted by the Thessalonians as teaching that the world would soon come to an end, and the effect had been to produce a state of alarm. Paul was, therefore, at special pains to show in his Second Epistle to them, that he did not mean any such thing. He showed them 2 Thes. 2 that the end of the world was not near; that very important events were to occur before the world would come to an end; and that his language did not imply any expectation on his part that the world would soon terminate, or that the Lord Jesus would soon come.

(3) Parallel expressions occur in the other writers of the New Testament, and with a similar signification. Thus, John 1Jo 2:18 says, "It is the last time;"compare Heb 1:2. But the meaning of this is not that the world would soon come to an end. The prophets spoke of a period which they called "the last days"(Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1; in Hebrew, "the after days"), as the period in which the Messiah would live and reign. By it they meant the dispensation which should be the last; that under which the world would close; the reign of the Messiah, which would be the last economy of human things. But it did not follow that this was to be a short period; or that it might not be longer than any one of the former, or than all the former put together. This was that which John spoke of as the last time.

(4) I do not know that the proper doctrine of inspiration suffers, if we admit that the apostles were ignorant of the exact time when the world would close; or even that in regard to the precise period when that would take place, they might be in error. The following considerations may be suggested on this subject, showing that the claim to inspiration did not extend to the knowledge of this fact:

(a) That they were not omniscient, and there is no more absurdity in supposing that they were ignorant on this subject than in regard to any other.

(b) Inspiration extended to the order of future events, and not to the thees. There is in the Scriptures no statement of the time when the world would close. Future events were made to pass before the minds of the prophets, as in a landscape. The order of the images may be distinctly marked, but the times may not be designated. And even events which may occur in fact at distant periods, may in vision appear to be near each other; as in a landscape, objects which are in fact separated by distant intervals, like the ridges of a mountain, may appeal to lie close to each other.

© The Saviour expressly said, that it was not designed that they should know when future events would occur. Thus, after his ascension, in answer to an inquiry whether he then would restore the kingdom to Israel, he said Act 1:7, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power."See the note on that verse.

(d) The Saviour said that even he himself, as man, was ignorant in regard to the exact time in which future events would occur. "But of that day, and that hour, knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father;"Mar 13:32.

(e) The apostles were in fact ignorant, and mistaken in regard to, at least, the time of the occurrence of one future event, the death of John; Joh 21:23. There is, therefore, no departure from the proper doctrine of inspiration, in supposing that the apostles were not inspired on these subjects, and that they might be ignorant like others. The proper order of events they state truly and exactly; the exact time God did not, for wise reasons, intend to make known.

Shall not all sleep - Shall not all die; see the note at 1Co 11:30.

But we shall all be changed - There is considerable variety in the reading of this passage. The Vulgate reads it, "We shall all indeed rise, but we shall not all be changed."Some Greek manuscripts read it, "We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed."Others, as the Vulgate, "We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed."But the present Greek text contains, doubtless, the true reading; and the sense is, that all who are alive at the coming of the Lord Jesus shall undergo such a change as to fit them for their new abode in heaven; or such as shall make them like those who shall be raised from the dead. This change will be instantaneous 1Co 15:52, for it is evident that God can as easily change the living as he can raise the dead; and as the affairs of the world will then have come to an end, there will be no necessity that those who are then alive should be removed by death; nor would it be proper that they should go down to lie any time in the grave. The ordinary laws, therefore, by which people are removed to eternity, will not operate in regard to them, and they will be removed at once to their new abode.

Barnes: 1Co 15:52

In a moment - ( ἐν ἀτόμῳ en atomō ). In an "atom,"scil. of time; a point of time which cannot be cut or divided ( α a , the alpha privative ("not") and τομη tomē , from τέμνω temnō , "to cut"). A single instant; immediately. It will be done instantaneously.

In the twinkling of an eye - This is an expression also denoting the least conceivable duration of time. The suddenness of the coming of the Lord Jesus is elsewhere compared to the coming of a thief in the night; 2Pe 3:10. The word rendered "twinkling"( ῥιπῆ ripē , from ῥίπτω rhiptō , "to throw, cast") means "a throw, cast, jerk,"as of a stone; and then "a jerk of the eye,"that is, "a wink"- Robinson.

At the last trump - When the trumpet shall sound to raise the dead. The word "last"here does not imply that any trumpet shall have been before sounded at the resurrection, but is a word denoting that this is the consummation or close of things; it will end the economy of this world; it will be connected with the last state of things.

For the trumpet shall sound - See the note at Mat 24:31.

And the dead shall be raised - See the note at Joh 5:25.

Barnes: 1Co 15:53

For this corruptible ... - It is necessary that a change should take place, either by dying and then being raised, or by being changed without seeing death; for we cannot enter heaven as we are now.

Must put on - The word used here ( ἐνδύνω endunō ) properly means to go in, to envelope, to put on as a garment; and then to put on any thing; as the soul is, as it were, clothed with, or invested with a body; and here it means, must be endued with, or furnished with. It is equivalent to saying that this corruptible become incorruptible, and this mortal must become immortal. We must cease to be corruptible and mortal, and must become incorruptible and immortal. The righteous who remain till the coming of Christ shall be at once changed, and invested, as Enoch and Elijah were, with incorruption and immortality.

Barnes: 1Co 15:54

So when ... - In that future glorious world, when all this shall have been accomplished.

Then shall be brought to pass - Then shall be fully accomplished; these words shall then receive their entire fulfillment; or this event shall meet all that is implied in these words.

The saying that is written - What is written, or the record which is made. These words are quoted from Isa 25:8; and the fact that Paul thus quotes them, and the connection in which they stand, prove that they had reference to the times of the gospel, and to the resurrection of the dead. Paul does not quote directly from the Hebrew, or from the Septuagint, but gives the substance of the passage.

Death - Referring here, undoubtedly, to death in the proper sense; death as prostrating the living, and consigning them to the grave.

Is swallowed up - Κατεπόθη Katepothē (from katapinō , to drink down, to swallow down) means to absorb Rev 12:16; to overwhelm, to drown Heb 11:29; and then to destroy or remove. The idea may be taken from a whirlpool, or maelstrom, that absorbs all that comes near it; and the sense is, that he will abolish or remove death; that is, cause it to cease from its ravages and triumphs.

In victory - ( εἰς νῖκος eis nikos . Unto victory; so as to obtain a complete victory. The Hebrew Isa 25:8 is לנצח laanetsach , The Septuagint often renders the word נצח drow netsach which properly means "splendor, purity, trust, perpetuity, eternity, perfection,"by νῖκος nikos , "victory"; Job 36:7; Lam 3:18; Lam 5:20; Amo 1:1-15; Amos 2; Amo 8:7. The Hebrew word here may be rendered either "unto the end, that is,"to completeness or perfection, or unto victory, with triumph. It matters little which is the meaning, for they both come to the same thing. The idea is, that the power and dominion of death shall be entirely destroyed, or brought to an end.

Barnes: 1Co 15:55

"O death."This triumphant exclamation is the commencement of the fourth division of the chapter, the practical consequences of the doctrine. It is such an exclamation as every man with right feelings will be disposed to make, who contemplates the ravages of death; who looks upon a world where in all forms he has reigned, and who then contemplates the glorious truth, that a complete and final triumph has been obtained over this great enemy of the happiness of man, and that man would die no more. It is a triumphant view which bursts upon the soul as it contemplates the fact that the work of the second Adam has repaired the ruins of the first, and that man is redeemed; his body will be raised; not another human being should die, and the work of death should be ended. Nay, it is more. Death is not only at an end; it shall not only cease, but its evils shall be repaired; and a glory and honor shall encompass the body of man, such as would have been unknown had there been no death. No commentary can add to the beauty and force of the language in this verse; and the best way to see its beauty, and to enjoy it, is to sit down and think of death; of what death has been, and has done; of the millions and millions that have died; of the earth strewn with the dead, and "arched with graves;"of our own death; the certainty that we must die, and our parents, and brothers, and sisters, and children, and friends; that all, all must die; and then to suffer the truth, in its full-orbed splendor, to rise upon us, that the time will come when death shall be at an end. Who, in such contemplation, can refrain from the language of triumph, and from hymns of praise?

Where is thy sting? - The word which is here rendered sting ( κέντρον kentron ) denotes properly a prick, a point, hence, a goad or stimulus; that is, a rod or staff with an iron point, for goading oxen; (see the note on Act 9:5); and then a sting properly, as of scorpions, bees, etc. It denotes here a venomous thing, or weapon, applied to death personified, as if death employed it to destroy life, as the sting of a bee or a scorpion is used. The idea is derived from the venomous sting of serpents, or other reptiles, as being destructive and painful. The language here is the language of exultation, as if that was taken away or destroyed.

O grave - ᾅδη hadē . Hades, the place of the dead. It is not improperly rendered, however, grave. The word properly denotes a place of darkness; then the world, or abodes of the dead. According to the Hebrews, Hades, or Sheol, was a vast subterranean receptacle, or abode, where the souls of the dead existed. It was dark, deep, still, awful. The descent to it was through the grave; and the spirits of all the dead were supposed to be assembled there; the righteous occupying the upper regions, and the wicked the lower; see the note on Isa 14:9; compare Lowth, Lectures on Hebrew Poetry , vii; Campbell, Prel. Diss. vi. part 2, 2. It refers here to the dead; and means that the grave, or Hades, should no longer have a victory.

Thy victory - Since the dead are to rise; since all the graves are to give up all that dwell in them; since no man will die after that, where is its victory? It is taken away. It is despoiled. The power of death and the grave is vanquished, and Christ is triumphant over all. It has been well remarked here, that the words in this verse rise above the plain and simple language of prose, and resemble a hymn, into which the apostle breaks out in view of the glorious truth which is here presented to the mind. The whole verse is indeed a somewhat loose quotation from Hos 13:14, which we translate,

"O death, I will be thy plagues;

O grave, I will be thy destruction."

But which the Septuagint renders:

"O death, where is thy punishment?

O grave, where is thy sting?"

Probably Paul did not intend this as a direct quotation; but he spoke as a man naturally does who is familiar with the language of the Scriptures, and used it to express the sense which he intended, without meaning to make a direct and literal quotation. The form which Paul uses is so poetic in its structure that Pope has adopted it, with only a change in the location of the members, in the "Dying Christian:"

"O grave, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?"

Barnes: 1Co 15:56

The sting of death - The sting which death bears; that with which he effects his purpose; that which is made use of to inflict death; or that which is the cause of death. There would be no death without sin. The apostle here personifies death, as if it were a living being, and as making use of sin to inflict death, or as being the sting, or envenomed instrument, with which he inflicts the mortal agony. The idea is, that sin is the cause of death. It introduced it; it makes it certain; it is the cause of the pain, distress, agony, and horror which attends it. If there had been no sin, people would not have died. If there were no sin, death would not be attended with horror or alarm. For why should innocence be afraid to die? What has innocence to fear anywhere in the universe of a just God? The fact, therefore, that people die, is proof that they are sinners; the fact that they feel horror and alarm, is proof that they feel themselves to be guilty, and that they are afraid to go into the presence of a holy God. If this be taken away, if sin be removed, of course the horror, and remorse, and alarm which it is suited to produce will be removed also.

Is sin - Sin is the cause of it; see the note at Rom 5:12.

The strength of sin - Its power over the mind; its terrific and dreadful energy; and especially its power to produce alarm in the hour of death.

Is the law - The pure and holy law of God. This idea Paul has illustrated at length in Rom 7:9-13; see the notes on that passage. He probably made the statement here in order to meet the Jews, and to show that the law of God had no power to take away the fear of death; and that, therefore, there was need of the gospel, and that this alone could do it. The Jews maintained that a man might be justified and saved by obedience to the law. Paul here shows that it is the law which gives its chief vigor to sin, and that it does not tend to subdue or destroy it; and that power is seen most strikingly in the pangs and horrors of a guilty conscience on the bed of death. There was need, therefore, of the gospel, which alone could remove the cause of these horrors, by taking away sin, and thus leaving the pardoned man to die in peace; compare the note on Rom 4:15.

Barnes: 1Co 15:57

But thanks be to God; - See the notes at Rom 7:25.

Which giveth us the victory - Us who are Christians; all Christians. The victory over sin, death, and the grave. God alone is the author of this victory. He formed the plan; he executed it in the gift of his Son; and he gives it to us personally when we come to die.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ - By his death, thus destroying the power of death; by his resurrection and triumph over the grave; and by his grace imparted to us to enable us to sustain the pains of death, and giving to us the hope of a glorious resurrection; compare the note at Rom 7:25; Rom 8:37.

Barnes: 1Co 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren - In view of the great and glorious truths which have been revealed to us respecting the resurrection, Paul closes the whole of this important discussion with an exhortation to that firmness in the faith which ought to result from truths so glorious, and from hopes so elevated as these truths are suited to impart. The exhortation is so plain, that it needs little explanation; it so obviously follows from the argument which Paul had pursued, that there is little need to attempt to enforce it.

Be ye steadfast - ἑδραῖοι hedraioi , from ἕδρα hedra . Seated, sedentary (Robinson); perhaps with an allusion to a statue (Bloomfield); or perhaps to wrestling, and to standing one’ s ground (Wolf). Whatever may be the allusion, the sense is clear. Be firm, strong, confident in the faith, in view of the truth that you will be raised up. Be not shaken or agitated with the strifes, the temptations, and the cares of life. Be fixed in the faith, and let not the power of sin, or the sophistry of pretended philosophy, or the arts of the enemy of the soul seduce you from the faith of the gospel.

Unmovable - Firm, fixed, stable, unmoved. This is probably a stronger expression than the former, though meaning substantially the same thing - that we are to be firm and unshaken in our Christian hopes, and in our faith in the gospel.

Always abounding in the work of the Lord - Always engaged in doing the will of God; in promoting his glory, and advancing his kingdom. The phrase means not only to be engaged in this, but to be engaged diligently, laboriously; excelling in this. The "work of the Lord"here means that which the Lord requires; all the appropriate duties of Christians. Paul exhorts them to practice every Christian virtue, and to do all that they could do to further the gospel among people.

Forasmuch as ye know - Greek "Knowing."You know it by the arguments which have been urged for the truth of the gospel; by your deep conviction that that gospel is true.

Your labour is not in vain - It will be rewarded. It is not as if you were to die and never live again. There will be a resurrection, and you will be suitably recompensed then What you do for the honor of God will not only be attended with an approving conscience, and with happiness here, but will be met with the glorious and eternal rewards of heaven.

In the Lord - This probably means, "Your labor or work in the Lord, that is, in the cause of the Lord, will not be in vain."And the sentiment of the whole verse is, that the hope of the resurrection and of future glory should stimulate us to great and self-denying efforts in honor of Him who has revealed that doctrine, and who purposes graciously to reward us there. Other people are influenced and excited to great efforts by the hope of honor, pleasure, or wealth. Christians should be excited to toil and self-denial by the prospect of immortal glory; and by the assurance that their hopes are not in vain, and will not deceive them.

Thus, closes this chapter of inimitable beauty, and of unequalled power of argumentation. Such is the prospect which is before the Christian. He shall indeed die like other people. But his death is a sleep - a calm, gentle, undisturbed sleep, in the expectation of being again awaked to a brighter Day, 1Co 15:6. He has the assurance that his Saviour rose, and that his people shall therefore also rise, 1Co 15:12-20. He encounters peril, and privation, and persecution he may be ridiculed and despised; he may be subjected to danger, or doomed to fight with wild beasts, or to contend with people who resemble wild beasts; he may be doomed to the pains and terrors of a martyrdom at the stake, but he has the assurance that all these are of short continuance, and that before him there is a world of eternal glory; 1Co 15:29-32. He may be poor, unhonored, and apparently without an earthly friend or protector; but his Saviour and Redeemer reigns; 1Co 15:25.

He may be opposed by wicked people, and his name slandered, and body tortured, and his peace marred, but his enemies shall all be subdued; 1Co 15:26-27. He will himself die, and sleep in his grave, but he shall live again; 1Co 15:22-23. He has painful proof that his body is corruptible, but it will be incorruptible; that it is now vile, but it will be glorious; that it is weak, frail, feeble, but it will yet be strong, and no more subject to disease or decay; 1Co 15:42-43. And he will be brought under the power of death. but death shall be robbed of its honors, and despoiled of its triumph. Its sting from the saint is taken away. and it is changed to a blessing. It is now not the dreaded monster, the king of terrors it is a friend that comes to remove him from a world of toil to a world of rest; from a life of sin to a life of glory. The grave is not to him the gloomy abode, the permanent resting-place of his body; it is a place of rest for a little time; grateful like the bed of down to a wearied frame, where he may lie down and repose after the fatigues of the day, and gently wait for the morning.

He has nothing to fear in death; nothing to fear in the dying pang, the gloom, the chill, the sweat, the paleness, the fixedness of death; nothing to fear in the chilliness, the darkness, the silence, the corruption of the grave. All this is in the way to immortality, and is closely and indissolubly connected with immortality; 1Co 15:55-57. And in view of all this, we should be patient, faithful, laborious, self-denying; we should engage with zeal in the work of the Lord; we should calmly wait till our change come; 1Co 15:58. No other system of religion has any such hopes as this; no other system does anything to dispel the gloom, or drive away the horrors of the grave. How foolish is the man who rejects the gospel - the only system which brings life and immortality to light! How foolish to reject the doctrine of the resurrection, and to lie down in the grave without peace, without hope, without any belief that there will be a world of glory; living without God, and dying like the brute.

And yet infidelity seeks and claims its chief triumphs in the attempt to convince poor dying man that he has no solid ground of hope; that the universe is "without a Father and without a God;"that the grave terminates the career of man forever; and that in the grave he sinks away to eternal annihilation. Strange that man should seek such degradation! Strange that all people, conscious that they must die, do not at once greet Christianity as their best friend, and hail the doctrine of the future state, and of the resurrection, as that which is adapted to meet the deeply-felt evils of this world; to fill the desponding mind with peace; and to sustain the soul in the temptations and trials of life, and in the gloom and agony of death!

Poole: 1Co 15:25

God hath so decreed, (and what he hath said must come to pass), that Christ should, as Mediator, exercise a Kingdom and government in the world, until he haith subdued all the enemies of his gospel and people; all those who have said, he shall not rule over them; the whole world that lieth in wickedness, the devil, and all his instruments: this he proveth from the words of the psalmist, Psa 110:1 .

The term until doth not signify the determination of Christ’ s kingdom then, though his mediatory kingdom on earth will then be determined. He shall still reign, but not as now, in the midst of his enemies, and in the exercise of his kingdom in the conquest and subduing of them.

Poole: 1Co 15:26

If death be an enemy, (as we usually judge), that also must be destroyed; and there is no other way to destroy death, but by the causing of a resurrection from the dead. So that the apostle proveth the resurrection from the necessity of Christ’ s reigning until all his enemies be destroyed, of which death is one; for it keeps the bodies of the members of Christ from their union with their souls, and with Christ, who is the Head of the whole believer, the body as well as the soul.

Poole: 1Co 15:27

The apostle referreth to Psa 8:6 , where the psalmist adoreth God for the privileges given man in his creation; amongst which this is one, that God had put all things under his feet: the psalmist afterward expounds that universal particle, Psa 8:7,8 , by all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea. But that that psalm, or some passages at least in it, are to be understood of Christ, appeareth from Heb 2:6-8 , where the penman applieth it to him, as doth the apostle here; under whose feet all things are put in a much larger sense, and therefore the apostle expounds the affirmative, Heb 2:8 , by a negative, he left nothing that is not put under him. But lest men of perverse minds should conclude, that then the Father also is put under Christ, the apostle addeth, that when he saith, he hath put all things under his feet, the Father himself, who is the person that put all things under him, is not to be included.

Poole: 1Co 15:28

The Son’ s subjection to his Father, which is mentioned in this place, doth no where prove his inequality of essence or power with his Father; it only signifieth what was spoken before, that Christ should deliver up his mediatory kingdom to his Father; so manifesting, that whatsoever he had done in the office of Mediator, was done in the name of his Father, and by his power and authority; and that as he was man, he was subject to his Father. Suppose (saith Pareus) a king should have one only son, whom he should take into a partnership with him in his majesty and kingdom; but yet so, that the king should still have the pre-eminence of a father, the son only the dignity of a son in such power and authority: after which this king, having some subjects risen up in rebellion against him, should send his son with armies and his authority against them; he should despatch the work, and at his return yield up his commission to his father, yet still retaining the same nature he had, and authority with which his Father had before clothed him, was a partner in the kingdom and government with him.

That God (saith the apostle) may be all in all instead of all things which the heart of man can wish; or that God may exercise a full and perfect empire and government over all things; that the incomprehensible glory of God may fill all the elect. But is not God in this world all in all?

Answer. He is; but he doth not so appear ruling in the midst of his enemies here.

2. The government will be altered; God here is sole King of the world, but he partly ruleth it by Christ, as Mediator, whose mediatory kingdom shall then cease, and nothing shall appear but the essential kingdom of God; the power by which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (three persons, though but one God) shall govern and rule all things, when all this sublunary world shall cease.

Poole: 1Co 15:29

A very difficult text, and variously expounded. The terms baptize, and baptism, signify no more in their original and native signification, than to wash, and a washing: the washing of pots and cups, in use amongst the Jews, is, in the Greek, the baptisms of pots and cups. But the most usual acceptation of baptism in Scripture, is to signify one of the sacraments of the New Testament; that sacred action, by which one is washed according to the institution of Christ, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is also metaphorically used by our Saviour in the Gospels, Mat 20:22,23 Mr 10:38,39 Lu 12:50 , to signify a suffering for the name of Christ. And it is also used thus metaphorically, to signify the action of the Holy Ghost in cleansing and renewing our hearts, Mat 3:11,12Jo 3:5 . The last usage of the term is by no means applicable here. The question is: Whether the apostle meaneth here only: Why are men washed for the dead? Or why are men baptized religiously for the dead? Or why are men baptized with blood for the dead? For the popish notion, that baptism here signifies any religious actions, as fastings, and prayers, and penances for those that are in purgatory, there is no such usage of the term in Scripture; for though in Scripture it signifies sometimes sufferings from the hands of others, as in Mat 20:22,23 Mr 10:38,39 , yet it no where signifies penances, or such sufferings as men impose upon themselves for the dead. Nor doth Paul here say: To what purpose do men baptize themselves? But

why are they baptized for the dead?

1. Those that think the term here signifies washing, what shall they do who are washed for the dead? Tell us, that it being a custom in many countries, for neatness and cleanliness, to wash dead bodies, the primitive Christians used that ceremony as a religious rite, and a testification of their belief of the resurrection. That such a custom was in use amongst Christians, is plain from Act 9:37 : but that they used it as religious rite, or a testimony of their taith in the resurrection, appeareth not. And though it be uper twn nekrwn , yet they say uper is so used, Rom 15:8 , for the truth of God, expounded by the next word, to confirm the promises.

2. Those that think, that by baptizing, in this text, the sacrament of baptism is to be understood, give us more than one account. Some say, that whereas they were wont in the primitive church, before they admitted persons into a full communion with the church, to keep them for some time under catechism, in which time they were called catechumeni; if such fell sick, and in danger of death, they baptized them; or if they died suddenly, they baptized some other for them, in testimony of their hope of the joyful resurrection of such a person to eternal life. Now admit this were an error of practice in them, as to this ordinance; yet if any such thing were in practice in this church, the argument of the apostle was good against them. But how shall any such thing be made appear to us, that there was such an early corruption in this church? Others say, that some, believing the resurrection, would upon their death beds be baptized, in testimony of it, from whence they had the name of clinici. Others say: To be baptized for the dead, signifieth to be baptized when they were dying, and so as good as dead. Mr. Calvin chooseth this sense: but the question is: Whether the Greek phrase uper twn nekrwn will bear it? Others tell us of a custom in use in the primitive church, to baptize persons over the graves of the martyrs, as a testimony of their belief of the resurrection. That there was anciently such a custom, I doubt not; and I believe that the custom with us in reading of prayers over dead bodies at the grave, doth much more probably derive from this ancient usage, than the papists’ praying for the dead; but that there was any such custom so ancient as the apostles’ times, I very much doubt. There are yet two other senses given of this difficult phrase, either of which seemeth to me much more probable than any of these. To the first we are led by the next verse:

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Which inclineth many good interpreters to think, that the baptism here mentioned, is that baptism with blood mentioned by our Saviour, Mat 20:22,23 ; and so the sense is no more than, if there be no resurrection of the dead, why do we die daily? Why are we killed all the day long? For we do that in hope of a blessed resurrection. The only objections against this are:

1. That none but Christ himself useth the word in this sense (which seemeth a light exception).

2. That uper twn nekrwn is hardly capable of that sense; but yet our learned Dr. Lightfoot brings parallels of such a usage of the preposition out of the LXX. Others observe, that the apostle, in this whole chapter, is discoursing of the resurrection of believers unto life, and they are such dead alone, that he here speaketh of, for whom he saith any were baptized. Now, it is plain from Scripture, that baptism is a seal of the resurrection, signifying to believers, that they shall be made partakers of the death and resurrection of Christ (the resurrection being strongly proved from God’ s covenant, of which baptism is a seal, Luk 20:37,38 ); and being so, it confirmed the covenant, not only to the persons baptized, but to the whole church, as well the triumphant as the militant part of it; as well with reference to those of it that were dead, as those that were living. So that so often as baptism was administered in the church, so often God repeated the covenant made to his whole church, that he was the God of believers and of their seed: so that all who to this day are baptized, are baptized for the dead, that is, for the confirmation of God’ s covenant to his whole church, as well that part of it which is dead, as that part which is yet alive; and it testifieth, that those that sleep in Christ (although dead) yet live in the promise of the resurrection, because God is their God, and he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, as our Saviour speaketh in Luk 20:38 . In this variety amongst learned men about the true sense of this place, I shall leave the reader to his own judgment, although to me the two last seem to be most probable.

Poole: 1Co 15:30

We are the veriest fools in nature, if there be no resurrection of believers unto life; for it is in the firm belief and hopes of that, that we are in danger of our lives, and all that we have, every hour of our lives.

Poole: 1Co 15:31

What is meant here by your rejoicing which I have is something doubted; some understanding it of the apostle’ s rejoicing in them as believers, whom he had been an instrument to convert, and bring home to Christ; others, of their rejoicing in him (which seems not probable, many of them so much despising and vilifying him): others understand it of their glorying against him, and triumphing over him, and that this was one of his sufferings which he instanceth in, which he underwent in hope of a resurrection. The words are not an oath, (for here God is not called to witness), they are only an attestation. As the prophets sometimes call heaven and earth to witness, so here he calls their rejoicing to witness; and this rejoicing seems to be the joy of those who amongst them truly rejoiced in Jesus Christ, for which also he rejoiced daily, they being the seal of his apostleship. That which he solemnly affirms, is, that he died daily; not only was ready to die daily, but in the same sense that he elsewhere saith, he was in deaths often, and that they were killed all the day long; suffering such afflictions as were near akin to death, and led on to death, as their end.

Poole: 1Co 15:32

Concerning this fight of the apostle with beasts at Ephesus there are two opinions; some thinking that he indeed fought with beasts, and we know that in those countries such a punishment was in use, to bring out malefactors to fight with wild beasts; but as we read in the Acts of no such dealings with Paul, so that being a punishment rather for their slaves and vilest men, it can hardly be thought that Paul, who was a free man of Rome, should be exposed to it. They seem therefore better to understand it, who interpret it of his conflict with men, who in their conditions and manners were like beasts; and that he doth not speak here of his scuffle with Demetrius, mentioned Act 19:34-41 , but some other conflict he had there, of which the Scripture giveth us no large account, but it seems to be generally and obscurely mentioned in the next Epistle, 2Co 1:8 , for this Epistle was wrote after his contest with Demetrius. By that phrase, after the manner of men, some think he means, as men use to fight; some have other notions of it: the sense seems to be plainly this: If I have fought with beastly men at Ephesus after the manner that men fight with beasts, exposing my body to their rage and fury, what profit is it to me, if the dead rise not? I have opposed myself to their fury out of a hope for a joyful resurrection; but if there shall be no such resurrection, the epicures, that resolve to stick at nothing, nor to deny themselves in any sensual satisfaction from meat and drink, have the best of it; all men had then best sing their song:

Let us eat and drink for we have but a little time to eat and to drink in; we know that we shall die, and there will be an end of us.

Poole: 1Co 15:33

Do not suffer yourselves to be abused with evil and corrupt discourses of those philosophers amongst whom you converse, who argue from innate principles of reason against articles of faith; though you may judge that they talk but for discourse sake, yet their communication or discourse is naught, and will influence men as to things of practice, and debauch men in their morals. It is a verse or saying taken out of, or at least found in, one of the pagan poets; but containing in it much truth.

Poole: 1Co 15:34

Awake to righteousness, and sin not: sin is in Scripture compared to sleep, Rev 13:11 Eph 5:14 , and that very properly; for as the natural senses are bound up in natural sleep, so the sinner’ s spiritual senses are locked up, so that he doth not exercise them to discern between good and evil; and as he that is asleep is void of all care and fear, is secure, so the sinner is secure and void of fear. And repentance is set out under the notion of awaking; we are not only concerned to eschew evil, but to do good; not only to awake from sin, but to righteousness, that is, to a holy life and conversation, that is it which is here called righteousness, all spiritual rectitude being to be judged from the soul’ s conformity to the Divine rule; hence sin is called a crooked way, because it will not agree with the rule of God’ s word.

For some have not the knowledge of God for some amongst you have not a due and saving knowledge of God, or a right apprehension of the things of God;

I speak this to your shame though it be a shame for them that have it not, considering the light and means of knowledge which you have had by my ministry, and the ministry of others who have been amongst you.

Poole: 1Co 15:35

Some of your vain philosophers, who are resolved to give credit to nothing upon the account of a bare Divine revelation, unless they can give a further rational account of it in the circumstances, will be ready to object and say: How is it possible, that those very bodies which are putrefied, and turned into dust, and that dust, it may be, scattered to the four winds, should be raised up? And if the same bodies shall not again rise, what kind of bodies shall the believers have in the resurrection? Shall they be bodies that will need meat, and drink, and clothes, as our present bodies do? Or what other bodies shall they be?

Poole: 1Co 15:36

He saith not: Thou fool in anger, (which is that using of this term which our Saviour saith, Mat 5:22 brings a man under the danger of hell fire), but in the way of a grave and authoritative reproof, calling them fools for their want of a due understanding of the things and ways of God. He lets them know, that they might as well ask, how the grain of wheat, which they ordinarily sowed in their field, did rise again; for that grain also rotteth under the clods of the earth, under which it is buried, before it again riseth.

Poole: 1Co 15:37

And when it again riseth, or shooteth up, it is not bare grain, without either stalk or ear, which was the body by them sown.

Poole: 1Co 15:38

But God giveth to every grain, or kind of seed, such a kind of body as it pleaseth him, and a several body, according to the nature of the grain; yet none will deny, but it is the seed sown which cometh up, though with a different body, in respect of some qualities.

Poole: 1Co 15:39

Flesh is a kind of body, but it is of various degrees of dignity and excellency, in respect of the qualities of it: the flesh of men is of a differing excellency from the flesh of beasts; and there is a difference in natural qualities between the corporeal substances of beasts, and of fishes, and birds; yet they are all bodies, they are all flesh; our distinction between flesh and fish, is but according to our idiom or propriety of speaking; we read of the flesh of fish, Lev 11:10,11 .

Poole: 1Co 15:40

There are also celestial bodies such are the sun, the moon, and the stars.

And bodies terrestrial men, beasts, birds, fishes, the elements, stones, &c.

But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another now between these two species of bodies, in respect of qualities, there is a very great difference; the glory of the heavenly bodies is much greater than the glory of the earthy bodies that are compounded of the elements.

Poole: 1Co 15:41

Amongst the celestial bodies there is a great deal of difference with respect to the qualities; one of them is in glory much differing from another, the glory of the moon is not like the glory of the sun, and the glory of a star is much beneath the glory both of the sun and of the moon; yea, one star is more glorious than another: yet they are all bodies, though of different species and qualities.

Poole: 1Co 15:42

So also is the resurrection of the dead that is, so shall it be, as to the bodies of the saints, in the resurrection. The same bodies of the saints shall rise, though with qualities, and in a condition, much different from what they were when they fell; as the same grain of wheat shooteth up, though with another body: and as there is a difference between celestial and terrestrial bodies, and between celestial bodies themselves; so there will be a difference between the bodies of the saints, now that they are only of the earth, earthy, from what they shall be in the resurrection; which difference he openeth in several particulars.

It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown that is, it dieth and is buried in such a state, that it is subject to putrefaction; but when it shall be again raised from the dead, it shall be subject to no putrefaction or corruption: so 1Co 15:52 : The dead shall be raised incorruptible.

Poole: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: there is nothing more uncomely, unlovely, and loathsome than a dead body; but it will not be so when it shall be raised again, then it shall be a beautiful, comely body. We shall rise in a full and perfect age, (as is generally thought), and without those defects and deformities which may here make our bodies appear unlovely. Daniel says, Dan 12:3 , the righteous shall shine as the stars: Christ saith, Mat 13:43 , they shall shine like the sun: the apostle saith, Phi 3:21 , we shall be made like unto his glorious body. Three things make the body beautiful, a perfection of parts, the well putting them together and proportioning them one to another, and a well-tempered, cheerly spirit; all these will concur in the bodies of saints in the resurrection. The schoolmen determine, that much of the beauty of the saints’ bodies in the resurrection, will flow from their perfect sight of God, and the reflection of God upon them.

It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: when it dieth it is a frail, weak body, unable to resist injuries; but it shall rise a strong body, with quick senses, and subject to no more weaknesses.

Poole: 1Co 15:44

It is sown a natural body such a body as all living creatures have by nature, which is upheld by the actions of the soul that quickeneth it; both the vegetative powers, by which it is nourished by the use of meat and drink, the eating, concocting, and digesting it, &c.; and the sensitive powers, &c. But it shall be

raised a spiritual body spiritual, not as to the substance of it, for in that sense a spiritual body is a contradiction, but in respect of the qualities and conditions of it, Mat 22:30 Luk 20:35,36 . Bodies which, in respect of many new qualities they shall have, shall be more like angels and other spirits, than human bodies; beautiful, incorruptible, free from infirmities, not subject to hunger, or thirst, or injuries from cold or heat, &c.; not using meat, drink, clothes, physic, or marriage; free, active, and nimble as spirits, 1Th 4:17 .

Spiritual because they shall perfectly obey the soul made perfect, and be by it commanded to spiritual actions only; of subtile, spiritual, refined constitutions.

Poole: 1Co 15:45

The first part is written in Gen 2:7 , God breathed into man’ s nostrils the breath of life, and so he became a living soul; that is, a living substance, living an animal, natural life, by virtue of that breath of life which God breathed into him.

The last Adam by which he meaneth Christ, who in time was after the first Adam, and was born in the last days, and was the last common Head; as Adam was the first, with respect of natural and carnal propagation, so Christ was the last Head, in respect of grace and spiritual regeneration, he

was made a quickening spirit: He was made so, not when he was conceived and born, for he had a body subject to the same natural infirmities that ours are; but upon his resurrection from the dead, when, though he had the same body, in respect of the substance of it, yet it differed in qualities, and was much more spiritual; with which body he ascended up into heaven, clothed with a power, as to quicken souls with a spiritual life, so also to quicken our mortal bodies at his second coming, when he shall raise the dead out of their graves.

Poole: 1Co 15:46

Christ, the spiritual Adam, was not first in order of time, but the natural Adam, God in his providence rising from more imperfect to more perfect dispensations: and so it is as to God’ s providences relating unto us; we have first natural bodies, we are born with such, we grow up and die with such, but then we shall rise again with ohers, in respect of more excellent qualities and endowments.

Poole: 1Co 15:47

Adam, who was the first man, was of the earth, Gen 2:7 , and was of an earthy constitution, like unto the earth out of which he was formed; but Christ had another original: for though his body was formed in the womb of the virgin, and he was flesh of her flesh, yet she conceived by the Holy Ghost overshadowing her, and Christ had an eternal generation (as to his Divine nature) from his Father.

Poole: 1Co 15:48

Such a body as Adam had, (which was earthy), such all the sons of Adam have; and such a body as Christ now hath since his resurrection, (which is a heavenly body), such a body also shall believers, who are heavenly, have in the resurrection.

Poole: 1Co 15:49

And as believers, being the natural sons of the first Adam, have borne his image, had such bodies as he had while they lived here; so they shall also in the resurrection bear the image of the heavenly, the image of Christ; that is, have such bodies as was Christ’ s body after that he was again risen from the dead.

Poole: 1Co 15:50

Flesh and blood do not here signify sin, the unrenewed nature, (as some would have it), but our bodies, in their present natural, corruptible, frail, mortal state; so the terms signify, Eph 6:12 Heb 2:14 . Flesh and blood shall inherit the kingdom of God, (else our bodies could not be glorified), but our body, as in its present state, till changed and altered as to qualities, till it be made a spiritual body, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The latter words give a reason why

flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God because it is corruption, that is, subject to natural corruption and putrefaction, and the heavenly state of incorruption the bodies of believers therefore must be raised up in that state of incorruption mentioned 1Co 15:42 , before they can be capable of inheriting the kingdom of God.

Poole: 1Co 15:51

They might object: How can this be? There will be many saints alive in the world at the day when Christ shall come to judge the world, they will have natural bodies, such as they were born with, and grew up with in the world until that time. Saith the apostle: I now tell you a secret thing; for so the term mystery signifieth, Rom 11:25 16:25 , and in many other texts.

We shall not all sleep any long sleep: some think all shall die, but some for a very short time, and then they shall revive.

But we shall all be changed either dying for time, or by some other work of God, their natural, corruptible bodies shall be turned into spiritual bodies, not capable of corruption.

Poole: 1Co 15:52

This change will be on the sudden, in a moment either upon the will and command of Christ, which shall be as effectual to call persons out of their graves, as a trumpet is to call persons together; or rather, upon a sound made like to the sound of a trumpet, as it was at the giving of the law upon Sinai, Exo 19:16 . We read of this last trump, Mat 24:31 1Th 4:16 . There shall (saith the apostle) be such a sound made; and upon the making of it, the saints, that are dead, shall be raised out of their graves; not with such bodies as they carried thither, (which were corruptible), but with such bodies as shall be no more subject to corruption; and those who at that time shall be alive, shall one way or another be

changed and be also put into an incorruptible state.

Poole: 1Co 15:53

God hath so decreed, that our flesh and blood, in the state wherein now it is, shall not be glorified; it shall be the same body as to the substance, but not as to the qualities; it is now corruptable and mortal, it must be put into a state of

incorruption and immortality before it can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Poole: 1Co 15:54

That is, in an eternal and continuing victory; the saints shall die no more. The quotation which the apostle bringeth, is out of those two texts, Isa 25:8 Hos 13:14 ; which two texts, the apostle saith, at that day will have a more full, perfect, and eminent accomplishment, than ever they before had.

Poole: 1Co 15:55

The apostle, in the contemplation of this blessed day, triumpheth over death, in a metaphorical phrase:

Where is thy sting? What hurt canst thou now do unto believers, more than a wasp, or hornet, or bee, that hath lost its sting?

O grave or O hell, (the same word signifieth both),

where now is thy victory? The conqueror of all flesh is now conquered, the spoiler of all men is spoiled; it had got a victory, but now, O death, where is thy victory?

Poole: 1Co 15:56

The sting of death is sin if it were not for sin, death could have no power over man; sin is that which giveth death a power to hurt the children of men: The wages of sin is death, Rom 6:23 .

And the strength of sin is the law and without the law there could be no transgression. The law is so far from taking away the guilt of sin, that, through the corruption of our natures, strongly inclining us to what is forbidden, it addeth strength to sin; sin (as the apostle saith, Rom 7:8 ) taking occasion by the commandment, and working in us all manner of concupiscence.

Poole: 1Co 15:57

The victory over sin and over death, we have both through the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; who by his death both delivered us from the guilt of sin, and also from the power of sin; and who through death destroyed him who had the power of death, even the devil.

Poole: 1Co 15:58

The apostle concludeth his discourse, proving the resurrection of the body from the dead, founding upon it an exhortation to holiness, which is here called

the work of the Lord because it is made up of works done by us at the command of Christ, and with direct respect to his glory in obedience to his will. He mindeth them not only to do these things, but to do them

stedfastly not by fits, but never turning aside from them either one way or another; and unmovably, so as no temptations, either from dangers, or rewards, or false teachers, should shake their faith, as to the principles that lead unto such a holy life, this especially of the resurrection from the dead.

For as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord because they knew, that through the grace of God, and the merits of Christ, such works as these should not want their reward; for though the work of God be wages to itself, and Christians should not serve God merely for wages, yet it is lawful for them (as for Moses) to have an eye to the recompence of reward; and a greater reward than this of the resurrection of the body to eternal life, and that in a state of immortality and incorruption, in a spiritual and honourable estate, could not be.

PBC: 1Co 15:58

See WebbSr: LABOR NOT IN VAIN

In verse 36 {Joh 6:36} we find our Lord saying to those who had no heart for Him, ‘ye also have seen me, and believe not.’ Was He, then, disheartened? Far from it. And why not? Ah! mark how the Son of God, here the lowly Servant of Jehovah, encourages Himself. He immediately adds, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.’ What a lesson is this for every under shepherd. Here is the true haven of rest for the heart of every Christ worker. Your message may be slighted by the crowd, and as you see how many there are who ‘believe not’ it may appear that your labor is in vain. Nevertheless ‘the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his.’  (2Ti 2:19) The eternal purpose of the Almighty cannot fail; the sovereign will of the Lord Most High cannot be frustrated. All, every one, that the Father gave to the Son before the foundation of the world ‘shall come to him.’ The Devil himself cannot keep one of them away. So take heart fellow-worker. You may seem to be sowing the Seed at random, but God will see to it that part of it falls onto ground which He has prepared. The realization of the invincibility of the eternal counsels of God will give you a calmness, a poise, a courage, a perseverance which nothing else can. ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.’  (1Co 15:58)   A. W. Pink

Haydock: 1Co 15:28

The Son also himself shall be subject to him. That is, the Son will be subject to the Father, according to his human nature, even after the general resurrection; and also the whole mystical body of Christ will be entirely subject to God, obeying him in every thing. (Challoner)

Haydock: 1Co 15:29

Who are baptized for the dead. [1] He still brings other proofs of the resurrection. This is a hard place, and the words are differently expounded. 1. Several late interpreters understand a metaphorical baptism, and that to be baptized for the dead, is to undertake self-denials, mortifications, and works of penance, in hopes of a happy resurrection; and this exposition agrees with what follows, of being exposed to dangers every hour, of dying daily, &c. But if this had been the apostle's meaning, he would rather have said, Who baptize themselves. Besides, this exposition is not so much as mentioned in any of the ancient interpreters. 2. Some think that St. Paul tells the Corinthians that they ought not to question the resurrection of the dead, who had a custom among them, if any one died without baptism, to baptize another that was living for him; and this they did, fancying that such a baptism would be profitable to the dead person, in order to a happy resurrection. Tertullian mentions this custom in one or two places, and also St. John Chrysostom on this place. But it does not seem probable that St. Paul would bring any argument of the resurrection from a custom which he himself could not approve, nor was ever approved in the Church. 3. St. John Chrysostom and the Greek interpreters, who generally follow him, expound these words, who are baptized for the dead, as if it were the same as to say, who receive baptism with hopes that they themselves, and all the dead, will rise again; and therefore make a profession, when they are baptized, that they believe the resurrection. So that St. Paul here brings this proof among others, that they who have been made Christians, and continue Christians, cannot call in question the resurrection, which they professed to believe in their creed at their baptism, the creed being always repeated before they were baptized. 4. Others, by being baptized for the dead, understand those who begged and called for baptism when they were in danger of death, and would by no means go out of this world without being baptized, hoping thereby to have a happy resurrection of their bodies; so that to be baptized for the dead is the same as on the account of the state of the dead, which they were entering into. See St. Epiphanius, hær. viii. p. 144. Edit Petavii. (Witham) Some think the apostle here alludes to a ceremony then in use: but others, more probably, to the prayers and penitential labours performed by the primitive Christians for the souls of the faithful departed: or to the baptism of afflictions and sufferings undergone for sinners spiritually dead. (Challoner)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Qui baptizantur pro mortuis, Greek: oi baptizomenoi uper ton nekron. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. m. p. 154. Greek: epi te pistei taute, &c.; see Tertullian, lib. de resurrec. carnis chap. 48. and lib. v. . cont. Marcion. chap. 10. and the notes of Rigaltius on these places. See St. Epiphanius, hær. viii. p. 114. Greek: epi taute te elpidi, &c.

Haydock: 1Co 15:31

By your glory. [2] He seems, especially by the Greek text, to call God to witness, and to protest by the reasons he has to glory or boast in their conversion, that his life is as it were a continual death. Other expound it, I die daily for your glory; or, that I may have reason to glory for the progress of the gospel. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Morior per vestram gloriam, Greek: ne ten umeteran kauchesin.

Haydock: 1Co 15:32

With beasts at Ephesus. He seems to mean, with men as cruel and brutal as beasts: for there is not sufficient reason to think that at Ephesus he was exposed to beasts in the amphitheatre. (Witham) ---

Interpreters are divided upon this passage. Calmet is of opinion that St. Paul was exposed in the amphitheatre at Ephesus, but was secured from all injury by the all-powerful hand of God: he produces the testimony of St. John Chrysostom, Theo., St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian, and St. Hilary, all of whom understand this passage in the literal sense. Nicephorus cites a book, entitles The Travels of St. Paul, in confirmation of this fact, wherein (he informs us) there is a long account of this transaction. St. Jerome says, that St. Paul was condemned by the governor of Ephesus to be devoured by beasts. Estius seems to maintain the same opinion as Challoner. To inspirit us to combat, it is advisable to turn our eyes frequently to a future life. The brevity of the present is a principle common to the mortality of Jesus Christ, and to that of Epicurus. But how contrary are the conclusions! Why should we not rather say: "Let us watch, and fast, and pray, and do penance, for to-morrow we die; and after that, judgment." ---

Let us eat and drink, &c. That is, if we did not believe that we were to rise again from the dead, we might live like the impious and wicked, who have no belief in the resurrection. (Challoner)

Haydock: 1Co 15:33

Evil communications (or discourses) corrupt good manners. He hints that this error against the resurrection, and the other faults into which they had fallen, were occasioned by the heathen philosophers and other vain teachers among them. (Witham)

Haydock: 1Co 15:35-50

How do the dead rise again? He now answers the objections these new teachers made against the resurrection. St. John Chrysostom reduces them to these two questions: how is it possible for them to rise? and in what manner, or with what qualities, will they rise? To shew the possibility, he brings the example of a grain of wheat, or of any seeds, which must be corrupted, and die as it were in the ground, and then is quite changed, comes up with a blade, a stalk, and an ear quite different from what it was when sown, and yet comes to be wheat again, or to be a tree that produces the same kind of fruit: so God can raise our bodies as he pleaseth. He also tells them that there are very different bodies, terrestrial, and celestial, some more, some less glorious, differing in beauty and other qualities, as God pleaseth. As the sun is brighter than the moon, and as one star is brighter than another, so shall it be at the general resurrection. But all the bodies of the elect shall be happily changed to a state of incorruption. (ver. 42.) Here the bodies even of the just are subject to corruption, to decay, liable to death, but they shall then rise to a state of incorruptibility and immortality: And so he answers the second question, that here every one's body is a weak, sensual, animal body, clogged with many imperfections, like that of Adam after he had sinned; but at the resurrection, the bodies of the saints shall be spiritual bodies, blessed with all the perfections and qualities of a glorified body, like to that of Christ after he was risen. ---

St. Paul also, comparing the first man ( Adam ) with Christ, whom he calls the second or the last Adam, (ver. 45) says that the first Adam was made a living soul, (i.e. a living animal, or a living creature, with a life and a body that required to be supported with corporal food) but that Christ was made a quickening Spirit: he means, that though he had a true mortal body by his nativity of his Virgin Mother, yet that by his resurrection he had a glorified body, immortal, that needed no corporal food, and that he would also give such spiritual and immortal bodies to those whom he should make partakers of his glory. ---

But not first that which is spiritual, &c. (ver. 46) that is, both in Adam and in us, and even in Christ, the body was first mortal, which should afterwards be made spiritual and immortal by a happy resurrection. ---

The first Adam (ver. 47) was of the earth, earthly, made of clay, and with such a body as could die, but the second man (Christ) was from heaven, heavenly: not that he took a body from heaven, as some ancient heretics pretended, but he was heavenly not only because he was the Son of God, but in this place he seems to be called heavenly even as to his body, after his resurrection, his body being then become spiritual and immortal. ---

Such as is the earthly man, &c. (ver. 48) that is, as the first man, Adam, was earthly by his earthly and mortal body, so were we and all his posterity earthly; but such as the heavenly man, Christ, was heavenly, and rose with a heavenly and immortal body; so shall all those be heavenly, to whom he shall give a spiritual, a heavenly, and an immortal body at their happy resurrection. ---

Therefore, (ver. 49) as we have borne the image of the earthly man, (that is, have been made mortal, and also by sin subject to the corrupt inclinations of this mortal body) so let us bear also the image of the heavenly one, by a new life imitating Christ, by which means we shall be glorified with him, both as to soul and body. ---

Now this I say, and admonish you, brethren, (ver. 50) that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God; i.e. those that lead a sensual and carnal life, nor the corruption of sin, deserve the state of incorruption in glory. (Witham)

Haydock: 1Co 15:36-38

This chapter is addressed to some among the Corinthians who denied the resurrection: St. Paul, therefore, in order to cure this philosophical opinion, gives them his counsel and advice in this chapter; and lest he might be thought to preach up a new doctrine, in the beginning of his admonitions he informs them that he is preaching no other gospel than what he has always taught, and wherein they believe. (Estius)

Haydock: 1Co 15:51

We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed. [3] This is the reading of the Latin Vulgate, and of some Greek manuscripts, and the sense is, that all both good and bad shall rise, but only the elect to the happy change or a glorified body. The reading in most Greek copies at present is, we shall not all sleep, (i.e. die) be we shall be all changed: so also read St. John Chrysostom: and St. Jerome found it in many manuscripts from which divers, especially of the Greek interpreters, thought that such as should be found living at the day of judgment should not die, but the bodies of the elect (of whom St. Paul here speaks) should be changed to a happy state of immortality. This opinion, if it deserve not to be censured, is at least against the common persuasion of the faithful, who look upon it certain that all shall die before they come to judgment. Some expound the Greek only to signify, that all shall not sleep, i.e. shall not remain for any time in the grave, as others who die are accustomed to do. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Omnes quidem resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur; and so some Greek manuscripts have, Greek: pantes anastesomen, but in most Greek copies we find, Greek: pantes men ou koimethesometha, pantes de allagesometha. See St. Jerome (Ep. ad Minervium Alexandrium, tom. iv. p. 207. et seq. Ed. Ben.) where he gives at large the different opinions and readings. See also his Epist. to Marcella, (tom. iv. p. 166) where he says: Deprehensi in corpore in iisdem corporibus occurent ci (Christo).

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Haydock: 1Co 15:52

In a moment, &c. By the power of the Almighty all shall rise again in their bodies, either to a happy or a miserable resurrection. (Witham)

Haydock: 1Co 15:54

Death is swallowed up in victory, in regard of the saints and the elect, so that it may be said, O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? over which the saints shall triumph, and also over sin and hell. (Witham)

Gill: 1Co 15:25

For he must reign,.... That is, Christ must reign; he is set as King over God's holy hill of Zion; he is King of saints; he is made and declared to be both Lord and Christ; he is exalted at the right hand of God as a Prince, where he sits and rules and reigns; and his sitting at God's right hand is here explained by his reigning, for reference is had to Psa 110:1 he must reign because it is the unalterable will, and unchangeable decree and purpose of God, that he should reign; and because he has promised it, and prophesied of it; and because the state and condition of his people require it, who otherwise could not be saved, nor dwell safely: and so he must and will,

till he hath put all enemies under his feet; and made them his footstool; meaning either all the elect of God, who in a state of nature are enemies in their minds, by wicked works, to himself and to his Father; whom he conquers by his grace, subdues their rebellious wills, of enemies makes them friends, brings them to his feet, and to a subjection to his sceptre, to his Gospel and ordinances; and he must reign till he has brought every elect soul into such an obedience to himself: or rather antichrist and his followers, and all wicked and ungodly men, with Satan and his angels; who will be destroyed with the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming; and will be cast down by him into hell, and there be ever objects of his wrath and vengeance: and till all this is done he must reign; not that he shall cease to reign afterwards, but that he shall reign notwithstanding these enemies of his and his people, who would not have him to reign over them; and will reign until they are subdued or destroyed; and when they are entirely vanquished and overcome, who can doubt of his reigning then? or what, or who will there be to hinder it? The Alexandrian copy, and others, read, "his enemies"; and so do the Syriac and Ethiopic versions.

Gill: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Not eternal death; for though that is abolished by Christ with respect to his own people, who shall never be hurt by it, and over whom it shall have no power; yet the wicked will always be subject to it, and under the dominion of it: but a corporeal one is here meant; which is an enemy, the fruit, effect, and wages of sin; the penalty and curse of the law; is contrary to human nature, and destructive of the work of God's hands: it is, indeed, through the blood, righteousness, and sacrifice of Christ, become the friend of his people; it is disarmed of its sting, and ceases to be a penal evil; it is the saints' passage to glory, what frees them from the troubles of this world, and is their way to the joys of another; but yet in itself is formidable to nature, and disagreeable to it: and it is the last enemy; it is so both in its rise and duration; it appeared as an enemy last; Satan was the first enemy of mankind, who attacked, tempted, and ruined the first parents of human nature, and all their posterity in them; and by this means, sin, the next enemy, came into the world of men; and, last of all, death, with its numerous train of calamities, either going before, attending, or following of it: and as it was the last enemy that came into the world, it is the last that will go out of it; for when the saints are rid of Satan, and clear of sin, they will remain in the grave under the power of a corporeal death till the resurrection, and then that will be "destroyed": for the saints will be raised to an immortal life, never to die more, and to an enjoyment of everlasting life, in the utmost glory and happiness; and though the wicked when they rise, they will rise to damnation, to shame and contempt, yet their worm will never die, nor their fire be quenched; they will always live, though in torment, there will be no more corporeal death, neither among the righteous nor the wicked; it will be utterly abolished: and thus the apostle, though he seems to digress from his subject awhile, by relating the several things which will either immediately or quickly follow the second coming of Christ; yet at the same time has it in view, and proves the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which must needs be, or death cannot be said to be destroyed, and by degrees returns to his subject again.

Gill: 1Co 15:27

For he hath put all things under his feet,.... This is a reason proving that all enemies, and death itself, shall be put under the feet of Christ, and is taken out of Psa 8:6 which is spoken of one that is styled man, and the son of man; and is to be understood not of Adam in a state of innocence; for the word there used signifies a frail mortal man, which he then was not, nor could he be called the son of man; and though the earth was subdued and subject to him, and he had dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and every living thing that moveth on the earth, yet all creatures were not subject to him in this large sense, in which it is here and elsewhere explained by the apostle; and much less of man in his fallen state, who instead of having all things under his feet, is become like the beasts that perish; many of them: are unsubdued to him, and he is even in fear of them, and he himself is subject to corruption and vanity: but of the man Christ Jesus, who took and bore all the sinless infirmities of human nature; is often called the son of man; of whom God was mindful, and whom lie visited in his state of humiliation, at the time of his death, resurrection, and exaltation; who was made through sufferings of death a little lower, or a little while lower than the angels, but now crowned with glory and honour; in whose days God ordained strength and praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, to the confusion of his enemies; and has put all things under his feet, which may elude all things animate and inanimate, the whole creation and universe of things, the world and its fulness, the earth and all that is therein, the beasts of the forest, and the cattle of a thousand hills; he is heir of the world, and has a right to it, and to dispose of it, not merely as the Creator, but as Mediator; it is put in subjection to him to make use of, and what is in it to subserve his mediatorial kingdom and his glory; when his ends are answered by it, the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up, and a new earth arise out of it, in which Christ and his people will dwell: the air and all that is therein are under him; the fowls of it are at his dispose; he it was that rained feathered fowls as the sand of the sea, about the camp of the Israelites in the wilderness, and commanded the ravens to feed Elijah in distress; and who holds the winds in his fist, lets them loose, calls them in, and commands them at pleasure; as he also does the sea, and the boisterous waves of it, and has dominion over the fishes in it; one of those supplied him with money, to pay his tribute; and multitudes of them, more than once, were gathered together, and taken up by his order and direction; and at the last day, the sea at his command will give up the dead that are in it; yea, this may extend to all rational creatures, angels and men, friends or foes: good angels, principalities and powers, are subject to him, as appears by their attendance on him: at his incarnation, ascension, and second coming; by their ministration to him in the wilderness, and in the garden; by their employment under him, for the good of the heirs of salvation; by their dependence on him, as their Creator and head, and by their adoration of him as their Lord and God. Evil angels, the devils, are also put under his feet, as is evident from his overcoming Satan, and baffling all his temptations; by his dispossessing the devils out of the bodies of men, and giving his disciples also power over them; by his spoiling them at death, and triumphing over them in his ascension; by delivering his people out of their hands, and power, in conversion; and by his binding of Satan during the thousand years, and by casting him and his angels into everlasting fire prepared for them. Elect men are made subject to him, by the power of his grace upon them; and yet their subjection to him, to his Gospel ordinances, and the sceptre of his kingdom; is voluntary and from their hearts; it proceeds from a principle of love to him; and is universal, being a regard unto, and a compliance with all his precepts; and evil men are also under his dominion and control; he rules them with a rod of iron; he disappoints their counsels, restrains their wrath, overrules their evil designs and actions against his people for good; and will one day gather them all before him, pass the righteous sentence on them, and send them into everlasting punishment. Moreover, this may reach to everything that is for the glory of Christ as Mediator, and for the good of his church, and to every enemy of his or theirs, as the world, sin, Satan, and the last enemy, death; to prove the subjection of all which to Christ, this testimony is produced: and respects Christ as Mediator, and the Father's delivering all things into his hands, and giving him all power in heaven and in earth, and rule over all creatures and things;

but when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him; that is, when David, or the Holy Spirit by him, said the above words, in Psa 8:6 nothing is more clear and evident, than that God the Father, who made all things subject to Christ as Mediator, is himself not subjected to him; since his power as such must be greater than his: this exception is made to secure the government, power, and honour of the Father; for though he has made his firstborn higher than the kings of the earth, yet not higher than himself; and though he has set him his King over his holy hill of Zion, yet not over himself; and though it is his will that all men should honour the Son, as they honour the Father, yet not above him, or more than he; nor has he quitted the government, either in the world or in the church, by subjecting all things to Christ: and this exception is also made to confirm the universal power and empire of Christ, for an exception to a general rule does but the more establish it; and since the Father is only excepted, it is a clear case, that he has left nothing that is not put under him; see Heb 2:8 but it must be observed, that though the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, yet he is equally excepted; since he is the one God with the Father, and was jointly concerned in the mission, unction, and installation of Christ, as Mediator; nor can he be reckoned among the all things put in subjection to Christ, for they regard only creatures, and many of these enemies, with neither of which the Spirit of God can be numbered; and though the gifts and graces of the Spirit are put into Christ's hands, and are at his dispose, yet the person of the Spirit can never be thought to be put under his feet.

Gill: 1Co 15:28

And when all things shall be subdued unto him,.... For all things as yet are not put under him in fact; though in right God the Father has given to him an authoritative power over all things, and a right to dispose of them at his pleasure; but all things are not actually and in their full extent subject to him, yet they will be when the last enemy is destroyed: and

then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him; which must be interpreted and understood with great care and caution; not in the Sabellian sense, of refunding of the characters of the Son, and so of the Father unto God; when they suppose these characters, which they imagine to be merely nominal, bare names, will be no more, and God shall be all; but as the Father will always remain a father, so the Son will remain a son; for, as the Son of the Highest, he will reign over his people for ever, and he the Son, as a priest, is consecrated for ever, more: nor in the Eutychian sense, of the change of the human mature into the divine, in which they fancy it will be swallowed up, and God will be all; but Christ will always continue as a man; he went up to heaven as such, and he will return as a man, and be visible to all in the human nature, and in that be the object of the wonderful vision of the saints to all eternity: nor in the Arian sense, according to the divine nature, as if he was in that inferior to the Father, when he is equal with him, has all the perfections he has, and the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him; it is much better and safer to understand it as it commonly is of him, as man; though in this sense, he was always subject to his Father, ever since he was incarnate, whereas this seems to respect something peculiar at this time. Others therefore think, that the church, the mystical body of Christ, is here meant, which in all its members, and these both in soul and body, will be presented and delivered up to God; but the words are spoken of him under whom all things are put, which is not true of the church; and though that is sometimes called Christ, yet never the Son; and besides, the church has been always subject to God, though indeed, it will not be in all its members, and in every respect subject until this time: it is best, therefore to understand it of the Son's giving up the account of his mediatorial kingdom and concerns to his Father; when it will appear that he has in the whole of his conduct and administration been subject to him; that he has in all things acted in his name, done all by his power, and to his honour and glory; and now having accomplished all he undertook and was intrusted with, gives in his account, delivers up his charge, and resigns his office; all which will be plain proofs of his subjection: when I say he will resign or lay aside his office as Mediator, my meaning is not that he will cease to be God-man and Mediator; but that he will cease to administer that office as under God, in the manner he now does: he will be the prophet of the church, but he will not teach by his Spirit, and word, and ordinances as now, but will himself be the immediate light of the saints, he will be a priest for ever, the virtue of his sacrifice and intercession will always remain, but he will not plead and intercede as he now does; he will also reign for ever over and among his saints, but his kingdom will not be a vicarious one, or administered as it now is; nor be only in his hands as Mediator, but with God, Father, Son, and Spirit:

that God may be all in all; for by God is not meant the Father personally, but God essentially considered, Father, Son, and Spirit, who are the one true and living God; to whom all the saints will have immediate access, in whose presence they will be, and with whom they shall have uninterrupted fellowship, without the use of such mediums as they now enjoy; all the three divine Persons will have equal power and government in and over all the saints; they will sit upon one and the same throne; there will be no more acting by a delegated power, or a derived authority: God will be all things to all his saints, immediately without the use of means; he will be that to their bodies as meat and clothes are, without the use of them; and all light, glory, and happiness to their souls, without the use of ordinances, or any means; he will then be all perfection and bliss, to all the elect, and in them all, which he now is not; some are dead in trespasses and sins, and under the power of Satan; the number of them in conversion is not yet completed; and, of those that are called many are in a state of imperfection, and have flesh as well as spirit in them; and of those who are fallen asleep in Christ, though their separate spirits are happy with him, yet their bodies lie in the grave, and under the power of corruption and death; but then all being called by grace, and all being raised, and glorified in soul and body, God will be all in all: this phrase expresses both the perfect government of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, over the saints to all eternity, and their perfect happiness in soul and body, the glory of all which will be ascribed to God; and it will be then seen that all that the Father has done in election, in the council and covenant of peace, were all to the glory of his grace; and that all that the Son has done in the salvation of his people, is all to the glory of the divine perfections: and that all that the Spirit of God has wrought in the saints, and all that they have done under his grace and influence, are all to the praise and glory of God, which will in the most perfect manner be given to the eternal Three in One. The Jews have some expressions somewhat like this, as when they say ⁱ of God,

"things future, and things that are past, are together with thee; what is from everlasting and to everlasting, or from the beginning of the world to the end of it, these are "all" of them in thee, and thou art "in" them "all".''

So כל, "all", is with the Cabalistic doctors ^k, the name of the Lord. And he is so called because all things are in him; "Jovis omnia plena".

Gill: 1Co 15:29

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead,.... The apostle here returns to his subject, and makes use of new arguments to prove the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and reasons for it from the baptism of some persons; but what is his sense, is not easy to be understood, or what rite and custom, or thing, or action he refers to; which must, be either Jewish baptism, or Christian baptism literally taken, or baptism in a figurative and metaphorical sense. Some think that he refers to some one or other of the divers baptisms of the Jews; see Heb 9:10 and particularly to the purification of such who had touched a dead body, which was done both by the ashes of the red heifer burnt, and by bathing himself in water; and which, the Jews say ^l, intimated לתחיית המתים, "the resurrection of the dead": wherefore such a right was needless, if there is no resurrection; to strengthen this sense, a passage in Ecclesiasticus 34:25 is produced, βαπτιζομενος απο νεκρου, "he that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" but the phrase there used is different; it is not said, he that baptizeth or washeth himself for the dead, but from the dead, to cleanse himself from pollution received by the touch of a dead body: it is also observed, that the Jews, as well as other nations, have used various rites and ceremonies about their dead, and among the rest, the washing of dead bodies before interment; see Act 9:37 and this by some is thought to be what is here referred to; and the reasoning is, if there is no resurrection of the dead, why all this care of a dead body? why this washing of it? it may as well be put into the earth as it is, since it will rise no more; but how this can be called a baptism for the dead, I see not: rather therefore Christian baptism, or the ordinance of water baptism is here respected; and with regard to this, interpreters go different ways: some think the apostle has in view a custom of some, who when their friends died without baptism, used to be baptized in their room; this is said to be practised by the Marcionites in Tertullian's time, and by the Corinthians in the times of the Apostle John; but it does not appear to have been in use in the times of the Apostle Paul; and besides, if it had been, as it was a vain and superstitious one, he would never have mentioned it without a censure, and much less have argued from it; nor would his argument be of any weight, since it might be retorted, that whereas such persons were mistaken in using such a practice, they might be also in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: others are of opinion that such persons are intended, called Clinics, who deferred their baptism till they came upon their death beds, and then had it administered to them; but as this practice was not in being in the apostle's time, and was far from being a laudable one; and though the persons to whom it was administered were upon the point of death, and nearer the dead than the living, and were as good as dead, and might be intended by them, for their advantage, when dead and not living; yet it must be a great force and strain on words and things, to reckon this a being baptized for the dead: others would have the words rendered, "over the dead"; and suppose that reference is had to the Christians that had their "baptisteries" in their places of burial, and by being baptized here, testified their faith and hope of the resurrection of the dead; but this was rather a being baptized among the dead, than over them, or for them; and moreover it is not certain, that they did make use of such places to baptize in; to which may be added, that the primitive Christians had not so early burying grounds of their own: others would have the meaning to be, that they were baptized for their dead works, their sins, to wash them away; but this baptism does not of itself, and no otherwise than by leading the faith of persons to the blood of Christ, which alone cleanses from sin, original and actual; nor is this appropriate to the apostle's argument. Others imagine, that he intends such as were baptized, and added to the church, and so filled up the places of them that were dead; but the reason from hence proving the resurrection of the dead is not very obvious: those seem to be nearer the truth of the matter, who suppose that the apostle has respect to the original practice of making a confession of faith before baptism, and among the rest of the articles of it, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, upon the belief of which being baptized, they might be said to be baptized for the dead; that is, for, or upon, or in the faith and profession of the resurrection of the dead, and therefore must either hold this doctrine, or renounce their baptism administered upon it; to which may be added another sense of the words, which is, that baptism performed by immersion, as it was universally in those early times, was a lively emblem and representation of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and also both of the spiritual and corporeal resurrection of the saints. Now if there is no resurrection, why is such a symbol used? it is useless and insignificant; I see nothing of moment to be objected to these two last senses, which may be easily put together, but this; that the apostle seems to point out something that was done or endured by some Christians only; whereas baptism, upon a profession of faith in Christ, and the resurrection from the dead, and performed by immersion, as an emblem of it, was common to all; and therefore he would rather have said, what shall we do, or we all do, who are baptized for the dead? I am therefore rather inclined to think that baptism is used here in a figurative and metaphorical sense, for afflictions, sufferings, and martyrdom, as in Mat 20:22 and it was for the belief, profession, and preaching of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, both of Christ and of the saints, that the apostles and followers of Christ endured so much as they did; the first instance of persecution after our Lord's ascension was on this account. The Apostles Peter and John, were laid hold on and put in prison for preaching this doctrine; the reproach and insult the Apostle Paul met with at Athens were by reason of it; and it was for this that he was called in question and accused of the Jews; nor was there anyone doctrine of Christianity more hateful and contemptible among the Heathens than this was. Now the apostle's argument stands thus, what is, or will become of those persons who have been as it were baptized or overwhelmed in afflictions and sufferings, who have endured so many and such great injuries and indignities, and have even lost their lives for asserting this doctrine,

if the dead rise not at all? how sadly mistaken must such have been!

why are they then baptized for the dead? how imprudently have they acted! and what a weak and foolish part do they also act, who continue to follow them! in what a silly manner do they expose themselves to danger, and throw away their lives, if this doctrine is not true! which sense is confirmed by what follows: the Alexandrian copy, and some others, read, "for them", and so the Vulgate Latin version; and the Ethiopic in both clauses reads, "why do they baptize?"

Gill: 1Co 15:30

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Not only they that have suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and for this article of it, have acted very injudiciously and indiscreetly; but we, also, who are on the spot, whether ministers or private Christians, must be highly blameworthy, who continually expose ourselves to dangers, and are for Christ's sake killed all the day long, are every moment liable to innumerable injuries, tortures and death; who in his senses would act such a part, if there is no resurrection of the dead? such, as they must be of all men the most miserable, so of all men the most stupid.

Gill: 1Co 15:31

I protest by your rejoicing,.... Some copies read, "our rejoicing"; and so the Ethiopic version, which seems most natural and easy; since it follows,

which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord; who in him could rejoice and glory in afflictions and sufferings, which he endured as a preacher of the Gospel for his sake; and which being certain and evident, and what might be depended upon, he makes a protestation by it, saying,

I die daily; which is to be understood, not in a spiritual sense of dying unto sin; he was dead unto sin, as to its damning power, through the death of Christ, and as to its governing power, through the Spirit and grace of Christ, but still it was living and dwelling in him; but in a corporeal sense: he instances in himself in particular, who was one that was in jeopardy or danger of his life every hour; he always bore in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, and was continually delivered to death for Jesus' sake; death was always working in him, he expected it every day, and was ready for it; he did not count his life dear unto himself, but was very willing to lay it down for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; which he would never have done, if he had not good reason to believe the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

Gill: 1Co 15:32

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,.... This is one of the particulars of the jeopardy and danger of life he had been in: some understand this in a figurative sense, and think that by "beasts" are meant Satan, the roaring lion, and his principalities and powers; or men of savage dispositions, persecuting principles, and cruel practices; as Herod is called a fox, by Christ, and Nero a lion, by the apostle; and suppose his fighting with them at Ephesus designs his disputations with the hardened and unbelieving Jews, his concern with exorcists, the seven sons of Sceva, and the troubles he met with through Demetrius the silversmith, and others of the same craft; the reason of such an interpretation is, because Luke makes no mention of anything of this kind, that befell the apostle in his history of the Acts of the Apostles: but to this it may be replied, that Luke does not relate everything that befell him and the rest; and his omission of this is no sufficient argument against it; besides, a literal sense not to be departed from, unless there is a necessity for it; and especially when it is suitable to the context, and to the thread and reasoning of the discourse, as it is certainly here; the literal sense best agrees with the apostle's argument. There were two sorts of usages among the Romans in their theatres; sometimes they cast men naked to the wild beasts, to be devoured by them, as wicked servants, deadly enemies, and the vilest of men ^m; and so the Syriac version renders the words here, "if as among men, אשתדית לחיותא, "I am cast to the beasts": and seems to represent it as a supposed case, and not as matter of fact, in which the difficulty about Luke's omission is removed, and the argument in a literal sense is just and strong: sometimes they put men armed into the theatre to fight with beasts ⁿ, and if they could conquer them and save themselves it was well, if not, they fell a prey to them; it is this last custom that is here referred to: and if regard is had to what befell thee apostle at Ephesus, when Demetrius and his craftsmen made the uproar mentioned in Act 19:21 this could not be in reality, but only in the purpose and design of men; and certain it is, that though he was not then had to the theatre, yet Demetrius and his men intended to have hurried him there, as they did Gaius and Aristarchus his companions; and he himself was desirous of going thither, had he not been prevented by the disciples, and by the Asiarchs his friends, who had the command of the theatre where these practices were used; and then the sense is this, if after the manner of men, or in the intention and design of men, and as much as in them lay, "I have fought with beasts at Ephesus"; though if this epistle was written, as it is said to be, before that commotion by Demetrius, no respect can be had to that; but rather to something in fact before, at the same place, when the apostle did actually fight with beasts, and was wonderfully and providentially preserved; and may he what he refers to, in 2Co 1:8 when he despaired of life, had the sentence of death in himself, and yet was delivered; and then his sense is, if "after the manner of brutish men", the Romans, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus": which I was obliged to do, or deny the Gospel preached;

what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? instead of its being a glorious action, it was a fool hardy one; and if he had died in it, what profit could he have had by it, if he rose not again; or if there is no resurrection of the dead? instead of incurring such dangers, and running such risks, it would be more eligible to sit down and say with the Epicureans,

let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die; which words seem to be taken out of Isa 22:13 and are used in favour of the doctrine of the resurrection, showing that the denial of it opens a door to all manner of licentiousness; and are not spoken as allowing or approving of such a conduct; nor as his own words, but as representing a libertine, and pointing out what such an one would say, and might justly infer from such a tenet, that there is no resurrection of the dead.

Gill: 1Co 15:33

Be not deceived,.... By such as deny the doctrine of the resurrection, and by their reasonings about it; or by such libertines who go into the denial of it, and argue from thence in favour of their licentious course of life:

evil communications corrupt good manners. This is a sentence taken out of Menander, an Heathen poet, showing how dangerous is the conversation of evil men, and what an influence bad principles communicated and imbibed, have on the lives and practices of men. This the apostle cites not out of ostentation, or to show his reading, learning, and acquaintance with such sort of writers; but partly to observe, that this was a truth obvious by the light of nature, and partly because such a testimony might be more regarded by the Corinthians, who might be fond of such authors, and what was said by them; just as when he was at Athens among the philosophers there, he cites a passage out of Aratus, Act 17:28 as he does another out of Epimenides concerning the Cretians, Tit 1:12.

Gill: 1Co 15:34

Awake to righteousness, and sin not,.... The apostle represents the Corinthians as inebriated with bad principles and notions, and as fallen asleep, and as greatly remiss, and declined in the exercise of grace and discharge of duty; and therefore calls upon them to awake out of sleep, to watch and be sober, and attend to "righteousness"; to the justice of God, which requires the resurrection of the dead, and makes it necessary that men may receive the things done in the body, whether good or evil; for as it is a righteous thing with God to render tribulation to them that sin against him, and trouble his people; so it is but just, that those bodies which Christ has purchased with his blood, who have served him, and suffered for his sake, should be raised again, that, together with their souls, they may enjoy the happiness provided for them; and to the righteousness of Christ, to look unto it, lay hold on it, exercise faith upon it, desiring to be found in it living and dying; and to works of righteousness, to a holy life and conversation, a living soberly, righteously and godly; and not spend their time, and give up themselves to vain speculations and notions; which were so far from being edifying, that they were very detrimental to themselves and others. The Vulgate Latin version reads, "awake, ye righteous": for righteous persons, good men, the wise as well as foolish virgins, sometimes fall asleep, and need awaking out of it; which is done by one providence or another, or by the ministry of the word, and whenever to purpose, by the powerful and efficacious grace of God: the words may be rendered, "awake righteously"; or as the Syriac version reads, "awake your hearts righteously"; and as the Arabic, "with a due awaking"; that is, as it becomes you, and as it is just, right, and proper you should: "and sin not"; not that they could be, or that it could be thought they might be without sin in them, or without sin being done by them; but that they ought not to live a sinful course of life, which the denial of the resurrection led unto, or indulged in; or not sin by denying that doctrine, and giving themselves up to a vicious life in consequence of it:

for some have not the knowledge of God; are like the Gentiles that are without God, and know him not; they know not, or, at least, do not own the truth of God in his word, declaring and testifying the doctrine of the resurrection; they err in that point, not knowing the Scriptures, the sense of them, and this truth contained in them; nor the power or God in raising the dead, nor the justice of God, which makes it necessary that the dead should be raised:

I speak this to your shame; that there should be such ignorant persons in their community; that there were any of such bad principles as to deny the resurrection of the dead, and of such dissolute lives as to give up themselves to sensual lusts and pleasures: that such were continued in the church, kept company with, indulged and caressed; and that there was so great a corruption in doctrine, discipline, and conversation, among them.

Gill: 1Co 15:35

But some man will say,.... Or "some one of you", as the Syriac and Arabic versions read; for there were some among them members of this church, that denied the resurrection of the dead, 1Co 15:12 a weak believer indeed may be designed, one of the babes in Christ in this church, that could not digest such strong meat, but had some doubt and difficulties in his mind about this point, though he did not absolutely deny it: but by the manner in which the objections and queries are put, and the sharpness in which the apostle answers them, it looks rather that an infidel as to this doctrine is intended, one of those Epicureans, who said, 1Co 15:32 "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die"; or some Heathen philosopher, a mere natural man, that rejected this doctrine because not agreeable to his carnal reason, and laughed at it as monstrous and ridiculous:

how are the dead raised up? This query is put, not as though the person merely hesitated, and was in some suspense about this matter, or with a desire to be informed; but as denying the thing, and as objecting to it as a thing impossible, and impracticable; suggesting it could not be, it was a thing incredible that those dead bodies which have been laid in the earth for so many hundred, and some, thousands of years, and have been long ago reduced to dust, and this dust has undergone a thousand forms; that such whose bodies have been burnt to ashes, or destroyed by wild beasts, and digested by them, should ever be raised again. Such a doctrine must be past all belief:

and with what body do they come? out of their graves, as you say, and appear on the earth at the last day: will they come forth with the same bodies, or with other? with earthly or heavenly ones? mortal or immortal? with bodies different from one another, and from what they now are?

Gill: 1Co 15:36

Thou fool,.... Not transgressing the law of Christ, which makes him that calls his brother a fool in danger of hell fire; for the apostle said not this in anger, and from a malevolent disposition, as that rule supposes, but out of zeal for truth, and to reprove the stupidity and folly of such a bold objector; in opposing the veracity and power of God, in setting up his reason above divine revelation, and in not attending even to natural philosophy itself; in which professing to be wise he might be justly called a fool, and therefore sends him to the husbandman to learn of him how to answer his own queries:

that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and which is more especially true of a grain of wheat: our Lord observes the same; see Gill on Joh 12:24, and designs by the simile his own death, and resurrection, and the fruit following thereon. This seed being cast into the earth corrupts, rots, and dies, and then is quickened, and rises up in stalk, blade, and ear. Which shows that the dissolution and corruption of the body by death is so far from being an objection to its resurrection, that it is necessary to it, even as the dying and putrifying of the seed, or grain of wheat, is necessary to its quickening and rising up again; and that if God is able to quicken a seed or grain that is rotten and entirely dead, and cause it to rise up in verdure and with much fruit, as he does every year in millions of instances, why should it be thought incredible that God should quicken dead bodies, when the one is as much an instance of his power as the other? The Claromontane exemplar reads, "except it die first"; and so the Vulgate Latin version.

Gill: 1Co 15:37

And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be,.... The sower, for instance, does not take a stalk of wheat in its blade, and ear, and full corn in the ear, encompassed with the husk, and sow it in the earth, which is the body or form in which it appears when it rises up again, and is come to its full growth:

but bare grain (or naked grain) it may chance of wheat, or some other grain; wheat, or any other grain, is cast into the earth naked, beat out of the husk; and that selfsame grain rises up again, clothed with additional verdure, beauty, and fruitfulness; and so the body which comes out of its mother's womb naked, and returns naked again, Job 1:21 to which the apostle seems to allude, will rise again the same body, though with additional glories and excellencies; so that if it should be asked, how is it possible that a dead body can be raised up again? the possibility of it may be seen, in the quickening and raising up of a grain of wheat, that first rots and dies; and if it be inquired with what body the dead will be raised, it may in some measure be observed in this instance, that though it will be the same body, yet with different and excelling qualities: this simile seems to have been much in use among the Jews, to illustrate this doctrine, and we have some traces of it still in their writings ^o:

"Cleopatra the queen asked R. Meir, saying, I know that the dead shall live, for it is written, "they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth", Psa 72:16 but when they rise, shall they rise naked, or shall they rise in their clothes? to which he replied, much more than wheat: for as wheat is buried, ערומה, "naked", it comes forth, (or springs up,) with many clothings; and how much more the righteous, who are buried in their clothes?''

and again ^p,

"says R. Eliezer, all the dead shall stand in the resurrection of the dead, and shall rise with their garments on; from whence do you learn this? from the seed of the earth, especially from wheat; for as wheat is buried "naked", and comes forth with many clothings, much more the righteous, who are buried in their clothes.''

Gill: 1Co 15:38

But God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him,.... It is not the husbandman, nor the sun, nor the rain, that give the grain of wheat, or any other, its verdure and beauty, the form in which it springs up, its stalk, blade, and ear, but God by his own power, and of his sovereign will and pleasure; and he does not create this new form, but gives it; and does not barely give it, but gives the body to it: to the selfsame grain, and not another: so the resurrection of the dead is God's work; it is an instance of his power, and of his sovereign will; and is to his people a branch of that eternal life, which is his pure gift through Jesus Christ; all that glory in which the body will arise springs from his free grace, and is bestowed upon the selfsame body, which was carried about here, and laid in the grave: and to every

seed its own body; which is suitable and natural to it, according to its kind; see Gen 1:11 as cummin to cummin, anise to anise, wheat to wheat, barley to barley, and not on the contrary; showing, that it is the same body that is raised that dies, though it is in a more glorious, and with more excellent qualities; which is manifest from express passages of Scripture; see Job 19:26 from the signification of the word resurrection, which is a raising up of that which is fallen and if the same body that falls by death is not raised, but another is given, it will not be a resurrection, but a creation: and also from the figurative phrases by which it is expressed, as here by the quickening of seed cast into the earth, and elsewhere by awaking out of sleep; now as it is the same seed that is sown that springs up again, and the same body that sleeps that awaked out of it, so it is the same body that is interred in the earth, and falls asleep by death, that will be quickened and awaked at the resurrection: and it is clear from the places from whence the dead will be raised, the repositories of them, as death and hell, or the grave, and the sea; for none but the same bodies that are laid in the grave, or cast into the sea, can be said to come forth out of them, or be delivered up; by them: and from the subject of the resurrection, the bodies of men, their vile and mortal bodies, which can be no other than their present ones; and from the end of the resurrection, which is that some may come to life, and others to damnation; and from the justice of God, which requires that the same bodies Christ has purchased, find who have served and suffered for him, should be glorified; and the same that have done evil against him, and abused themselves and his people, be punished: this might be argued from the translations of Enoch and Elijah in their bodies to heaven, in which they were on earth; and from the resurrection of the bodies of the saints at Christ's resurrection, and the change that will be on the bodies of living saints at the coming of Christ; for it is not reasonable to suppose, that some of the saints shall have their own bodies, and others none at all, or not the same they lived in here: this may be further confirmed, from the resurrection of Christ's body, which was the same he had before; it was not changed into a spirit, but consisted of flesh and bones, as it had done; and had on it the very print of the nails, and spear in his hands, feet, and side; and to this the bodies of the saints are to be fashioned: add to all this, if it is not a resurrection of the same body, but new ones are created, to which the soul will be united, it will not be a resurrection, but a transmigration of souls into other bodies; but as every seed has its own body, so will every soul have its own body, though greatly different as to its qualities, and much improved for the better, as in seed sown: and this is the sense of the ancient Jews ^q,

"says R. Chijah, דההוא גופא דהוה יקום, "that that selfsame body that was shall rise", is clear from what is written, thy dead men shall live, Isa 26:19 and it is not written, shall be created; from whence it is evident that they shall not be created, but shall be quickened:''

and again ^r,

"in the time to come, the holy blessed God will quicken the dead, and raise them מעפרם, "out of their own dust", that they may not be a building of dust, as they were at first, when they were created out of dust itself, a thing which is not stable, according to Gen 2:7 and at that time they shall be raised out of the dust, out of that building, and shall stand in a stable building, that they may have stability, or duration.''

So on those words, "I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal", Deu 32:39 they observe ^s, that

"as wounding and healing are באחד, "in one", (and the same body,) so death and life are באחד, "in one and" the same.''

Gill: 1Co 15:39

All flesh is not the same flesh,.... Or "equal", as the Syriac version renders it; though all flesh is flesh, as to the nature and substance of it; agrees in its original, being by generation; and is supported by food, and is alike frail and mortal; all flesh is grass, rises out of it, or is maintained by it, or withers like that, yet not of equal worth, value, and excellency: "but" there is "one" kind "of flesh of men"; which is superior to, and more excellent than any other; being animated by a rational soul, and is set in the first place; so we read of בשר איש, "the flesh of man", for mankind, Job 12:10 see Exo 30:32.

Another flesh of beasts; as sheep and oxen, and other beasts of the field;

another of fishes: which may be observed against the Papists, who distinguish between flesh and fish, as if there was no flesh of fishes; and on their fast days prohibit flesh, but allow the eating of fish; thus flesh is attributed to fishes, as here, in Lev 11:11 upon which text Aben Ezra observes, lo, fish is called flesh; but as our doctors say, according to the custom of those times; and so it is by the Jews, who say ^t,

"all flesh is forbidden to boil in milk, מבשר דגים, "except the flesh of fishes", and locusts; and it is forbidden to set it on a table along with cheese, except "the flesh of fishes", and locusts:''

and another of birds; the fowls of the air. This is another similitude, illustrating the resurrection of the dead; and is not designed to point out the difference between the raised bodies of the righteous, and the wicked; as if the former were signified by the flesh of men, and the other by the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; nor among the wicked themselves, with whom there will be degrees of punishment; nor among the saints, as if the flesh of one should differ from that of another. The intent of this simile is only to show, that the resurrection of the dead will be in real flesh, in their own flesh, in the selfsame flesh, as to substance, with which they were clothed when on earth; but that it will, as to its qualities, be different from it, as one sort of flesh is now from another; and that if God can, as he does, make different sorts of flesh, and yet all for kind are flesh, there is no difficulty in conceiving, that God is able to raise the dead in their own flesh, and yet different from what it now is; being free from all weakness, frailty, corruption, and mortality.

Gill: 1Co 15:40

There are also celestial bodies,.... Or bodies in the heavens, as the sun, moon, and stars:

and bodies terrestrial; or bodies on earth, animate and inanimate, men, beasts, trees, minerals, &c.

But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another: though both sorts are bodies, yet their qualities differ, and there is a greater glory in the one than in the other. This is another similitude, serving to help our ideas of this doctrine of the resurrection of the body; that though it is the same in substance, yet different in qualities; and does not design any difference between the bodies of good men and bad men, elect and reprobate; as if the one were intended by the celestial bodies, and the other by the terrestrial; and much less degrees of glory in the saints themselves, who, imagine them in as low a form as can be, can never be compared to terrestrial ones; but it shows the difference there will be between the raised bodies and the present ones; which will be as great as that which now is between celestial and terrestrial bodies.

Gill: 1Co 15:41

There is one glory of the sun,.... Which is the greater light, the fountain of light, and whose glory exceeds that of the other heavenly bodies:

and another glory of the moon; which is the lesser light, and receives its light from the sun, and consequently its glory is inferior:

and another glory of the stars; which though very bright and sparkling, and are innumerable, have a lesser glory, at least to our appearance, than the sun and moon: the Jews have a notion ^u, that

"all the stars and the orbs are endued with a soul, and with knowledge, and understanding; and that they live, and stand, and know him that said, and the world was; and everyone of them, "according to his greatness", ולפי מעלתו, "and according to his dignity", praise and glorify their Creator, as the angels; and as they know God, so they know themselves, and the angels that are above them; for the knowledge of the stars and the orbs is lesser than the knowledge of angels, and greater than the knowledge of men:''

for one star differeth from another star in glory; all which is to be understood, not as if the glory of the sun meant the glory of Christ, the sun of righteousness, who excels in glory, even in his human nature; and the glory of the moon, the glory of the church, who receives her's from Christ; and the glory of the stars; the glory of particular saints; and as if there will be, in the resurrection state, degrees of glory among them: for what peculiar glory can be thought to be upon the body of one, that is not upon another, when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father? and admitting there was any truth in this, it is not the truth of this text; the only design of which, as the above, is to show, that as not only celestial and terrestrial bodies differ from each other, but even heavenly ones, so at the resurrection, the bodies of the saints then will differ in glory from their present ones; though these are now the members of Christ, are presented to God an holy sacrifice, and are washed with pure water.

Gill: 1Co 15:42

So also is the resurrection of the dead,.... This will be the case and condition of risen bodies, they will be as different from what they now are, though they will be the same in substance, as a stalk of wheat in its blade and ear, and full corn in the ear, is from the naked grain, when cast into the earth; or as the flesh of men is from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; or as celestial bodies from terrestrial ones; or as the glory of the sun differs from the glory of the moon and stars; or as one star differs from another star in glory; that this is the apostle's sense is clear from the induction of particulars following, by which he explains in clear terms what he before signified by similitudes:

it is sown in corruption; it should be observed, that the word sown, in this and the following verses, does not merely relate to the interment of the body, but also to its generation; and includes its state, condition, and character, during life; as well as points out what it is at death, and its sepulture in the earth: it is from first to last a corruptible body; it is born frail and mortal, and liable to corruption and death; it is corrupted with sin, and so a vile body; there is a world of iniquity in one of its members, the tongue, and what then must there be in all its parts? but besides this moral corruption, in which it is during the present state, it is liable to a natural one; from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, it may be covered with wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores; a right arm may be dried up and withered away, and a leg may corrupt and mortify, and so any other part; the whole is supported by corruptible things, by meat that perisheth; and which if it did not corrupt and perish, would not be nourishing; and as meats are for the belly, and the belly for meats, in a short time God will destroy both it and them; the whole frame and texture of the body will be dissolved by death, and be brought to worms, corruption, and dust; and in this case will lie in the grave till the resurrection morn:

it is raised in incorruption: the very same body that was sown, generated, lived, and died, shall be raised again, but different from what it was; it will be incorruptible; its parts will be no more subject to corruption; it will not be supported by corruptible things; it will be immortal, and never die more, and will be clear of all its moral corruption; it will no more be a vile body, but fashioned like to the holy and glorious body of Christ.

Gill: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in dishonour,.... Its original is dishonourable, it comes, as the Jews often say ^w, מטפה סרוהה, "from a filthy drop"; its generated brought forth in a manner we are ashamed of; it is conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; it is unclean, and born of the flesh: and when born, is in such a condition, as is to the loathing of it; some of its members are less honourable; and so uncomely as always to need a covering; it is subject to various blemishes, defects, and imperfections, and few bodies are without one or another; and liable to many injuries and affronts, as the body of our Lord himself was, who gave his back to the smiters, his cheek to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not his face from shame and spitting; and in death, it is nauseous, filthy, and very dishonourable, so that the nearest relation and friend cannot take pleasure in it, but desires to bury it out of sight; and amidst the greatest funereal pomp and splendour, it is laid in the grave in dishonour, to be the companion of corruption and worms: but in the resurrection,

it is raised in glory; in perfect beauty and comeliness, without the least blemish, defect, or imperfection; nor will there be any part of it that will occasion shame; it will be metamorphosed, and fashioned like to the glorious body of Christ; it will shine as the sun, and be as the brightness of the firmament: and so the Jews understand the passage in Dan 12:3 they say ^x that

"God will beautify the bodies of the righteous in time to come, as the body of the first man when he entered into the garden of Eden; and that the soul, whilst it is in its dignity, is sustained by the superior light, and is clothed with it; and when it enters into the body in time to come, it enters with the light; and then will the body shine as the brightness of the firmament, according to Dan 12:3.''

It is sown in weakness; it comes into the world in great weakness; what is weaker than the body of a new born babe? it cannot move, nor help itself in any respect; and how weak and defenceless is the body of man, when adult; as he is subject to various diseases and disorders, which weaken his strength in the way, and is surrounded with natural infirmities, arising from hunger, thirst, nakedness, labour, &c. so he is not armed, as many other creatures are, for defence and offence; nor can he resist and overcome many things which do him hurt, much less can he resist death, or retain his spirit then; and through weakness at last dies, and is devoid of all strength, and as such is laid in the grave, where there is no work that he can do: but

it is raised in power; it is raised by the power of God, and with great power in itself; being able to subsist without food, and of moving itself from place to place, with great agility; and capable of the highest services before God and the Lamb, without weariness; nor will it be ever more liable to weakness or death; death shall have no more power over it; nor shall it be encompassed or attended with any infirmity whatever.

Gill: 1Co 15:44

It is sown a natural body,.... Or an animal one, being generated as animals are, and supported with food as they be, and die at last as they do: see Ecc 3:19.

It is raised a spiritual body; not as to substance, but as to its quality; it will not be changed into a spirit; our Lord's risen body, to which ours will be conformed, was not a spirit, but, as before, consisted of flesh and bones: but the body will then be subject to the spirit and soul of man; it will be employed in spiritual service, for which it will be abundantly fitted and assisted by the Spirit of God; and it will be delighted with spiritual objects; it will be like the angels, those excellent spirits; it will live as spirits do, without natural helps and means, as meat, drink, clothes, sleep, and, as they, will never die:

there is a natural; or "animal body", such as the first man's was, and those are that descend from him by ordinary generation; and

there is a spiritual body; such as the body of Christ now is, and as will be the bodies of the risen saints; the phrase is Jewish, הגוף הרוחני, "the spiritual body" ^y and the flesh of the righteous, being בשרם רוחנים, "spiritual flesh" ^z, are to be met with in their writings.

Gill: 1Co 15:45

And so it is written,.... In Gen 2:7

the first man Adam was made a living soul: in the Hebrew text it is, man, or Adam, became, or was made a living soul; that is, as the apostle says, "the first man Adam": he calls him, as the Jews ^a frequently do, אדם הראשון, "the first man"; he was the first man that was made, and the first parent of mankind, and the head and representative of all his posterity, and so the first in time, causality and dignity; whose name was Adam, so called by God in the day he was created, because he was formed מן האדמה, "from the ground, or earth"; when God breathed life into the earthly mass, or lump; and being animated with a rational soul, it became an animal body, or a living creature; and so the apostle proves, from the first man that was upon earth, that there is a natural, or animal body; a body animated by a soul, and which was supported by eating and drinking, by sleep and rest; and was capable of dying, and should die, in case of sin; and which was the state of it in its first creation, whilst in innocence, and before the fall; and this is all he meant to prove by this Scripture; for what follows is not mentioned as therein written, or elsewhere, but as the apostle's own assertion:

the last Adam was made a quickening spirit: by "the last Adam" is meant Jesus Christ, called Adam, because he is really and truly a man, a partaker of the same flesh and blood as the rest of mankind; and because he is the antitype of the first man Adam, who was a figure of him that was to come; and therefore called Adam, for the same reason as he is called David and Solomon: he is said to be "the last", in distinction from the first Adam, with respect to him he stood, אחרון, last upon the earth, as in Job 19:25 to which passage some think the apostle here alludes; and because he appeared in the last days in the end of the world, and is the last that shall rise up as a common head and representative of the whole, or any part of mankind: now he is made "a quickening spirit"; which some understand of the Holy Spirit, which filled the human nature of Christ, raised him from the dead, and will quicken our mortal bodies at the last day; others of the divine nature of Christ, to which his flesh, or human nature, was united; and which gave life, rigour, and virtue, to all his actions and sufferings, as man; and by which he was quickened, when put to death in the flesh, and by which he will quicken others another day: though rather I think it is to be understood of his spiritual body, of his body, not as it was made of the virgin, for that was a natural, or an animal one; it was conceived and bred, and born as animal bodies are; it grew and increased, and was nourished with meat and drink, and sleep and rest; and was subject to infirmities, and to death itself, as our bodies be; but it is to be understood of it as raised from the dead, when it was made a spiritual body, for which reason it is called a "spirit": not that it was changed into a spirit, for it still remained flesh and blood; but because it was no more supported in an animal way; nor subject to those weaknesses that animal bodies are, but lives as spirits, or angels do; and a quickening one, not only because it has life itself, but because by virtue of the saints' union to it, as it subsists in the divine person of the Son of God, their bodies will be quickened at the last day, and made like unto it, spiritual bodies; also because he lives in his body as a spiritual one, they shall live in theirs as spiritual ones: and so the apostle shows, that there is a spiritual, as well as an animal body; that as the first man's body, even before the fall, was an animal or natural one; the last Adam's body upon his resurrection is a spiritual and life giving one, as the Syriac version renders it; so the Cabalistic writers ^b speak of

"Adam; who is the holy and supreme, who rules over all, and gives spirit and life to all.''

Gill: 1Co 15:46

Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual,.... As the apostle before proves the distinction of a natural and spiritual body, and gives instances of both in the two principal men in the world, the first and the last; and points out the difference between them, the one being animated, and having life given unto it, the other animating, and giving life to others; proceeds to observe the order of these, how that one was before the other; the spiritual body, though the more perfect and most excellent, yet was not first in being:

but that which is natural; Adam's animal body was before Christ's spiritual body:

and afterwards that which is spiritual; yea, even Christ's animal, or natural body, was before his spiritual one; his body taken from the virgin, and formed in her womb, and in which he lived here on earth, was an animal body, as before observed; and upon his resurrection, it commenced a spiritual one; being the same in substance as the former, only different in qualities; and just so it is, and will be, with the bodies of the saints'; which is the apostle's design and view, in observing this order; the natural body is first, and then the spiritual; it is first a natural body, as generated and nourished, as weak and dying, and it is afterwards a spiritual one, when raised from the dead.

Gill: 1Co 15:47

The first man is of the earth, earthy,.... He was formed out of the earth, Gen 2:7 and the word there used signifies red earth. Josephus ^c observes, that the first man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies red, because he was made out of red earth; for such, adds he, is the true and virgin earth: Pausanias ^d makes mention of a clay, which is not the colour of earth, but like the sand of brooks and rivers; and gives a smell very near to that of the skin, or body of men; and which is said to be the remains of that clay, out of which all mankind was made: but be that as it will, Adam was certainly made out of the earth, and had his habitation and abode assigned him in the garden of Eden, and was made to cultivate and till it; his lordship and dominion, at most and best, only extended to the terraqueous globe, and the creatures in it; and having sinned, he was not only thrust out of the garden to till the ground out of which he was taken, but doomed to return to the dust from whence he came; and whose sin and fall had such an influence on him and his posterity, as to make their souls sensual and earthly, to mind, affect, and cleave unto earthly things:

the second man is the Lord from heaven; as Adam was the first man, Christ is the second man; and these two are spoken of, as it they were the only two men in the world; because as the former was the head and representative of all his natural posterity, so the latter is the head and representative of all his spiritual offspring: and he is "the Lord from heaven"; in distinction from the first man, who was of the earth, and whose lordship reached only to the earth; whereas Christ is Lord of all, not only Lord of lords below, but Lord of angels and saints above; the whole family in heaven and in earth is named of him; and he has all power in heaven and in earth, and a name above every name in this world, and that to come, and is indeed higher than the heavens: this is not to be understood of his human nature, or of his human body, as if that came down from heaven, and passed through the virgin, as some heretics of old said, as water through a pipe; for though it was conceived and formed in a miraculous manner, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost from on high, yet was formed out of the matter and substance of the virgin, and so was of the earth; and was indeed an earthly body, supported by earthly means, and at last returned to the earth, and was interred in it: but it is to be understood either of Christ as a divine person, as the Son of God, as Lord of all, coming down from heaven at his incarnation; not by local motion, or change of place, but by assumption of the human nature into union with him, the Lord from heaven; or rather of him as he shall descend from heaven, as the Lord and Judge of all at the last day, when he will come in his glorious, spiritual, and heavenly body; and raise the righteous dead, and fashion their bodies like his own; when what follows will have its full accomplishment. The Cabalistic doctors among the Jews often speak ^e of אדם עליון, "the superior man", and ואדם תחתון, "the inferior man"; and in their Cabalistic table ^f, in the sixth "sephirah", or number, they place the man from above, the heavenly Adam; and, in one of their writings ^g, have these remarkable words,

"anynt Mdaw hale Mda Nam, "who is the supreme man and the second man", but of whom it is said, Pro 30:4 "what is his name, and what is his son's name?" what is his name? this is the supreme man; what is his son's name? this is the inferior man; and both of them are intimated in that Scripture, Exo 3:13 "and they shall say unto me, what is his name? what shall I say?"''

Some copies, and the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions; leave out the word "Lord", and add the word "heavenly", reading the clause thus, "the second man from heaven, heavenly".

Gill: 1Co 15:48

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy,.... As was Adam's body, so are the bodies of those that descend from him; they are houses of clay, earthly houses of this tabernacle, which rise out of the earth, are maintained by the things of it, and return to it again:

and as is the heavenly, such are, or will be

they also that are heavenly; as is the glorious and spiritual body of Christ, the Lord from heaven, as that now is in heaven, and will be when he descends from thence; so will be the bodies of them that are heavenly, that are heaven born souls now, are partakers of the heavenly calling, and whose conversation is in heaven; and who, in the resurrection morn, will have heavenly, spiritual, and glorious bodies, like unto Christ's: so Philo ^h the Jew on those words, "and man became a living soul", has this note;

"there are two kinds of men, for the one is "the heavenly man", and the other is "earthy"; the heavenly man is he, who is made after the image of God, incorruptible, and wholly devoid of earthy substance; the earthy is made of seminal matter, which is called the ground.''

Gill: 1Co 15:49

And as we have borne the image of the earthy,.... Which regards not so much the sinful image of the first man upon the soul, or the depravity of the powers and faculties of it, as his image of frailty and mortality on the body, having like him a body subject to infirmities and death:

we shall also bear the image of the heavenly; which likewise regards not so much the spiritual image of Christ stamped on the soul in regeneration, when Christ is formed in the heart, and the new man is created after his likeness, and which more and more appears, through every transforming view of him, and will be complete in glory, as the image and likeness of Christ upon the bodies of the saints in the resurrection, when they shall be fashioned like unto his: some copies, as the Alexandrian and others, read the words as an exhortation, let us bear the image, &c. as if the words were an improvement of the apostle's reasoning on this subject, engaging saints to be more concerned for, and seeking after a greater likeness to Christ in righteousness and true holiness; but the other reading and sense are best.

Gill: 1Co 15:50

Now this I say, brethren,.... Upon the whole, I assert this, and observe it to you, out of a truly Christian respect for you, as brethren in the Lord, that

flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: this shows the necessity there is of a difference between the body that now is, and that which shall be, which the apostle has so largely insisted on, and so clearly proved and explained, in the preceding verses; because the body, as it now is, is not capable of possessing the heavenly glory; was it to be introduced into heaven, in the condition it is now, it would break in pieces, and crumble into dust; it would not be able to bear the glory of that state and place: by flesh and blood is meant, not human nature as to the substance of it, or as consisting of flesh and blood, for that can and does inherit the kingdom of God; witness the human nature, or body of Christ, the bodies of the saints that rose after his resurrection, and those of Enoch and Elijah, who were translated body and soul to heaven; so that this passage makes nothing for those that deny the resurrection of the same body, and plead for a new and an aerial one: but the human nature, or body, so and so qualified, is here meant; either as corrupted with sin, for without holiness and righteousness no man shall see the Lord, or enter into and possess the kingdom of heaven; or flesh and blood, or an human body, as it is now supported in this animal life, with meat and drink, &c. and as it is frail and mortal, and subject to death, in which sense the phrase is used in Scripture; see Mat 16:17 and often by the Jews; so Abraham is represented by them as saying ⁱ,

"I am בשר ודם, "flesh and blood", tomorrow I shall depart out of the world, or die:''

it would be endless to give the many instances that might be produced of this use of the phrase with them, and in which sense it is to be taken here: and the meaning is, that saints in their frail mortal bodies, such as they now are, are not capable of enjoying the heavenly glory; which is called "the kingdom", because of its riches, glory, grandeur, and magnificence; and the kingdom "of God", because it is of his preparing and giving; and what he calls his people to, and makes them meet for, and in which they will reign with him for evermore: heirs of it they may be, and are now whilst in this frail and mortal state; but inherit, possess, and enjoy it, they cannot, as not without holiness of soul, so not without immortality of body; and therefore it is necessary that the body should rise different in qualities from, though the same in substance with, the present body; that it should rise incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual; that it may be fitted for, and be able to bear the exceeding weight of glory in the other world:

neither doth corruption inherit incorruption: by corruption is not so much meant sin, or the corruption of nature, or man as corrupted by sin, though it is true of such an one, that he does not, and cannot inherit incorruption; the incorruptible crown, the crown of glory that fadeth not away, the incorruptible inheritance, reserved in the heavens, those riches which moth and rust corrupt not; but the body, as it is generated in corruption, is supported by corruptible things, and is subject to corruption and worms; in such a situation it is unfit for, and incapable of inheriting eternal glory; it must be different from what it is; it must put on immortality, and be clothed with incorruption: the word inherit in both clauses shows, that the heavenly glory is an inheritance, and belongs to children only; is their heavenly Father's bequest unto them; is not bought or acquired by anything of theirs; and is what they enter into and upon, in virtue and consequence of the death of the testator, Christ.

Gill: 1Co 15:51

Behold, I show you a mystery,.... Or a secret, which could never have been discovered by reason, or the light of nature, and what is of pure revelation; and which perhaps the apostle became acquainted with, when he was caught up into the third heaven; and is what is never made mention of by any prophet, or apostle, but himself: he prefaces the account of it in this manner, partly to show the great respect he had for these Corinthians, that he treated them as his bosom friends, to whom he communicated his secrets; and partly to excite their curiosity and attention:

we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; some copies read, "we shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed", and so the Vulgate Latin version; according to which the sense is, all will rise again, both just and unjust, but all will not be changed into a state of glory; but the apostle is only speaking of the saints, of whom it is true, not only that they shall rise again, but shall be changed from corruption to incorruption; wherefore this cannot be a true reading: others read the words thus, "we shall all die, but we shall not all be changed"; and so the Ethiopic version and the Alexandrian copy seem to have read; which is just the reverse of the text, and arises from a wrong sense of Heb 9:27 where it is not said, it is "appointed unto all men", but "unto men once to die"; from which rule there has been some exceptions, as the instances of Enoch and Elijah show; and there will be more at the time of Christ's coming, for all will not sleep in their graves, or die, for death is meant by sleeping; they will not die as men ordinarily do, and continue under the power of death, but they will be changed at once from corruption to incorruption, from dishonour to glory, from weakness to power, from being natural to be spiritual bodies; this change all the saints will undergo, whether dead or alive, at Christ's coming; the dead by a resurrection from the dead, and the living by a secret and sudden power, which will at once render their bodies, without separating them from their souls, immortal and glorious: and this reading and sense are confirmed by the Syriac and Arabic versions.

Gill: 1Co 15:52

In a moment,.... Or point of time, which is very short indeed; what a moment is, according to the Jewish doctors, See Gill on Mat 4:8.

In the twinkling of an eye; these two the Jews not only put together as here, but make one to be as the other; so they say ^k, הרגע כהרף עין, "a moment is as the twinkling of an eye". This phrase, as the twinkling of an eye, is frequently used in Jewish writings ^l, to signify how speedily ard suddenly anything is done, and which is the design of it here; and the apostle's meaning is, that the change upon the bodies of living saints will be so quick, that it will be done in a trice, before a man can shut his eyes and open them again; so that it will be as it were imperceptible, and without the least sensation of pain; this may also be referred to the resurrection, which will be quick, and done at once; though it seems rather, and chiefly, to respect the change of the living; what follows, indeed, favours the other sense also; for all will be quick and sudden, the coming of Christ, the raising of the dead, and the change of the living:

at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound; or "by the last trumpet", as the Syriac and Arabic versions render it; that is, by means of it, through the sounding of that:

and the dead shall be raised incorruptible; free from all frailty, mortality, and corruption, when the trumpet shall sound:

and at the same time also,

we shall be changed; the saints that will be found alive; the apostle speaks in the first person, because of the uncertainty of Christ's coming, and of the blowing of the last trumpet, he not knowing but it might be in his time; what this last trumpet will be, is not easy to say; it can hardly be thought to be a material one: the Jews ^m have a notion, that a trumpet will be blown at the time of the resurrection of the dead, as at the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; which will quicken the dead, as they say it then did; and that this will be blown by Michael the archangel ⁿ: it seems very likely to be the same with the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God, 1Th 4:16 all which may be no other than the voice of Christ; at the hearing of which, the dead will rise; but whether this will be an articulate one, as at the raising of Lazarus, or is only expressive of his power, which will then be put forth, is not material, nor a point to be determined: and what if by all this should be meant some violent claps of thunder, as at Mount Sinai, which will shake the whole earth; and when almighty power will be put forth to raise the dead: since such are by the Jews ^o called the voices of the son of David, and are expected by them, a little before his coming? This is called the "last" trumpet, not so much with respect to those that go before, much less to the seven trumpets in the Revelations, of which as yet there was no revelation made, but because there will be none after it; see:

"And the trumpet shall give a sound, which when every man heareth, they shall be suddenly afraid.'' (2 Esdras 6:23)

Gill: 1Co 15:53

For this corruptible must put on incorruption,.... The apostle returns to what he had before asserted, concerning the necessity of an alteration in the qualities of bodies, in order to the enjoyment of the heavenly state; showing, that the selfsame body the saints now have, for he seems to point with his finger to his own, and which are incorruptible ones, shall and must be clothed with incorruption:

and this mortal must put on immortality; the body that now is mortal, must become immortal; it must put off its rags of mortality, and be clothed with the shining robes of immortality; and which must be done, either by first dying, and then rising from the dead; or by undergoing alive a quick and sudden change, which will at once remove all corruption and mortality; see:

"He answered and said unto me, These be they that have put off the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God: now are they crowned, and receive palms.'' (2 Esdras 2:45)

Gill: 1Co 15:54

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,.... As at the coming of Christ, both the bodies of living saints, and of dead ones being raised, will: and this

mortal shall have put on immortality; which will be the case, in the resurrection morn:

then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written; then that passage will have its full accomplishment, which stands in Isa 25:8 where it is read,

he will swallow up death in victory, or "for ever". That is, the Messiah shall by his death, and resurrection from the dead, obtain such an entire victory over death, not only for himself, but for all his people, that in the resurrection morn, when they will be all raised from the dead, death will be so swallowed up, that it will be no more: the Jews acknowledge that this prophecy belongs to the times of the Messiah; so they say ^p, that

"the Messiah shall descend from Pharez, and in his day the holy blessed God will cause death to be swallowed up, as it is said, Isa 25:8 "he shall swallow up death in victory":''

and again ^q,

"when the King Messiah comes, the holy blessed God will raise up those that sleep in the dust, as it is written, he shall swallow up death in victory:''

they also say ^r, that this passage refers to future time, and to the world to come. The prophet expresses it actively, it being a prediction of what was to be done by the Messiah; the apostle cites it passively, as being accomplished by him after the resurrection, and considered as a part of the song sung by the risen saints; to which is added,

Gill: 1Co 15:55

O death, where is thy sting?.... These words, with the following clause, are taken out of Hos 13:14 and that they belong to the times of the Messiah, the ancient Jews acknowledge; and the Chaldee paraphrase interprets them of the Logos, or Word of God, rendering them thus,

"my Word shall be among them to kill, and my Word to destroy;''

wherefore the apostle is not to be charged with a misapplication of them, nor with a perversion of them, as he is by the Jew ^s: in the prophet they are thus read, "O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction"; between which, and the apostle's citation of them, there is some difference; the word אהי, which we render in both clauses, "I will be", the apostle translates "where", and that very rightly, and so it should be rendered there; and so it is by the Septuagint interpreters, who render the whole as he, with a little variation, "where is thy revenge, O death? where is thy sting, O grave?" and so the Arabic version of Hosea still nearer the apostle, "where is now thy victory, O death?" or "where is thy sting, O grave?" and even the Chaldee paraphrase on Hos 13:14 renders the same word "where"; for instead of, "I will be thy king", the Targum reads, מלכך אן, "where is thy king?" and Aben Ezra, a Jewish writer of great note, on Hos 13:14 observes, that there are some that say the word is to be inverted as if it was איח, "where", and he adds, and it is right; a like observation he makes on those words in 1Co 15:14 and that that is the true sense of the word in both verses, is attested by Ebn Jannahius Tanchuma ^t; so that the apostle is thus far to be justified, in his citation of this passage: it is further to be observed, that instead of "thy plagues", he reads, "thy sting"; and I doubt not, but that among the many things which דבר signifies, as it must be owned it does signify the plague, or pestilence, see Psa 90:6 and which perhaps is so called, from the venomous nature of it, and the poisonous sting that is in it, so likewise a sting, though there is no instance of it; certain it is, that bees are called דברים, and as Cocceius ^u observes, from their sting; and so in the Chaldee and Arabic languages, a bee, or a wasp, is called דברא; and it is to such sort of creatures, that the allusion is here made; who having lost their stings, can do no hurt; and which will be the case of death in the resurrection morn, when risen saints will insult over it in this triumphant manner; having nothing more to fear from it, any more than a man has to be afraid of any animal whatever, that has lost its sting: and in the following clause,

O grave, where is thy victory? instead of "destruction", as it must be allowed the word קטב signifies, see Psa 90:6 the apostle reads victory; but then there is no difference in the sense; for the grave gets its victory over its thousands, and ten thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousands, and millions of millions, by the destruction of them, which now it glories in, and boasts of; but in the resurrection morn, when its destruction will be at an end, the triumphant saints may reasonably ask, where is its boasted victory, since it can destroy no longer.

Gill: 1Co 15:56

The sting of death is sin,.... Death has a sting, and which was originally in it, and that is sin; sin is the cause of death, it is what has given rise and being to it; it entered into the world by it, and is supported in its empire through it; it gives it its resistless power, which reaches to all sorts of persons, young and old, rich and poor, high and low, bond and free; it gives it all its bitterness, agonies, and miseries; and it is by that it does all the hurt and mischief it does; and it may fitly be compared to a sting, for its poisonous and venomous nature:

and the strength of sin is the law; not that the law of God is sinful, or encourages sin: it forbids it under the severest penalty; but was there no law there would be no sin, nor imputation of it; sin is a transgression of the law: moreover, the strength of sin, its evil nature, and all the dreadful aggravations of it, and sad consequences upon it, are discovered and made known by the law; and also the strength of it is drawn out by it, through the corruption of human nature; which is irritated and provoked the more to sin, through the law's prohibition of it; and this is not the fault of the law, but is owing to the vitiosity of nature; which the more it is forbidden anything, the more desirous it is of it; to which may be added, that sin is the more exceeding sinful, being committed against a known law, and that of the great lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; whose legislative power and authority are slighted and trampled upon by it, which makes the transgression the more heinous; it is the law which binds sin upon a man's conscience, accuses him of it, pronounces him guilty, curses, condemns, and adjudges him to death for it.

Gill: 1Co 15:57

But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory,.... Over sin the sting of death, over the law the strength of sin, and over death and the grave; and which will be the ground and foundation of the above triumphant song in the resurrection morn, as it is now at this present time of praise and thankfulness to God: and it is all

through our Lord Jesus; he has got the victory over sin; he has put it away by the sacrifice of himself; he has finished and made an end of it; for though it reigns over his people before conversion, and dwells in them after it, yet in consequence of his atonement for it, it loses its governing power through the Spirit and grace of God in regeneration, and entirely its damning power over them, and in the resurrection morn will not be so much as in being in them; the view of which now fills them with joy, thanksgiving, and triumph. Christ has obtained a victory over the law; he has stopped its mouth, and answered all its demands; he has been made under, and subject to it; he has obeyed its precepts, and bore its penalty, and has delivered his from the curse and condemnation of it, so that they have nothing to fear from it; it is dead to them, and they to that: he has also abolished death by dying and rising again, so as that it shall have no more dominion over him; and he has abolished it as a penal evil to his saints; and though they die, they shall not always remain under the power of death, they shall live again, and with him for ever: he has conquered the grave by rising out of it himself, and living for evermore, having the keys of the grave in his hands; and will at the last day oblige it to give up its dead, when his victory over this, with respect to his people, will be abundantly manifest: now this victory, in all its branches, is given by God to believers; they are made to share in all the victories of Christ their head, and are more than conquerors through him; but this is not by merit, but by gift, the gift of God the Father, who gives his Son, and all things with him that are his; and this gift is a distinguishing one; it is given to us, and not to others; and which therefore calls aloud for praise and thankfulness. The title of the "ninth" psalm may be rendered, "to the conqueror over death", or "that is the author of victory over death, even to the Son, a psalm of David", Psa 9:1.

Gill: 1Co 15:58

Therefore my beloved brethren,.... This is the conclusion of the whole, and contains the use the apostle makes of the above doctrine, addressing the saints at Corinth in the most tender and affectionate manner; owning the spiritual relation they stood in to him, and expressing the great love he had for them, which filled him with a concern for them, that they might be both sound in principle, and right in practice, and continue so:

be ye steadfast, unmoveable; in all the doctrines of the Gospel, and particularly in this of the resurrection of the dead, which he had been labouring throughout the whole chapter:

always abounding in the work of the Lord; going on in it, being more and more in the practice of it; either in the work of the ministry, which some of them were in, to which the Lord had called them, and for which he had fitted and qualified them, and in which his glory was greatly concerned, and therefore called his work; or any other work, even all good works, which the Lord commands, requires, calls his people to, and strengthens them to perform: which when they do they may be said to abound, and to be fruitful in every good work: and for their encouragement it is added,

forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord; the labour of such who were in the ministry was not in vain, but was by the Lord made useful for the conversion of sinners, and the edification of saints, who would be their joy, and crown of rejoicing another day; and which must be no small encouragement to labour; and labour in any kind of good work has here its usefulness: it is profitable unto men, and though not meritorious of eternal life, yet the good works of the saints will follow them; Christ will not forget their work and labour of love which they have shown to his name and people, but will take notice of them as fruits of his own grace, and bestow his rewards upon them, though not in a way of debt, but of grace; which the doctrine of the resurrection assures of, and encourages to hope for; and so must he a friend to the practice of good works, as the contrary doctrine must be an obstruction to them.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 1Co 15:27

¹ sn A quotation from Ps 8:6.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:29

¹ sn Many suggestions have been offered for the puzzling expression baptized for the dead. There are up to 200 different explanations for the passage; a summary is given by K. C. Thompson, “I Corinthians 15,29 and Baptism for the Dead,” Studia Evangelica 2.1 (TU 87), 647-59. The most likely interpretation is that some Corinthians had undergone baptism to bear witness to the faith of fellow believers who had died without experiencing that rite themselves. Paul’s reference to the practice here is neither a recommendation nor a condemnation. He simply uses it as evidence from the lives of the Corinthians themselves to bolster his larger argument, begun in 15:12, that resurrection from the dead is a present reality in Christ and a future reality for them. Whatever they may have proclaimed, the Corinthians’ actions demonstrated that they had hope for a bodily resurrection.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:31

¹ tn Or, more literally, “I swear by the boasting in you.”

² tc ‡ Although the witnesses for the shorter reading (Ì⁴⁶ D F G Ψ 075 0243 1739 1881 Ï) are not as strong as for the addition of ἀδελφοί (adelfoi, “brothers”) at this juncture (א A B K P 33 81 104 365 1175 2464 lat sy co), it is difficult to find a reason why scribes would either intentionally or unintentionally drop the address here. Thus, the shorter reading is slightly preferred.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:32

¹ map For location see JP1 D2; JP2 D2; JP3 D2; JP4 D2.

² sn An allusion to Isa 22:13; 56:12.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:33

¹ sn A quotation from the poet Menander, Thais 218, which Paul uses in a proverbial sense.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:37

¹ tn Grk “and what you sow, you do not sow the body that will be, but a bare seed.”

NET Notes: 1Co 15:39

¹ tn Grk “all flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one (flesh) of people, but another flesh of animals and another flesh of birds and another of fish.”

NET Notes: 1Co 15:42

¹ tn Grk “it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.” The “it” refers to the body, as v. 44 shows.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:45

¹ tn Grk “living soul”; a quotation from Gen 2:7.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:49

¹ tc ‡ A few significant witnesses have the future indicative φορέσομεν (foresomen, “we will bear”; B I 6 630 1881 al sa) instead of the aorist subjunctive φορέσωμεν (foreswmen, “let us bear”; Ì⁴⁶ א A C D F G Ψ 075 0243 33 1739 Ï latt bo). If the original reading is the future tense, then “we will bear” would be a guarantee that believers would be like Jesus (and unlike Adam) in the resurrection. If the aorist subjunctive is original, then “let us bear” would be a command to show forth the image of Jesus, i.e., to live as citizens of the kingdom that believers will one day inherit. The future indicative is not widespread geographically. At the same time, it fits the context well: Not only are there indicatives in this section (especially vv. 42-49), but the conjunction καί (kai) introducing the comparative καθώς (kaqws) seems best to connect to the preceding by furthering the same argument (what is, not what ought to be). For this reason, though, the future indicative could be a reading thus motivated by an early scribe. In light of the extremely weighty evidence for the aorist subjunctive, it is probably best to regard the aorist subjunctive as original. This connects well with v. 50, for there Paul makes a pronouncement that seems to presuppose some sort of exhortation. G. D. Fee (First Corinthians [NICNT], 795) argues for the originality of the subjunctive, stating that “it is nearly impossible to account for anyone’s having changed a clearly understandable future to the hortatory subjunctive so early and so often that it made its way into every textual history as the predominant reading.” The subjunctive makes a great deal of sense in view of the occasion of 1 Corinthians. Paul wrote to combat an over-realized eschatology in which some of the Corinthians evidently believed they were experiencing all the benefits of the resurrection body in the present, and thus that their behavior did not matter. If the subjunctive is the correct reading, it seems Paul makes two points: (1) that the resurrection is a bodily one, as distinct from an out-of-body experience, and (2) that one’s behavior in the interim does make a difference (see 15:32-34, 58).

NET Notes: 1Co 15:50

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:10.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:51

¹ tn Grk “Behold.”

² tc The manuscripts are grouped into four basic readings here: (1) א C 0243* 33 1739 have “we all will sleep, but we will not all be changed” (πάντες κοιμηθησόμεθα, οὐ πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα); (2) Ì⁴⁶ A^c (F G) have “we will not all sleep, but we will not all be changed” (πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, οὐ πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα); (3) D* lat Tert Ambst Spec read “we will all rise, but we will not all be changed.” (4) The wording πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα (“we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed”) is found in B D² Ψ 075 0243^c 1881 Ï sy co. How shall we interpret such data? In light of the fact that Paul and his generation did in fact die, early scribes may have felt some embarrassment over the bald statement, “We will not all sleep” (πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα). This could account for the first variant. Although the second variant could be viewed as a conflation of (1) and (4) (so TCGNT 502; G. D. Fee, First Corinthians [NICNT], 796), it could also have arisen consciously, to guard against the notion that all whom Paul was addressing should regard themselves as true believers. The third variant, prominent in the Western witnesses, may have arisen to counter those who would deny the final resurrection (so TCGNT 502). In any event, since the fourth reading has the best credentials externally and best explains the rise of the others it should be adopted as the authentic wording here.

tn See the note on the word “asleep” in 15:6.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:52

¹ tn The Greek word ῥιπή (rJiph) refers to a very rapid movement (BDAG 906 s.v.). This has traditionally been translated as “twinkling,” which implies an exceedingly fast – almost instantaneous – movement of the eyes, but this could be confusing to the modern reader since twinkling in modern English often suggests a faint, flashing light. In conjunction with the genitive ὀφθαλμοῦ (ofqalmou, “of an eye”), “blinking” is the best English equivalent (see, e.g., L&N 16.5), although it does not convey the exact speed implicit in the Greek term.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:54

¹ sn A quotation from Isa 25:8.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:55

¹ sn A quotation from Hos 13:14.

NET Notes: 1Co 15:58

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:10.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:25

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies ^{( k )} under his feet.

^{( k )} Christ is considered here as he appeared in the form of a servant, in which respect he rules the Church as head, and that because this power was given to him from his Father.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:26

The ^{( l )} last enemy [that] shall be destroyed [is] death.

^{( l )} The conclusion of the argument, which is taken from the whole to the part: for if all his enemies will be put under his feet, then it will necessarily be that death also will be subdued under him.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:28

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, ^{( m )} then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that ^{( n )} God may be all in all.

^{( m )} Not because the Son was not subject to his Father before, but because his body, that is to say, the Church which is here in distress, and not yet wholly partaker of his glory, is not yet fully perfect: and also because the bodies of the saints which are in the graves, will not be glorified until the resurrection. But Christ as he is God, has us subject to him as his Father has, but as he is Priest, he is subject to his Father together with us. Augustine, book 1, chap. 8, of the trinity.

^{( n )} By this high type of speech is set forth an incomprehensible glory which flows from God, and will fill all of us, as we are joined together with our head, but yet in such a way that our head will always preserve his preeminence.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:29

^{( 15 )} Else what shall they do which are baptized ^{( o )} for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

^{( 15 )} The fifth argument taken of the end of baptism, that is, because those who are baptized, are baptized for dead: that is to say, that they may have a remedy against death, because baptism is a token of regeneration.

^{( o )} They that are baptized to this end and purpose, that death may be put out in them, or to rise again from the dead, of which baptism is a seal.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:30

^{( 16 )} And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?

^{( 16 )} The sixth argument: unless there is a resurrection of the dead, why should the apostles so daily cast themselves into danger of so many deaths?

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:31

I protest by your ^{( p )} rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

^{( p )} As though he said, "I die daily, as all the miseries I suffer can well witness, which I may truly boast of, that I have suffered among you."

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:32

^{( 17 )} If ^{( q )} after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? ^{( 18 )} let us ^{( r )} eat and drink; for to morrow we die.

^{( 17 )} The taking away of an objection: but you, Paul, were ambitious, as men commonly and are accustomed to be, when you fought with beasts at Ephesus. That is very likely, says Paul: for what could that profit me, were it not for the glory of eternal life which I hope for?

^{( q )} Not upon any godly motion, nor casting my eyes upon God, but carried away with vain glory, or a certain headiness.

^{( 18 )} The seventh argument which depends upon the last: if there is no resurrection of the dead, why do we give ourselves to anything else, except for eating and drinking?

^{( r )} These are sayings of the Epicureans.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:33

^{( 19 )} Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

^{( 19 )} The conclusion with a sharp exhortation, that they take heed of the wicked company of certain ones. And from this he shows where this evil sprang from: warning them to be wise with sobriety to righteousness.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:35

^{( 20 )} But some [man] will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

^{( 20 )} Now that he has proved the resurrection, he demonstrates their doltishness, in that they scoffingly demanded how it could be that the dead could rise again: and if they did rise again, they asked mockingly, what manner of bodies they should have. Therefore he sends these fellows, who seemed to themselves to be marvellously wise and intelligent, to be instructed of poor rude farmers.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:36

^{( 21 )} [Thou] fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

^{( 21 )} You might have learned either of these, Paul says, by daily experience: for seeds are sown, and rot, and yet nonetheless they are far from perishing, but rather they grow up far more beautiful. And whereas they are sown naked and dry, they spring up green from death by the power of God: and does it seem incredible to you that our bodies should rise from corruption, and that endued with a far more excellent quality?

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:38

^{( 22 )} But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

^{( 22 )} We see a diversity both in one and the self same thing which has now one form and then another, and yet keeps its own type: as it is evident in a grain which is sown bare, but springs up far after another sort: and also in different types of one self same sort, as among beasts: and also among things of different sorts, as the heavenly bodies and the earthly bodies; which also differ very much one from another. Therefore there is no reason why we should reject either the resurrection of the bodies, or the changing of them into a better state, as a thing impossible, or strange.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:42

^{( 23 )} So also [is] the resurrection of the dead. It is ^{( s )} sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

^{( 23 )} He makes three manner of qualities of the bodies being raised: first, incorruption, that is, because they will be sound and altogether of a nature that can not be corrupt. Second, glory, because they will be adorned with beauty and honour. Third, power, because they will continue everlasting, without food, drink, and all other helps, without which this frail life cannot keep itself from corruption.

^{( s )} Is buried, and man is hid as seed in the ground.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:43

It is sown in ^{( t )} dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in ^{( u )} power:

^{( t )} Void of honour, void of glory and beauty.

^{( u )} Freed from the former weakness, in which it is subject to such alteration and change, that it cannot maintain itself without food and drink and such other like helps.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:44

^{( 24 )} It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

^{( 24 )} He shows perfectly in one word this change of the quality of the body by the resurrection, when he says that a natural body will become a spiritual body: which two qualities being completely different the one from the other he straightway expounds, and sets forth diligently.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:45

^{( 25 )} And so it is written, The ^{( x )} first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a ^{( y )} quickening spirit.

^{( 25 )} That is called a natural body which is made alive and maintained by a living soul only in the manner that Adam was, of whom we are all born naturally. And that is said to be a spiritual body, which together with the soul is made alive with a far more excellent power, that is, with the Spirit of God, who descends from Christ the second Adam to us.

^{( x )} Adam is called the first man, because he is the root as it were from which we spring. And Christ is the latter man, because he is the beginning of all those that are spiritual, and in him we are all included.

^{( y )} Christ is called a Spirit, by reason of that most excellent nature, that is to say, God who dwells in him bodily, as Adam is called a living soul, by reason of the soul which is the best part in him.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:46

^{( 26 )} Howbeit that [was] not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

^{( 26 )} Secondly, he wills the order of this twofold state or quality to be observed, that the natural was first, Adam being created of the clay of the earth. And the spiritual follows and came upon it, that is, when the Lord being sent from heaven, endued our flesh, which was prepared and made fit for him, with the fulness of the Godhead.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:47

The first man [is] of the earth, ^{( z )} earthy: the second man [is] the Lord from ^{( a )} heaven.

^{( z )} Wallowing in dirt, and wholly given to an earthly nature.

^{( a )} As Adam was the first man, Christ is the second man; and these two are spoken of, as if they were the only two men in the world; because as the former was the head and representative of all his natural posterity, so the latter is the head and representative of all the spiritual offspring: and that he is "the Lord from heaven"; in distinction from the first man. (Ed.)

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:48

^{( 27 )} As [is] the earthy, such [are] they also that are earthy: and as [is] the heavenly, such [are] they also that are heavenly.

^{( 27 )} He applies both the earthly naturalness of Adam (if I may so say) to our bodies, so long as they are naturally conversant upon earth, that is, in this life, and in the grave. And also the spirituality of Christ to our same bodies, after they are risen again: and he says that the former goes before, and that this latter will follow.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:49

And as we have borne the ^{( b )} image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

^{( b )} Not a vain and false image, but such a one as indeed had the truth with it.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:50

^{( 28 )} Now this I say, brethren, that ^{( c )} flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

^{( 28 )} The conclusion: we cannot be partakers of the glory of God unless we put off all that gross and filthy nature of our bodies subject to corruption, that the same body may be adorned with incorruptible glory.

^{( c )} Flesh and blood are taken here for a living body, which cannot attain to incorruption, unless it puts off corruption.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:51

^{( 29 )} Behold, I shew you a ^{( d )} mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

^{( 29 )} He goes further, declaring that it will come to pass that those who will be found alive in the latter day will not descend into that corruption of the grave, but will be renewed with a sudden change, which change is very necessary. And he further states that the certain enjoying of the benefit and victory of Christ, is deferred to that latter time.

^{( d )} A thing that has been hid, and never known before now, and therefore worthy that you give good care to it.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:52

In ^{( e )} a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

^{( e )} He shows that the time will be very short.

Geneva Bible: 1Co 15:58

^{( 30 )} Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the ^{( f )} Lord.

^{( 30 )} An exhortation taken from the profit that ensues, that seeing they understand that the glory of the other life is laid up for faithful workmen, they continue and stand fast in the truth of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

^{( f )} Through the Lord's help and goodness working in us.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: 1Co 15:1-58

1 By Christ's resurrection,

12 he proves the necessity of our resurrection, against all such as deny the resurrection of the body.

21 The fruit,

35 and the manner thereof;

51 and of the changing of them that shall be found alive at the last day.

MHCC: 1Co 15:20-34

All that are by faith united to Christ, are by his resurrection assured of their own. As through the sin of the first Adam, all men became mortal, because all had from him the same sinful nature, so, through the resurrection of Christ, shall all who are made to partake of the Spirit, and the spiritual nature, revive, and live for ever. There will be an order in the resurrection. Christ himself has been the first-fruits; at his coming, his redeemed people will be raised before others; at the last the wicked will rise also. Then will be the end of this present state of things. Would we triumph in that solemn and important season, we must now submit to his rule, accept his salvation, and live to his glory. Then shall we rejoice in the completion of his undertaking, that God may receive the whole glory of our salvation, that we may for ever serve him, and enjoy his favour. What shall those do, who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Perhaps baptism is used here in a figure, for afflictions, sufferings, and martyrdom, as Mat 20:22, Mat 20:23. What is, or will become of those who have suffered many and great injuries, and have even lost their lives, for this doctrine of the resurrection, if the dead rise not at all? Whatever the meaning may be, doubtless the apostle's argument was understood by the Corinthians. And it is as plain to us that Christianity would be a foolish profession, if it proposed advantage to themselves by their faithfulness to God; and to have our fruit to holiness, that our end may be everlasting life. But we must not live like beasts, as we do not die like them. It must be ignorance of God that leads any to disbelieve the resurrection and future life. Those who own a God and a providence, and observe how unequal things are in the present life, how frequently the best men fare worst, cannot doubt as to an after-state, where every thing will be set to rights. Let us not be joined with ungodly men; but warn all around us, especially children and young persons, to shun them as a pestilence. Let us awake to righteousness, and not sin.

MHCC: 1Co 15:35-50

1. How are the dead raised up? that is, by what means? How can they be raised? 2. As to the bodies which shall rise. Will it be with the like shape, and form, and stature, and members, and qualities? The former objection is that of those who opposed the doctrine, the latter of curious doubters. To the first the answer is, This was to be brought about by Divine power; that power which all may see does somewhat like it, year after year, in the death and revival of the corn. It is foolish to question the Almighty power of God to raise the dead, when we see it every day quickening and reviving things that are dead. To the second inquiry; The grain undergoes a great change; and so will the dead, when they rise and live again. The seed dies, though a part of it springs into new life, though how it is we cannot fully understand. The works of creation and providence daily teach us to be humble, as well as to admire the Creator's wisdom and goodness. There is a great variety among other bodies, as there is among plants. There is a variety of glory among heavenly bodies. The bodies of the dead, when they rise, will be fitted for the heavenly bodies. The bodies of the dead, when they rise, will be fitted for the heavenly state; and there will be a variety of glories among them. Burying the dead, is like committing seed to the earth, that it may spring out of it again. Nothing is more loathsome than a dead body. But believers shall at the resurrection have bodies, made fit to be for ever united with spirits made perfect. To God all things are possible. He is the Author and Source of spiritual life and holiness, unto all his people, by the supply of his Holy Spirit to the soul; and he will also quicken and change the body by his Spirit. The dead in Christ shall not only rise, but shall rise thus gloriously changed. The bodies of the saints, when they rise again, will be changed. They will be then glorious and spiritual bodies, fitted to the heavenly world and state, where they are ever afterwards to dwell. The human body in its present form, and with its wants and weaknesses, cannot enter or enjoy the kingdom of God. Then let us not sow to the flesh, of which we can only reap corruption. And the body follows the state of the soul. He, therefore, who neglects the life of the soul, casts away his present good; he who refuses to live to God, squanders all he has.

MHCC: 1Co 15:51-58

All the saints should not die, but all would be changed. In the gospel, many truths, before hidden in mystery, are made known. Death never shall appear in the regions to which our Lord will bear his risen saints. Therefore let us seek the full assurance of faith and hope, that in the midst of pain, and in the prospect of death, we may think calmly on the horrors of the tomb; assured that our bodies will there sleep, and in the mean time our souls will be present with the Redeemer. Sin gives death all its hurtful power. The sting of death is sin; but Christ, by dying, has taken out this sting; he has made atonement for sin, he has obtained remission of it. The strength of sin is the law. None can answer its demands, endure its curse, or do away his own transgressions. Hence terror and anguish. And hence death is terrible to the unbelieving and the impenitent. Death may seize a believer, but it cannot hold him in its power. How many springs of joy to the saints, and of thanksgiving to God, are opened by the death and resurrection, the sufferings and conquests of the Redeemer! In 1Co 15:58, we have an exhortation, that believers should be stedfast, firm in the faith of that gospel which the apostle preached, and they received. Also, to be unmovable in their hope and expectation of this great privilege, of being raised incorruptible and immortal. And to abound in the work of the Lord, always doing the Lord's service, and obeying the Lord's commands. May Christ give us faith, and increase our faith, that we may not only be safe, but joyful and triumphant.

Matthew Henry: 1Co 15:20-34

In this passage the apostle establishes the truth of the resurrection of the dead, the holy dead, the dead in Christ,

I. On the resurrection of Christ. 1. Because he is indeed the first-fruits of those that slept, 1Co 15:20. He has truly risen himself, and he has risen in this very quality and character, as the first-fruits of those who sleep in him. As he has assuredly risen, so in his resurrection there is as much an earnest given that the dead in him shall rise as there was that the Jewish harvest in general should be accepted and blessed by the offering and acceptance of the first-fruits. The whole lump was made holy by the consecration of the first-fruits (Rom 11:16), and the whole body of Christ, all that are by faith united to him, are by his resurrection assured of their own. As he has risen, they shall rise; just as the lump is holy because the first fruits are so. He has not risen merely for himself, but as head of the body, the church; and those that sleep in him God will bring with him, 1Th 4:14. Note, Christ's resurrection is a pledge and earnest of ours, if we are true believers in him; because he has risen, we shall rise. We are a part of the consecrated lump, and shall partake of the acceptance and favour vouchsafed the first-fruits. This is the first argument used by the apostle in confirmation of the truth; and it is, 2. Illustrated by a parallel between the first and second Adam. For, since by man came death, it was every way proper that by man should come deliverance from it, or, which is all one, a resurrection, 1Co 15:21. And so, as in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive; as through the sin of the first Adam all men became mortal, because all derived from him the same sinful nature, so through the merit and resurrection of Christ shall all who are made to partake of the Spirit, and the spiritual nature, revive, and become immortal. All who die die through the sin of Adam; all who are raised, in the sense of the apostle, rise through the merit and power of Christ. But the meaning is not that, as all men died in Adam, so all men, without exception, shall be made alive in Christ; for the scope of the apostle's argument restrains the general meaning. Christ rose as the first-fruits; therefore those that are Christ's (1Co 15:23) shall rise too. Hence it will not follow that all men without exception shall rise too; but it will fitly follow that all who thus rise, rise in virtue of Christ's resurrection, and so that their revival is owing to the man Christ Jesus, as the mortality of all mankind was owing to the first man; and so, as by man came death, by man came deliverance. Thus it seemed fit to the divine wisdom that, as the first Adam ruined his posterity by sin, the second Adam should raise his seed to a glorious immortality. 3. Before he leaves the argument he states that there will be an order observed in their resurrection. What that precisely will be we are nowhere told, but in the general only here that there will be order observed. Possibly those may rise first who have held the highest rank, and done the most eminent service, or suffered the most grievous evils, or cruel deaths, for Christ's sake. It is only here said that the first-fruits are supposed to rise first, and afterwards all who are Christ's, when he shall come again. Not that Christ's resurrection must in fact go before the resurrection of any of his, but it must be laid as the foundation: as it was not necessary that those who lived remote from Jerusalem must go thither and offer the first-fruits before they could account the lump holy, yet they must be set apart for this purpose, till they could be offered, which might be done at any time from pentecost till the feast of dedication. See Bishop Patrick on Num 24:2. The offering of the first-fruits was what made the lump holy; and the lump was made holy by this offering, though it was not made before the harvest was gathered in, so it were set apart for that end, and duly offered afterwards. So Christ's resurrection must, in order of nature, precede that of his saints, though some of these might rise in order of time before him. It is because he has risen that they rise. Note, Those that are Christ's must rise, because of their relation to him.

II. He argues from the continuance of the mediatorial kingdom till all Christ's enemies are destroyed, the last of which is death, 1Co 15:24-26. He has risen, and, upon his resurrection, was invested with sovereign empire, had all power in heaven and earth put into his hands (Mat 28:18), had a name given him above every name, that every knee might bow to him, and every tongue confess him Lord. Phi 2:9-11. And the administration of this kingdom must continue in his hands till all opposing power, and rule, and authority, be put down (1Co 15:24), till all enemies are put under his feet (1Co 15:25), and till the last enemy is destroyed, which is death, 1Co 15:26.

1. This argument implies in it all these particulars: - (1.) That our Saviour rose from the dead to have all power put into his hands, and have and administer a kingdom, as Mediator: For this end he died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living, Rom 14:9. (2.) That this mediatorial kingdom is to have an end, at least as far as it is concerned in bringing his people safely to glory, and subduing all his and their enemies: Then cometh the end, 1Co 15:24. (3.) That it is not to have an end till all opposing power be put down, and all enemies brought to his feet, 1Co 15:24, 1Co 15:25. (4.) That, among other enemies, death must be destroyed (1Co 15:26) or abolished; its powers over its members must be disannulled. Thus far the apostle is express; but he leaves us to make the inference that therefore the saints must rise, else death and the grave would have power over them, nor would our Saviour's kingly power prevail against the last enemy of his people and annul its power. When saints shall live again, and die no more, then, and not till then, will death be abolished, which must be brought about before our Saviour's mediatorial kingdom is delivered up, which yet must be in due time. The saints therefore shall live again and die no more. This is the scope of the argument; but,

2. The apostle drops several hints in the course of it which it will be proper to notice: as, (1.) That our Saviour, as man and mediator between God and man, has a delegated royalty, a kingdom given: All things are put under him, he excepted that did put all things under him, 1Co 15:27. As man, all his authority must be delegated. And, though his mediation supposes his divine nature, yet as Mediator he does not so explicitly sustain the character of God, but a middle person between God and man, partaking of both natures, human and divine, as he was to reconcile both parties, God and man, and receiving commission and authority from God the Father to act in this office. The Father appears, in this whole dispensation, in the majesty and with the authority of God: the Son, made man, appears as the minister of the Father, though he is God as well as the Father. Nor is this passage to be understood of the eternal dominion over all his creatures which belongs to him as God, but of a kingdom committed to him as Mediator and God-man, and that chiefly after his resurrection, when, having overcome, he sat down with his Father on his throne, Rev 3:21. Then was the prediction verified, I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion (Psa 2:6), placed him on his throne. This is meant by the phrase so frequent in the writings of the New Testament, of sitting at the right hand of God (Mar 16:19; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1 etc.), on the right hand of power (Mar 14:62; Luk 22:69), on the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:2), on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, Heb 8:1. Sitting down in this seat is taking upon him the exercise of his mediatorial power and royalty, which was done upon his ascension into heaven, Mar 16:19. And it is spoken of in scripture as a recompence made him for his deep humiliation and self-abasement, in becoming man, and dying for man the accursed death of the cross, Phi 2:6-12. Upon his ascension, he was made head over all things to the church, had power given him to govern and protect it against all its enemies, and in the end destroy them and complete the salvation of all that believe in him. This is not a power appertaining to Godhead as such; it is not original and unlimited power, but power given and limited to special purposes. And though he who has it is God, yet, inasmuch as he is somewhat else besides God, and in this whole dispensation acts not as God, but as Mediator, not as the offended Majesty, but as one interposing in favour of his offending creatures, and this by virtue of his consent and commission who acts and appears always in that character, he may properly be said to have this power given him; he may reign as God, with power unlimited, and yet may reign as Mediator, with a power delegated, and limited to these particular purposes. (2.) That this delegated royalty must at length be delivered up to the Father, from whom it was received (1Co 15:24); for it is a power received for particular ends and purposes, a power to govern and protect his church till all the members of it be gathered in, and the enemies of it for ever subdued and destroyed (1Co 15:25, 1Co 15:26), and when these ends shall be obtained the power and authority will not need to be continued. The Redeemer must reign till his enemies be destroyed, and the salvation of his church and people accomplished; and, when this end is attained, then will he deliver up the power which he had only for this purpose, though he may continue to reign over his glorified church and body in heaven; and in this sense it may notwithstanding be said that he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev 11:15), that he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luk 1:33), that his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, Dan 7:14. See also Mic 4:7. (3.) The Redeemer shall certainly reign till the last enemy of his people be destroyed, till death itself be abolished, till his saints revive and recover perfect life, never to be in fear and danger of dying any more. He shall have all power in heaven and earth till then - he who loved us, and gave himself for us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood - he who is so nearly related to us, and so much concerned for us. What support should this be to his saints in every hour of distress and temptation! He is alive who was dead, and liveth for ever, and doth reign, and will continue to reign, till the redemption of his people be completed, and the utter ruin of their enemies effected. (4.) When this is done, and all things are put under his feet, then shall the Son become subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all, 1Co 15:28. The meaning of this I take to be that then the man Christ Jesus, who hath appeared in so much majesty during the whole administration of his kingdom, shall appear upon giving it up to be a subject of the Father. Things are in scripture many times said to be when they are manifested and made to appear; and this delivering up of the kingdom will make it manifest that he who appeared in the majesty of the sovereign king was, during this administration, a subject of God. The glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the dignity and power conferred on it, was no more than a glorious creature. This will appear when the kingdom shall be delivered up; and it will appear to the divine glory, that God may be all in all, that the accomplishment of our salvation may appear altogether divine, and God alone may have the honour of it. Note, Though the human nature must be employed in the work of our redemption, yet God was all in all in it. It was the Lord's doing and should be marvellous in our eyes.

III. He argues for the resurrection, from the case of those who were baptized for the dead (1Co 15:29): What shall those do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they baptized for the dead? What shall they do if the dead rise not? What have they done? How vain a thing hath their baptism been! Must they stand by it, or renounce it? why are they baptized for huper the dead, if the dead rise not? tō nekrōn . But what is this baptism for the dead? It is necessary to be known, that the apostle's argument may be understood; whether it be only argumentum ad hominem , or ad rem ; that is, whether it conclude for the thing in dispute universally, or only against the particular persons who were baptized for the dead. But who shall interpret this very obscure passage, which, though it consists of no more than three words, besides the articles, has had more than three times three senses put on it by interpreters? It is not agreed what is meant by baptism, whether it is to be taken in a proper or figurative sense, and, if in a proper sense, whether it is to be understood or Christian baptism properly so called, or some other ablution. And as little is it agreed who are the dead, or in what sense the preposition huper is to be taken. Some understand the dead of our Saviour himself; vide Whitby in loc. Why are persons baptized in the name of a dead Saviour, a Saviour who remains among the dead, if the dead rise not? But it is, I believe, and instance perfectly singular for hoi nekroi to mean no more than one dead person; it is a signification which the words have nowhere else. And the hoi baptizomenoi ( the baptized ) seem plainly to mean some particular persons, not Christians in general, which yet must be the signification if the hoi nekroi ( the dead ) be understood of our Saviour. Some understand the passage of the martyrs: Why do they suffer martyrdom for their religion? This is sometimes called the baptism of blood by ancients, and, by our Saviour himself, baptism indefinitely, Mat 20:22; Luk 12:50. But in what sense can those who die martyrs for their religion be said to be baptized (that is, die martyrs) for the dead? Some understand it of a custom that was observed, as some of the ancients tell us, among many who professed the Christian name in the first ages, of baptizing some in the name and stead of catechumens dying without baptism. But this savoured of such superstition that, if the custom had prevailed in the church so soon, the apostle would hardly have mentioned it without signifying a dislike of it. Some understand it of baptizing over the dead, which was a custom, they tell us, that early obtained; and this to testify their hope of the resurrection. This sense is pertinent to the apostle's argument, but it appears not that any such practice was in use in the apostle's time. Others understand it of those who have been baptized for the sake, or on occasion, of the martyrs, that is, the constancy with which they died for their religion. Some were doubtless converted to Christianity by observing this: and it would have been a vain thing for persons to have become Christians upon this motive, if the martyrs, by losing their lives for religion, became utterly extinct, and were to live no more. But the church at Corinth had not, in all probability, suffered much persecution at this time, or seem many instances of martyrdom among them, nor had many converts been made by the constancy and firmness which the martyrs discovered. Not to observe that hoi nekroi seems to be too general an expression to mean only the martyred dead. It is as easy an explication of the phrase as any I have met with, and as pertinent to the argument, to suppose the hoi nekroi to mean some among the Corinthians, who had been taken off by the hand of God. We read that many were sickly among them, and many slept (1Co 11:30), because of their disorderly behaviour at the Lord's table. These executions might terrify some into Christianity; as the miraculous earthquake did the jailer, Act 16:29, Act 16:30, etc. Persons baptized on such an occasion might be properly said to be baptized for the dead, that is, on their account. And the hoi baptizomenoi ( the baptized ) and the hoi nekroi ( the dead ) answer to one another; and upon this supposition the Corinthians could not mistake the apostle's meaning. "Now,"says he, "what shall they do, and why were they baptized, if the dead rise not? You have a general persuasion that these men have done right, and acted wisely, and as they ought, on this occasion; but why, if the dead rise not, seeing they may perhaps hasten their death, by provoking a jealous God, and have no hopes beyond it?"But whether this be the meaning, or whatever else be, doubtless the apostle's argument was good and intelligible to the Corinthians. And his next is as plain to us.

IV. He argues from the absurdity of his own conduct and that of other Christians upon this supposition,

1. It would be a foolish thing for them to run so many hazards (1Co 15:30): " Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Why do we expose ourselves to continual peril - we Christians, especially we apostles?"Every one knows that it was dangerous being a Christian, and much more a preacher and an apostle, at that time. "Now,"says the apostle, "what fools are we to run these hazards, if we have no better hopes beyond death, if when we die we die wholly, and revive no more!"Note, Christianity were a foolish profession if it proposed no hopes beyond this life, at least in such hazardous times as attended the first profession of it; it required men to risk all the blessings and comforts of this life, and to face and endure all the evils of it, without any future prospects. And is this a character of his religion fit for a Christian to endure? And must he not fix this character on it if he give up his future hopes, and deny the resurrection of the dead? This argument the apostle brings home to himself: " I protest, "says he, " by your rejoicing in Jesus Christ, by all the comforts of Christianity, and all the peculiar succours and supports of our holy faith, that I die daily, "1Co 15:31. He was in continual danger of death, and carried his life, as we say, in his hand. And why should he thus expose himself, if he had no hopes after life? To live in daily view and expectation of death, and yet have no prospect beyond it, must be very heartless and uncomfortable, and his case, upon this account, a very melancholy one. He had need be very well assured of the resurrection of the dead, or he was guilty of extreme weakness, in hazarding all that was dear to him in this world, and his life into the bargain. He had encountered very great difficulties and fierce enemies; he had fought with beasts at Ephesus (1Co 15:32), and was in danger of being pulled to pieces by an enraged multitude, stirred up by Demetrius and the other craftsmen (Act 19:24, etc.), though some understand this literally of Paul's being exposed to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, at a Roman show in that city. And Nicephorus tells a formal story to this purport, and of the miraculous complaisance of the lions to him when they came near him. But so remarkable a trial and circumstance of his life, methinks, would not have been passed over by Luke, and much less by himself, when he gives us so large and particular a detail of his sufferings, 2Co 11:24, ad fin. When he mentioned that he was five times scourged of the Jews, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice shipwrecked, it is strange that he should not have said that he was once exposed to fight with the beasts. I take it, therefore, that this fighting with beasts is a figurative expression, that the beasts intended were men of a fierce and ferine disposition, and that this refers to the passage above cited. "Now,"says he, "what advantage have I from such contests, if the dead rise not? Why should I die daily, expose myself daily to the danger of dying by violent hands, if the dead rise not? And if post mortem nihil - if I am to perish by death, and expect nothing after it, could any thing be more weak?"Was Paul so senseless? Had he given the Corinthians any ground to entertain such a thought of him? If he had not been well assured that death would have been to his advantage, would he, in this stupid manner, have thrown away his life? Could any thing but the sure hopes of a better life after death have extinguished the love of life in him to this degree? " What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? What can I propose to myself?"Note, It is very lawful and fit for a Christian to propose advantage to himself by his fidelity to God. Thus did Paul. Thus did our blessed Lord himself, Heb 12:2. And thus we are bidden to do after his example, and have our fruit to holiness, that our end may be everlasting life. This is the very end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls (1Pe 1:9), not only what it will issue in, but what we should aim at.

2. It would be a much wiser thing to take the comforts of this life: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1Co 15:32); let us turn epicures. Thus this sentence means in the prophet, Isa 22:13. Let us even live like beasts, if we must die like them. This would be a wiser course, if there were no resurrection, no after-life or state, than to abandon all the pleasures of life, and offer and expose ourselves to all the miseries of life, and live in continual peril of perishing by savage rage and cruelty. This passage also plainly implies, as I have hinted above, that those who denied the resurrection among the Corinthians were perfect Sadducees, of whose principles we have this account in the holy writings, that they say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit (Act 23:8), that is, "Man is all body, there is nothing in him to survive the body, nor will that, when once he is dead, ever revive again."Such Sadducees were the men against whom the apostle argued; otherwise his arguments had no force in them; for, though the body should never revive, yet, as long as the mind survived it, he might have much advantage from all the hazards he ran for Christ's sake. Nay, it is certain that the mind is to be the principal seat and subject of the heavenly glory and happiness. But, if there were no hopes after death, would not every wise man prefer an easy comfortable life before such a wretched one as the apostle led; nay, and endeavour to enjoy the comforts of life as fast as possible, because the continuance of it is short? Note, Nothing but the hopes of better things hereafter can enable a man to forego all the comforts and pleasures here, and embrace poverty, contempt, misery, and death. Thus did the apostles and primitive Christians; but how wretched was their case, and how foolish their conduct, if they deceived themselves, and abused the world with vain and false hopes!

V. The apostle closes his argument with a caution, exhortation, and reproof. 1. A caution against the dangerous conversation of bad men, men of loose lives and principles: Be not deceived, says he; evil communications corrupt good manners, 1Co 15:33. Possibly, some of those who said that there was no resurrection of the dead were men of loose lives, and endeavoured to countenance their vicious practices by so corrupt a principle; and had that speech often in their mouths Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Now, the apostle grants that their talk was to the purpose if there was no future state. But, having confuted their principle, he now warns the Corinthians how dangerous such men's conversation must prove. He tells them that they would probably be corrupted by them, and fall in with their course of life, if they gave into their evil principles. Note, Bad company and conversation are likely to make bad men. Those who would keep their innocence must keep good company. Error and vice are infectious: and, if we would avoid the contagion, we must keep clear of those who have taken it. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed, Pro 13:20. 2. Here is an exhortation to break off their sins, and rouse themselves, and lead a more holy and righteous life (1Co 15:34): Awake to righteousness, or awake righteously, eknēpsate dikaiōs , and sin not, or sin no more. "Rouse yourselves, break off your sins by repentance: renounce and forsake every evil way, correct whatever is amiss, and do not, by sloth and stupidity, be led away into such conversation and principles as will sap your Christian hopes, and corrupt your practice."The disbelief of a future state destroys all virtue and piety. But the best improvement to be made of the truth is to cease from sin, and set ourselves to the business of religion, and that in good earnest. If there will be a resurrection and a future life, we should live and act as those who believe it, and should not give into such senseless and sottish notions as will debauch our morals, and render us loose and sensual in our lives. 3. Here is a reproof, and a sharp one, to some at least among them: Some of you have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame. Note, It is a shame in Christians not to have the knowledge of God. The Christian religion gives the best information that can be had about God, his nature, and grace, and government. Those who profess this religion reproach themselves, by remaining without the knowledge of God; for it must be owing to their own sloth, and slight of God, that they are ignorant of him. And is it not a horrid shame for a Christian to slight God, and be so wretchedly ignorant in matters that so nearly and highly concern him? Note, also, It must be ignorance of God that leads men into the disbelief of a resurrection and future life. Those who know God know that he will not abandon his faithful servants, nor leave them exposed to such hardships and sufferings without any recompence or reward. They know he is not unfaithful nor unkind, to forget their labour and patience, their faithful services and cheerful sufferings, or let their labour be in vain. But I am apt to think that the expression has a much stronger meaning; that there were atheistical people among them who hardly owned a God, or one who had any concern with or took cognizance of human affairs. These were indeed a scandal and shame to any Christian church. Note, Real atheism lies at the bottom of men's disbelief of a future state. Those who own a God and a providence, and observe how unequal the distributions of the present life are, and how frequently the best men fare worst, can hardly doubt an after state, where every thing will be set to rights.

Matthew Henry: 1Co 15:35-50

The apostle comes now to answer a plausible and principal objection against the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, concerning which observe the proposal of the objection: Some man will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? 1Co 15:35. The objection is plainly two-fold. How are they raised up? that is, "By what means? How can they be raised? What power is equal to this effect?"It was an opinion that prevailed much among the heathens, and the Sadducees seem to have been in the same sentiment, that it was not within the compass of divine power, mortales aeternitate donare, aut revocare defunctos - to make mortal men immortal, or revive and restore the dead. Such sort of men those seem to have been who among the Corinthians denied the resurrection of the dead, and object here, "How are they raised? How should they be raised? Is it not utterly impossible?"The other part of the objection is about the quality of their bodies, who shall rise: " With what body will they come? Will it be with the same body, with like shape, and form, and stature, and members, and qualities, or various?"The former objection is that of those who opposed the doctrine, the latter the enquiry of curious doubters.

I. To the former the apostle replies by telling them this was to be brought about by divine power, that very power which they had all observed to do something very like it, year after year, in the death and revival of the corn; and therefore it was an argument of great weakness and stupidity to doubt whether the resurrection of the dead might not be effected by the same power: Thou fool! that which thou sowest is not quickened unless it die, 1Co 15:36. It must first corrupt, before it will quicken and spring up. It not only sprouts after it is dead, but it must die that it may live. And why should any be so foolish as to imagine that the man once dead cannot be made to live again, by the same power which every year brings the dead grain to life? This is the substance of the apostle's answer to the first question. Note, It is a foolish thing to question the divine power to raise the dead, when we see it every day quickening and reviving things that are dead.

II. But he is longer in replying to the second enquiry.

1. He begins by observing that there is a change made in the grain that is sown: It is not that body which shall be that is sown, but bare grain, of wheat or barley, etc.; but God gives it such a body as he will, and in such way as he will, only so as to distinguish the kinds from each other. Every seed sown has its proper body, is constituted of such materials, and figured in such a manner, as are proper to it, proper to that kind. This is plainly in the divine power, though we no more know how it is done than we know how a dead man is raised to life again. It is certain the grain undergoes a great change, and it is intimated in this passage that so will the dead, when they rise again, and live again, in their bodies, after death.

2. He proceeds hence to observe that there is a great deal of variety among others bodies, as there is among plants: as, (1.) In bodies of flesh: All flesh is not the same; that of men is of one kind, that of beasts another, another that of fishes, and that of birds another, 1Co 15:39. There is a variety in all the kinds, and somewhat peculiar in every kind, to distinguish it from the other. (2.) In bodies celestial and terrestrial there is also a difference; and what is for the glory of one is not for the other; for the true glory of every being consists in its fitness for its rank and state. Earthly bodies are not adapted to the heavenly regions, nor heavenly bodies fitted to the condition of earthly beings. Nay, (3.) There is a variety of glory among heavenly bodies themselves: There is one glory of the sun, and another of the moon, and another of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory, 1Co 15:41. All this is to intimate to us that the bodies of the dead, when they rise, will be so far changed, that they will be fitted for the heavenly regions, and that there will be a variety of glories among the bodies of the dead, when they shall be raised, as there is among the sun, and moon, and stars, nay among the stars themselves. All this carries an intimation along with it that it must be as easy to divine power to raise the dead, and recover their mouldered bodies, as out of the same materials to form so many different kinds of flesh and plants, and, for aught we know, celestial bodies as well as terrestrial ones. The sun and stars may, for aught we know, be composed of the same materials as the earth we tread on, though as much refined and changed by the divine skill and power. And can he, out of the same materials, form such various beings, and yet not be able to raise the dead? Having thus prepared the way, he comes,

3. To speak directly to the point: So also, says he, is the resurrection of the dead; so (as the plant growing out of the putrefied grain), so as no longer to be a terrestrial but a celestial body, and varying in glory from the other dead, who are raised, as one star does from another. But he specifies some particulars: as, (1.) It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown. Burying the dead is like sowing them; it is like committing the seed to the earth, that it may spring out of it again. And our bodies, which are sown, are corruptible, liable to putrefy and moulder, and crumble to dust; but, when we rise, they will be out of the power of the grave, and never more be liable to corruption. (2.) It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. Ours is at present a vile body, Phi 3:21. Nothing is more loathsome than a dead body; it is thrown into the grave as a despised and broken vessel, in which there is no pleasure. But at the resurrection a glory will be put upon it; it will be made like the glorious body of our Saviour; it will be purged from all the dregs of earth, and refined into an ethereal substance, and shine out with a splendour resembling his. (3.) It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is laid in the earth, a poor helpless thing, wholly in the power of death, deprived of all vital capacities and powers, of life and strength: it is utterly unable to move or stir. But when we arise our bodies will have heavenly life and vigour infused into them; they will be hale, and firm, and durable, and lively, and liable no more to any infirmity, weakness, or decay. (4.) It is sown a natural, or animal body, sōma psuchikon , a body fitted to the low condition and sensitive pleasures and enjoyments of this life, which are all gross in comparison of the heavenly state and enjoyments. But when we rise it will be quire otherwise; our body will rise spiritual. Not that body would be changed into spirit: this would be a contradiction in our common conceptions; it would be as much as to say, Body changed into what is not body, matter made immaterial. The expression is to be understood comparatively. We shall at the resurrection have bodies purified and refined to the last degree, made light and agile; and, though they are not changed into spirit, yet made fit to be perpetual associates of spirits made perfect. And why should it not be as much in the power of God to raise incorruptible, glorious, lively, spiritual bodies, out of the ruins of those vile, corruptible, lifeless, and animal ones, as first to make matter out of nothing, and then, out of the same mass of matter, produce such variety of beings, both in earth and heaven? To God all things are possible; and this cannot be impossible.

4. He illustrates this by a comparison of the first and second Adam: There is an animal body, says he, and there is a spiritual body; and then goes into the comparison in several instances. (1.) As we have our natural body, the animal body we have in this world, from the first Adam, we expect our spiritual body from the second. This is implied in the whole comparison. (2.) This is but consonant to the different characters these two persons bear: The first Adam was made a living soul, such a being as ourselves, and with a power of propagating such beings as himself, and conveying to them a nature and animal body like his own, but none other, nor better. The second Adam is a quickening Spirit; he is the resurrection and the life, Joh 11:25. He hath life in himself, and quickeneth whom he will, Joh 5:20, Joh 5:21. The first man was of the earth, made out of the earth, and was earthy; his body was fitted to the region of his abode: but the second Adam is the Lord from heaven; he who came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world (Joh 6:33); he who came down from heaven and was in heaven at the same time (Joh 3:13); the Lord of heaven and earth. If the first Adam could communicate to us natural and animal bodies, cannot the second Adam make our bodies spiritual ones? If the deputed lord of this lower creation could do the one, cannot the Lord from heaven, the Lord of heaven and earth, do the other? (3.) We must first have natural bodies from the first Adam before we can have spiritual bodies from the second (1Co 15:49); we must bear the image of the earthy before we can bear the image of the heavenly. Such is the established order of Providence. We must have weak, frail, mortal bodies by descent from the first Adam, before we can have lively, spiritual, and immortal ones by the quickening power of the second. We must die before we can live to die no more. (4.) Yet if we are Christ's, true believers in him (for this whole discourse relates to the resurrection of the saints), it is as certain that we shall have spiritual bodies as it is now that we have natural or animal ones. By these we are as the first Adam, earthy, we bear his image; by those we shall be as the second Adam, have bodies like his own, heavenly, and so bear him image. And we are as certainly intended to bear the one as we have borne the other. As surely therefore as we have had natural bodies, we shall have spiritual ones. The dead in Christ shall not only rise, but shall rise thus gloriously changed.

5. He sums up this argument by assigning the reason of this change (1Co 15:50): Now this I say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor doth corruption inherit incorruption. The natural body is flesh and blood, consisting of bones, muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, and their several fluids; and, as such, it is of a corruptible frame and form, liable to dissolution, to rot and moulder. But no such thing shall inherit the heavenly regions; for this were for corruption to inherit incorruption, which is little better than a contradiction in terms. The heavenly inheritance is incorruptible, and never fadeth away, 1Pe 1:4. How can this be possessed by flesh and blood, which is corruptible and will fade away? It must be changed into ever-during substance, before it can be capable of possessing the heavenly inheritance. The sum is that the bodies of the saints, when they shall rise again, will be greatly changed from what they are now, and much for the better. They are now corruptible, flesh and blood; they will be then incorruptible, glorious, and spiritual bodies, fitted to the celestial world and state, where they are ever afterwards to dwell, and have their eternal inheritance.

Matthew Henry: 1Co 15:51-57

To confirm what he had said of this change,

I. He here tells them what had been concealed from or unknown to them till then - that all the saints would not die, but all would be changed. Those that are alive at our Lord's coming will be caught up into the clouds, without dying, 1Th 4:11. But it is plain from this passage that it will not be without changing from corruption to incorruption. The frame of their living bodies shall be thus altered, as well as those that are dead; and this in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 1Co 15:52. What cannot almighty power effect? That power that calls the dead into life can surely thus soon and suddenly change the living; for changed they must be as well as the dead, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This is the mystery which the apostle shows the Corinthians: Behold, I show you a mystery; or bring into open light a truth dark and unknown before. Note, There are many mysteries shown to us in the gospel; many truths that before were utterly unknown are there made known; many truths that were but dark and obscure before are there brought into open day, and plainly revealed; and many things are in part revealed that will never be fully known, nor perhaps clearly understood. The apostle here makes known a truth unknown before, which is that the saints living at our Lord's second coming will not die, but be changed, that this change will be made in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and at the sound of the last trump; for, as he tells us elsewhere, the Lord himself shall descend with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God (1Th 4:16), so here, the trumpet must sound. It is the loud summons of all the living and all the dead, to come and appear at the tribunal of Christ. At this summons the graves shall open, the dead saints shall rise incorruptible, and the living saints be changed to the same incorruptible state, 1Co 15:52.

II. He assigns the reason of this change (1Co 15:53): For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. How otherwise could the man be a fit inhabitant of the incorruptible regions, or be fitted to possess the eternal inheritance? How can that which is corruptible and mortal enjoy what is incorruptible, permanent, and immortal? This corruptible body must be made incorruptible, this mortal body must be changed into immortal, that the man may be capable of enjoying the happiness designed for him. Note, It is this corruptible that must put on incorruption; the demolished fabric that must be reared again. What is sown must be quickened. Saints will come in their own bodies (1Co 15:38), not in other bodies.

III. He lets us know what will follow upon this change of the living and dead in Christ: Then shall be brought to pass that saying, Death is swallowed up in victory; or, He will swallow up death in victory. Isa 25:8. For mortality shall be then swallowed up of life (2Co 5:4), and death perfectly subdued and conquered, and saints for ever delivered from its power. Such a conquest shall be obtained over it that it shall for ever disappear in those regions to which our Lord will bear his risen saints. And therefore will the saints hereupon sing their epinikion , their song of triumph. Then, when this mortal shall have put on immortality, will death be swallowed up, for ever swallowed up, eis nikos . Christ hinders it from swallowing his saints when they die; but, when they rise again, death shall, as to them, be swallowed for ever. And upon this destruction of death will they break out into a song of triumph.

1. They will glory over death as a vanquished enemy, and insult this great and terrible destroyer: " O death! where is thy sting? Where is now thy sting, thy power to hurt? What mischief hast thou done us? We are dead; but behold we live again, and shall die no more. Thou art vanquished and disarmed, and we are out of the reach of thy deadly dart. Where now is thy fatal artillery? Where are thy stores of death? We fear no further mischiefs from thee, nor heed thy weapons, but defy thy power, and despise thy wrath. And, O grave! where is thy victory? Where now is thy victory? What has become of it? Where are the spoils and trophies of it? Once we were thy prisoners, but the prison-doors are burst open, the locks and bolts have been forced to give way, our shackles are knocked off, and we are for ever released. Captivity is taken captive. The imaginary victor is conquered, and forced to resign his conquest and release his captives. Thy triumphs, grave, are at an end. The bonds of death are loosed, and we are at liberty, and are never more to be hurt by death, nor imprisoned in the grave."In a moment, the power of death, and the conquests and spoils of the grave, are gone; and, as to the saints, the very signs of them will not remain. Where are they? Thus will they raise themselves, when they become immortal, to the honour of their Saviour and the praise of divine grace: they shall glory over vanquished death.

2. The foundation for this triumph is here intimated, (1.) In the account given whence death had its power to hurt: The sting of death is sin. This gives venom to his dart: this alone puts it into the power of death to hurt and kill. Sin unpardoned, and nothing else, can keep any under his power. And the strength of sin is the law; it is the divine threatening against the transgressors of the law, the curse there denounced, that gives power to sin. Note, Sin is the parent of death, and gives it all its hurtful power. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, Rom 5:12. It is its cursed progeny and offspring. (2.) In the account given of the victory saints obtain over it through Jesus Christ, 1Co 15:56. The sting of death is sin; but Christ, by dying, has taken out this sting. He has made atonement for sin; he has obtained remission of it. It may hiss therefore, but it cannot hurt. The strength of sin is the law; but the curse of the law is removed by our Redeemer's becoming a curse for us. So that sin is deprived of its strength and sting, through Christ, that is, by his incarnation, suffering, and death. Death may seize a believer, but cannot sting him, cannot hold him in his power. There is a day coming when the grave shall open, the bands of death be loosed, the dead saints revive, and become incorruptible and immortal, and put out of the reach of death for ever. And then will it plainly appear that, as to them, death will have lost its strength and sting; and all by the mediation of Christ, by his dying in their room. By dying, he conquered death, and spoiled the grave; and, through faith in him, believers become sharers in his conquests. They often rejoice beforehand, in the hope of this victory; and, when they arise glorious from the grave, they will boldly triumph over death. Note, It is altogether owing to the grace of God in Christ that sin is pardoned and death disarmed. The law puts arms into the hand of death, to destroy the sinner; but pardon of sin takes away this power from the law, and deprives death of its strength and sting. It is by the grace of God, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, that we are freely justified, Rom 3:24. It is no wonder, therefore, (3.) If this triumph of the saints over death should issue in thanksgiving to God: Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Christ Jesus, our Lord, 1Co 15:57. The way to sanctify all our joy is to make it tributary to the praise of God. Then only do we enjoy our blessings and honours in a holy manner when God has his revenue of glory out of it, and we are free to pay it to him. And this really improves and exalts our satisfaction. We are conscious at once of having done our duty and enjoyed our pleasure. And what can be more joyous in itself than the saints' triumph over death, when they shall rise again? And shall they not then rejoice in the Lord, and be glad in the God of their salvation? Shall not their souls magnify the Lord? When he shows such wonders to the dead, shall they not arise and praise him? Psa 88:10. Those who remain under the power of death can have no heart to praise; but such conquests and triumphs will certainly tune the tongues of the saints to thankfulness and praise - praise for the victory (it is great and glorious in itself), and for the means whereby it is obtained (it is given of God through Christ Jesus), a victory obtained not by our power, but the power of God; not given because we are worthy, but because Christ is so, and has by dying obtained this conquest for us. Must not this circumstance endear the victory to us, and heighten our praise to God? Note, How many springs of joy to the saints and thanksgiving to God are opened by the death and resurrection, the sufferings and conquests, of our Redeemer! With what acclamations will saints rising from the dead applaud him! How will the heaven of heavens resound his praises for ever! Thanks be to God will be the burden of their song; and angels will join the chorus, and declare their consent with a loud Amen, Hallelujah.

Matthew Henry: 1Co 15:58

In this verse we have the improvement of the whole argument, in an exhortation, enforced by a motive resulting plainly from it.

I. An exhortation, and this threefold: - 1. That they should be stedfast - hedraioi , firm, fixed in the faith of the gospel, that gospel which he had preached and they had received, namely, That Christ died for our sins, and arose again the third day, according to the scriptures (1Co 15:3, 1Co 15:4), and fixed in the faith of the glorious resurrection of the dead, which, as he had shown, had so near and necessary a connection with the former. "Do not let your belief of these truths be shaken or staggered. They are most certain, and of the last importance."Note, Christians should be stedfast believers of this great article of the resurrection of the dead. It is evidently founded on the death of Christ. Because he lives, his servants shall live also, Joh 14:19. And it is of the last importance; a disbelief of a future life will open a way to all manner of licentiousness, and corrupt men's morals to the last degree. It will be easy and natural to infer hence that we may live like beasts, and eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 2. He exhorts them to be immovable, namely, in their expectation of this great privilege of being raised incorruptible and immortal. Christians should not be moved away from this hope of this gospel (Col 1:23), this glorious and blessed hope; they should not renounce nor resign their comfortable expectations. They are not vain, but solid hopes, built upon sure foundations, the purchase and power of their risen Saviour, and the promise of God, to whom it is impossible to lie - hopes that shall be their most powerful supports under all the pressures of life, the most effectual antidotes against the fears of death, and the most quickening motives to diligence and perseverance in Christian duty. Should they part with these hopes? Should they suffer them to be shaken? Note, Christians should live in the most firm expectation of a blessed resurrection. This hope should be an anchor to their souls, firm and sure, Heb 6:19. 3. He exhorts them to abound in the work of the Lord, and that always, in the Lord's service, in obeying the Lord's commands. They should be diligent and persevering herein, and going on towards perfection; they should be continually making advances in true piety, and ready and apt for every good work. The most cheerful duty, the greatest diligence, the most constant perseverance, become those who have such glorious hopes. Can we too much abound in zeal and diligence in the Lord's work, when we are assured of such abundant recompences in a future life? What vigour and resolution, what constancy and patience, should those hopes inspire! Note, Christians should not stint themselves as to their growth in holiness, but be always improving in sound religion, and abounding in the work of the Lord.

II. The motive resulting from the former discourse is that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord; nay, they know it shall not. They have the best grounds in the world to build upon: they have all the assurance that can rationally be expected: as surely as Christ is risen, they shall rise; and Christ is as surely risen as the scriptures are true, and the word of God. The apostles saw him after his death, testified this truth to the world in the face of a thousand deaths and dangers, and confirmed it by miraculous powers received from him. Is there any room to doubt a fact so well attested? Note, True Christians have undoubted evidence that their labour will not be in vain in the Lord; not their most diligent services, nor their most painful sufferings; they will not be in vain, not be vain and unprofitable. Note, The labour of Christians will not be lost labour; they may lose for God, but they will lose nothing by him; nay, there is more implied than is expressed in this phrase: it means that they shall be abundantly rewarded. He will never be found unjust to forget their labour of love, Heb 6:10. Nay, he will do exceedingly abundantly above what they can now ask or think. Neither the services they do for him, nor the sufferings they endure for him here, are worthy to be compared with the joy hereafter to be revealed in them, Rom 8:18. Note, Those who serve God have good wages; they cannot do too much nor suffer too much for so good a Master. If they serve him now, they shall see him hereafter; if they suffer for him on earth, they shall reign with him in heaven; if they die for his sake, they shall rise again from the dead, be crowned with glory, honour, and immortality, and inherit eternal life.

Barclay: 1Co 15:20-28

This again is a very difficult passage because it deals with ideas which are strange to us.

It speaks of Christ as "the first-fruits of them that sleep." Paul is thinking in terms of a picture which every Jew would recognize. The Feast of the Passover had more than one significance. It commemorated the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. But it was also a great harvest festival. It fell just at the time when the barley harvest was due to be ingathered. The law laid it down, "You shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest to the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." (Lev 23:10-11). Some sheaves of barley must be reaped from a common field. They must not be taken from a garden or an orchard or from specially prepared soil. They must come from a typical field. When the barley was cut, it was brought to the Temple. There it was threshed with soft canes so as not to bruise it. It was then parched over the fire in a perforated pan so that every grain was touched by the fire. It was then exposed to the wind so that the chaff was blown away. It was then ground in a barley mill and its flour was offered to God. That was the first-fruits.

It is significant to note that not until after that was done could the new barley be bought and sold in the shops and bread be made from the new flour. The first-fruits were a sign of the harvest to come; and the Resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come. Just as the new barley could not be used until the first-fruits had been duly offered, so the new harvest of life could not come until Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Paul goes on to use another Jewish idea. According to the old story in Gen 3:1-19it was through Adam's sin that death came into the world as its direct consequence and penalty. The Jews believed that all men literally sinned in Adam; we see that his sin might transmit to his descendants the tendency to sin. As Aeschylus said, "The impious deed leaves after it a larger progeny, all in the likeness of the parent stock." As George Eliot wrote, "Our deeds are like children that are born to us, they live and act apart from our will; nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never. They have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness."

Nobody would be likely to deny that a child can inherit a tendency to sin and that the father's sins are literally visited upon the children. No one would deny that a child can inherit the consequences of a father's sin, for we know all too well how physical conditions which are the consequence of an immoral life can be transmitted to the child. But the Jew meant more than that. He had a tremendous sense of solidarity. He was sure that no man could ever do anything that could affect only himself. And he held that all men sinned in Adam. The whole world of men was, as it were, in him; and when he sinned all sinned.

That may seem a strange idea to us and unfair. But that was the Jewish belief. All had sinned in Adam, therefore all were under the penalty of death. With the coming of Christ that chain was broken. Christ was sinless and conquered death. Just as all men sinned in Adam, so all men escape from sin in Christ; and just as all men died in Adam, so all men conquered death in Christ. Our unity with Christ is just as real as our unity with Adam and this destroys the evil effect of the old.

So we get two contrasting sets of facts. First, there is Adam--sin--death. Second, there is Christ--goodness--life. And just as we were all involved in the sin of him who was first created, we are all involved in the victory of him who re-created mankind. However we may estimate that way of thinking today, it was convincing to those who heard it for the first time; and, whatever else is doubtful, it remains true that with Jesus Christ a new power came into the world to liberate men from sin and death.

1Co 15:24-28read very strangely to us. We are used to thinking of the Father and the Son on terms of equality. But here Paul clearly and deliberately subordinates the Son to the Father. What he is thinking of is this. We can use only human terms and analogies. God gave to Jesus a task to do, to defeat sin and death and to liberate man. The day will come when that task will be fully and finally accomplished, and then, to put it in pictorial terms, the Son will return to the Father like a victor coming home and the triumph of God will be complete. It is not a case of the Son being subject to the Father as a slave or even a servant is to a master. It is a case of one who, having accomplished the work that was given him to do, returns with the glory of complete obedience as his crown. As God sent forth his Son to redeem the world, so in the end he will receive back a world redeemed; and then there will be nothing in heaven or in earth outside his love and power.

Barclay: 1Co 15:29-34

Once again this passage begins with a very difficult section. People have always been puzzled about what being baptized for the dead means, and even yet the problem is not definitely settled. The preposition for in the phrase for the dead is the Greek huper (5228). In general this word can have two main meanings. When used of place, it can mean above or over. Far more commonly it is used of persons or things and means instead of or on behalf of. Remembering these two meanings, let us look at some of the ways this phrase has been understood.

(i) Beginning from the meaning of over or above, some scholars have suggested that it refers to those who get themselves baptized over the graves of the martyrs. The idea is that there would be something specially moving in being baptized on sacred ground with the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses all around. It is an attractive and rather lovely idea, but at the time Paul was writing to the Corinthians persecution had not yet broken out in anything like a big way. Christians might suffer ostracism and social persecution, but the time of the martyrs had not yet come.

(ii) It is in any event much more natural to take huper in the sense of instead of or on behalf of. If we take it that way there are three possibilities. It is suggested that the phrase refers to those who get themselves baptized in order to fill up the vacant places in the Church which the dead have left. The idea is that the new believer, the young Christian, comes into the Church like a new recruit to take the place of the veterans who have served their campaign and earned their release. There is a great thought there. The Church ever needs its replacements and the new member is like the volunteer who fills up the depleted ranks.

(iii) It is suggested that the phrase means those who get themselves baptized out of respect for and affection for the dead. Again there is a precious truth here. Many of us came into the Church because we knew and remembered that some loved one had died praying and hoping for us. Many have in the end given their lives to Christ because of the unseen influence of one who has passed over to the other side.

(iv) All these are lovely thoughts, but in the end we think that this phrase can refer to only one custom, which has quite correctly passed out of Church practice altogether. In the early Church there was vicarious baptism. If a person died who had intended to become a member of the Church and was actually under instruction, sometimes someone else underwent baptism for him. The custom sprang from a superstitious view of baptism, that, without it, a person was necessarily excluded from the bliss of heaven. It was to safeguard against this exclusion that sometimes people volunteered to be baptized literally on behalf of those who had died. Here Paul neither approves nor disapproves that practice. He merely asks if there can be any point in it if there is no resurrection and the dead never rise again.

From that he passes on to one of the great motives of the Christian life. In effect he asks, "Why should a Christian accept the perils of the Christian life if it is all to go for nothing?" He quotes his own experience. Every day he is in jeopardy of his life. Something terrible of which the New Testament has no record happened to Paul at Ephesus. He refers to it again in 2Cor 1:8-10: he says that in Asia, that is in Ephesus, he was in such dire peril that he despaired of life and had the sentence of death passed upon him. To this day in Ephesus there is a building known as Paul's prison. Here he calls his peril fighting with beasts. The word he uses is that used of a gladiator in the arena. The later legends tell us that he actually did so fight and that he was wondrously preserved because the beasts would not attack him. But Paul was a Roman citizen and no Roman citizen could be compelled to fight in the arena. Much more likely he used the phrase as a vivid picture of being threatened by men who were as savage for his life as a wild beast might have been. In any event he demands, "To what end is all the peril and the suffering if there is no life beyond?"

The man who thinks that this life is all, and that there is nothing to follow it, may well say, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." The Bible itself quotes those who speak like that. "Come," they say, "let us get wine, let us fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure." (Isa 56:12). The preacher, who held that death was extinction, wrote, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment from his toil." (Ecc 2:24, compare Ecc 3:12; Ecc 5:18; Ecc 8:15; Ecc 9:7). Jesus himself told about the rich fool who forgot eternity and took as his motto, "Eat, drink and be merry." (Luk 12:19).

Classical literature is full of this spirit. Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells of a custom of the Egyptians. "In social meetings among the rich, when the banquet is ended, a servant carries round to the several guests a coffin, in which there is a wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant says, 'Gaze here, and drink and be merry, for when you die, such will you be." ' Euripides writes in the Alcestis (781-789, A. S. Way's translation):

"From all mankind the debt of death is due,

For of all mortals is there one that knows

If through the coming morrow he shall live?

For trackless is the way of fortune's feet,

Not to be taught nor won by art of man.

This hearing then, and learning it of me,

Make merry, drink; the life from day to day

Account thine own, all else in fortune's power."

Thucydides (2: 53) tells how, when the mortal plague came to Athens, people committed every shameful crime and eagerly snatched at every lustful pleasure because they believed that life was short and they would never have to pay the penalty. Horace (Odes 2: 13; 13) gives as his philosophy, "Tell them to bring wines and perfumes and the too-short-lived blossoms of the lovely rose while circumstances and age and the black threads of the three sisters (the Fates) still allow us to do so." In one of the most famous poems in the world the Latin poet Catullus wrote, "Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single halfpenny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep."

Take away the thought of a life to come and this life loses its values. Take away the idea that this life is a preparation for a greater life to follow and the bonds of honour and morality are loosened. It is useless to argue that this should not be so and that men should not be good and honourable simply for the sake of some reward. The fact remains that the man who believes that this is the only world tends to live as if the things of this world are all that matter.

So Paul insists that the Corinthians must not associate with those who say that there is no resurrection; for this would be to risk an infection which can pollute life. To say that there is no resurrection is not a sign of superior knowledge; it is a sign of utter ignorance of God. Paul is unleashing the lash that very shame may bring these wanderers back into the right way.

Barclay: 1Co 15:35-49

Before we begin to try to interpret this section we would do well to remember one thing--all through it Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is talking not about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. Trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, he is doing the best he can with the human ideas and human words that are all that he has to work with. If we remember that, it will save us from a crudely literalistic interpretation and make us fasten our thoughts on the underlying principles in Paul's mind. In this section he is dealing with people who say, "Granted that there is a resurrection of the body, with what kind of body do people rise again?" His answer has three basic principles in it.

(i) He takes the analogy of a seed. The seed is put in the ground and dies, but in due time it rises again; and does so with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity. The seed is dissolved; when it rises again, there is a vast difference in its body; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and the difference, it is the same seed. So our earthly bodies will dissolve; they will rise again in very different form; but it is the same person who rises. Dissolved by death, changed by resurrection, it is still we who exist.

(ii) In the world, even as we know it, there is not one kind of body; each separate part of creation has its own. God gives to each created thing a body suitable for its part in creation. If that be so, it is only reasonable to expect that he will give us a body fitted for the resurrection life.

(iii) In life there is a development. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7). But Jesus is far more than a man made from the dust of the earth. He is the incarnation of the very Spirit of God. Now, under the old way of life, we were one with Adam, sharing his sin, inheriting his death and having his body; but, under the new way of life, we are one with Christ and we shall therefore share his life and his being. It is true that we have a physical body to begin with, but it is also true that one day we shall have a spiritual body.

All through this section Paul has maintained a reverent and wise reticence as to what that body will be like; it will be spiritual, it will be such as God knows that we need and we will be like Christ. But in 1Co 15:42-44he draws four contrasts which shed light on our future state.

(i) The present body is corruptible; the future body will be incorruptible. In this world everything is subject to change and decay. "Youth's beauty fades, and manhood's glory fades," as Sophocles had it. But in the life to come there will be a permanence in which beauty will never lose its sheen.

(ii) The present body is in dishonour; the future body will be in glory. It may be that Paul means that in this life it is through our bodily feelings and passions that dishonour can so easily come; but in the life to come our bodies will no longer be the servants of passion and of impulse but the instruments of the pure service of God, than which there can be no greater honour.

(iii) The present body is in weakness; the future body will be in power. It is nowadays fashionable to talk of man's power, but the really remarkable thing is his weakness. A draught of air or a drop of water can kill him. We are limited in this life so often simply because of the necessary limitations of the body. Time and time again our physical constitution says to our visions and our plans, "Thus far and no farther." We are so often frustrated because we are what we are. But in the life to. come the limitations will be gone. Here we are compassed about with weakness; there we will be clad with power.

"All we have hoped or willed or dreamed of good

shall exist;

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth

too hard."

On earth we have the "broken arcs"; in the life to come "the perfect round."

(iv) The present body is a natural body; the future body will be a spiritual body. By that, it may be, Paul meant that here we are but imperfect vessels and imperfect instruments for the Spirit; but in the life to come we will be such that the Spirit can truly fill us, as can never happen here, and the Spirit can truly use us, as is never possible now. Then we will be able to render the perfect worship, the perfect service, the perfect love that now can only be a vision and a dream.

Barclay: 1Co 15:50-58

Once again we must remember that Paul is dealing with things which defy language and baffle expression. We must read this as we would read great poetry, rather than as we would dissect a scientific treatise. The argument follows a series of steps until it reaches its climax.

(i) Paul insists that, as we are, we are not fit to inherit the Kingdom of God. We may be well enough equipped to get on with the life of this world, but for the life of the world to come we will not do. A man may be able to run enough to catch his morning train and yet need to be very different to be able to run enough for the Olympic games. A man may write well enough to amuse his friends and yet need to be very different to write something which men will not willingly let die. A man may talk well enough in the circle of his club and yet need to be very different to hold his own in a circle of real experts. A man always needs to be changed to enter into a higher grade of life; and Paul insists that before we can enter the Kingdom of God we must be changed.

(ii) Further he insists that this shattering change is going to come in his own lifetime. In this he was in error; but he looked to that change coming when Jesus Christ came again.

(iii) Then Paul goes on triumphantly to declare that no man need fear that change. The fear of death has always haunted men. It haunted Dr. Johnson, one of the greatest and best men who ever lived. Once Boswell said to him that there had been times when he had not feared death. Johnson answered that "he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." Once Mrs. Knowles told him that he should not have a horror for that which is the gate of life. Johnson answered, "No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." He declared that the fear of death was so natural to man that all life was one long effort not to think about it.

Wherein lies the fear of death? Partly it comes from fear of the unknown. But still more it comes from the sense of sin. If a man felt that he could meet God easily then to die would be only, as Peter Pan said, a great adventure. But where does that sense of sin come from? It comes from a sense of being under the law. So long as a man sees in God only the law of righteousness, he must ever be in the position of a criminal before the bar with no hope of acquittal. But this is precisely what Jesus came to abolish. He came to tell us that God is not law, but love, that the centre of God's being is not legalism but grace, that we go out, not to a judge, but to a Father who awaits his children coming home. Because of that Jesus gave us the victory over death, its fear banished in the wonder of God's love.

(iv) Finally, at the end of the chapter, Paul does what he always does. Suddenly the theology becomes a challenge; suddenly the speculations become intensely practical; suddenly the sweep of the mind becomes the demand for action. He ends by saying, "If you have all that glory to look forward to, then keep yourself steadfast in God's faith and service, for if you do, all your effort will not be in vain." The Christian life may be difficult, but the goal is infinitely worth the struggle.

"A hope so great and so divine,

May trials well endure;

And purge the soul from sense and sin,

As Christ himself is pure."

Constable: 1Co 7:1--16:13

III. Questions asked of Paul 7:1--16:12

The remainder of the body of this epistle deals with questions the Corinthians had put to Paul in a letter. Paul introduced each of these with the phrase peri de ("now concerning," 7:1, 25; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, 12).

"Rather than a friendly exchange, in which the new believers in Corinth are asking spiritual advice of their mentor in the Lord, their letter was probably a response to Paul's Previous Letter mentioned in 5:9, in which they were taking exception to his position on point after point. In light of their own theology of spirit, with heavy emphasis on wisdom' and knowledge,' they have answered Paul with a kind of Why can't we?' attitude, in which they are looking for his response."¹⁶⁰

Constable: 1Co 15:1-58

F. The resurrection of believers ch. 15

The Apostle Paul did not introduce the instruction on the resurrection that follows with the formula that identifies it as a response to a specific question from the Corinthians (i.e., peri de). From what he said in this chapter he apparently knew that some in the church had adopted a belief concerning the resurrection that was contrary to apostolic teaching. They believed that there is no resurrection of the dead (cf. vv. 12, 16, 29, 32). Apparently he included this teaching to correct this error and to reaffirm the central importance of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Christian faith.

". . . the letter itself is not finished. Lying behind their view of spirituality is not simply a false view of spiritual gifts, but a false theology of spiritual existence as such. Since their view of spirituality' had also brought them to deny a future resurrection of the body, it is fitting that this matter be taken up next. The result is the grand climax of the letter as a whole, at least in terms of its argument."³⁵⁷

"This chapter has been called the earliest Christian doctrinal essay,' and it is the only part of the letter which deals directly with doctrine."³⁵⁸

Evidently the Corinthians believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but belief in His resurrection did not necessarily involve believing that God would raise all believers in Christ. Christ's resurrection gave hope to believers about the future, but that hope did not necessarily involve the believer's resurrection. This seems to have been the viewpoint of the early Christians until Paul taught them that their bodily resurrection was part of their hope, which he did here. Thus this chapter has great theological value to the church.

". . . apparently soon after Paul's departure from Corinth things took a turn for the worse in this church. A false theology began to gain ground, rooted in a radical pneumatism that denied the value/significance of the body and expressed in a somewhat overrealized,' or spiritualized,' eschatology. Along with this there arose a decided movement against Paul. These two matters climax in this letter in their pneumatic behavior (chaps. 12-14) and their denial of a resurrection of the dead (chap. 15), which included their questioning of his status as pneumatikos ([spiritual] 14:36-38) and perhaps their calling him an abortion' or a freak' (15:8). Thus, as elsewhere, Paul sets out not only to correct some bad theology but at the same time to remind them of his right to do so."³⁵⁹

Constable: 1Co 15:12-34

2. The certainty of resurrection 15:12-34

In the preceding paragraph Paul firmly established that the gospel the Corinthians had believed contained the fact that God had raised Jesus Christ bodily, along with other equally crucial facts. Next he proceeded to show the consequences of rejecting belief in the resurrection of the body.

Constable: 1Co 15:20-28

The positive reality 15:20-28

Paul turned next to show that the resurrection of Christ makes the resurrection of believers both necessary and inevitable. The consequences of this fact are as glorious as the effects of His not being raised are dismal. Those "in Christ" must arise since Christ arose. His resurrection was in the present, but ours will be in the future (i.e., in the eschaton). Christ's resurrection set in motion the defeat of all God's enemies including death. His resurrection demands our resurrection since otherwise death would remain undefeated.

15:20 The argument advances here by connecting the believer with Christ. Christ was the firstfruits of the larger group of those whom God has chosen for salvation. This is the last mention of Christ's resurrection in the argument, but all that follows rests on this fact.

The Jews celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month on their sacred calendar. Jesus died on the day Jewish fathers slew the Passover lamb, which was a Friday that year. The Jews offered a sacrifice of firstfruits the day after the Sabbath (Saturday) following the Passover (Lev. 23:10-11), namely Sunday. This was the day Jesus arose. Fifty days later on Pentecost they presented another offering of new grain that they also called an offering of firstfruits (Lev. 23:15-17). The firstfruits they offered following the Passover were only the first of the crops that they offered later. Paul saw in this comparison the fact that other believers would rise from the dead just as Jesus Christ did. He used the firstfruits metaphor to assert that the resurrection of believers is absolutely inevitable. God Himself has guaranteed it.

15:21-22 The apostle also drew a lesson from two uniquely representative men, Adam and Christ. Adam was the first man in the old creation, and, like him, all of his sons die physically. Christ is the first man in the new creation, and, like Him, all of His sons will live physically (cf. Rom. 5:12-19). Obviously Paul was referring to believers only as sons of Christ. Both Adam and Jesus were men. Therefore our resurrection will be a human resurrection, not some "spiritual" type of resurrection. Physical resurrection is as inevitable for the son of Jesus Christ as physical death is for the son of Adam.

15:23 The word translated "order" or "turn" is a military one used of ranks of soldiers (tagma). Paul's idea was that Christ was the first rank and experienced resurrection. Christians are in a different rank and will experience resurrection together at a different time, namely at the Lord's coming (Gr. parousia, lit. appearing, i.e., at the Rapture). The apostle did not go on to give a complete explanation of the various resurrections here. There will be other ranks of people who will rise at other times: Tribulation saints, Old Testament believers, the unsaved, etc. His point here was that the resurrection of Christians is just as certain to take place as the fact that Christ's already took place. He did not mean that our resurrection will be of a different type than Christ's (i.e., "spiritual" rather than physical).

15:24-26 The end refers to the end of the present heavens and earth in view of what Paul said about it here. This will come more than 1, 000 years after the Rapture. Then Christ, who will have been reigning over His earthly millennial kingdom, will turn over that reign to His Father. Christ's abolishing all other rule, authority, and power will take place when He subdues the rebels that rise up against Him at the end of the Millennium (Rev. 20:7-10). He will also defeat death, and from then on no one will die. The saved will enter the new heavens and new earth to enjoy bliss with God forever while the lost will suffer everlasting torment (Matt. 25:46; Rev. 20:11-21:1).

"Many see evidence of the millennium in Paul's discourse on resurrection (1 Co 15, esp. vv. 20-28)."³⁷¹

". . . it is not only possible but probable that Paul understood this final triumph to take place during the millennial reign of Christ. To sum up the principal evidence, Paul's use of epeita (after that') and eita (then') in 1 Corinthians 15:23-24, the syntax of 15:24-25, and the parallel use of Psalms 8 and 110 in 1 Corinthians 15 and Hebrews 1 and 2 all point to the understanding that when Paul mentioned a kingdom and reign in 15:24-25, he referred to the reign of Christ on this earth following His return and prior to the eternal state, a time that Revelation 20:4-6 calls the thousand years.'"³⁷²

Even though Jesus triumphed over death in his resurrection, believers still die. Therefore we must experience resurrection because we are in Christ and because only then will the final enemy, death, be subdued. Only then will God become all in all.

15:27 Paul saw Jesus Christ as the person who fulfilled the prophecy recorded in Psalm 8:7.³⁷³ In the psalm the ruler in view is man, but He will be the Man who regained for humanity all that Adam lost (cf. Ps. 110:1). Of course, God Himself will not be under the rule of the Son of God. He is the One who will finally bring all things into subjection to Christ.

15:28 Finally God will be the head of everything (cf. Rom. 11:36). The earthly millennial kingdom will end and everything will merge into the eternal kingdom of God (cf. Isa. 9:7; Luke 1:33).³⁷⁴ Christ will be submissive to His Father forever. This is the central passage that affirms the eternal functional (not ontological) subordination of the Son to the Father (cf. 3:22-23; 11:3; John 17:24; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 2:9-11).³⁷⁵ The Resurrection set in motion a chain of events that will ultimately culminate in the death of death. Then God will resume being what He was before creation, "all in all."

"The meaning seems to be that there will no longer be need of a Mediator: all relations between Creator and creatures, between Father and offspring, will be direct."³⁷⁶

In this pericope Paul traced the career of Christ from His resurrection to His final exaltation, which will occur at the end of the present heavens and earth. Undoubtedly he intended his readers to identify with the Savior since he had taught them that believers reproduce the experiences of their Lord as they reproduce His attitudes and actions. In view of what lies ahead, how foolish it would be to deny the resurrection of the body. This passage clarifies the true significance of Easter.

Constable: 1Co 15:29-34

Other arguments for resurrection 15:29-34

Paul turned from Christ's career to the Christian's experience to argue ad hominem for the resurrection.³⁷⁷ The Corinthians' actions, and his, bordered on absurdity if the dead will not rise. This paragraph is something of a digression, and the main argument resumes in verse 35.

15:29 This verse probably refers to proxy baptism, the custom of undergoing baptism for someone who died before he or she could experience baptism.³⁷⁸ Evidently the Corinthians were practicing this for people who became Christians on their deathbeds or under other conditions that made it difficult or impossible for them to undergo baptism in water. Paul's mention of the custom is not necessarily an endorsement of it. On the other hand, he did not specifically condemn it either.

Whether he approved of it or not, the Corinthian believers were evidently doing it. Paul used this practice to argue for the reality of resurrection. His point was that if there is no physical resurrection it is foolish to undergo baptism for someone who had died because in that case they are dead and gone forever.³⁷⁹ Suppose, on the other hand, there is a resurrection. When God will raise those baptized by proxy, they would not suffer shame for failure to undergo baptism while they were alive. Those who had not benefited from proxy baptism would suffer embarrassment.

The Corinthians may have carried proxy baptism over into the church from pagan religions. That is a distinct possibility since we have seen that they had done this with other pagan practices. There is nothing in Scripture that encourages this practice, though some have interpreted this verse as an encouragement. Some Christian groups that believe water baptism contributes to a person's salvation advocate it. Today the Mormons do. However the mention of a practice in Scripture does not always constitute endorsement of it. We have seen this in chapters 8-11 especially.

15:30 If there is no resurrection, why did Paul endure so many hardships and dangers in his ministry? The apostle's sacrifices do not prove there will be a resurrection, but they do show that he believed there would be one. He willingly faced death daily because he believed God would raise him and that his resurrected body would continue beyond the grave.

15:31 Paul backed up this assertion with a kind of oath. He said he faced death daily just as he boasted about the Corinthians. In this epistle Paul was quite critical of his readers. Probably he meant that he boasted in their very existence as Christians rather than that he boasted to other churches about their behavior.

15:32 One example of facing death occurred in Ephesus where Paul was when he wrote this epistle. His fight with "wild beasts" was not with wild animals. This expression describes his conflict with very hostile human adversaries. The phrase kata anthropon ("from human motives" or "for . . . human reasons," lit. according to man) identifies Paul's words as figurative language. Furthermore Roman citizens did not participate in hand to hand combat with animals in the arenas.³⁸⁰ Perhaps Demetrius and or Alexander were Paul's antagonists (Acts 19:24-41; 2 Tim. 4:14).

Paul quoted Isaiah 22:13 to prove his point (cf. Eccles. 2:24; 9:7-10). If there is no resurrection we may as well live only for the present.

15:33 This quotation, contained in a comedy by Menander titled Thais, but perhaps dating back to Euripides,³⁸¹ had become proverbial. The Greeks generally recognized it as encapsulating a wise thought. Therefore Paul used it to warn his readers that if they kept company with people who denied the resurrection their character would eventually suffer.

15:34 The Corinthians needed to think correctly. Rather than living for the present, as their pagan neighbors were undoubtedly encouraging them to do, they needed to stop sinning and fulfill their present purpose, namely propagating the gospel. It was a shame that they had neighbors who still had no knowledge of God since they had much knowledge of God (1:5; 8:1).

"Since salvation finally has to do with being known by and knowing God (13:12), what makes the Corinthians' persisting in sin so culpable is that it keeps others from the knowledge of God (15:34).³⁸²

It may be that Paul was also using irony to refer to the "spiritual" viewpoint of the Corinthians. The appearance of "knowledge" here again raises that possibility since, as we have seen, "knowledge" was a Corinthian fascination. Paul had also spoken something to their "shame" earlier (cf. 6:5). If he meant to be ironic, the apostle was probably putting down those responsible for taking the church in the dangerous direction that it had gone. He would have meant that his readers should sober up and stop sinning because some of them did not have the truth, which was to their shame.

These ad hominem arguments do not prove beyond doubt that God will raise the bodies of people from the dead, but they support Paul's stronger logical arguments in the preceding section (vv. 12-34). They show that Christians generally and the apostle in particular believed in the Resurrection deeply. It affected the way they lived, as it should.³⁸³

Constable: 1Co 15:35-49

3. The resurrection body 15:35-49

Paul next addressed the objection that the resurrection of the body is impossible because when a person dies his or her body decomposes and no one can reassemble it. The Corinthians seem to have wanted to avoid thinking that the material body was essentially good. Hellenistic dualism seems to have influenced their thinking about the human body and, therefore, the resurrection.³⁸⁴ They did not, and most people do not, view very positively a resurrection that involves simply resuscitating human corpses. Paul proceeded to show that the resurrection of believers was not that but a resurrection of glorified bodies. Paul taught a more glorious future for believers than the present "spiritual" existence that some in Corinth lauded.

"The Corinthians are convinced that by the gift of the Spirit, and especially the manifestation of tongues, they have already entered into the spiritual, heavenly' existence that is to be. Only the body, to be sloughed off at death, lies between them and their ultimate spirituality. Thus they have denied the body in the present, and have no use for it in the future."³⁸⁵

A key word in this section of Paul's argument is "body" (Gr. soma), which occurs 10 times compared to no times in the first 34 verses.³⁸⁶

Constable: 1Co 15:35-44

Analogies from nature 15:35-44

The apostle proceeded to offer two sets of analogies (seeds, vv. 36-38; and types of bodies, vv. 39-41) that he then applied to the resurrection of the dead (vv. 42-44).

15:35 This objection to the resurrection has to do with the reconstruction of the body out of the same elements that it formerly possessed. Obviously it would be impossible to reassemble the same cells to reconstruct a person after he or she had been dead for some time. This is the primary problem that Paul solved in the rest of this pericope.

For example, if someone died at sea and sailors buried him, a fish might eat his body. The atoms and molecules of his body would become part of the fish. If a fisherman caught and ate the fish, its body would become part of the fisherman's body. If the fisherman died and an undertaker buried him in the ground and someone eventually sowed wheat over his grave, the fisherman's atoms and molecules would go into the wheat. A third person would eat the wheat and so on. How could the first person's body ever come together again?

15:36-38 Such an objection sounds very reasonable on the surface, but it is really foolish, and it drew a sharp rebuke from Paul. The "wise" Corinthians were "fools!" The body that God resurrects will not be the same type of body that died even though it is the body of the same person. Paul proceeded to illustrate with a seed of grain. A new form of life springs forth from death. The body surrounding the life is different before and after death. Likewise human life exists in one form of body before death, and after death it exists in a different type of body. God does this with grain, so He can do it with humans too. This is so obvious in nature that we can understand Paul's sharp retort in verse 36.³⁸⁷

15:39-41 This passage begins and ends by stressing the differences within kinds of bodies. The second and fifth sentences stress the differences within genus while contrasting the earthly with the heavenly. The central elements state the realities of earthly and heavenly "bodies." Structurally the passage is a chiasm.³⁸⁸

A Not all flesh is the same (i.e., earthly bodies).

B Examples of different kinds of flesh: people, animals, birds, fish

C There are heavenly and earthly kinds of bodies.

C' The splendor of heavenly bodies is of one kind and the splendor of earthly bodies is of another kind.

B' Examples of different kinds of splendor: sun, moon, stars

A' Not all stars (i.e., heavenly bodies) have the same splendor.

In verse 39 Paul used animal life to point out the different types (substance) of flesh: human, land animals, birds, and fish. This anticipates what he said later about the earthly and heavenly existence of believers. A body can be genuinely fleshly and still subsist in different forms for different environments. The fact that there are different kinds of bodies among animals should help us understand that there can also be different kinds of human bodies. Some human bodies are mortal and some are immortal. Some are corruptible and others incorruptible.

Likewise the fact that celestial bodies differ in glory (brightness) should help us realize that human bodies can also differ in glory. The glory of a perishable mortal human body is much less than that of an imperishable immortal human body. Also the differing glory of the heavenly bodies argues for differences among glorified believers.

15:42-43 The human body goes into the ground perishable, as a seed. However, God raises it imperishable, as grain. It goes into the ground in a lowly condition (in "dishonor"), but it arises with honor ("glory"). It is weak when it dies, but it is powerful when it arises.

15:44 It is natural (Gr. psychikon, soulish), belonging to the present age; but it becomes spiritual (pneumatikos, i.e., supernatural), belonging to the future age. The Corinthians had not entered into their eschatological states yet. This would come with their resurrections. Their bodies would become spiritual, namely fitted for their future existence.

Constable: 1Co 15:45-49

The analogy from Scripture 15:45-49

Paul now returned to his analogy between Adam and Christ (cf. vv. 21-22) to reinforce his argument, which he had brought to a head in verse 44.

15:45 The natural body is physical, the product of Adam who received life from God (Gen. 2:7). That life resides in a body characterized as "soulish" (i.e., alive with material and immaterial components). It eventually dies. However the resurrection body is spiritual, the product of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who gives new life. That life will inhabit a body that will never die. Paul called it spiritual because it is ready for the spiritual rather than the physical realm. Moreover it comes to us from a spirit being, Jesus Christ, rather than a physical being, Adam. One can assume full "spiritual" existence, including a spiritual body, only as Christ did, namely by resurrection.³⁸⁹

15:46 Even though God breathed life into Adam at Creation, that gift constituted Adam a natural person fitted for the present order. The breathing of new life into believers at resurrection, so to speak, will make us spiritual persons fitted for the eschaton. We have the physical body until the eschaton, not before it begins.

Paul may have included this word of clarification to refute the Platonic idea that the ideal precedes the real. Plato taught that the ultimate realities are spiritual, and physical things only represent them. This is probably a view that some in Corinth held. Paul said the physical body precedes the spiritual body, which is the ultimate body.

15:47-48 God formed Adam out of dust to live on this planet (Gen. 2:7). Jesus Christ had a heavenly origin. However, Paul seems to have meant more than this since he compared two human beings, "the first Adam" and "the last Adam." His emphasis seems to have been that the first Adam was fitted for life in this age with natural life whereas the last Adam was fitted for life in the age to come with spiritual life. God equipped both to live in the realm that they would occupy. Similarly the bodies we inherit from Adam are for earthly existence. The bodies we will receive from Christ at our resurrection will be for living in the spiritual realm. Paul was not speaking of heavenly existence as distinct from life in hell but as spiritual in contrast with earthly.

"Each race has the attributes of its Head. As a consequence of this law . . ., we who once wore the likeness of the earthly Adam shall hereafter wear that of the glorified Christ. What Adam was, made of dust to be dissolved into dust again, such are all who share his life; and what Christ is, risen and eternally glorified, such will be all those who share His life."³⁹⁰

15:49 Those born only of the first Adam, whom God equipped to live in the natural world, likewise exist in that world. However those born also of the last Adam, whom God equipped to live in the supernatural world by resurrection, also will exist in that world. Paul concluded this pericope by reminding them that their bearing the image of the heavenly Adam was still future, and it is certain.

God's intent to make man in His own image (Gen. 1:26) will finally reach fulfillment when believers eventually receive bodies that enable us to live in the spiritual sphere as He does. God's forming man out of the dust of the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life was only the first step toward God's realization of His goal. His creation of resurrection bodies for us will be the second and final step.

"The problem is that the Corinthians believed that they had already assumed the heavenly existence that was to be, an existence in the Spirit that discounted earthly existence both in its physical and in its behavioral expressions. What Paul appears to be doing once again is refuting both notions. They have indeed borne--and still bear--the likeness of the man of earth. Because of that they are destined to die. But in Christ's resurrection and their being in him' they have also begun to bear the likeness of the man of heaven. The urgency is that they truly do so now as they await the consummation when they shall do so fully."³⁹¹

Constable: 1Co 15:50-58

4. The assurance of victory over death 15:50-58

Paul brought his revelation of the resurrection to a climax in this paragraph by clarifying what all this means for the believer in Christ. Here he also dealt with the exceptional case of living believers' transformation at the Rapture. Transformation is absolutely necessary to enter the spiritual mode of future existence. This transformation will happen when Christ returns.

15:50 The apostle's introductory words indicate a new departure in his thought. The phrase "flesh and blood" refers to the mortal body and living mortals in particular. It is impossible for us in our present physical forms to enter into, as an inheritance, the heavenly place in the kingdom of God that Christ said He was going to prepare for us (John 14:2-3). It is of the spiritual order. "The perishable" also describes us now but looks at the destruction of our present bodies through death.

15:51 "Behold" or "Listen" grabs the reader's attention and announces something important. Paul was about to explain something never before revealed, a mystery (Gr. mysterion; cf. Matt. 13:11; Rom. 11:25; 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; Eph. 1:9; 3:3-4, 9; 5:32; 6:19; et al.). He had previously written that at the Rapture dead Christians would rise before God will catch living Christians up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:15-17).³⁹² He had just revealed that resurrection bodies will be different from our present bodies, spiritual rather than natural (vv. 35-39). Now he revealed that living believers translated at the Rapture would also receive spiritual bodies.

Not every Christian will die before he or she receives a new body, but every one must experience this change, even the "spiritual" Corinthians. Whether we are alive or dead when the Rapture takes place we will all receive spiritual bodies at that moment.

15:52 This transformation will not be a gradual process but instantaneous. The Greek word translated "moment" or "flash" (atomos) refers to an indivisible fragment of time. The blinking of an eye takes only a fraction of a second.

This trumpet blast will summon Christians home to heaven (cf. 1 Thess. 4:16). It is the last trumpet that connects with our destiny, the one that signals the end of our present existence and the beginning of our future existence.³⁹³

"We need not suppose that St Paul believed that an actual trumpet would awaken and summon the dead. The language is symbolical in accordance with the apocalyptic ideas of the time. The point is that the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of the living will be simultaneous, as of two companies obeying the same signal."³⁹⁴

Some posttribulationists equate this trumpet with the seventh or last trumpet of Revelation 11:15-18.³⁹⁵ This does not seem to me to be valid. Other trumpets will sound announcing various other events in the future (cf. Matt. 24:31; Rev. 8:2, 6, 13; 9:14; et al.). However, Christians, believers living in the church age, will not be on the earth, and those trumpets will not affect us.³⁹⁶ The fact that Paul included himself in the group living at the time of the Rapture shows he expected that event to take place imminently (cf. 1 Thess. 4:15, 17). If he had believed the Tribulation precedes the Rapture, it would have been natural for him to mention that here.³⁹⁷

"Christ's return is always imminent; we must never cease to watch for it. The first Christians thought it so near that they faced the possibility of Jesus' return in their lifetime. Paul thinks he too may perhaps be alive when it happens."³⁹⁸

"The simple fact is that Paul did not know when Christ would return. He was in the exact position in which we are. All that he knew, and all that we know, is that Christ may come at any time."³⁹⁹

Paul did not answer the interesting questions of who will blow or who will hear this trumpet.

Throughout Israel's history God announced His working for the nation and He summoned His people to Himself with the blowing of trumpets (Exod. 19:16, 19; 20:18; Lev. 25:9; Num. 10:2, 8-10; et al.). He will use a trumpet for this purpose at the Rapture as well.

15:53 The dead will rise in bodies that are not subject to corruption, and the living will receive immortal bodies too. Paul may have wanted to contrast the dead and the living by the terms he chose for each in the first and second parts of this verse respectively.⁴⁰⁰ Still the distinction is not strong enough to be significant. Both the dead and the living will receive imperishable immortal bodies.

15:54 This transformation will fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 25:8. What Paul just revealed harmonizes with prophetic Scripture. God will overcome death (cf. vv. 23-28).

15:55 Paul modified for his own purposes Hosea's defiant challenge for death to do its worst (Hos. 13:14) and used the passage to taunt death himself. Death is man's last enemy (cf. v. 25). God will defeat it when He raises His people to life.

15:56 The fatal sting of death touches humans through sin (Rom. 6:23). What makes sin sinful is the law of God (Rom. 7:7-11). Because Jesus Christ overcame sin and fulfilled the law, death cannot hold its prey (Rom. 5:12, 20). Death is still an enemy in the sense that it robs us of mortal life. Notwithstanding it is not a terror to the believer because it is the doorway into an immortal life of bliss.

15:57 The victory over the condemnation of the law, sin, and death comes to us through Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 8:2). For this Paul was very grateful to God, as every believer should be.

15:58 Paul concluded his discussion of the resurrection with an exhortation to be faithful in the present (cf. 4:16-17; 5:13; 6:20; 7:40; 10:31-33; 11:33-34; 12:31; 14:39-40).

"Despite the magnificent crescendo with which Paul brings the argument of chap. 15 to its climax, the last word is not the sure word of future hope and triumph of vv. 50-57; rather, in light of such realities, the last word is an exhortation to Christian living (v. 58). Thus, eschatological salvation, the great concern of the epistle, includes proper behavior or it simply is not the gospel Paul preaches."⁴⁰¹

Specifically Paul's exhortation does not just call for ethical behavior (cf. vv. 33-34) but for continued involvement in fulfilling the Great Commission, the work of the gospel.

This chapter began with a review of the gospel message from which some in the church were in danger of departing by denying the resurrection. The charge to remain steadfast therefore probably means to remain steadfast in the gospel as the Lord and the apostles had handed it down to them. Paul's readers should not move away from it but should remain immovable in it. They should also increase their efforts to serve the Lord even as Paul had done (v. 10). Rather than living for the present (v. 32) believers should live in the present with the future clearly in view (cf. 1:9; 9:26). One day we will have to give an account of our stewardship (3:12-15).

No one except Jesus Christ has come back from the dead to tell us what is on the other side. However, His testimony through His apostles is sufficient to give us confidence that there is life and bodily resurrection after death. We will live that life in a changed body that will be incapable of perishing. It is therefore imperative that we make sure we and all around us enter that phase of our existence with our sins covered by the sacrifice of Christ.

College: 1Co 15:1-58

1 CORINTHIANS 15

VIII. MISUNDERSTANDING OF

BELIEVERS' RESURRECTION (15:1-58)

A. THE GOSPEL PAUL PREACHED (15:1-11)

1. Relation of the Corinthians to the Gospel (15:1-2)

¹ Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

15:1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.

It is universally recognized by scholars that this lengthy chapter, the longest in 1 Corinthians, deals with misconceptions related to the resurrection of believers. There are, however, related scholarly questions about which there is not a consensus. How, for example, does this material follow upon the themes of the preceding chapters? Since Paul did not use the "now about" formula that often sets off new materials (see Introduction and notes on 7:1), some interpreters are convinced that this chapter is closely related to the closing ideas of ch. 14. T. Gillespie argues that the doctrinal misconception that provoked Paul's argument in ch. 15 would be an exclamatory slogan something like "there is no resurrection" (15:12). This slogan, he asserts, is an example of Christian prophecy which would require weighing and refutation. Chapter 15, given this outlook, would be the apostle's critique of this false prophecy. There are at least two major flaws with this approach. First, there are other examples in 1 Corinthians where Paul introduces new topics and does not begin with the literary marker "Now about" (e.g., 1 Cor 11:2), a marker which only points to issues the Corinthians themselves wrote about. Second, there are none of the verbal links between the vocabulary at the end of chapter 14 and the arguments of chapter 15 which one would expect to find if the hypothesis of Gillespie were correct.

Another distinctive issue that scholars discuss is what exactly is the nature of "some" (15:12, ejn uJmi'n tine", en hymin tines ) of the Corinthians' disbelief. Some have asserted that the problem is not that these saints deny the resurrection (as Paul believes they do), but that they only affirm that the resurrection had already occurred. While it is the case that we do know of this aberrant belief based upon information from the Pastoral Epistles (2 Tim 2:8), such an argument about 1 Corinthians is very problematic. The very evidence that informs one about the nature and details of this misconception referred to in the Pastoral Epistles, is exactly what is lacking in ch. 15. Paul does not say there that they think the resurrection is already past or, conversely, that the resurrection has not yet occurred. Rather than grasping at the straws of speculative reconstructions, it is a much more reliable historical method to assume Paul knew what some of these believers were saying, particularly since his summary, unlike the other hypotheses, makes abundant sense in the context of the well known pagan worldview which ridiculed the concept of resurrection (Acts 17:32). The traditional reconstruction which sees some of the believers still being controlled by residual paganism fits comfortably with the Greco-Roman matrix of other aberrant views and practices discovered so far in the church of God at Corinth (see notes on 1 Cor 15:12).

The apostle moves into this doctrinal exposition by attaching the term gospel (eujaggevlion, euangelion ) to his discussion. The Greek term euangelion and its cognates are important to the apostle throughout his writings, especially in the Corinthian letters. This is demonstrated by phrases from 1 Corinthians such as "Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel" (1:17), "in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel" (4:15), "we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ" (9:12), "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (9:16), and "I do all this for the sake of the gospel" (9:23).

The expressions "which you received" and "on which you have taken your stand" function to remind the readers of their previous loyalty to and reliance upon the gospel. This is Paul's way of accentuating their past acknowledgment of the gospel and its importance for them. There seems, however, to be little contextual justification for believing, as Kistemaker does, that the apostle writes these words to demonstrate that "He expects them not only to accept his gospel but also to proclaim it in Corinth and elsewhere."

15:2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

These are some of the apostle's strongest words in this chapter. Here he sets forth the inextricable connection between the gospel he preached to them and their own salvation (swvzesqe, sôzesthe). The continuance of their salvation is related by Paul to their own decision to "hold firmly to the word," which in this case must surely be the gospel of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection (see 15:3-4). Admittedly there are some doctrines about Christ (e.g., the virgin birth) found other places in the New Testament which Paul never explicitly makes part of his preaching and instruction. The resurrection of Jesus, however, is not one of those. The doctrine of faith in Jesus' resurrection is too central in Paul's gospel for the interpreter to diminish the sense of a statement such as "you have believed in vain." Fee is quite accurate when he observes, "To deny the objective reality of Christ's resurrection is to have a faith considerably different from Paul's" or again,

There seems to be little hope of getting around Paul's argument, that to deny Christ's resurrection is tantamount to a denial of Christian existence altogether. . . . Nothing else is the Christian faith, and those who reject the actuality of the resurrection of Christ need to face the consequences of such rejection, that they are bearing false witness against God himself. Like the Corinthians they will have believed in vain since the faith is finally predicated on whether or not Paul is right on this issue.

2. Basic Issues of the Gospel (15:3-4)

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance ^a : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

^a 3 Or you at the first

15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

Statements such as "I received" (paralambavnw, paralambanô) and "I passed on" (paradivdwmi, paradidômi) point to the place of the living tradition in the early church. There are striking verbal similarities between 15:3 and the language the apostle uses about the transmission of the words of the Lord's Supper in 11:23 (I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you).

The words "of first importance" most likely point to the quintessence of the gospel which Paul preached. That is, while Paul's preaching and teaching touched upon many themes, not all of these themes were of equal weight and centrality to his saving message. Though the imagery has shifted, this concept is the same as that which he employed with architectural metaphors earlier in this letter. In 1 Cor 3 the apostle affirmed that the teaching ministry of others was based upon the one and only foundation stone, namely Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:10-12). The entire structure of the church is important, but of first importance is the foundation stone, Jesus Christ.

Naturally there are many facets of God's work in Christ that Paul both preached and taught about, but he wants here, in 15:3-5, to emphasize the centrality of four of these major points. In the Greek text each of these is introduced by the term "that" (o{ti, hoti ). The first theological doctrine in the cluster of things of "first importance" is the death of Jesus. There are two aspects of this death which are especially important to Paul's gospel: the vicarious nature ("for our," uJpeÉr hJmw'n, hyper hçmôn) of Jesus' atoning death and the scriptural attestation to this ("according to the Scriptures," kataÉ taÉ" grafav", kata tas graphas ).

Neither of these is surprising in light of what has already been encountered within 1 Corinthians. The statement that, "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Cor 5:7) patently reveals the Pauline use of blood-sacrifice language with reference to Christ's death and its vicarious benefit for believers. With the apostle's abiding conviction that the (Old Testament) Scriptures are "for us" (see notes on 1 Cor 10:11ff), it would be astounding had he not known and made use of scriptural attestation to the death of Jesus.

15:4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Reference to the burial of Jesus is complemented by the burial narratives preserved in the Gospels. The burial, in turn, lies behind the testimony of the empty tomb accounts. This brief reference to the burial, and by implication the later empty tomb, militates against an interpretation that somehow believes in a "Risen Lord," while Jesus is still decaying in an unknown tomb.

As Paul will emphatically state later in this chapter, the resurrection of Jesus by the hand of God is the sine qua non of the Christian faith. Even though Paul's letters are filled with information about the spiritual and doctrinal significance of Jesus' resurrection, much of that is missing in this chapter. In this argumentative setting Paul must keep his thoughts to the point of the actuality of Christ's resurrection.

Much effort has been expended to find a scriptural citation to "the third day" in the Old Testament. Some have wearied of this and have concluded that the Scriptures referred to here must be New Testament (=Gospels). This view has not found many sympathizers since it creates more problems than it solves. From those who hold to the traditional view that the word Scriptures means Old Testament, some suggest that the prepositional phrase according to the Scriptures goes with the words he was raised, rather than the phrase on the third day, while others believe that a text such as Hosea 6:2 seems a likely candidate to reflect a third day concept.

3. Appearances and Apostleship (15:5-11)

⁵ and that he appeared to Peter, ^a and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

^a 5 Greek Cephas

15:5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

The fourth and final "that" (o{ti, hoti ) clause mentions the importance of the postresurrection appearances to Peter and then to the rest of the Twelve. That Jesus appeared (w[fqh, ôphthç) to the Twelve was widely known in the relevant documents of the early church, namely in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Paul explicitly states that his earlier preaching and teaching to the Corinthians included the facts about the Lord's appearance to the Twelve and their resurrection belief. Paul's personal eyewitness of the vision on the road to Damascus would hardly have had the same force for authentication of the resurrection as the eyewitness testimony of the Twelve.

This is the sole occurrence of this term "the Twelve" (toi'" dwvdeka, tois dôdeka) in Paul's letters, and he uses it here in reference to the Twelve Apostles (cf. Matt 10:2; Mark 3:16; Acts 6:2; Rev 21:14). Peter (=Cephas) is singled out by Paul as the only member of the Twelve to name, a fact that possibly reflects Peter's own special leadership among the Twelve. Peter is clearly the only one of the Twelve mentioned by name as having a following among some of the Corinthians (1:12; 3:22; cf. 9:5). As was made clear in Luke's presentation of the criteria for replacing Judas (Acts 1), Paul himself could never be one of the Twelve. This group held a special place in this history of the church and, in the words of Luke's Gospel, fulfilled a unique kingdom ministry of sitting on thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30).

15:6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

In addition to the postresurrection appearances to the Twelve, the Lord also appeared to a large group that numbered more than 500. The accounts in the Gospels reveal that Jesus was seen by many disciples, both men and women, following his resurrection. These accounts do not, however, depict scenes where the Lord appeared to this many disciples at the same time. In light of this fact, it seems prudent not to attempt to identify Paul's testimony here with any particular Gospel account.

Paul's reference to the availability (still living) of this eyewitness corroboration is an apologetic emphasis designed to give evidentiary support to the historical reliability of his own postresurrection encounter. The phrase "fallen asleep" is a euphemistic reference to death (cf. 1 Cor 11:30; 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thess 4:13-15), and is an acknowledgment that some of these 500 are no longer alive.

15:7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,

It is quite likely that the James referred to here is James the brother of the Lord. Though he held an especially important role in the Jerusalem church according to Acts (Acts 15 and 21), he was not regarded as one of the Twelve. Paul's wording here could be taken to imply that James the brother of Jesus was in some sense an "apostle." A similar understanding of the apostolic ministry of James the brother of the Lord (not James who was one of the Twelve apostles) is revealed in Gal 1:19-2:12. There is surprisingly little information in the New Testament about the role of Jesus' earthly family in the early church.

15:8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Paul was clearly an apostle (see 1 Cor 1:1), but there is no evidence that he, or Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, regarded him as a member of the Twelve. Paul's encounter with the risen Lord, this defining experience of the apostolate, occurred abnormally, long after Jesus' ascension to the right hand of God the Father. The Greek phrase (tw'/ ejktrwvmati, tô ektrômati) behind the English wording "abnormally born" is both unusual and negative as a term to describe Paul's apostolic calling. One interpretation of this birth imagery is that Paul's birth into apostleship was anything but normal. This view is suggested by Calvin when he comments,

For just as babies do not come forth from the womb until they have been in it for the proper period of time and been fully formed, so our Lord followed a suitable time-table in creating, fostering and shaping the apostles. Paul, on the other hand, had been pushed out of the womb, before the living spirit had scarcely had time to be properly conceived in him.

Paul probably had more in mind, however, than the fact that he became an apostle in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion. Based upon philological considerations of the Greek phrase Paul used and upon the somewhat defensive rhetoric about his apostleship found in 15:9-11, "it seems hardly possible to understand this usage except as a term that describes him vis-a-vis the Corinthians' own view of apostleship." That is, some of the Corinthians held pejorative views about Paul's calling and ministry, and he responds in part to that by this acknowledgment.

15:9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Rather than conceding to the criticism of his detractors, which was based upon worldly wisdom and human strife, Paul goes a step farther and uses self-criticism. Paul's self-criticism, unlike his detractors, is predicated upon the wisdom of God. This is why Paul can so readily embrace the fact that he is the least of the apostles and is unworthy (oujk eijmiÉ iJkanov", ouk eimi hikanos ) of this calling. Paul understood the gravity of his prior animosity to God. Both the Pauline letters and the Acts of the Apostles are in agreement that before Paul's encounter with the risen Lord he was involved in the persecution of believers.

15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Since Paul did nothing to earn or deserve his apostolic ministry, he can only accept it on the basis of the grace of God. When Paul proclaims that he is what he is by the grace of God, "The Corinthians could not gainsay his status unless they wanted to quibble with God." Paul's use of the term and concept of grace in this verse has two dimensions to it. The first two of the three occurrences point to the saving grace which Paul experienced at the time of his obedience to the gospel (cf. Eph 2:8-10). His final use of grace in this verse points in the direction of grace which is ministry and gift empowering. According to the apostle, all Christian ministries and gifts (see ch. 12) are a manifestation of the gracious will of God. Consequently, Paul understands grace not only as saving grace, but also as equipping and empowering grace, with the latter clearly stemming from the former.

Paul surely believed that God's grace could be received in vain or without effect (eij" ejmeÉ ouj kenhv, eis eme ou kenç). This phenomenon, in the words of the 20th century scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was "cheap grace," a grace which bore no fruit. While the history of Christianity has been plagued by the curse of "grace without effect," Paul's own ministerial strategy is "hard work." Paul's harmonization of grace and hard work should not represent a spiritual or doctrinal problem as long as it is understood that the hard work is a manifestation of the empowering grace.

The apostle's closing ideas in this verse significantly address the issue of this divine empowerment in ministry among believers. The crucial phrase "yet not I" means that the apostle disowns not only meritorious effort in his own justification and salvation, but also in his ministerial activities. All credit goes to the ever-present and empowering grace of God in his life (hJ cavri" tou' qeou' suÉn ejmoiv, hç charis tou theou syn emoi). This means, then, that Paul's heroic and sacrificial life, his stupendous zeal, and his Herculean accomplishments (cf. 1 Cor 4; 2 Cor 11; Rom 15; Acts 13-28) were, to adapt later language to the Corinthians, the work of God through a cracked clay pot (2 Cor 4:7ff). An illustration which has attempted to capture the paradox in Paul's words about hard work and the work of grace is given by Robertson and Plummer, "from a human point of view [it] is as the joy of a child who gives his father a birthday present out of his father's own money."

15:11 Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

The dual reference to "I or they" surely hints at some of the congregational disaffection for Paul and some preferences for other leaders, and perhaps other apostles. Paul's concern here is not to demand that they prefer him. On the contrary, Paul's point is to emphasize the fact that they and he all preached the same message. This verse is clearly a transitional verse into the main issue of confidence in the teaching of the resurrection of believers which follows in 15:11ff. In particular, the two terms "preach" (khruvssw, kçryssô and its cognates) and "believe" (pisteuvw, pisteuô and its cognates) are introduced here in anticipation of their appearance in the following section (1 Cor 15:12, 14, 17).

Paul does not have in mind just any point that the apostles have preached or any doctrine which the readers have believed. He is vitally concerned to affirm that all the preaching they had experienced and the message which they had already confidently believed presupposed the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of believers. "On the basis of this common faith," Fee rightly argues, "Paul will next turn to a direct confrontation with the Corinthians over their denial of the resurrection of the dead."

B. CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD (15:12-34)

1. Consequences of Denying the Resurrection (15:12-19)

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

15:12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

In the apostle's response to those believers who denied the future resurrection, he employed a particular type of rhetoric. The next several verses are constructed on the basis of logical argumentation, characterized by the particular use of the term "if." Witherington underscores the significance of this type of rhetoric in its historical setting with these words.

It was a regular practice for a rhetor to try to refute an argument by showing that its logical consequences were unacceptable and thus that the logic must be flawed. Paul offers a kind of syllogism to correct their view. . . . This is one of the most rhetorically powerful and detailed arguments in the letter.

With the words "some of you say" Paul makes it clear that this erroneous belief is coming from certain individuals within the church of God at Corinth. Since the readers have heard and accepted the resurrection of Christ, it is totally illogical, Paul reasons, for them to now accept the belief that the dead are not raised.

The specific doctrinal aberration to which Paul refers is that which denies that the dead are raised bodily. By denying the resurrection from the dead, the Corinthians were apparently still under the sway of their former pagan religious and philosophical views. Most, but certainly not all, of the Greco-Roman world at Paul's time believed in some form of postmortem consciousness, either in a state of bliss or in a state of punishment. This is abundantly evident whether one looks at major philosophical and religious writers of the ancient world or at the archaeological evidence of tombstone epitaphs. Accordingly, the conflict between Paul and these erring believers was not over the idea of the immortality of the soul. Rather, they disagreed over whether the body, in any form, was raised from the dead. The fact that the nature of this resurrection body was an essential part of the stumbling block for the Corinthians is demonstrated by the fact that Paul later has to treat extensively the question "With what kind of body will they come?" (1 Cor 15:35-55).

In this regard, one can only speculate about what these believers actually thought about the resurrection of Christ and the nature of his resurrected body. Paul clearly assumes that they did believe in Jesus' resurrection. But what were their beliefs about the nature of Christ's raised body? Did they hold to the Pauline view about the nature of the resurrection of Christ's body and therefore only need to have Paul point out the illogical nature of their reasoning? Or, would they have been shocked when reading the accounts of the Lord's postresurrection bodily appearances (esp. Luke 24)? There are no clear answers to these questions, but it is a point which may have contributed to the Corinthians' confusion.

15:13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

Paul turns the argument to demonstrate the logical consequences of the position of these Corinthians if they, rather than Paul, are correct. Since the apostle's argument rests upon the premise of an inextricable link between the believers' and Jesus' resurrection, he reasons that disbelief in the general resurrection of believers logically leads to disbelief in Christ's resurrection.

15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

It is the erroneous conclusion of these saints, whether they recognize its error or not, that even Christ had not been raised (15:13). Consequently, if Christ had not been raised, then the early church's proclamation was empty and useless (kenovn, kenon ), since his resurrection was the centerpiece of the early church's proclamation. Moreover, not only is the message of the apostle futile, the faith of the Corinthians is likewise useless (kenhv, kenç), since their belief was predicated upon the reality of Jesus' resurrection.

15:15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

Furthermore (the list of the consequences of the Corinthians' error continues), in addition to the falsity of the content of the apostolic proclamation, the falsity of the character of the apostles is now self-evident, if Christ had not been raised. Paul and the others must, logically speaking, be regarded as "false witnesses about God" (yeudomavrture" tou' qeou', pseudomartyres tou theou ). The basis of this charge of deceit and falsity is that Paul and the others as mountebanks had inveigled the credulous Corinthians into believing a lie, namely that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

While this charge is serious and damning if true, Paul argues that it is the only logical conclusion one can reach about the character of the apostles if the false doctrine of the Corinthians is correct. If the dead are not raised, then God did not raise Jesus.

15:16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

Conversely, if the Corinthian position is accurate, then Christ lies in an unknown Judean tomb, strangely enough never exhumed and put on display by the authorities - even after these almost twenty years - to quash the belief of the Jesus movement in their risen Lord.

15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

Another dramatic revelation from Paul is that the faith of the Corinthian believers is futile (mataiva, mataia ). A second startling consequence of this error is that the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins is a baldfaced lie. Interpreters of the New Testament are more accustomed to associate forgiveness of sins with the death of Christ rather than his resurrection. The writers of the New Testament can obviously focus on distinct facets of God's work in Christ (e.g., birth, miracles, human suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension), and the same can be said of Paul. While Paul can focus separately on the significance of Christ's incarnation, his death, his ascension, his life of service, and his resurrection, it would be a distortion for interpreters to imagine that any one of these could stand alone in Paul's theology. All of these were held together in the person of Christ because it was in him that God was pleased to accomplish his work on behalf of mankind. Without the culminating work of God in the resurrection of Jesus, then all of his prior acts would be without consummation and validity.

15:18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

Having referred to numerous logical consequences of the errorists' position on the resurrection, he now turns to one that surely had a strong cultural and, therefore, emotional appeal since it related to the fate of the dead. Because of the concern ancient people had for their dead and the conditions of their dead friends and loved ones in the underworld, this consequence would have affected them strongly. Ironically, it is just because of their pagan presuppositions about proper concern for the dead that they might better listen to Paul's argument.

If there is no resurrection, then those fellow believers who have died in the few intervening years between the arrival of the gospel in Corinth (Acts 18) and the writing of 1 Corinthians are lost (ajpwvlonto, apôlonto). There is no evidence for knowing how many of those there would have been who had fallen asleep in Christ. Whether the number was five, fifty, or five hundred, the apostle's argument is cogent. Regarding the dead saints, "Paul means that there is for them no future of any kind. Because they would thus have died in their sins, they perish along with the rest of fallen humanity."

15:19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Paul has already revealed his own eschatological piety and confidence at several locations in the letter of 1 Corinthians. This verse makes it clear that for the apostle this earthly life is not the ultimate good. Paul's gospel assuredly contained the expectations of benefits for the believer in "this life" (zwh/' tauvth/, zôç tautç). Irrespective, however, of all of the promised good in this present age, the substance of the believer's hope is anchored in the future. Given the paucity of the material and earthly blessings promised to the one who trusted in Christ, and given the relatively little that Paul says about the material significance and benefits of his doctrines, e.g., his Christology, one can better understand the emphasis of this verse.

Since the apostle's affirmation of the love of God and the justification of the sinner did not convert into specific material benefits similar to those ostensibly given by other ancient religions, Paul kept his central theological hopes focused upon a future created anew by God, rather than upon ephemeral things. Offers of good health, stellar performance in life's everyday transactions, victory in the vicissitudes of business and trade dealings, successful romantic relationships, and salvation from untimely disasters to family and farm were peculiarly, but significantly, absent from Paul's message.

2. The Fact of Christ's Resurrection (15:20-28)

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he "has put everything under his feet." ^a Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

^a 27 Psalm 8:6

15:20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Having spent the several preceding verses highlighting the damnable consequences that eventuate if the erring Corinthians were correct, he now turns his attention "to a positive testimony on Christ raised from the dead." Not only does he wish to reaffirm the resurrection of Christ, but especially to emphasize the positive consequences of that fact for believers. For Paul the resurrection of Jesus was no mere artifact of ancient Palestinian piety that the later saints were to reverence from a historical distance. That fact of history had direct and immediate impact and significance on the lives of believers.

The term Paul uses to explicate the significance of Jesus' resurrection is firstfruits (ajparchv, aparchç), an agricultural metaphor which has a rich eschatological application in Paul's writings (cf. Rom 8:23). Since Paul had mentioned in 15:18 the issue of the fate of those believers who had fallen asleep, he now stresses how his gospel understands the benefit of Christ's resurrection for them. Christ is the firstfruits for dead believers. In particular this metaphor means that in Jesus' resurrection the certainty of the resurrection of the saints is guaranteed. Jesus' resurrection is the firstfruit not because he was the first individual in human history to be raised, but because his was the only one which decisively overthrew death itself. All others who either before or after Jesus were raised from the dead died again, making it painfully clear that their resurrections had done nothing to eliminate death itself.

Consequently, there is never a question for believers of whether but only of when death will be permanently destroyed and their own bodies will be raised. The sovereign will of God that will bring this to fruition at the Second Coming has, in Fee's words, "been set inexorably in motion." Using the frequent harvest metaphor for the end of the age (see Jesus' use in Matt 13), Paul emphasizes that the initial stage of the final harvest has already occurred in the raising of Jesus of Nazareth. The presence of the firstfruits, Jesus' resurrection, is proof of the future culmination of the entire harvesting process (see notes on 15:23).

15:21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

At this point the apostle predictably drinks from the well of Old Testament theological materials to undergird his point to these mistaken (Gentile) members of the Corinthian church of God. Specifically, he returns to narrative material from the opening chapters of Genesis, narratives which have served him so well to this point, and utilizes concepts in the Adamic narratives. By the parallelism of the two phrases "through a man," Paul set up a typology of sorts to explain the work of Christ as firstfruits. The two realities before mankind are death (qavnato", thanatos ) and resurrection from the dead (ajnavstasi" nekrw'n, anastasis nekrôn), both of which were realities triggered by the actions of individuals.

15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Paul designates the one man to be Adam and the other to be Christ. Even though there are of course general similarities between the Adam-Christ illustration here and in Rom 5, there are also some significant distinctions. As Calvin, among others, noted, the primary function of this Adam-Christ illustration in ch. 15 is to address the issue of physical death and the expectation of a bodily resurrection, while the function of that illustration in Rom 5 is to deal with the issue of spiritual death and the nature of reconciliation.

In this verse Paul traces the origin of physical death back to Adam, at a time when God promised Adam that because of his disobedience he would die (Gen 2:17; 3:3). According to Paul "in Adam" all died. This concept of the activity of one person impacting the lives of others has sometimes been called "corporate personality." Anyone familiar with human history could hardly deny the fact that the decisions of one individual often have profound and longlasting consequences upon others, sometimes upon innocent others. But Paul is doing more than making an observation about human history. His concern is the divine economy of God. For Paul, the very principle which allows the decision of Adam to affect others, likewise allows the decision of Christ to affect others also. Without this concept of vicarious (on behalf of others) effects, then no one could benefit from God's work in Christ on our behalf.

Interpreters quite naturally disagree over whether Paul means the same thing in both occurrences of the term "all" (pavnte", pantes ) in 15:22. The point of disagreement is not so much whether the first use of the term "all" (in Adam) means every human who has or will ever live, but whether the second use of this term "all" (in Christ) means the same. Specifically, will everyone be made alive in Christ? The apostle certainly believed that both the righteous and the unrighteous would have to stand before God's throne of judgment (2 Cor 5:10; cf. esp. John 5:29; Dan 12:2), but is not Paul's contextual emphasis in 15:20-23 upon the benefits that believers receive from Christ as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep? If so, then at least Paul's immediate concern is that all (who belong to him, 15:23) will be made alive. Kistemaker makes the following observation:

The adjective all should not be interpreted to mean that Paul teaches universal salvation. Far from it. . . . Whereas all people face death because of Adam's sin, only those who are in Christ receive life because of his resurrection. The New Testament teaches that the verb to give life refers only to believers and not to unbelievers. Paul elucidates the rising from the dead of Christ and his people but not that of pagans.

15:23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

He next elaborates on the imagery of the concept of Christ as firstfruits and the attendant question of the sequence of the harvest. Many theories, some more speculative than others, have been offered about what particular Corinthian misunderstanding Paul was responding to here. Calvin's suggestion seems worthwhile when he imagines one of the misinformed Corinthians might contest Paul's previous affirmations with the observation, "Although Christ has risen from the tomb, we rot in it." This would necessitate, given Calvin's reconstruction, that Paul address the issue of "each in his own turn" (ejn tw'/ ijdivw/ tavgmati, en tô idiô tagmati).

Paul's view of the order ( tagma ) seems to include three steps, though in these three the apostle clearly does not answer all the questions that have been put to him throughout the centuries by various interpreters. The three-step schematization generally follows this pattern:

1. Resurrection of Jesus as firstfruit 15:23

2. Resurrection of believers at Christ's return 15:23

3. The End 15:24

a. when Christ gives the kingdom to God the Father

b. when Christ destroys all dominion, authority, and power

c. when all things are subjected to him (Christ) by God the Father

This pattern has no explicit reference to the resurrection of non-believers and in C.K. Barrett's opinion, "with this silence we must be content." Although Paul does not use here the term "Second Coming," there can be no doubt in light of his other writings that this is what he has in mind by the Greek term parousia ("when he comes," ejn th'/ parousiva/ aujtou' , en tç parousia autou).

15:24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.

By his use of this eschatological schema with its three stages Paul reveals the fact that his own doctrine of the resurrection of believers was closely tied to his view of the Second Coming of Christ. This is noteworthy since in the course of Christian history many have slowly moved away from Paul's inextricable link between the benefits of Jesus' resurrection for immortality and the End (cf. 15:53) and have moved toward attaching the benefits of Jesus' resurrection to the time of one's personal death.

Rather than Paul's model in 1 Cor 15 with its clear focus on the victory over death coming to the believer at his eschatological resurrection, some have thought more in terms of being immediately in the presence of God at the point of one's physical death, with little attention given to the imagery of describing dead believers as "those who have fallen asleep" (15:6, 18, 20, 51 and 7:39) until the coming of Christ and the End.

Since the kingdom of God can never come without the destruction of opponents, it is natural for him to link the eschatological possession and transfer of the kingdom to God the Father, its rightful owner, with destruction. While those who impugn the punitive picture of God in the New Testament usually look to the Apocalypse of John for their examples, this verse patently reflects the fact that the apostle Paul firmly believed in the punitive behavior of Christ and God the Father (cf. 2 Thess 1:3-12).

Paul has already made comments about the Roman political system, both in its execution of Jesus (see notes on 2:8) and its unrighteous judicial system (6:1-6), and his reference here to dominion, authority, and power would surely have included the dominant cultural, political, and religious forces of his time who stood in opposition to the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, Paul does not regard the Roman empire as the greatest opponents to God's monarchy. For the apostle Paul (a Roman citizen) the evil empire against which he fights is Adamic (see 15:21-22) and not a secular eschatology infatuated with the imperial cult and games. Rather, as Paul's argumentation and Scripture quotation throughout this entire chapter presupposes, death (15:26) and sin (15:54-57) are the major antagonists to the kingdom of God. There is no statement in this chapter or in other Pauline texts where such terminology occurs (e.g., Eph 1:21; 6:12; Col 1:16; Rom 8:38) to the effect that Christ came explicitly and intentionally to overthrow demonic forces associated with various human cultures and dictatorships.

15:25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

With the introductory term "for" (gavr, gar ) he makes it clear that this verse is an expansion and explanation of 15:24. There is a verbal and conceptual link between these two verses which is lost in English translation. The concept of handing over the "kingdom" (basileiva, basileia ) mentioned in 15:24 is further addressed by the phrase he must "reign" (basileuvw, basileuô) in 15:25. Since 15:24 pictures the risen Lord in possession of the kingdom to give to God, 15:25 comments on Christ's current rule in this kingdom.

There is divine necessity (dei', dei ) that supports Christ's current lordship. He must rule until which time (i.e., the End) he (i.e., Christ) subjugates all enemies under his (i.e., Christ's) feet. Even though the notion of "enemies under his feet" was a widespread political idiom in antiquity, found in visual form in Roman coinage and statuary, the presence of these words here must be traced back to the Old Testament. The verbal parallels between this wording in 15:25 and Psalm 110:1 ("until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet") and the Scripture citation from Ps 8:6 ("You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet") in 1 Cor 15:27 moves this beyond the realm of conjecture.

While there is partial subjugation of the enemies of God with the reign of Christ during human history, the final destruction and irreversible overthrow of these occurs only at the End. This verse also explains Paul's view of the current reign of Christ; it is necessary for the very reason that it is the means, the necessary means, through which God the Father is recapturing his rightful kingdom.

15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Throughout the high, ebb, and low tides of human history and achievements not a single advancement has been made against death (qavnato", thanatos ) as Paul understood it. It stands there, as a defiant equalizer and voracious vortex that drains the life from every one of God's creatures. The apostle's evaluation about the inimical nature (ejcqrov", echthros ) of death is unaltered by the extension of life expectancy or an occasional resurrection from the dead as testified to by Scripture. In these circumstances death is only momentarily put into check, but never into checkmate. The certain victory over this last enemy was secured and guaranteed by Jesus' own resurrection, but will only come to full manifestation and fruition at the time of Christ's return, when all who have died are loosened from the embrace of death and its power. The destruction of death is when the general resurrection takes place (cf. Rev 20:13-14).

15:27 For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.

These thoughts are added by Paul to clarify any possible misunderstandings about the extent of Christ's kingdom and, thereby, the relationship between Christ and God the Father. In his comments on these verses C.K. Barrett suggests that Paul wrote this to make it clear that "so far from its being true that God is subjected to Christ, Christ is subjected to God" and to dispel any possible Corinthian misconceptions that "at his exaltation Christ became the one supreme God. Obedience was and would through eternity continue to be part of the divine virtue of the Son."

He wants to make it clear that Christ's subjugation of everything which is attested by Ps 8:6 (see notes on 1 Cor 15:25) does not include God the Father. This misconception appears ludicrous to Paul since to speak of the subjugation of God the Father would be blasphemy. In addition, it would certainly call into question the logical character of the affirmations of the preceding verses. Since it was not an arbitrary fact that it was God the Father who was the one who put everything into submission to Christ (on the basis of the Father's divine monarchy; see notes on 3:23 and 11:3), then it would be illogical for the Father to now be in submission to one who was formally under his monarchy.

15:28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

This verse completes the train of thought begun in 15:24 when the events of the End are discussed. Furthermore, the apostle makes explicit that the Son himself will enter a submission (uJpotaghvsetai, hypotagçsetai) throughout eternity, a submission to God that has for its purpose ( hina ) the unqualified omnipotence ("all in all," pavnta ejn pa'sin, panta en pasin ) and monarchy of the Father. That the goal of history and the foundation of the believer's future resurrection is the eschatological monarchy of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob probably had little appeal to urbane Corinthians. But Paul's gospel of the resurrection of Christ (and hence of believers) was formulated within the worldview of Judaism and, in particular, Jewish apocalyptic thought. As J.C. Beker noted,

It is curious that Paul, so conscious of his universal call to be 'the apostle to the Gentiles' (Rom 11:13), insists on a particularistic Jewish apocalyptic ideology to communicate the truth of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. . . . First Corinthians 15 provides us with an impressive example that the coherent center of the gospel is, for Paul, not simply an experiential reality of the heart or a Word beyond words that permits translation into a multitude of world views. . . . However applicable the gospel must be to a Gentile in his contingent situation, it does not tolerate a world view that cannot express those elements inherent in the apocalyptic world view and that to Paul seem inherent in the truth of the gospel. . . . Indeed, according to Paul, the gospel is integrally connected with his apocalyptic world view: he cannot conceive of the resurrection of Christ - which the Corinthians affirm (1 Cor 15:1, 2, 11) - apart from the apocalyptic general resurrection of the dead. Both stand or fall together.

Calvin refuted those who twisted this idea of "be all in all" to support a kind of universalism in which "the devil and the disobedient will be saved" with the following words, "So we see how impudent madmen of that sort are, when they twist this saying of Paul's to support their own blasphemies."

3. Baptism, Suffering, and the Resurrection (15:29-34)

²⁹ Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? ³⁰ And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? ³¹ I die every day - I mean that, brothers - just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. ³² If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,

"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." ^a

³³ Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." ³⁴ Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God - I say this to your shame.

^a 32 Isaiah 22:13

15:29 Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?

Having completed a lengthy section in which he interpreted the meaning of Christ as firstfruits, Paul now turns to a different form of argumentation and rhetoric. Rather than using the more formal logical approach of 15:12-19, he now employs what most interpreters recognize as a form of reasoning which relies more heavily upon ad hominem appeals. The first response he gives to the "if there is no resurrection" questions has baffled interpreters for centuries. Scores of theories have been given to explain the meaning of the apostle's reference to the idea of baptism "on behalf of them [the dead]" (uJpevr aujtw'n, hyper autôn). In Fee's judgment there are four important questions one must answer about this "genuinely idiosyncratic historical phenomenon." These are: (1) Who was being baptized; (2) On whose behalf were they being baptized; (3) Why were they engaging in this practice; and (4) What difference did they think this practice would make? Without repeating all of the proposed solutions and the finely nuanced history of the interpretation of this somewhat enigmatic appeal (available in Fee's treatment) I would give the following tentative solution, though the textual and historical evidence is not available to answer Fee's four questions. Since Paul's question is stated in the third person rather than the second person, there is no need to believe that he is referring to a practice that his readership is participating in. That is, he did not ask "why are you baptized?" but "why are people baptized?" In light of the fact that there are a higher than usual number of allusions to and quotations from patently pagan materials in this ad hominem section (15:29-34), there is no intrinsic reason to doubt that Paul could be referring to a pagan practice to support his argument. This reference to a pagan practice would also make sense since paganism is the matrix of this particular misunderstanding among some of the Corinthians.

The particular reference to the act of water immersion rites presents no problem for this current interpretation. The ancient world was replete with non-Christian religions, both Jewish and pagan, who practiced some form of water immersions as a part of their religious beliefs. Since water immersion rites were sometimes characteristic of pagan cults which offered, among other things, hope of a postmortem existence, the apostle perhaps has referred to a practice, known by the Corinthians, in which pagan individuals hope to secure some eternal blessing. Since Paul mentions the vicarious nature ("on behalf," uJpevr, hyper ) of this baptism, this must have been a part of the pagan understanding which he has in mind.

Even if this were a current practice among some of the Corinthian believers (since there are allusions already in 1 Corinthians to their profound misunderstandings about water baptism: 1:13-17; 10:1-5), Paul mentions this not to endorse it, but to use this practice as an ad hominem argument to highlight the inconsistency of their beliefs.

15:30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?

If there is no eternal reward, no imperishable crown, Paul asks, "why do we endanger ourselves" at all times? This thought rests in part on his previous statement about the pitiful character of life if there is no resurrection. If one cannot interpret the voluntary misfortunes, dangers and painful experiences of this life with regard to the future, why undergo them? Since Paul's catalogues of sufferings (cf. 1 Cor 4:10-13; 2 Cor 11:23-29) point to many hardships that were voluntarily assumed, one can only reason that he could have lived without many of them. If there is no resurrection, he appeals, why constantly endure self-inflicted danger?

15:31 I die every day - I mean that, brothers - just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The apostle's statement about his daily death is a way to restate, though more emphatically, the idea given in 15:30. This autobiographical reference to daily death is not some notion of dying daily by "following Jesus." Based upon all the evidence from the Corinthian letters as well as Acts 19-20, Paul was often in danger of death at this juncture of his ministry. Especially noteworthy are his comments to this effect in 2 Cor 1:8-10, which contain the statements, "we despaired even of life," "we felt the sentence of death," "we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead," and "He has delivered us from such a deadly peril."

Paul connects the veracity of his statement about his daily death to the reality of his glory and boasting over the Corinthian saints. "The fact that they [the Corinthian saints] have been won to Christ out of the heathen world," Barrett writes, "is worth many deaths."

15:32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

Most modern interpreters, unlike Calvin, rightly understand Paul's words about wild beasts in Ephesus to have a metaphorical sense rather than a literal one. Arguments in favor of a metaphorical sense include the improbability of local officials throwing a Roman citizen into the arena and the rhetorical and metaphorical use of wild beast imagery among philosophers and rhetoricians of Paul's day; the apostle is probably referring to hardships and opposition he has faced in Ephesus.

The Greek phrase katav a[nqrwpon ( kata anthrôpon) translated "for merely human reasons" in the NIV conveys Paul's sense of doing things with only a human perspective (cf. the use of this prepositional phrase in 1 Cor 3:3; 9:8; Rom 3:5; Gal 3:15) and in this rhetorical setting without the eternal perspective of the resurrection life in view. That is, if he had only a secular viewpoint and fought with wild beasts, what would be gained? The answer, of course, is nothing.

Paul next raises the nihilistic implications of the denial of the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, Paul reasons, why not just turn to base hedonism and focus only on what this life provides? If there is no eternity in prospect, he asks, why not let this life be consumed with consumption and satisfaction of human appetites? The wording of Paul's statement is taken from the LXX rendering of Isa 22:13, though the sentiments were well known in antiquity outside of Jewish circles.

The apostle hardly believes that he is describing the lifestyle of every person who does not accept the resurrection. His point, which is also affirmed by some pagan authors, is that if there is no future life, then one should find all meaning in the joys and satisfaction of earthly appetites.

15:33 Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."

The introduction of the hedonistic theme in conjunction with the denial of the resurrection (see notes on 6:14) is continued in this verse. Both the imperative ("do not be misled," mhÉ plana'sqe, mç planasthe) and the content of the quotation demonstrate that Paul is still focused on the fact that denial of the resurrection promotes moral dissipation. First Corinthians 15:33 contains a statement found in a work of the pagan author Menander, though it is not at all clear that one should understand this as a quotation since this statement may well have already passed into common use as a moral aphorism long before Paul's time. In any case, the apostle clearly means for it to be understood as an adage which awakens the Corinthians to the imminent spiritual danger they are in, a danger which arises from misconceptions about the resurrection and is manifested in moral laxity.

15:34 Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God - I say this to your shame.

The forceful imperatives of this verse reveal that Paul believes that some of his readers are involved in sinful behavior (aJmartavnete, hamartanete ). Moreover, because of his shame-based rhetoric about the ignorance of God among others, he is making a contrast between believers who are not ignorant of God's ways, but act like they are, and unbelievers who are truly ignorant of God's ways. In this rhetorical context of a discussion of the resurrection, he is probably alluding to the ignorance some have of the resurrection.

The intended outcome of Paul's argument is that the erring Corinthians should experience shame (proÉ" ejntrophÉn uJmi'n, pros entropçn hymin). The rhetorical force is that they are sinning in ways that could only be explained on the basis of a fundamental ignorance of God, an ignorance which they cannot rightfully claim.

C. ANSWERS TO SOME QUESTIONS

ABOUT THE RESURRECTION (15:35-58)

1. A Twofold Question (15:35-41)

³⁵ But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" ³⁶ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷ When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. ³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. ³⁹ All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. ⁴⁰ There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

15:35 But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?"

Paul here enters a new section of his argumentation. It is clear that he is offering a response to two resurrection related questions. These inquiries focus on how the dead are raised and what kind of bodies they will have after they are raised. The fact that he has to give such an extended answer to these issues demonstrates, in my judgment, that these details about the "mechanics" of the resurrection may have been the very stumbling block which kept Corinthian believers from belief. This perspective makes complete sense in light of the pagan skepticism about this issue and the metaphysical assumptions they lacked which would be required to believe in the bodily resurrection.

To be sure, pagan mythology and legends preserved select accounts of resurrections, but these were often resuscitations of a corpse which eventually died again. In no instances were these resurrections viewed as the firstfruits of a general future resurrection at which time death would be destroyed.

15:36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

Paul expresses in strong language his criticism for a believer who would ask such a question. "The implication is not simply that such questions suggest one to have taken leave of his senses, but that one stands as the 'fool' in the OT sense - as the person who has failed to take God into account." This harsh criticism from the apostle is not directed against a person in whom faith is seeking a better understanding, but rather against doubt used in the service of aberrant disbelief and (probably) sins of immorality (15:32-34).

Paul introduces here an agricultural illustration of seed and sowing to answer the specific question mentioned in 15:35 about the body (sw'ma, sôma). The Christ-based work of "making alive" (15:22; from zw/opoievw, zôopoieô) is reintroduced here by the phrase "come to life" (also from zôopoieô) and teaches that this is not going to happen before the death of the body. The expression "what you sow" (o{ speivrei", ho speireis ) is Paul's euphemistic way to interpret the death and burial of an individual's body (cf. esp. the language of John 12:24). The specific point of the illustration is that, "Only by dissolution of the material particles in the seed is the germ of life . . . made to operate. . . . Dissolution and continuity are not incompatible."

15:37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.

This verse begins with the identical expression found in 15:36 "what you sow" ( ho speireis ; obscured by the NIV translation). The body (sôma ) placed in the ground at the time of burial is not merely resuscitated at the resurrection. It certainly is not the body that will be in the resurrection. If the body placed in the ground is not the body to be raised, just what is an appropriate illustration for this interred body? Paul compares the interred body to a naked seed (gumnoÉn kovkkon, gymnon kokkon ; NIV, just "a seed"), with the adjective "naked" ( gymnon ) perhaps anticipating its use in 2 Cor 5:3-4 ("because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked . . . because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling").

His point is to affirm the basic truth of a continuity between the seed that is planted and the plant that comes up from the ground. Since all must acknowledge "that corruption is the origin and cause of reproduction . . . ," Calvin argues, "It follows, therefore, that our appraisal of the power of God is far too spiteful and ungrateful, if we do not ascribe to Him, which is already plain before our eyes."

15:38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

This verse is in many ways the apostle's answer to the question of 15:35 ("with what kind of body will they come?"). The resurrection body will be what God has determined it to be. Retaining the use of the seed-body illustration, he reasons that just as God determines what the emerging plant will look like, so also God will give to the human body (=seed) the form and nature which he determines. Paul intentionally makes the description somewhat vague, though his points about: (1) life arising from decay and corruption; (2) continuity between the seed planted and the plant that arises from the ground; and (3) the role of divine determination in the process are straightforward.

15:39 All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.

Here Paul shifts in his illustration, but he has not significantly altered his point, a point that is aimed at answering the questions of 15:35 by means of illustrations from the natural world. While the term flesh (savrx, sarx ) is not normally used as a synonym for body (sôma) in Paul's anthropology, these two terms are employed in the same way in the illustrations given in 15:35-41. His concern is to furnish additional illustrative material to undergird the fact that a rigid naturalistic worldview which does not recognize that there could be more than one kind of flesh does not acknowledge the variety in nature itself. Since nature, in Paul's illustration, points toward the fact that "all flesh is not the same," these misguided Corinthian believers need to acknowledge that there might just be a kind of resurrection reality in which their bodies will not have to be the same as they are during the present.

Another perspective that is inherent in Paul's use of these varying kinds of flesh (e.g., human, animal, birds, and fish) is that each has a flesh that is appropriate to its own environment. Birds, for example, are given a body that is appropriate for the conditions in which God made them to live, but the flesh appropriate for birds should not be evaluated on the basis of the appropriateness of the flesh given to humans.

15:40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.

Having now given illustrations from the world of plant life and then animal life, Paul now turns to another dimension of nature to buttress his perspectives. Celestial objects are now the focus of his illustrations. He once again wants to emphasize the fact that the observable universe teaches against the idea of the necessity of the uniformity of bodies. Since there are both heavenly bodies (swvmata ejpouravnia, sômata epourania) and there are earthly bodies (swvmata ejpivgeia, sômata epigeia) that differ (eJtevra, hetera ) from one another, it should not be hard to accept, Paul implies, that a believer's worldview should not be confined to a narrow view of only one type of human body. In light of "these myriads of differences in one and the same universe," would it not be unimaginable for Paul, Robertson and Plummer remark, "to place any limit to God's power with regard either to the difference between our present and our future body, or to the relations between them"?

Paul's particular use of the term "splendor" ( doxa ) reveals that he is doing more than giving a mere illustration. This term doxa is such a significant eschatological term for the apostle (see esp. Rom 5:1; 8:18-30; 2 Cor 16-5:10) that there can be little doubt that he chose this term because of the splendor associated with the resurrection body, as he states in 1 Cor 15:43 (raised in doxa ; this verbal link is destroyed in the NIV when it renders the word "splendor" in 15:40-41 and "glory" in 15:43).

This dichotomy between heavenly and earthly also anticipates a similar dichotomy given in 15:47-49.

15:41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

Just as Paul gave specific examples of the variety within the animal kingdom (e.g., birds, fish), so here he gives specific examples from among the types of heavenly bodies. One of the most obvious differences to ancient mankind regarding the sun, the moon, and the stars was the differing degrees of their brightness, mentioned here with the term "splendor" ( doxa ). Even though this illustration is used to advance Paul's eschatological point, he did not intend to teach, thereby, that the raised saints themselves had various degrees of splendor, a notion concerning which Calvin rightly remarked, "it has nothing to do with what Paul has in mind here."

2. An Explanation of the Resurrection of the Dead (15:42-50)

⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴ it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" ^a ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we ^b bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

^a 45 Gen. 2:7 ^b 49 Some early manuscripts so let us

15:42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;

With the opening words "so will it be" (ou{tw", houtôs) Paul brings the preceding points to bear upon the misconceptions and doubts of certain of the Corinthians regarding the resurrection of the dead. The imagery of sowing and seed is picked up from the previous use of those metaphors in 15:36-38. The term "perishable" (fqorav, phthora ) is found in other well known eschatological sections within Paul's letters (e.g., Rom 8:21; 1 Cor 15:50) and characterizes the decaying nature of the creation because of Adam's transgression. The counterpoint to being covered over by the soil in order to rot and decay is the resurrection into an imperishable state (ajfqarsiva, aphtharsia ). This concept of imperishability has already appeared in this letter with reference to the crown the believer receives (9:25; cf. 15:50, 52, 53, 54)

15:43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

The apostle here continues to utilize a series of antitheses to dramatically accentuate the radical transformation which occurs at the End. Concepts such as "dishonor" (ajtimiva, atimia ) and "weakness" (ajsqevneia, astheneia ) point in the direction of the concept of bondage and enslavement (Rom 8:21) which Paul associated with the decaying and terminal character of human existence. This was a form of human existence which could only be ameliorated by the vanquishing of God's last enemy (15:26).

The eschatological doctrine of the resurrection of the body "in glory" (ejn dovxh/, en doxç) taught here is also taught by Paul in Phil 3:21, "We eagerly await a Savior from there [i.e., heaven], the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." The pregnant doctrine of "power" (duvnami", dynamis ) is used with great versatility by Paul in the Corinthian letters. The usage that one finds here is similar to the thoughts of 2 Cor 13:4, "To be sure, he was crucified in weakness (ejx ajsqeneiva", ex astheneias ), yet he lives by God's power (eJk dunavmew", ek dynameôs)."

15:44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

There are two noteworthy points about Paul's wording in this section. First, Paul emphasizes the continuity between man's earthly and heavenly existence by the common use of the term "body" (sw'ma, sôma) in the phrases "natural body" (sw'ma yucikovn, sôma psychikon) and "spiritual body" (sw'ma pneumatikovn, sôma pneumatikon). Secondly, after affirming continuity on the basis of the common term sôma, he then accents the discontinuity by the antithetical terminology "natural" and "spiritual." The word "natural" summarizes all the concepts associated with the preceding words (15:42-43) such as perishable, dishonor, and weakness, while "spiritual" is aligned with ideas such as imperishable, glory, and power.

Since Paul uses the adjective "spiritual" ( pneumatikos ) to correct misconceptions in chapter 15 as well as in chapters 12-14, some interpreters have hastily concluded that the two problems are substantially connected. This hardly seems to be the case, viewed historically. The reason for the accentuated emphasis upon "spirit" and "spiritual" in the discussion of gifts in chapters 12-14 (as opposed to Paul's discussion of gifts in Rom 12 and Eph 4) is best explained by Paul's need to combat the abiding influence of Greco-Roman polytheism and animism among his neophyte converts.

In light of what we understand about Pauline theology, the obvious reason he would use the term "spiritual" in 1 Cor 15 is because of his widespread and abiding conviction that the Spirit was the personality of the triune Godhead which effected the resurrection of Jesus. The frequent Pauline preference (in occasions distinct from the one we find in Corinth) is to explain the resurrection of Jesus and its religious implications for believers, both present and eschatological, in terms of the Holy Spirit. It should not, therefore, strike the modern interpreter as so out of the ordinary when Paul describes the resurrection body as a spiritual body. The vocabulary and perspectives necessary for Paul to discuss the spiritual body are indigenous within Paul's own experiences and thoughts and do not require a Corinthian matrix to explain their place in the rhetoric and arguments of 1 Cor 15.

In the last part of 15:44 the apostle appeals to self-evident experience to begin an argument for the resurrection of the body. That is, the Corinthians would grant his premise that there is a natural body. Paul begins a deductive argument which will finally be rooted (15:45-48) in the authority of Scripture.

15:45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

Paul offers here scriptural attestation for the proof of the preceding verse, that if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Gen 2, in particular the narrative of Adam's creation, supplies the text and vocabulary for Paul's interpretation of the resurrection body. Using the Adam-Christ illustration (some would call it typology), Paul aligns Adam with the natural body and Christ with the spiritual body. Paul's argumentation is based, in part, on word plays which cannot be adequately represented in an English translation. The Greek word rendered "natural" in 15:44 is yucikov" ( psychikos ), which is an adjectival cognate of the noun yuchv (psychç). This noun psychç is translated "being" in the phrase "became a living being" in 15:45. Accordingly, Paul constructs a parallelism between the natural body of 15:44 and the Adamic living being of Gen 2:7.

Christ's role in this illustration is brought under the heading of "the last Adam," with Paul focusing on the life-giving (see notes on zôopoieô at 1 Cor 15:36) work of Christ. To describe Christ's work with the phrase "life-giving spirit" is precisely what Paul is compelled to do since he is focused upon an argument about the spiritual ( pneumatikos ) nature of the resurrection body.

It is a smaller part of the apostle's exposition to point out the fact that Adam was the first man while Christ - the life-giving spirit - is the last Adam. This Adam/Christ paradigm functions in this argument as a model for the chronological aspect (first . . . last; prw'to" . . . e[scato", prôtos . . . eschatos ) of the natural body/ spiritual body.

When Paul treats eschatological issues in his letters it is not unusual for him to interact with this chronological aspect. He frequently shapes his discussions of eschatology with references to the "already" character of what believers now possess as well as with references to the "not yet" character of what believers will only possess at the End. Those who know the apostle's writings encounter this Pauline concern in words and phrases such as fruitfruits of the Spirit (Rom 8:23), the Spirit as a deposit that guarantees what is to come (2 Cor 1:22), the Spirit has been given to us to serve as a deposit to guarantee what is to come (2 Cor 5:5; Eph 1:13-14).

15:46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

Here Paul sees a need to draw upon the chronological arrangement outlined in the previous verse and reiterate the implication of the sequence of the first and last Adam. The NIV translation has omitted the initial Greek adversative word ajllav ( alla ), which should have been translated "but" and would have given a good sense of Paul's intent to oppose possible misconceptions among his readers. While most interpreters would agree with C.K. Barrett's assessment that here "Paul's eye is still on the main run of the argument," there is no such consensus when it comes to the details of the function of Paul's argument. Some, like C.K. Barrett, have been attracted to the idea that Paul is countering a view of the Adamic creation maintained by certain Hellenized Jews of the period, exemplified by the Jewish author Philo of Alexandria. Others believe that the apostle is giving a counter argument against some form of Gnostic theology with its creation myths about the Primal Man. Kistemaker follows Gordon Fee's lead when Fee writes,

Against the Corinthians, who assumed that they had already entered into the totality of pneumatic existence while they were still in their psychikos body, Paul insists that the latter come first, that is, that they must reckon with the physical side of their present life in the Spirit.

Much of Fee's understanding of the church of God at Corinth is of a church replete with pneumatics ( pneumatikoi ) who have a misinformed eschatology. Fee's reconstruction at this point is both ill-founded exegetically (e.g., 1 Cor 4:8) and seriously flawed historically (e.g., eschatological women) and one should not hastily consent to an interpretation based upon such shaky foundations.

There is an alternative interpretation which takes into account the Pauline emphasis upon first and last in 15:45-46, but is not so entwined with the problematic reconstructions that characterize the Hellenistic Jewish, the Gnostic, and the pneumatic interpretations. This alternate view takes its cue from the contextual issue of those believers, from a Gentile heritage, who deny the general resurrection (15:12), especially in terms of their questions that Paul raises in 15:35.

In the opening words of 15:42-49 Paul describes (by illustration) the resurrection ("So will it be," ou{tw", houtôs). It should be kept in mind that the point of contention between the apostle and the erring Corinthians (as it is represented in this chapter of the letter) is not over whether there is a postmortem consciousness, but when will it begin to occur. To state it in words of pointed contrast, Paul's misinformed readers believed in "life after death," while Paul (specifically in this chapter) believed in life after the resurrection! When he writes about the resurrection, he can only be speaking about the resurrection that occurs at the End, at one time, for everyone who has died. This means then that for these misinformed Corinthians, their own eschatological hopes were actually impeded by Paul. In this particular argument he offers no words about the felicitous condition of the dead saints - they only sleep. When Paul puts such emphasis on the occurrence of the resurrection of the spiritual body at, and only at, the End, this would understandably engender some adverse feelings and disbelief among those Corinthians who hoped for and believed in a widely held postmortem eschatology.

Turning again to the wording of 15:46, it should be remembered that for Paul the phrase "the natural body" does not just refer to the body's existence from the time of birth to the time of death. For Paul, in light of Adamic influence, the natural body remains natural (yucikovn, psychikon ) until the Adamic influence is annihilated at the return of Christ and the End. The spiritual body, on the other hand, does not refer to the condition and state of the believer following his personal death, but rather to the body at, and only at, the time of Christ's return and the End.

It is in the light of this reconstruction that Paul would rightfully need to argue for the fact that the natural body must precede the spiritual. To the Corinthian believer whose belief in immediate and personal postmortem bliss either negated or diminished the Pauline doctrine of the general resurrection at the End, Paul writes that the natural body (which extends to the End) must precede the spiritual body (which begins only at the general resurrection). This reconstruction of the historical setting fits well with the beliefs and hopes one could rightly expect from new believers in an urban Roman colony like Corinth. It also takes seriously the fact, not always understood by interpreters in the "Christian West," that denial of the resurrection is not at all the same as denial of the afterlife and an afterlife consisting of rewards and punishments.

15:47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

Paul continues here to expand his understanding on the basis of scriptural authority and allusion, taking his imagery and concepts from the idea of the creation of man "from the dust of the ground" in Gen 2:7. He mentions the "first man" (prw'to" a[nqrwpo", prôtos anthrôpos) and with his description symbolically points to the natural state of the body. That is, Adam's creation from the earth depicts his perishability and his weakness since concerning Adam God spoke, "for dust you are, and to dust you will return" (Gen 3:19).

The second man, Christ, has an origin radically different from Adam's. Since Christ came from the divine and eternal realms rather than the transient and seen world (cf. 2 Cor 4:18), he vouchsafes splendor, power, and imperishability (cf. 15:42-43). As numerous orthodox commentators have pointed out, Paul is not teaching, as early heretics inferred, that Christ's body was not a human body. It is the farthest thing from Paul's mind and theology to teach that Christ arrived on earth in the womb of the blessed Mary with a heavenly and supernatural body.

15:48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

Paul here begins his explicit correlation between the two Adams, the first man and the second man, and their human counterparts or clones. The twice used phrase "so are those who" links these two images with earthly descendants. Since Paul believed that the general resurrection included both the saved and unsaved, it will hardly do to interpret the Adam/Christ illustration here as though it provided nomenclature for the saved and unsaved. Presumably he still writes about the resurrection of bodies here. Unlike the Adam/Christ typology of Rom 5 where these two are more alternatives, the illustration of 1 Cor 15 is not given to provide a choice. Unless Paul has quickly leapt from the subject under discussion and jettisoned his consistent use of the Adam/Christ illustration in chapter 15, then these two figures point to the two modes of bodily existence. That is, in this world every believer's body is Adamic while at the resurrection every believer's body is the Second Adam's. This interpretation not only conforms to the flow of Paul's argument in this chapter, but also makes sense in light of the interpretation of Genesis drawn in 15:46 and the historical situation sketched above.

15:49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

In this verse Paul brings to an end the section of 15:42-49. He acknowledges here that mankind has borne the likeness of Adam and so is subject in this life to a body that is terminal. The limitations of the first man, mortality, naturalness and dust, are the hallmarks of bearing the first man's likeness (eijkovna, eikona ). Paul then shifts to the future tense in the latter part of the verse. By use of the future tense of the Greek verb Paul points to the future End when the believers will be "like Christ" and bear the image ( eikona ) of one who is the life-giving spirit (15:45). With this statement of future realities Paul brings to an end his eschatological plea and instruction based upon the image and message of the Adamic story and the Adam-Christ illustration. With his opening words of this verse "and just as" (kaiÉ kaqwv", kai kathôs) Paul made it plain to his readers at Corinth that he was just as certain about his future existence in the spiritual body as he was certain about his past lifelong existence in the natural body, a body whose course had been set, though only temporarily, by Adam.

15:50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Regarding this verse Herman Ridderbos noted that Paul "brings to the fore the heart of the matter that is at stake in I Corinthians 15 with great force and with a final, conclusive argument, i.e., that of its necessity and indispensability." Paul organizes the thought in this verse on the basis of a parallelism in which flesh and blood in 15:50a is parallel with perishable in 15:50b and kingdom of God in 15:50a is parallel with the imperishable in 15:50b.

In the doctrinal context of Paul's argument in chapter 15 he is not referring to mankind's carnal nature or sinful character when he mentions flesh and blood. The expression "flesh and blood" (saÉrx kaiÉ ai|ma, sarx kai haima ) is found other places in Scripture (e.g., Gal 1:16; Matt 16:17; and in reversed order in Eph 6:12; Heb 2:14) and is usually understood to refer to the idea of human beings, especially as distinct from God. Kistemaker observed in this regard that, "The expression as such is a figure of speech for the physical body. It is a Semitic phrase that occurs repeatedly in rabbinic sources to denote the utter frailty and mortality for a human being."

The phrase "the kingdom of God" is used at other locations by the apostle in 1 Corinthians, once in reference to the operation of ecclesiastical matters (4:20) and four times to refer to God's eschatological kingdom (6:9, 10; 15:24, 50). Just as God's eschatological rule will not brook either the immoral (6:9-10) or any unsubjugated powers and authority (15:24), neither will it abide the presence of humanity still tethered to Adamic corruption and mortality.

Now using the term "perishable" (fqorav, phthora ) to describe mankind's situation and "imperishable" (ajfqarsivan, aphtharsian ) for the condition of eternal life and heaven, Paul teaches that the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable.

3. The Secret Revealed (15:51-58)

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." ^a

⁵⁵"Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?" ^b

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

^a 54 Isaiah 25:8 ^b 55 Hosea 13:14

15:51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed -

Paul's command to the readers to "listen" (ijdouv, idou , other versions "behold" or "look") is an "emphatic introduction of information of great moment." He is going to share with them divine revelation concerning the metamorphosis of living saints at the time of the return of Christ.

At this juncture Paul elaborates on the question of the fate of those still alive at the End. There has been a long scholarly debate on whether in the preceding verse Paul was referring to both those who would be alive (i.e., flesh and blood) as well as those who would be dead (the perishable). Regardless of the outcome of that debate, it is clear in this verse that Paul does address the question about the fate of those alive at the time of the Lord's return.

Whether or not the Corinthians had specifically asked Paul about the issue of the "rapture" of the living saints as mentioned in 1 Thess 4:13-18 is unclear. In any case, he obviously wanted the readers to understand the significance of his doctrines about the spiritual body and the return of Christ for those believers who were still alive. While Paul obviously longs for the return of Christ in his own lifetime (1 Cor 16:22; cf. 1:7-8), one is hard pressed to demonstrate that a "this generation timetable" is required by Paul's use of the first person plural (" We will not all sleep") or that such a timetable had become part of Paul's eschatological doctrine. Calvin was of the opinion that,

When he says we shall be changed , he counts himself among those who will be alive at the coming of Christ. Since it was already the last times, the saints were to expect that day every single hour. Although in his letter to the Thessalonians he makes that remarkable prophecy about the scattering of the Church that would occur before the coming of Christ, that does not prevent him from confronting the Corinthians with the event here and now, as it were, and being able to put himself and them alongside those who would be alive when the day came.

Paul teaches that the transformation about which he has been writing will happen both for the dead and the living. Those who are alive at Christ's return will be changed (from ajllavssw, allassô).

15:52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

The succession of illustrations is used here for the sudden and cataclysmic nature of the End and the attendant change that will take place in the bodily nature of those raised. In the phrase "at the last trumpet" the concept of last should not be interpreted as the last in a series of endtime events, as some interpret the seven angels with seven trumpets in Rev 8:6-11:15, but last in the sense that Christ was the last Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45). The imagery of the divine trumpet was well known in Jewish materials, both in canonical and extracanonical literature. The sound of the trumpet was explicitly associated with, among other things, the theophany at Mt. Sinai (Exod 19:13, 16, 19; 20:18; cf. Ps 47:5; Zech 9:14), with the victory of Holy War (Josh 6:5; Judg 7:18), with enthronement of kings (2 Sam 15:10; 1 Kgs 1:34, 39; 2 Kgs 9:13), with periods of consecrated worship (Lev 23:24; 25:9; Ps 81:3; Joel 2:15; cf. Isa 27:13) and with the sound of preparation for battle (Judg 3:27; Neh 4:20; Job 39:25; Jer 4:19-21; 51:27; Joel 2:1; Zeph 1:16).

With the rich use of this imagery in Jewish writings, it is no wonder that it is found in the teaching of Jesus, "And he [i.e., the Son of Man] will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds" (Matt 24:31) and in other Pauline eschatological texts, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thess 4:16).

It would be unwise to try to be too narrow in defining Paul's emphasis with the trumpet imagery here. In all probability Paul's use included elements of theophany, military victory and enthronement (cf. 15:24-28), and "summoning the dead from their graves." Although it is not germane to the apostle's point in chapter 15, the reader should not forget that Paul had previously taught the Corinthians that the saints will participate in the eschatological judgment of the world (1 Cor 6:2).

Paul mentions the destiny of all saints in the closing words of this verse. Those who have died prior to the End will be raised up in a spiritual body, while those who are alive at the End will undergo a transformation. This verse makes it certain that Paul linked this resurrection of the saints to the return of Christ at the End, when the trumpet sounds.

15:53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

Paul employs here a form of parallelism of thought. The terms "perishable" (fqartovn, phtharton ) and "mortal" (qnhtovn, thnçton) form one of the parallel groups, while the terms "imperishable" (ajfqarsivan, aphtharsian ) and "immortality" (ajqanasivan, athanasian ) form the other. The NIV omits the translation of the Greek term dei' ( dei ) which means "it is necessary"; this term was used by Paul to affirm the fact that it was the divine decree of God (according to 15:54-55 prophesied in Scripture) that this process must happen.

The imagery of being clothed or clothing oneself (e.g., put off; put on) is utilized by Paul in portions of his letters when he deals with salvation (Gal 3:28), sanctification (Rom 13:12, 14; Eph 4:24; 6:11, 14; Col 3:10, 12; 1 Thess 5:8) and eschatology (1 Cor 15:53, 54; 2 Cor 5:3).

15:54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Paul repeats the affirmations given in the preceding verse and grounds them in the truth and attestation of Scripture. Witherington observes that this is "the only place in his letters where Paul cites an OT text as -a prophecy yet to be fulfilled." This Scripture given in 15:54 is found in Isa 25:8, which is taken from a larger four chapter section of Isaiah (24-27) that is replete with eschatological vocabulary and themes. Paul points to a time when death itself is destroyed and only God's victory survives.

15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

Paul continues his quotation from Scripture but moves now to Hosea 13:14. A comparison of 1 Cor 15:55 with Hosea 13:14 reveals that Paul is not giving a direct quotation. The wording of Paul's citation is so different from the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament texts in Hosea 13:14 that Calvin was not certain that the apostle was even attempting to quote the Hosea text. He comments,

I am quite clear in my own mind that he did not really intend to use the prophet's testimony here, so as to take advantage of his authority, but, in passing, simply adapted to his own purpose a saying which had passed into common currency. . . ."

In this quotation death personified is taunted. Picking up on the term "victory" (ni'ko" , nikos ) in 15:54, Paul here points out that death's current victory is only apparent and temporary. In light of the coming End, death is stripped of its ostensible victory over mankind.

Next he mentions the sting (kevntron, kentron ) which death has temporarily used against mankind, but does not really describe this sting until the following verse.

15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Both the exact meaning of certain ideas in this verse and the rhetorical function of this sentence in the Corinthian setting have puzzled interpreters. Fee mentions "the dissonance these words seem to bring to the argument." Holladay understands the general sense of Paul's words in the following way,

The sting which death brings is the result of sin; prior to the first resurrection, the world still lived under the force and power of sin (Satan), and the continuance of death documents its continued power. But sin exhibits its power through the law. . . . These three things - sin, law, and death - represented to Paul the three essential ingredients of the world order whose doom was sealed when God raised Christ from the dead.

While it will be several months after this letter when Paul pens his famous letter to the Romans and develops, for contextual reasons, this relationship between law, death, and sin (especially chapters 5-8), he states it plainly here that physical death is inextricably tied (fundamentally in Adam, 15:21, 45ff) to the spiritual problem of sin and mankind's failure to relate to God's law properly.

15:57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Picking up on the theme of eschatological victory over death that was introduced in 15:54-55, Paul affirms that victory has been ripped from death through Jesus Christ and given to believers. He locates the sources of this victory in God himself, since he was the one who gave the victory to believers through his work in the Lord Jesus Christ.

15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

C.K. Barrett observed,

It calls for no great effort of the imagination to hear Paul's vehement preaching in the climax of this paragraph, but he is not the kind of preacher to finish his discourse . . . in pure rhetoric. His apocalypse, and the enthusiasm with which he expounds it, are directed to a practical goal.

Anyone familiar with Paul's use of the doctrine of the resurrection in letters such as Romans or Ephesians knows that "For Paul resurrection, both Christ's and the Christian's, is the basis for a new moral order." His use of the term "therefore" (w{ste , hôste) is a grammatical indication of this connection between the lengthy preceding doctrinal arguments and the imperatives of this verse about the believer's life and attitudes . Consequently, one would expect Paul to end this section, just as at 15:32-34, with admonitions about the believer's life and his participation in the work of the Lord.

The admonitions of standing firm and being unmoved probably refer to Corinthian attitudes and loyalties toward the gospel "on which you have taken your stand" (15:1) and by which "you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you" (15:2). Since the phrase "in the work of the Lord" is in a sentence beginning with "my dearest brothers" (even though they doubt the general resurrection and are foolish, cf. notes at 15:36), the work of the Lord must be a concept that includes all that is incumbent upon the life and lifestyle of every believer. Paul's point is made clearer by his later reference to their "labor in the Lord." We can only conclude that even though Paul disdains all efforts at self-righteousness and justification by human effort (Rom 1-4; Eph 2; Phil 3), work and labor were incumbent not only on the apostolic lifestyle (cf. 1 Cor 15:10), but also upon all believers who have received the victory of God mediated through the Lord Jesus Christ (15:57). Full abandonment to the work of the Lord is the normal believer's life for the apostle and "doing nothing is not a Pauline option."

Paul began this chapter with a reference to the vanity of the believer's life without the gospel of the resurrection (15:1-2, 14) and appropriately ends it with the reverse implication that their years of labor and loyalty in response to the message of the resurrection will not be in vain. According to Paul's gospel this is the only implication that one could draw in light of God's victory (ni'ko", nikos ) that had already been been awarded to believers (15:57), a victory attested by Scripture (15:3-4, 25-27, 32, 44-49, 53-56) and rooted in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: 1Co 15:25

For he must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet . [Eph 1:20-22 ; Mat 28:18 ; 1Pe 3:22]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:26

The last enemy that shall be abolished is death . [2Ti 1:10 ; Heb 2:14 ; Rev 20:14]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:27

For [saith the Psalmist], He put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put in subjection [Psa 8:6 ; Psa 110:1 ; Psa 2:6-9], it is evident that he [the Father] is excepted who did subject all things unto him .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:28

And when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all . [i. e., that God may have all headship of all creation; complete and absolute supremacy (Col 3:11), so that "all things shall say, 'God is all things to me'" (Bengel). In 1Co 15:23 the apostle, while arguing the reasonableness of the resurrection, is led to mention its relation to the end of the world, but the resurrection presents its reasonableness in another form, being intimately associated with a higher, more transcendent climax than even the termination of this physical universe; for it is an essential preliminary to the culmination of Christ's mediatorial kingdom into the kingdom of the Father. This culmination can not take place until the mediatorial kingdom has attained ripened perfection through the subjugation of all things. But among the enemies to be thus subdued, death stands forth with marked prominence, and the weapon which subdues him is, and can be no other than, the resurrection. Hence the supreme glorification, or, as it were, the crowning of God as all in all, is predicated upon a resurrection as a condition precedent. The chain of Paul's logic is long, but it runs thus: no glorification until the mediatorial kingdom is turned over to God; no turning over of this kingdom until its work is complete; no completion of its work till all its enemies are destroyed; no destruction of all these enemies while death, a chief one, survives; no destruction of death save by the resurrection: therefore no full glorification of God without a resurrection. The logic would hold good for the doctrine of Universalism, were it not that there is a second death which is not looked upon as an enemy to the kingdom of God.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:29

Else [i. e., if it were otherwise -- if baptism were not an all-important factor in God's plan] what shall they do that are baptized for [on account of, with reference to. For full discussion of this preposition see Canon Evans' additional note, Speaker's Commentary in loco] the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? [The word "baptized" is an imperfect participle, and denotes an act being continually performed. Paul's question, then, is this: If the resurrection is not part of God's plan -- if affairs are otherwise, and there is really no resurrection then what are converts to do, who, under the mistaken notion that there is a resurrection, are now constantly presenting themselves to be buried in baptism on account of the dead? If the dead are not raised, why then are these converts buried in baptism on their account, or with a view to them? Rom 6:3-11 makes Paul's meaning in this passage very plain. The dead are a class of whom Christ is the head and firstfruits unto resurrection. By baptism we symbolically unite ourselves with that class, and so with Christ, and we do this because of the hope that we shall be raised with that class through the power of Christ (Rom 6:5). But if the dead are not raised at all, then why should converts be united with them by a symbolic burial? why should they be baptized on their account, or with reference to them? If there is no resurrection, baptism, which symbolizes it, is meaningless. Commentators belonging to churches which have substituted sprinkling for baptism make sad havoc of this passage. Having lost sight of the symbolic meaning of baptism -- that it is a union of the convert with the dead, and especially with the dead and buried Christ as their head and firstfruits unto life -- they are at a loss how to interpret the apostle's words, and in despair assert that Christians were in the habit of being baptized vicariously for their friends who died without baptism. Long after Paul wrote, a similar misunderstanding of this passage led the followers both of Marcion and Cerenthus to practice such vicarious baptisms; but the practice grew out of Paul's words, instead of his words being called forth by the practice.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:30

why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour?

McGarvey: 1Co 15:31

I protest by that glorying in [concerning] you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily . [Rom 8:36]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:32

If after the manner of men [as a carnal man, having no future hope] I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me? [The tense and words indicate that Paul had become a beast-fighter as a settled occupation. It is conceded that his language was figurative, and that he spoke of contending with beasts in human form (Tit 1:12 ; 2Ti 4:17), rather than to the fighting of actual beasts in the arena. Had Paul been thrown to the lions, Luke could hardly have failed to mention it when recording the events of Paul's ministry at Ephesus. Moreover, Paul's Roman citizenship shielded him from such a punishment. But he does not refer to the tumult in the theater (Act 20:19), for it took place after this letter was written. But we may well believe that Paul was in daily danger in Ephesus -- 2Co 1:8-9] If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die . [This is an Epicurean maxim which had passed into a proverb. "If," says South, "men but persuade themselves that they shall die like beasts, they soon will live like beasts too." In the three verses above, Paul passes from the symbolic death of baptism to consider death literally. In the hope of a resurrection he was enduring daily a living death, his life being hourly in jeopardy. If it was idle folly in converts to be symbolically united with the dead, much more was it gross foolishness for the apostle to live thus continually on the verge of being literally, actually united with them. But the folly in both instances was made wisdom by the fact of a resurrection. Thus to the arguments already adduced Paul adds the additional one that Christianity, in its initial ordinance, and in its daily life-experience, is built upon the hope of a resurrection. Without this hope no sensible man could start to be a Christian, much less continue to live in accordance with his profession.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:33

Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:34

Awake to soberness righteously, and sin not; for some have no knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to shame . [Do not be deceived by freethinkers and shun those who would corrupt the truth, for right doctrine and right practice stand or fall together. Shake off, therefore, this drunken fit, and keep from those sins in which it has tempted you to indulge. The sentence "Evil," etc., is a quotation taken from the Greek poet Menander. To show the full enormity of the teaching of the rationalists, Paul declares that it is a shame to the Corinthians to have such Christless Christians in the church -- men who have so little knowledge of even the power of God as to deny his ability to bring to pass so simple a matter as the resurrection. That God gives life is daily apparent; and to give it is infinitely more wonderful than to restore it.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:35

But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with what manner of body do they come?

McGarvey: 1Co 15:36

Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die [comp. Joh 12:24]:

McGarvey: 1Co 15:37

and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare [naked] grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind ;

McGarvey: 1Co 15:38

but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him [guided by his sense of fitness and propriety], and to each seed a body of its own . [In this paragraph Paul answers the first question of 1Co 15:35 . The Corinthians, like all materialists, made the resurrection a puzzling problem. They wondered how God could restore a body which returned to the dust, passed thence into vegetation, and thence into the bodies of animals and other men. Paul calls the man who thus puzzles himself a foolish one, because he denies that the all-powerful God can do with a human body that which he himself practically does annually with the bodies (grains) of wheat, etc., by merely availing himself of the common course of nature. When he sows a grain of wheat he does not expect it to come up a naked grain as he sowed it, but he knows that it will die, and in its death produce another body, consisting of stalk, blade, head and other grains similar to the one sown. He knows that though the body thus produced bear small outward resemblance to the single grain planted, yet it is the product of the grain's germinal life, and on examination can be absolutely demonstrated to be such. Moreover, by doing this same thing with corn, oats and other grain he finds that each produces a body of its own kind, adapted by the wisdom of God to its needs. With all this before him, how foolish in man to deny that God can cause the dead body to rise in a higher and nobler form, and that he can also cause each man to have a resurrected body true to his individuality, so that Smith shall no more rise in the likeness of Jones than corn come up after the similitude of oats. But the analogy taught by nature is true in another respect; i. e., the body produced by the seed is greater and more excellent than the seed. Paul enlarges and applies this thought.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:39

All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fishes .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:40

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:41

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:42

So also is the resurrection of the dead . [Here the apostle answers the second question of 1Co 15:35 . If a man rises from the dead changed as the grain of wheat is changed, will he not have a different body, and so lose his identity? Will he not cease to be man? Paul gives a threefold answer to this question. He shows that there may be diversity, and yet a common ground of identity. There are diverse forms of flesh, yet all these forms are flesh; there may be different forms of bodies having different glories, yet are they all bodies; yea, even the glories may differ in luster and yet may have common identity as glory. Thus also is the resurrection of the dead. The flesh is changed, and yet it is in a sense flesh -- humanity; there may be modifications in the form, and yet it will be the same body. There may be great changes in the glory, yet the glory will still be glory, and not essentially different. Thus man may still be man, and yet be vastly improved. In this part of the argument Paul is correcting a cardinal error in Greek thought. They stumbled at the doctrine of a resurrection, because they regarded the body as a clog to the soul; and so the body might indeed be, if God could form but one kind of body. But he can form celestial as well as terrestrial bodies, and spiritual bodies adapted to the needs of the spirit, which will not hinder it as does this earthly tabernacle which it now inhabits -- bodies which will not only prove no disadvantage, but of infinite assistance, because answering every requirement. This truth is now further exemplified.] It is sown in corruption [Ecc 12:7]; it is raised in incorruption [Luk 20:35-36]:

McGarvey: 1Co 15:43

it is sown in dishonor [buried because it is repulsive and will become offensive -- Joh 11:39]; it is raised in glory [Phi 3:21]: it is sown in weakness [devoid of all ability]; it is raised in power [Rev 3:21]:

McGarvey: 1Co 15:44

it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body . [This power of God to preserve identity in diversity works out glorious results for man. Our earthly body, when planted in death, will indeed bring forth after its kind, but God, in the fullness of his power and grace, shall cause it to lay aside its terrestrial glory, and assume the celestial. The nature of the change thus effected is illustrated by four contrasts, the corruption, dishonor, weakness and animal nature of the terrestrial body being laid aside for the incorruptible, glorious, powerful and spiritual body of the celestial world. If man owns a natural, or psychical, body, i. e., a body which is sustained and operated by his lower or soul-life, and suited to this world of death; so he also owns a spiritual body, suited to the desires, motions and operations of the spirit and eternal life; a body wherein the soul takes its proper position of subordination to the spirit, according to God's original plan and purpose when he created man in his image. Paul says "is," for such a body already exists, and is occupied by Christ our head -- Rev 1:18]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:45

So also it is written [Gen 2:7], The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:46

Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:47

The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:48

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:49

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly . [Here the two heads of humanity are contrasted. Adam was a quickening soul, and Christ a quickening spirit (comp. Gen 2:7 ; and Joh 20:22 . See also 2Co 3:17 ; Rom 8:2 ; Rom 8:11 ; Joh 7:38-39). But of these two heads the natural came first. We are Adam's by generation, and Christ's by regeneration. The life principle of Adam is soul, and he was formed of the earth: the life principle of Christ is spiritual. He was in heaven (Joh 1:1) and from thence entered the world and became flesh (Joh 1:14 ; Joh 3:13 ; Joh 3:21 ; Phi 2:6-8 ; Joh 1:1-3 ; Luk 1:35). Now, as the two heads differ, so do the two families, and each resembles its head; the earthly progeny of Adam having earthly natures, and the spiritual progeny of Christ having spiritual and heavenly natures. But in both families the earthly nature comes first, and the spiritual children wait for their manifestation, which is the very thing about which the apostle has been talking, for it comes when they are raised from the dead (Rom 8:29 ; 1Jo 3:2 ; Rom 8:22-23 ; 2Co 5:1-10). Life is not retrogression, but ascension. Therefore he assures them that as they have borne the image of the earthly Adam, so also are they to bear the image of the heavenly Christ, both of whom have the bodies of men, yet bodies differing vastly in glory, power, etc., for one belongs to the earth, dies and returns to it, while the other belongs to the deathless heaven and forever abides there.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:50

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption . [1Pe 1:4]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:51

Behold, I tell you a mystery [a secret not previously revealed]: We all shall not sleep [die], but we shall all be changed ,

McGarvey: 1Co 15:52

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed .

McGarvey: 1Co 15:53

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality . [Man in his fleshly nature has no place in heaven, for corruption is antagonistic to incorruption, as light is to darkness. It is essential, therefore, that man must put off the corruption of Adam and the natural body of Adam, and assume the incorruptible, spiritual body of Christ, before he can enter upon his celestial inheritance. Those who are alive at Christ's coming shall not escape this necessary change. If the dead are changed by resurrection (1Co 15:42-43), the living shall also be changed by transfiguration; but both shall be changed, and the change in each shall take place at the same moment; i. e., when the trumpet shall summon all to appear before God -- 1Th 4:16]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:54

But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written [Isa 25:8], Death is swallowed up in victory . [When the natural body shall be transformed into the spiritual, then shall be fulfilled that prophecy which describes death -- the one who has swallowed up the human race, as being himself swallowed up in victory.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:55

O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? [This passage is quoted loosely from Hos 13:14 . Warned by the glow and glory of his argument, the apostle bursts forth in this strain of triumphant exultation, which has wakened a corresponding thrill in the heart of the Christian, and has been a solace and comfort to the church through all subsequent centuries.]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:56

The sting of death is sin [Rom 6:23]; and the power of sin is the law [Rom 4:15 ; Rom 7:10-12]:

McGarvey: 1Co 15:57

but thanks be to God [Psa 98:1], who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ . [Death is here spoken of under the figure of a serpent. Sin is the bite or sting with which he slays men, and the power or poisonous strength of sin is found in the curse which the law pronounces upon the sinner. By the triple power of law, sin and death, the glory of man was brought to nought; but thanks are due to God, who restored glory to man through Jesus Christ. Christ gave man the victory over the law, for he nailed it to his cross (Col 2:14); he gave him victory over sin, for he made atonement for sin (Heb 7:27); and he gave him victory over death by his resurrection, which is the earnest of the general resurrection. Wonderful threefold victory!]

McGarvey: 1Co 15:58

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the Lord . [Therefore, since you see that the dead are raised and made capable of enjoying heaven, do not again be moved from your belief in these well-proven and established truths, and be careful to abound in the Lord's work, for no matter what your present sufferings and persecutions may be, the Lord will amply reward you in the resurrection, and your labor will not be in vain.]

Lapide: 1Co 15:1-58

CHAPTER 15

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER

He proves the resurrection of the dead against the false teachers who denied it:—

i. From the fact of Christ's resurrection. Thus (ver. 12) he gives the bearing of it on our resurrection.

ii. He proves the resurrection by the authority of those who are baptized for the dead (ver. 29).

iii. He declares what the body will be like in the resurrection (ver. 35), and then names the four endowments of the glorified body (ver. 42).

iv. He shows that we shall all rise again, but shall not all be changed, and that in the resurrection which shall take place, in a moment, when the trumpet shall sound, death will be completely swallowed up (ver. 51).

Ver. 1.— I declare unto you, i.e., recall to your memory.

Vers. 3, 4.— How that Christ died for our sins. . . according to the scriptures. Hos 6:2: "After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up," i.e., when He shall on the third day Himself rise from death to life; for the resurrection of Christ was the cause of our rising from the death of sin, and of our future resurrection from bodily death, so that we are to rise like Christ on the Judgment Day to everlasting life. See notes on Rom 4:25. So Anselm, Dorotheus, in the beginning of his Synopsis, and also the Jewish writers of old in Galatin. lib. viii. c. 22. Theophylact, following S. Chrysostom, says that it was prophesied under an allegory that Christ should rise again on the third day; for Jonah brought from the whale's belly on the third day, was a type of Christ brought back to life from death and hell on the third day.

Isaac, too, typified the same event in his being rescued from death when about to be sacrificed by his father, and restored to his mother alive and well on the third day. So Christ was given by His Father and sacrificed, and raised again on the third day. But these two instances are drawn from the allegorical sense, that of Hosea is from the literal.

Ver. 5 . — Was seen of Cephas. Paul puts this appearance of Christ first, and therefore implies that the first man that Christ appeared to was Peter. I say "the first man," for He appeared to the Magdalene before S. Peter (S. Mar 16:9).

Then of the eleven. On the Sunday after the resurrection, when Thomas was now present, Christ appeared to the eleven, for the twelfth, Judas, had by that time hanged himself, or better still, "to the eleven," i.e., to the whole Apostolic College, which then had been reduced to eleven, Christ appeared on the day of His resurrection, though Thomas was absent. The Greek copies have, "then of the twelve." S. Augustine has the same reading ( Quæst. Evangel lib. i. qu. 117), and he says there that, though Judas was dead, "the twelve" were still so called as by a corporate name. So the Decemvirs are said to assemble if only seven or eight are present. Chrysostom explains it otherwise. He says that Christ appeared to the twelfth, Matthias, after His ascension. But this is not recorded anywhere, and Paul is here naming the appearances of Christ before His ascension only.

Ver. 6.— After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren. The Greek word for above means ( a ) "more than," ( b ) "from heaven." Chrysostom and Theophylact take it here in the latter sense. For Christ appeared, they say, not walking on the ground, but above their heads, as though descending from the sky; and He did this that He might show them that He had ascended as well as risen, and might confirm their faith in His ascension. Hence any one may gather that Chrysostom thought that this appearance of Christ took place after His Ascension; but still it is not true, nor is of necessity gathered from what Chrysostom says.

This appearance of Christ, whether on a higher spot, as if from heaven, or in the air, evidently was prior to His ascension; and this is the common opinion of doctors; for we read nowhere of any public appearance after His ascension.

Many suppose that this was the well-known appearance of Christ on a mountain in Galilee, which He had so many times promised. All His disciples met there, as He had bidden. This was not at His ascension, but before it; for Christ ascended into heaven, not from Galilee, but from the Mount of Olives. See S. Jerome ( ad Hedibiam, qu. 7).

Ver. 7.— After that He was seen of James. The son of Alphæus, first Bishop of Jerusalem, and styled brother of the Lord. There is a tradition mentioned by Jerome ( Lib. de Scrip. Eccles. in Jacobo ) that James had taken a vow not to eat anything till he should see Christ risen. S. Jerome, however, does not think the tradition of any value. Its falsity is seen, too, (1.) for it is evident, from this passage of S. Paul, that Christ appeared to him after appearing to the five hundred brethren, and therefore long after His resurrection, too long for S. James's fast to have been prolonged naturally. (2.) All the Apostles, and therefore S. James, were confounded at Christ's death, and did not believe in His resurrection. It is not likely then that James would take such a vow. (3.)  S. Jerome says that he took this story from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews," which is apocryphal. It is also said there that Christ wore at the time a linen garment, and that He gave it to the servant of the priest, which also seems false; for the garments of Christ remained in the sepulchre (S. Matt. xxviii.), and a glorified body, such as Christ's was, is not clad with linen or any such garments, but with splendour and rays of light.

Then of all the apostles, and the disciples as well, says S. Anselm, at the ascension.

Ver. 8.— And last of all Ale was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. Born out of due time is, (1.) according to Theophylact and Theodoret, contemptible and despised, because young that come too soon to the birth are generally imperfectly formed, thin, and undersized. (2.) According to Ambrose and Chrysostom it is untimely; that is, after Christ had ascended into heaven, Paul was born in Christ and received his Apostleship. (3.) According to Anselm he thus calls himself, because he was struck to the earth by Divine power, compelled, and violently born again: untimely young are forced into the world by the violence of nature. (4.) Or, as S. Anselm again remarks, such births are of young half-dead, and they are often born blind. So S. Paul was smitten with blindness at his conversion. (5.)  S. Paul was expelled from the womb of his mother, the people of the Jews, and was sent, not to his fellow-countrymen, but to the Gentiles outside. (6.) Baronius ( Annals, A.D. 44) thinks that Paul was so called as an Apostle, because he was made an Apostle in addition to the twelve; for the Senators at Rome, he says, were so called, when they were co-opted into the Senate, in addition to the fixed number; but it cannot be said that S. Paul alludes to this, for he is writing in Greek to the Greeks, not to Romans.

It appears from this verse that Christ appeared to Paul, not by an angel, as Haymo thinks ( Comment. on Apocalypse, c. ii.), but in person; not in a vision, as He appeared to him in Acts xxii. 18, nor in a trance, as is recorded in 2 Cor. xii. 2, but in the air in bodily form; for it was in this way that Christ appeared to Cephas, James, and the other Apostles; moreover, if it were any other kind of appearance it would be no proof of the resurrection of Christ. The appearance of Christ alluded to here is the one at Paul's conversion (Acts ix. 3), when he saw Christ before the bright light blinded him.

Hence it further appears that Christ then descended from heaven, for, as S. Thomas and others say, S. Paul heard the voice of Christ speaking in the air. Whence it follows again that Christ was then in two places, in the empyrean and in our atmosphere, close to Paul; for, according to Acts iii. 21, Christ has never left the highest heaven to which He ascended. If Christ was then in two places, why cannot He be at once in heaven and in the Eucharist?

Hegesippus ( Excid. Hierosol. lib, iii. c. 2) and others say that Christ appeared in the same way to S. Peter at Rome, when He called him back as he was flying from martyrdom with the words, "I go to be crucified again."

Ver. 9.— For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle. Not only the least and unworthy because of my sins, but not fit for the apostleship; for it is not meet that one who was a persecutor should be a leader and Apostle of the Church.

Morally, see the humility of S. Paul in calling himself the least; by so doing he was the greatest.  S. Bernard ( Serm. xiii . an the Canticles ) says well: " A great and rare virtue surely is it that you, who work great things, do not know your own greatness; that your holiness, which is evident to all, escapes your own observation; that you seem wonderful to others, despicable to yourself. This, I think, is more wonderful than your very virtues. You surely are a faithful servant, if, of the great glory of God, which passes through you rather than proceeds from you, you let none stick to your hands. Therefore you will hear the blessed words: ' Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things. '"

Ver. 10.— I am what I am— an Apostle, and Teacher of the Gentiles.

His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. Not empty, barren, without results. S. Ambrose reads: "His grace was not poor in me," and then the meaning would be: "Though I persecuted the Church of Christ, yet I did not on that account receive a grace of apostleship that was poor and slight, and less than that of the other Apostles, but if anything greater."

But I laboured more abundantly than they all. S. Jerome ( Ep. ad Paulinum ) says beautifully: " A sudden increase of heat banishes a long existing lukewarmness. Paul was changed into an Apostle instead of a persecutor; was last in order, first in merits; for though last he laboured more than all. " For, as Gregory says ( Pastor. p. 3, c. 29): " A guilty life that has learnt to glow with love for God is often more pleasing to Him than a blameless life that has grown sluggish from long security."

Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. It plainly appears from this passage against Luther and Calvin that man has free-will, and that God alone does not work everything in us, but that our free-will co-operates with Him, even in supernatural works, for the Apostle says with me, not in me, and I laboured more abundantly than they all.

Again, the verb to be supplied in this passage is properly laboured. Then it will run. "Yet it was not I that laboured, but the grace of God, which laboured with me." S. Paul does not here exclude the co-operation of the will, but only attributes the praise due to the work to grace as its more worthy cause. But the sense will be the same if you read with the Greek Fathers and S. Jerome, "was with me." The meaning then is, "which was with me to help me." I laboured much of my own free endeavour, yet I did not so labour as to give myself all the praise and glory of my labour; but it was the grace of God which aroused me, aided me, strengthened me for this labour; to it, therefore, I give the first and best praise of my labour."

S. Bernard ("On Grace and Free-will," sub finem ) says. " 'It was not I, but the grace of God with me' implies that he was not only a minister of the work by producing it, but in some way a companion of the worker by consenting to it. Elsewhere S. Paul says of himself, 'We are workers together with God' (1Co 3:9); hence we make bold to say that we merit to receive the kingdom because we are joined to the Divine Will by the voluntary surrender of our own will."

See also Anselm, Chrysostom, Theodoret ( in loco ); also Jerome ( contra Pelag. lib. ii.), Gregory ( Morals, xvi. c. 10), S. Augustine ( de Liber. Arbit. c. 17, and Serm. 13 de Verbis Apost.). He says there: " If you were not a worker, God could not be a co-worker."

Ver. 11.— Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. So not only I, but all the Apostles, as was said in ver. 3, preach and affirm as eye-witnesses, viz., that Christ died, and rose from the dead, and appeared to us. The Apostle returns here, as if after a long digression, to the point of the whole chapter, which is to prove, from the unanimous testimony of the Apostles, the resurrection of Christ, and of the rest who have died.

Ver. 12 . — How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? Cerinthus with his followers are meant here. He was the first heresiarch after Simon Magus to deny, in S. Paul's time, the resurrection. See Eusebius ( Hist. lib. vii. c. 23, and lib. iii. c. 28) and Epiphanius ( Hæres. 28). Cerinthus was a champion of Judaism, and, founding his opinions on Jewish traditions, he referred all the prophecies about the Church and the Gospel law to an earthly kingdom, and to riches, and to bodily pleasures. In the same way he afterwards perverted the meaning of Rev. xx. 4, and became the parent of the Chiliasts, or the Millennarian heretics. Some think from this that he was the author of the Apocalypse, and that it should therefore be rejected.

S. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Churches of Smyrna and Tralles, censures this error and its author. Hymenæus and Philetus (2Ti 2:17) also denied the resurrection.

Ver. 13 . — But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. Not only because Christ was one of the dead, but also because the primary cause of Christ's death and resurrection was the complete destruction of death, and the restoration of life. Moreover, the resurrection of Christ was a pattern of ours, i.e., of our resurrection to righteousness in this life, and to glory in the next. See S. Thomas (p. 3, qu. 53, art. 1) for five other reasons why it was necessary for Christ to rise again.

Ver. 17 . — If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. It rightly follows that, if Christ has not risen, we are still in our sins; for 1. if Christ has not risen, therefore faith in a risen Christ, which is the basis of justification, is false; but a false faith cannot be the beginning and foundation of remission of sins and of true sanctification. 2. If Christ remained in death, He was overcome by it, and His death was ineffectual for the remission of sins; for if by His resurrection He could not overcome death, then He could not overcome sin, for it is more difficult and a heavier task to overcome this than to overcome death. If this be so, sin is not fully abolished, if its penalty death is not.

3. The resurrection of Christ is the cause of our justification. (Rom 4:25). Now the cause being removed, the effect is removed. If, then, the resurrection of Christ is not a fact, neither is our justification from sins, and consequently we are still in our former sins.

Ver. 18.— Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished, i.e., who have died in faith, hope, and charity. If the body is not to rise again, but perishes outright at death, the soul too will perish: it cannot exist for ever without the body, for its nature is the "form" of the body. Unless, then, God take away by violence from the soul its nature and natural condition, He must restore to it its body.

Ver. 19 . — If in this life only we have hope in Christ. 1. The word "hope" here signifies, not the act of hope, for this exists in this life only, but the object of hope or the thing hoped for. If our only hope in Christ is for the goods of this life, then are we the most miserable of men; we are the most foolish also, because we rely on an empty hope of the resurrection, which is never to happen, and suffer fastings, mortifications, persecutions, and other hardships, and we resign the pleasure of the world and the flesh which others indulge in. Although, then, we are more happy than they, because of the good that is the fruit of the virtue of abstinence, of charity, and of an unclouded conscience, yet we are more miserable than they, so far as our hope in Christ is concerned, nay, we are fools for relying on a baseless hope. So Anselm and Chrysostom. The Apostle does not say "we are worse," but "miserable;" for it is a miserable thing to afflict ourselves for virtue's sake, and yet not obtain the prize; but the prize of Christian virtue is the resurrection.

It may be said that the soul can have its reward and be blessed without its body rising again. My answer to this is: God might have so arranged things that the soul alone should be rewarded with the Beatific Vision, but He did not so will it. As a matter of fact He willed that if the soul be beatified, so shall the body; if the body is not, neither will the soul; otherwise Christ would not have completely overcome sin, which reigns by death over soul and body alike.

2. It was the opinion of men at that time that if the immortality of the soul be proved, the resurrection of the body must be at once admitted, because of the close connection between them. The soul has a natural longing after the body, and cannot exist without it unless by violence. Therefore the resurrection, so far as concerns the essence and the needs of human nature, is a natural process, though its mode of execution be supernatural. Nor can the soul when once separated be again united to the body by any created force, but only by the supernatural power of God. Paul, then, from the denial of the resurrection and happiness of the body, rightly infers, according to the common opinion of men, as well as the nature and truth of things, the denial of the immortality and bliss of the soul; and so it is no wonder if Christians are not to rise again, that they should be of all men most miserable.

Ver. 20 . — But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. (1.) Christ was and is the first of those that rise again, both in order of dignity and of merit. (2.) He was first in the Divine will and intention. (3.) First causally, for by Him we shall all rise again. (4.) Temporally, for Christ was the first in time to rise to everlasting life; for though some before Him were raised to life by Elijah and Elisha, yet they rose to this mortal life only, and again died; but Christ was the first to rise to the eternal life of bliss and glory. So Chrysostom, Anselm, Ambrose, Theophylact, Theodoret, and others. The word for firstfruits properly signifies this, and implies others to follow. So is Christ called the "first-begotten of the dead," i.e., rising before all others, and, as it were, being born again from the dead.

It seems from this to be a point de fide that no one rose before Christ to everlasting life. Those, therefore, who at the death of Christ are said to have arisen (S. Mat 27:52), rose after Him in the way of nature, if not of time, for their resurrection depended on Christ's as its cause. Francis Suarez points out this (p. 3. qu. 53, art. 3).

The earliest fruit of the earth, which under the Old Law was to be offered to God, was called the "firstfruits;" so Christ, after His resurrection, was offered to God as the firstfruits of the earth, into which He had been cast as a corn of wheat, and from which He sprang forth again in the new birth of the resurrection.

Ver. 21 . — For since by man came death. Adam brought death on all men, Christ resurrection. The word since gives the reason why Christ is called the firstfruits of them that rise, viz., because by Christ, as a leader of the first rank of God's army and the subduer of death, the resurrection of the dead was brought into the world.

Ver. 22. — For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The question may be asked whether even the wicked are to rise again and be endowed with life through Christ and His merits. S. Augustine ( Ep. 28) says no, because their resurrection, being to condemnation, is better called death than life.  S. Thomas also says that Christ is the efficient cause of resurrection to all men, but the meritorious cause to the good alone.

But my answer is that Christ is the cause of the resurrection of all, even of the wicked: 1. Because Christ wished by His resurrection to abolish the power of death over the whole human race entirely, and therefore the wicked are included, not as wicked, but as men, abstracting their wickedness. See S. Ambrose ( de Resurr. c. 21), and still more clearly S. Cyril ( in Joann. lib . iv. c. 12).

2. Christ merited resurrection for the wicked, even as wicked, that He might inflict just punishment on His enemies, that His glory might be increased by the eternal punishment of His enemies. But these meanings are beside the scope of the passage. The Apostle is treating of the blessed resurrection of the saints, not of the resurrection of the wicked to misery.

We may here recapitulate the six methods by which the Apostle has proved that Christ rose again, that so he might prove that we too should rise.

1. From the testimony of those who saw Him alive after He rose, viz., Peter, Paul, James, the other Apostles, and the five hundred brethren (ver. 5).

2. If Christ is not risen, then the preaching of the Apostles and the faith of Christians are alike vain (ver. 14).

3. If Christ is not risen, we are still in our sins. This is proved by the fact that faith that justifies and expiates our sins is the same by which we believe that Christ died and rose again for us (ver. 17).

4. If Christ is not risen, then have ill perished who have fallen asleep in Christ, and have been destroyed both in body and soul; for the soul cannot live for ever without the body (ver. 18).

5. If we serve Christ only in this short life, and under His law have no hope of resurrection, then are we of all men most miserable (ver. 19).

6. By Adam all die, therefore through Christ shall all rise again, and be quickened. For Christ has done us as much good as Adam did harm: He came, not only that He might repair all the falls and loss of Adam and his descendants, but that He might lift us up to a higher state.(ver. 21).

Ver. 23 . — But every man in his own order. 1. According to Chrysostom, Theodoret and Theophylact this is the just among the blessed, the wicked among the reprobate.

2. According to the commentary ascribed to S. Jerome, this means that each shall rise higher and more blessed as he has been more holy here.

3. Œcumenius and Primasius explain it in this way. All who are to be quickened in Christ shall rise again in this order—Christ the first in time and dignity; secondly, the just shall rise; thirdly shall come the end of the world. This is the Apostle's meaning, as appears from the next words. Cf. 1Th 4:16.

Ver. 24. — Then cometh the end. 1. The end of the whole dispensation of Christ for the salvation of the human race, and it will consequently be the end of the age then existing, of time, of all generations, and all corruptions, and of the universe. So Anselm. For Christ is the end of the whole universe, and when those that He has chosen out of it are completed, then the universe will be ended also.

2. "The end" may, with Theodoret, be rendered "consummation," i.e., the general resurrection of all, even of the wicked, when all things will come to an end.

When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. The kingdom is the Church of the faithful and congregation of the elect; not as though God did not now reign over it, for Christ says: "The kingdom of God is within you" (S. Luk 17:21), but because sin has somewhat of power over it, because the devil, death, and cares that attack mortals are found in it. In other words, Then cometh the end when Christ shall have presented, and as it were restored to His Father, the Church of the elect, which had been intrusted to His care and governance during the struggle of this life, that He might gloriously reign over it for ever. The Son shall as it were present it to His Father with the words: "Father, Thou didst send Me into the world, and after I ascended to heaven to be with Thee I have ruled these continuously, and protected them from the power and assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Lo, these that I bring are Thine. They are My possession, given Me by Thee; they are the fruit of My labour, won by My sweat and blood. This is Thy kingdom as it is Mine, and is now free and pure from every sin, temptation, and trouble, that Thou mayst reign gloriously over it for ever." Cf. S. Ambrose and S. Augustine ( de Trinitate, lib. i. c. 8 and 10).

To God, even the Father is a hendiadys, to signify that Christ as man will present His faithful ones to God, as Son to His Father.

When he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. When He shall have destroyed the power and dominion of the devils, so that they shall no longer be able to attack the Church, which is the kingdom of God. Cf. Eph 6:12, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose, Œcumenius.

Principalities, Powers, and Dominions (the rule, and authority, and power of A. V.) are names of three angelic choirs (cf. Eph 1:21). It hence appears that some of them fell and became devils, and kept the same names, just as each kept the same nature, the same order, rank, and power, especially in their attacks on the Church.  S. Paul says then that, when Christ shall have destroyed all the rule of the devils, who are and are called Principalities and Dominions, so that they might no longer attack the Church, He will then hand over the Kingdom to His Father, and will be the end and consummation of all things.

S. Augustine ( de Trinitate, lib. i.. c. 8) explains this passage of the good angels, and then the meaning will be. There will be no longer any necessity for the assistance of the angelic Principalities, Powers, and Dominions, and therefore their dispensation and guidance will be done away with in the Church. But the former meaning is truer, because the Apostle is speaking of the enemies of Christ, as is clear from the next verse.

Ver. 25.— For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. I e., Christ must rule the Church till God the Father puts all the devils and the wicked under Him. Till does not denote an end of His reign, for there is no doubt that when His enemies shall have been overcome Christ will reign more truly and for ever, though in another way and with other glory than now. Cf. S. Chrysostom. It signifies what may have been done before a certain event, not what was done afterwards. So Joseph (S. Mat 1:25) is said not to have known Mary his wife till she brought forth her Son, not as though he knew her afterwards, as the impure Helvidius insinuates, but that he did not know her before she conceived and gave birth; for S. Matthew merely wished to record a wonderful event that was naturally incredible, viz., the conception and birth of Christ from a virgin without a father. So Paul says here that even now, while the Church is struggling with her enemies, Christ reigns over her. Moreover, it follows from this that Christ will reign after the struggle and triumph, for S. Paul implies but does not state what is evident to all. S. Augustine ( Sentences, n. 169) well says: " As long as we are struggling against sins there is no perfect peace; for those that oppose us are crushed in dangerous fight, and those have been overcome are not yet triumphed over in peaceful land where care cannot come, but are still kept down by a power that must ever be on its guard."

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. That death which still reigns over the bodies of the saints will be altogether destroyed at the resurrection. The first enemy of Christ and His followers is the devil, who was conquered by Christ on the Cross. The second is sin, which, through the grace of Christ, is being conquered by Christians in this life. The third is death, which will be the last to be overcome, and that will he in the resurrection.

Ver. 27 . — He hath put all things under His feet. God will in the resurrection put all men and angels, good and bad, under Christ. He speaks of the future as past, after the manner of the prophets.

But when He saith . . . which did put all things under Him. S. Paul adds this lest any one should suppose that the Father has given everything to the Son in such a way as to deprive Himself of authority over them, for so the Father would be less than the Son and subject to Him. Sometimes among men, when fathers are getting old, they make a gift of their goods and offices to their sons, but not so God.

Ver. 28 . — Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him. Some understand this of His Godhead, as though Christ as God will show Himself to have received everything, and His very Godhead, from His Father, and will so declare Himself to His Father. But this is too bold a statement; for the Son is not, subject to the Father, because He has all that He has from the Father, but He is equal to Him in majesty and honour. Hence others often take this passage of Christ according to His human nature. (1.) With Chrysostom, He will show His subjection, and so all will see how perfect were the obedience and subjection of Christ here. (2.) Better, with Anselm, Christ will be subject as man, i.e., He will subject Himself and will offer Himself with His elect to the eternal praise of God, and to a participation in the Divine goodness, dominion, and glory. For this subjection of Christ is the same as is alluded to in ver. 24, where it is said that Christ shall hand over the kingdom to God the Father, that He may fully and gloriously reign over Him and His elect. This subjection of Christ and the saints to God is not mean and servile, but blessed and glorious. For God holds them in heaven who are subject to Him as sons, He rules over them, and blesses them, and makes them happy with the utmost height of glory. Well, then, is such subjection and service called reigning, and such service is much to be longed for with David (Ps. lxi. 1, Vulg.): "Shall not my soul be subject to God? for of Him cometh my salvation." On the other hand the wicked, who will not submit themselves to God, will be by this very fact His enemies, and the most unhappy of all men. In this very word subject there seems to lurk a double application; and so Gregory of Nyssa says, in his sermon on these words: "Subjection to God is a separation from evil that is perfect and absolute on every side. Christ shall be subject to His Father in the resurrection, because in it all the elect and faithful members of Christ will be clear from all evil, and will receive a chief part of what is good, and will be most closely united with Deity, and with its eternity, power, and bliss; and then will God be all in all, since there will be no evil in those things that remain; for God cannot be in what is evil, but must be in all that is good. Christ then will be subject to His Father when His Church shall be, and shall be so set free from all evil; for the subjection of the Church is called the subjection of Christ." (3.) The words shall be may be understood to denote merely a continued action. In other words, Christ shall persevere for ever in the subjection which He now is under to His Father. Hilary wrote on this sentence of the Apostle's against the Arians ( de Trin. lib. ii.), S. Jerome ( Ep. to Principia ). S. Augustine ( de Trin. lib. i. c. 8), where he says: " Christ, in so far as He is God with the Father, has us as His subjects; in so far as He is a priest, He is subject even as we to His Father."

That God may be all in all. Viz., as Anselm says, that God may have all power over all things and may show that as God He is everything to His elect, or in place of everything else; that He is our life, salvation, power, plenty, glory, honour, peace, and all things, and the end and satisfaction of our desires. So God will rule over all in all things, and will subject all things to Himself and His glory.

S. Augustine ( de Civ. Dei. lib. xxii. c. 9) argues from this verse that the saints in heaven know our prayers and our state.

S. Jerome ( Ep. ad Amandum ) appropriately says: " What the Apostle means by saying that God shall be all in all is this: our Lord and Saviour is at present not all in all, but a part in each one, e.g., He is wisdom in Solomon, goodness in David, patience in Job, knowledge of the future in Daniel, faith in Peter, zeal in Phinehas and Paul, purity in John, and other things in other men. But when the end of all things comes, then He will be all in all, that each one of the saints may have all virtues, and Christ may be wholly in each one and in all." From this passage S. Augustine says ( de Trin. lib. i. c. 8) that some Christians thought that the humanity of Christ would reign till the day of judgment, but would then be changed into His Godhead, and they thought that this change is the subjection to the Father, of which S. Paul here speaks. This is both foolish and impossible, according to the faith and to nature.

Some who had given themselves up to the contemplative life, and who aimed at an impossible closeness of union with God, and fanatics, have argued from this and similar passages of Scripture, that at the resurrection all men and all created things will return to their Divine archetype as it existed in eternity in God, and so would have to be changed into God; that is to say, that then every creature will have to disappear into the depths of the uncreated being, i.e., into the Godhead. Gerson attacks this error at length, and accuses Ruisbrochius of holding it; but the latter clears himself from it, and attacks it in his turn ( de Verâ Contempl. c. 19, and ad Samuel, i. 4).

But this passage of the Apostle's lends no countenance to this error, but on the contrary opposes it. For if in the resurrection God will be all in all, all created things will be in existence still. Otherwise God would not be all in all, but only all in none, or in nothing. Moreover, we can explain by similitudes how God will be all in all to the blessed. (1.) As a few drops of water poured into a large cask of very strong wine are at once swallowed up by the wine and incorporated with it, so the blessed, through love and the beatific vision, will as it were lose themselves in God, and seem swallowed up and incorporated by God as their greatest good, loved above all things. (2.) As the light of the sun fills all the air, so that it seems no longer to be air but light, in the same way God will so fill the blessed with the light of His glory that they will seem to be, not so much men as gods. (3.) As iron seems to be ignited by fire and to be changed into fire, so will the blessed be so kindled by their love and enjoyment of God, that they will seem transformed into God. (4.) As a large vessel of sugar or honey, when poured into a little porridge, makes it not only sweet as honey, but as if it were sugar or honey, so does God by His sweetness so inebriate and fill with sweetness the blessed that they seem to be very sweetness; for God is a sea of sweetness and an ocean of joy and consolation. (5.) As most sweet strains of music fill the ears of all who hear them and ravish their minds, or as a diamond, ruby, or emerald fills and dazzles the eyes of all who look upon it, so does God ravish, delight, and fill the minds of all the blessed. (6.) As a mirror exhibits, represents, and contains the faces and appearance of everything placed before it, so that they all seem to exist, live, and move in the mirror, so do all the blessed live, move, and have their being in God; for God is a most bright and glowing mirror of everything.

Lastly, S. Bernard ( Serm. xi . in Cant.) devoutly and beautifully says: " Who can understand how great sweetness is contained in the one short saying, 'God shall be all in all?' To say nothing of the body, I see in the soul three things—reason, will, and memory, and these three are the soul. How much of its integrity and perfection is lacking to each of these in this present life is known to every one who walks in the Spirit. Why is this, except that God is not yet all in all? Hence is it that the reason is so often deceived in its judgments, and the will weakened by a fourfold disturbing cause, and the memory clouded over by manifold causes of forgetfulness. To this threefold vanity a noble creature has beech made subject, not willingly, but in hope. For He that filleth the desire of the soul with good things will Himself be to the reason fulness of light, to the will a multitude of peace, to the memory eternal continuity. 0 Truth! 0 Love! 0 Eternity! 0 Trinity, blessed and blessing, to thee does my miserable trinity, after a wonderful fashion, aspire, since it is a miserable exile apart from Thee. . . . Put thy trust in God, for I will yet praise Him, when my reason knows no error, my will no grief, and my memory no fear; and when we enjoy that wondrous calm, that perfect sweetness, that eternal security which we hope for, God, as Truth, will give the first, as Charity the second, as Power the third, that He may be all in all, when the reason receives unclouded light, when the will obtains unbroken peace, and the memory drinks for ever of an inexhaustible Fountain. May you see all this, and rightly attribute it, first to the Son, then to the Spirit, and lastly to the Father."

Ver. 29 . — Else what shall they do? . . . why are they then baptized for the dead? 1. This baptism is metaphorical, the baptism of pain, afflictions, tears, and prayers, which they endure on behalf of the dead, in order to deliver them from the baptism of fire in purgatory. For even those Judaisers are baptized who deny the resurrection, like Cerinthus and others, or, at any rate, their fellow-religionists, the Jews, and this, according to the faith and custom of the Hebrews, who are wont to pray for the dead, as appears from 2 Macc. 12:43, and from their modern forms of prayer. This meaning best fits in with what follows. Baptism is in other places often used in this sense, (as S. Mar 10:53; S. Luk 12:50; Psa 22:6). Throughout Scripture, waters and waves typify tribulations and afflictions.

2. "Baptism" can also be understood of purification before the sacrifices which were offered for the dead. The Jews were in the habit of being purified before sacrifice, prayer, or any Divine service. Cf. S. Mar 7:9;  Heb 6:12, and Heb 9:10.

3. The different interpretations of others are dealt with at length by Bellarmine ( de Purgat. lib. i. c. 4) and Suarez (p. 3, qu. 56, disp. 50, sect. 1), and they all are referred to literal baptism.

( a ) S. Thomas explains it to mean baptism for washing away sins, which are dead works.

( b ) Theodoret thinks that "for the dead" is "like the dead," when they rise from death, viz., when they are baptized, and emerge from the waters of baptism as from the tomb, they symbolise the resurrection of the dead.

Epiphanius ( Hære. 28) takes "for the dead" to mean when death is close at hand, and they are looked on as already dead. For then those who had deferred baptism wished to be baptized in hope and faith in eternal life and resurrection. Hence those to be baptized used to recite the Creed, in which is the Article, "I believe in the resurrection of the dead."

( d ) Claud Guiliaud, a doctor of Paris, thinks that the phrase refers to the martyrs, who suffer for the faith and the article of the resurrection of the dead. This meaning agrees well with the words that follow. "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?"

( e ) Others refer to a custom which the followers of Marcion afterwards observed, and suppose the meaning to be that some, in mistake and out of superstition, received baptism for the dead who had died without baptism. Cf. Ambrose and Irenæus ( Hæres. 28), Tertullian ( de Resurr. c. 24) and Chrysostom.

( f ) Chrysostom proffers and prefers another explanation, viz., that S. Paul's meaning is: Why do all receive baptism in hope of the resurrection of the dead, or to benefit their state when dead, that it may be well with them after death, if the dead do not rise? Surely, then, in vain do they do this. But this is not credible, for the common faith of all the faithful is that they do rise, so much so, that many of them put off their baptism, even to the end of life, and are baptized on their death-bed, in the hope that, being purified by baptism from all pain and guilt, they may fly to heaven, and obtain a joyful resurrection. Hence we get the name "clinical baptism." Many canons are extant ordering that such baptism be not refused to those who ask for it.

This last meaning seems the simplest of all, and the one most on the surface, and is taken from the literal meaning of "baptized." Tertullian says that "for the dead" means, " When the sacrament of baptism is performed over the body, the body is consecrated to immortality."

Ver. 30 .— And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? It is folly for us to expose ourselves to so many dangers and persecutions, in hope of the resurrection, if there is none. This is a fresh reason, or rather a fresh part of the reason joined to the preceding verse. That we all shall rise again is evident from the common belief and instinct of all the faithful, instilled into them both by grace and nature; for all long for baptism, because of this hope of the resurrection. Others again, and we especially, because of the same hope, boldly meet and even attack all dangers and sufferings. God, therefore, who by nature and grace has given us this feeling and this courage, through hope of the resurrection, plainly testifies by this very fact that we shall rise again.

Ver. 31 . — I die daily. I.e., I expose myself every day to danger of death, on behalf of the Gospel and the conversion of the Gentiles.

By your rejoicing. That is, I die daily for the sake of the glory which awaits you in heaven, in order that I may win it for you; or, better still, as your father and Apostle, I swear, and call God to witness, by your glory, i.e., by the glorying with which I glory over you as my children in Christ, that I die daily, and expose myself to death in hope of the resurrection. Hence S. Augustine ( Ep. 89) proves the lawfulness of oaths. [Cornelius à Lapide follows the Latin Version, which gives glory where the A. V. has rejoicing.]

Which I have in Christ. This is, according to Anselm, the future glory which, in reliance on Christ, I hope that you will have, or, better, the glory or glorying which I have, i.e., with which I glory in Christ; for I glory that by the merits of Christ I have obtained it. Gagneius and Photius explain the phrase differently, and make it a protestation rather than an oath, and read it, "I die daily because of your" (or, according to some Greek writers, "our") "glorying;" i.e., that I am able to boast of you as having been converted and won to Christ by my efforts.

Take notice that the Apostle here proves the resurrection of the body from the immortality of the soul alone, because these two things are naturally connected, and because men doubted then not so much the resurrection in itself as the immortality of the soul; so that if any one should prove to them the immortality of the soul, they would at once admit the resurrection. So S. Thomas.

Ver.32. — If after the manner of men. (1.) According to Photius, as far as man could; (2.) better, with human hope only, human courage, enterprise, love of glory, by which men are for the most part driven to face dangers. (3.) Others explain it as meaning, "I speak after the manner of men," who readily dwell on their fights and conflicts.

I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. Theophylact, Anselm, Primasius, and Baronius think that "beasts" refers to Demetrius and his savage companions, who fought fiercely and like beasts against Paul in defence of Diana (Acts xix.). We may then translate it. "If I have fought against a man who was as a beast." So Paul calls Nero a lion (2Ti 4:17). Such men too are called bulls (Psa 68:30); and S. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans, says: "I fight daily with beasts," i.e., with the soldiers guarding him.

But Chrysostom, Ambrose, and others think that Paul was actually thrown to the beasts at Ephesus and fought with them; for this is the strict meaning of the Greek, and, moreover, that contest with Demetrius at Ephesus took place after this Epistle was written, for after that outbreak, Demetrius and his followers, by their violence, forced Paul to leave Ephesus at once, so that he had no time to write this letter at Ephesus; therefore it was written before. It is pretty certain, as Baronius holds, that it was about that time that this letter was written at Ephesus. The fight with beasts, here spoken of, was not the one with Demetrius, which had not yet taken place, but an earlier one.

It may be said, it is remarkable that S. Luke should have said nothing in the Acts of so important an incident and so fearful a fight. But it is clear that S. Luke passed over things of no less moment, as, e.g., those related by S. Paul himself in 2Co 11:25: "Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck," &c. Hence Nicephorus ( Hist. lib. ii. c. 25) relates, on the authority of tradition apparently, that this fight of S. Paul's was a literal fight with beasts.

Gagneius says that the Greek means, not only to fight against beasts, but to fight against them to extremities, even for life. He turns it: "For the defence of the Gospel I was thrown to beasts, and fought with them to the last breath, and by the help of God I overcame them, and slew them not with weapons or fists but with faith and prayer, or I fled from them and escaped them."

Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. S. Paul is quoting Isa 22:13. Those who deny the resurrection or who do not believe it are not far from the position of the wicked in Isaiah; for if there is no resurrection it will be lawful to join with the Epicureans in saying, "Eat, play, drink: there is no pleasure after death."

Ver. 33 . — Evil communications corrupt good manners. Viz., with atheists and unbelievers who deny the resurrection. This is an iambic senarius of Menander's, as S. Jerome points out.

Ver. 34. — Awake to righteousness and sin not. Awake from sin to be righteous. The Greek copies give "awake righteously;" Ephrem, "Stir up your hearts righteously." Sin not, because some know not that God can call the dead to life.

I speak this to your shame. It is a shame for a Christian to have any doubt about the resurrection or the power of God.

Vers. 35, 36. — But some man will say . . . except it die. The Apostle strikes here at the root of their disease and the cause of their error, which was that some were despairing of and denying the resurrection of the body, because they saw that it rotted in the ground, and they thought therefore it was incredible and impossible for it to be raised again and refashioned.  S Paul here answers this objection by pointing to a grain of corn which is sown. It first rots and dies away in the earth, and then as it were is born again and springs up, and brings forth, not merely one grain, but many grains from the one. In this way the one grain which is sown is clothed and laden at the harvest with many ears and grains, so that it seems to rise with greater glory. In the same way our bodies will rot in the ground, and thence rise to greater glory.

Ver. 37. — Thou sowest not that body that shall be. When you sow you do not sow the body which will rise from the seed, as, e.g., a tree or an ear, but bare seed, of apple, or of wheat, &c., and yet God gives to this seed sown, when it spring from the earth, not any other seed, but a complete and beautiful body, e.g., of a tree or of an ear, which is beautifully composed of its own stalk, beard, blossoms, and grains. Hence S. Augustine says ( Ep. 146) that the Apostle implies, " if God can add to the new seed something it had not before, much more can He at the resurrection restore man's body."

Ver. 38. — But God giveth . . . to every seed his own body. He gives to each seed the body that belongs to its own natural species, as, e.g., to a grain of wheat He gives a body of wheat, and not of barley or of oats.

Ver. 39 . — All flesh is not the same flesh. He goes on to prove what he has said, viz., that God gives to each seed its own body as He hath pleased and determined. He proves it by analogy. "God," he says, "gives one flesh to man—his own, another to beasts, another to fishes, another to birds. He gives one body to the heavens and the stars, and another to things on earth." So, too, to the blessed in the resurrection, which will be a kind of regeneration and new creation, will God give their own body, such as He sees fit to give, and such as is becoming to men beatified and glorified. He will give to each as he had deserved; for there is a similitude and proportion between nature and merit. Such a nature demands such a body; so such a degree of merit demands a correspondingly glorified body: the less the merit, the less glorified the body to be received; the more the merit, the more the glory of the body.

Ver. 41 . — There is one glory of the sun, &c. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Primasius, Œcumenius, Bede, Augustine ( de Sanct. Virg. c. 26), Jerome ( contra Jovinian. lib. ii.), prove from this that not only is the resurrection of the saints glorious, but that there is also an inequality of rewards in heaven, just as there is an inequality in the seeds of merits sown here.

Ver. 42 . — So also is the resurrection of the dead. As there is one brightness of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars, so will God give to each of the blessed the blessed and glorious body that belongs to him, and that is proportioned to his merits.

The saints and blessed are well compared to stars for reasons which I have given when commenting on Rom 4:18. Moreover, as one star outshines another, so does one saint in heaven excel another—as in grace and merits, so in the glory and reward that he receives, and "the star of virginity shines among all as the moon among lesser lights."

So S. Dominic, while still a boy, appeared to a noble matron in a vision, wearing on his forehead a bright star which irradiated the whole world ( Vita, lib. i. c. 1, and cap. ult.); and it is said of the high-priest Simon, son of Onias (Ecclus. 1:6): "As the morning star shines in the midst of a cloud, and as the full moon in her days, or as the noonday sun, so did he shine in the Temple of God." Similar things are told us of other saints. Learned men and teachers of righteousness and holiness will call to mind the verse (Dan 12:3): "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (Cf. Wisd. 3) Hence Christ, too, says (Rev 22:16). "I am the bright and morning star," and in Rev 1:20: "The seven stars are the angels" ( i.e., the doctors and bishops) "of the seven churches;" and in Rev. xii. 1, the Church appeared to S. John like a woman having on her head a crown of twelve stars, that is of the twelve Apostles, who, like stars, shed their light over the Church, and that on the head, i.e., in the beginning of the Church, as Primasius, Aretas, Andrew Bishop of Cæsarea, Bede, and others explain it. Lastly, in Rev. ii. 28, Christ says: "And he that overcometh, to him will I give the morning star," i.e., glory and the beatific vision, which is called a star because of the brightness of its light and the clearness of the vision. It is called the morning star, both because it is given after the night of this world, and because it is the beginning of the blessedness which will be completed at the resurrection of the body. Cf. Richard Victor, Primasius, and Aretas.

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. 1. It is sown in creation, when the corruptible body is produced by the direct act of God, or from the seed of the father. So Anselm. 2. Better, it is sown a human body when it is buried, and thrown like seed into the ground to be eaten by worms and changed into dust; for so grain, when sown in the ground, is cast forth, buried, and corrupted. So Chrysostom, Ambrose, Anselm.

Hence they have erred who supposed that the resurrection will take place through the powers of nature, and that we shall rise by natural strength; as though in the ashes of the corpse were latent seminal powers, able to make it rise again.  S. Thomas refers to these men. This is an error opposed to the faith and to true philosophy, both of which declare that the resurrection is above the powers of nature. The Apostle does not compare the body to seed sown in this respect, but he merely points to the fact that, as God has given to each seed its own body, so that, e.g., wheat springs from wheat and not barley, so to each of the blessed will He give a body corresponding to his work and merit. That this is his meaning, appears from the following verses. To bring this out more clearly, S. Paul adduced, in vers. 39 and 40, a similitude drawn from the difference existing in the flesh and bodies of different creatures.

The seed dying and springing up again, and as it were rising from death, is a remarkable image and proof of the resurrection. Hence S. Augustine ( Serm. 34 de Verb. Apost.) says: " The whole government of this world is a witness to the resurrection. We see the trees at the approach of winter stripped of their fruits and shorn of their foliage, and yet in the spring set forth a kind of resurrection; for they first of all begin to shoot forth buds, then they are adorned with blossoms, clad with leaves, and laden with fruit. I ask you who believe not in the resurrection, Where are those things hidden which God in His own good time brings forth? They are nowhere seen, yet God, who is Almighty, and created them from nothing, produces them by His secret power. Then look at the meadows and fields, which after summer are stripped of their grass and flowers, and remain nothing but a bare expanse of ground; yet in the spring they are again clad, and rejoice the heart of the husbandman when he sees the grass again springing up in newness of life. Truly, the grass which lived and died again lives from the seed; so, too, does our body live again from the dust."

Ver. 43 . — It is sown in dishonour. Man's body when it is buried and thrown like seed into the ground, is base, thick, heavy, opaque.

It is raised in glory. It will rise glorious clear, resplendent. The Apostle here strikes at another root of their error. There were some who at that time denied the resurrection of the body on the ground that the body, as being heavy and fleshy, was unfitted to be the home of the soul in bliss, and to enjoy the Divine life, as S. Dionysius testifies when refuting them ( Eccles. Hierarch. c. 7). The Apostle cuts this away by declaring that to the soul in glory a corresponding glorified body must be given.

It is sown in weakness. Is weak, slow, inert when it dies and is buried.

It is raised in power. Powerful, quick, agile.

Ver. 44.— It is sown a natural body. It dies as it lived: its life was vegetative and sensitive, and needed for its support food and drink, like the life of other animals. So, too, it was solid, inert, unable to give place to other bodies, and impenetrable. Such was the body of Adam, even in Paradise. The natural body is one that eats, drinks, sleeps, digests, toils, suffers fatigue, is heavy, and offers resistance to other bodies.

It is raised a spiritual body. 1. Not that the body is to be changed into a spirit or into an aërial body, as Origen and Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of S. Gregory, thought (he was convinced by S. Gregory and abandoned his error), but spiritual in the sense of being wholly subject and conformed to the spirit, so that it no longer stands in need of food or drink, it toils not, and feels no weariness, but is, so to speak, heavenly and deified, and, as Tertullian says, is, as it were, changed into the angelic nature. So S. Augustine ( de Fide et Symb. c. 6) says: " It is called a spiritual body, not because it is changed into spirit, but because it is so subdued to the spirit that it is fitted for its heavenly dwelling-place, when all weakness and earthly frailty have been taken away, and transformed into celestial strength." Yet (c. 10) he seems to say that in the resurrection the body will not be of the flesh, but like that of angels. He retracts this, however, afterwards ( Retract. lib. i. c. 17), and more at length ( de Civ. Dei, lib . ult. c. 5 and 21).

2. Spiritual denotes subtilty, freedom from that heaviness and solidity that fills space, i.e., from that property of body by which it so fills space as to exclude all other bodies. The spiritual body will be subtle, as free from this property, and able, like spirit, to penetrate and fill all other bodies. Cf. Damascene ( de Fide, lib. iv. c. 28) and Epiphanius ( in Hæres. Orig.). For, as God can take from man his property, viz., the power of laughing, and can take from fire the heat which is the property of fire, so from body can He take away solidity, which is the property of natural bodily substance.

This gift of subtilty, however, will not be a quality infused into the soul, for this seems an impossibility. It will be an assisting presence of Divine power, internal to the soul in bliss, so that the soul can, at its pleasure, lay aside the solidity by which it excludes other bodies, when it wishes to penetrate into them; and can, on the other hand, retain it when it wishes to occupy space and exclude other bodies.

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:29

1 CORINTHIANS 15:29 —Doesn’t advocating baptism for the dead contradict Paul’s teaching that each person must believe individually?

PROBLEM: Paul said, “what will they do who are baptized for the dead?” This seems to imply that if a person gets baptized on the account of a dead person, then the deceased will be saved. But, this is in conflict with the clear teaching of Scripture that anyone old enough must believe for himself or herself ( John 3:16 ; Rom. 10:9-13 ; cf. Ezek. 18:20 ) to be saved.

SOLUTION: This is an obscure and isolated passage. It is unwise to base any doctrine on such a passage. Rather, one should always use the clear passages of Scripture to interpret the unclear ones. The Bible is emphatic that baptism does not save (see comments on Acts 2:38 ). We are saved by grace through faith, not by works ( Eph. 2:8-9 ; Titus 3:5-7 ; Rom. 4:5 ). Further, we cannot do anything that would obtain salvation for another person. Each person must personally believe ( John 1:12 ). Everyone must make his own free choice ( Matt. 23:37 ; 2 Peter 3:9 ).

Scholars differ as to what Paul means in this passage. The following interpretations are possibilities.

Some believe Paul is referring to a cultic practice among the Corinthians who had many other false beliefs (cf. 1 Cor. 5 ; 12 ). In effect, Paul would be saying, “If you don’t believe in the Resurrection, then why engage in the practice of baptizing people for the dead. You are inconsistent with your own (false) beliefs.” They think that the practice was so obviously wrong that Paul does not need to condemn it explicitly. They point to the fact that Paul says “they” (others) not “we” baptize the dead (v. 29 ).

Others suggest that Paul is simply referring to the fact that baptism of new converts is replenishing the depleted ranks of believers who have died and gone on to be with the Lord. If so, then his sense here would be, “Why do you continue to fill the church with baptized converts, who replace those who have died, if you do not really believe there is any hope for them beyond the grave?”

Some suggest that Paul is referring to the fact that baptism symbolizes the believer’s death with Christ ( Rom. 6:3-5 ). The Greek word “for” ( eis ) can mean “with a view to.” In this sense, he would be saying, “Why are you baptized with a view to your death and resurrection with Christ, if you do not believe in the Resurrection?”

Still others, point out that the preposition “for” in Greek ( huper ) can mean “for the sake of.” In this case, baptism would be for the sake of those who are dead. They point to the fact that Paul says “If the dead do not rise at all; Why then are they baptized for the dead?” (v. 29 ) Since it was common in the NT period to be baptized as one accepted the Gospel, this was a sign of one’s faith in Christ. Thus Paul would be saying, “Why be baptized if there is no resurrection?” For Paul later says that if there is no resurrection, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (v. 32 ). Whatever the correct interpretation, there is no reason to believe Paul is here contradicting his clear teaching elsewhere or the rest of Scripture which insists that every person must freely choose or reject God’s gift of salvation.   

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:33

1 CORINTHIANS 15:33 —By quoting a pagan poet as part of Scripture, doesn’t Paul thereby pronounce this pagan writing a part of Scripture?

(See comments on Titus 1:12 .)   

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:37

1 CORINTHIANS 15:37 —Is Paul teaching that the resurrection body is a different one from the one that is sown—a kind of reincarnation?

PROBLEM: According to this verse, we “do not sow that body that shall be.” Some take this to mean the resurrection body is a different one, a “spiritual” (v. 44 ) body that is not essentially material (see comments on 1 Cor. 15:44 ). Does this prove that we are not raised in the same physical body of flesh and bones in which we die?

SOLUTION: There are real changes in the resurrection body, but it is not changed into a nonphysical body—one substantially different from the one we possess now. The seed that goes into the ground brings forth more seeds that are the same kind, not immaterial seeds. It is in this sense that Paul can say “you do not sow [cause to die] the body that shall be,” since it is immortal and cannot die. The body that is raised is different in that it is immortal ( 1 Cor. 15:53 ), not in that it is immaterial. Of His resurrection body Jesus said, “It is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not haveflesh and bones as you see I have” ( Luke 24:39 ).

There are many reasons for holding that the resurrection body, though transformed and glorified, is the numerically same body of flesh and bones Jesus possessed before His resurrection. And since our resurrection bodies will be like His ( Phil. 3:21 ), the same is true of the believer’s resurrection body. Notice these characteristics of Jesus’ resurrection body: (1) It was the same body with the crucifixion scars it had from before the resurrection ( Luke 24:39 ; John 20:27 ). (2) It was the same body that left the empty tomb behind ( Matt. 28:6 ; John 20:5-7 ; cf. John 5:28-29 ). (3) The physical body of Jesus did not corrupt in the tomb ( Acts 2:31 ). (4) Jesus said the same body that is destroyed will be built up again ( John 2:21-22 ). (5) The immortal body is “put on” over, but does not replace, the mortal body ( 1 Cor. 15:53 ). (6) The plant that springs forth from the seed is both genetically and physically connected with the seed. What is sown is what is reaped ( 1 Cor. 15:37-38 ). (7) It is the same body of “flesh and bones” ( Luke 24:39 ) that could be touched ( Matt. 28:9 ; John 20:27 ) and could eat physical food ( Luke 24:41-42 ).

The “change” ( 1 Cor. 15:51 ) Paul referred to at the resurrection is a change in the body, not a change of the body. The changes in the resurrection are accidental, not substantial. They are changes in secondary qualities, not changes inp rimary qualities. It is changed from a corruptible physical body to an incorruptible physical body. It is not changed from a physical body into a nonphysical body. It is changed from a mortal to an immortal physical body. But it is not changed from a material to an immaterial body.   

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:44

1 CORINTHIANS 15:44 —Is the resurrection body material or immaterial?

PROBLEM: Paul declares that the resurrection body is a “spiritual body” ( 1 Cor. 15:44 ), but a spiritual body is an immaterial body. However, elsewhere the Bible says Jesus’ resurrection body was made of “flesh and bones” ( Luke 24:39 ).

SOLUTION: A “spiritual” body denotes an immortal body, not an immaterial body. A “spiritual” body is one dominated by the spirit, not one devoid of matter. The Greek wordpneum atikos (translated “spiritual” here) means a body directed by the spirit, as opposed to one under the dominion of the flesh. It is not ruled by flesh that perishes, but by the spirit that endures ( 1 Cor. 15:50-58 ). So “spiritual body” does not mean immaterial and invisible, but immortal and imperishable. This is clear from several facts:

First, notice the parallelism mentioned by Paul:    {

PRE-RESURRECTION POST-RESURRECTION BODY   

BODY}   

Earthly (v. 40 ) Heavenly   

Imperishable (v. 42 ) Perishable  

Weak (v. 43 ) Powerful   

Mortal (v. 53 ) Immortal   

Natural (v. 44 ) [Supernatural]

The complete context indicates that “spiritual” (pneumatikos ) could be translated    “supernatural” in contrast to “natural.” This is made clear by the parallels of perishable    and imperishable and corruptible and incorruptible. In fact, this same Greek word (    pneumatikos ) is translated “supernatural” in 1 Corinthians 10:4 when it speaks of the    “supernatural rock that followed them in the wilderness” ( RSV ).

Second, the word “spiritual” (pneumatikos ) in 1 Corinthians refers to material objects. Paul spoke of the “spiritual rock” that followed Israel in the wilderness from which they got “spiritual drink” ( 1 Cor. 10:4 ). But the OT story ( Ex. 17 ; Num. 20 ) reveals that it was a physical rock from which they got literal water to drink. But the actual water they drank from that material rock was produced supernaturally. When Jesus supernaturally made bread for the five thousand ( John 6 ), He made literal bread. However, this literal, material bread could have been called “spiritual” bread (because of its supernatural source) in the same way that the literal manna given to Israel is called “spiritual food” ( 1 Cor. 10:3 ).

Further, when Paul spoke about a “spiritual man” ( 1 Cor. 2:15 ) he obviously did not mean an invisible, immaterial man with no corporeal body. He was, as a matter of fact, speaking of a flesh and blood human being whose life was lived by the supernatural power of God. He was referring to a literal person whose life was Spirit directed. A spiritual man is one who is taught by the Spirit and who receives the things that come from the Spirit of God ( 1 Cor. 2:13-14 ). The resurrection body can be called a “spiritual body” in much the same way we speak of the Bible as a “spiritual book.” Regardless of their spiritual source and power, both the resurrection body and the Bible are material objects.   

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:45

1 CORINTHIANS 15:45 —Was Christ a life-giving spirit after His resurrection, or did He have a physical body?

PROBLEM: Paul asserts here that Christ was made a “life-giving spirit” after His resurrection. Some have also used this passage to prove that Jesus had no physical resurrection body.

SOLUTION: This does not follow for many reasons.

First, “life-giving spirit” does not speak of the nature of the resurrection body, but of the divine origin of the resurrection. Jesus’ physical body came back to life only by the power of God (cf. Rom. 1:4 ). So Paul is speaking about its spiritual source, not its physical substance as a material body (see also comments on 1 Cor. 15:44 ).

Second, if “spirit” describes the nature of Christ’s resurrection body, then Adam (with whom He is contrasted) must not have had a soul, since he is described as “of the earth, made of dust” (v. 47 ). But the Bible clearly says that Adam was “a living being [soul]” ( Gen. 2:7 ).

Third, Christ’s resurrection body is called “spiritual body” (v. 44 ) which, as discussed under 1 Corinthians 15:44 , is the same word used by Paul to describe material food and a literal rock ( 1 Cor. 10:4 ).

Fourth, it is called a “body” ( s?ma ) which always means a physical body when referring to an individual human being.

In summation, the resurrection body is called “spiritual” and “life-giving spirit” because its source is the spiritual realm, not because its substance is immaterial. Christ’s supernatural resurrection body is “from heaven,” as Adam’s natural body was “of the earth” (v. 47 ). But just as the one from “earth” also has an immaterial soul, even so the One from “heaven” also has a material body.   

Critics Ask: 1Co 15:50

1 CORINTHIANS 15:50 —If flesh and blood cannot enter heaven, then how can there be a physical resurrection?

PROBLEM: The Bible speaks of the resurrection of the physical body from the grave ( John 5:28-29 ), which is composed of “flesh and bones” ( Luke 24:39 ) and which leaves an empty tomb behind ( Matt. 28:6 ). However, according to this verse, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

SOLUTION: To conclude from this phrase that the resurrection body will not be a body of physical flesh is without biblical justification.

First of all, the very next phrase omitted from the above quotation clearly indicates that Paul is speaking not of flesh as such, but of corruptible flesh. For he adds, “nor does corruption inherit incorruption” (v. 50 ). So, Paul is not affirming that the resurrection body will not have flesh, but that it will not haveperishable flesh.

Second, to convince the frightened disciples that He was not an immaterial spirit ( Luke 24:37 ), Jesus emphatically told them, “Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself! Touch Me and see; a ghost does not haveflesh and bones, as you see I have” ( Luke 24:39 ,NIV ). Peter declared that the resurrection body would be the same body offlesh that went into the tomb and never saw corruption ( Acts 2:31 ). Paul also reaffirmed this truth in a parallel passage ( Acts 13:35 ). And John implies that it is against Christ to deny that He remains “in theflesh” even after His resurrection ( 1 John 4:2 ; 2 John 7 ).

Third, this conclusion cannot be avoided by claiming that Jesus’ resurrection body had flesh and bones, but not flesh and blood. For if it had flesh and bones, then it was a literal, material body, whether or not it had blood. “Flesh and bones” stresses the solidity of Jesus’ physical post-resurrection body. They are more obvious signs of tangibility than blood, which cannot be as easily seen or touched.

Fourth, the phrase “flesh and blood” in this context apparently means mortal flesh and blood, that is, a mere human being. This is supported by parallel uses in the NT. When Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you” ( Matt. 16:17 ), He could not have been referring to the mere substance of the body as such, which obviously could not reveal that He was the Son of God. Rather, the most natural interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:50 seems to be that humans, as they now are, earth- bound and perishable creatures, cannot have a place in God’s glorious, heavenly kingdom.   

Evidence: 1Co 15:29

Some believe in baptizing for the dead, which Paul mentions in these verses. Note that Paul does not say " we," but " they," thus distancing himself from the practice. See Act 2:38 footnote for the biblical basis for baptism.

Evidence: 1Co 15:31

"We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms...To surrender a self-will inflamed and swollen with years of usurpation is a kind of death...Hence the necessity to die daily: however often we think we have broken the rebellious self, we shall still find it alive." C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Evidence: 1Co 15:34

False converts . Paul acknowledges that there were false converts in their midst; to their shame, some among them did not know God, were dead to righteousness, and were continuing to sin. We also should feel a sense of shame at the state of the lukewarm contemporary Church, where only 2 percent have any real concern for the salvation of the world.

Evidence: 1Co 15:39

QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS

"Evolution disproves the Bible!"

The Book of Genesis tells us that everything was created by God-nothing "evolved." Every creature was given the ability to reproduce after its own kind as is stated ten times in Genesis 1. Dogs do not produce cats. Neither do cats and dogs have a common ancestry. Dogs began as dogs and are still dogs. They vary in species from Chihuahuas to Saint Bernards, but you will not find a "dat" or a "cog" (part cat/dog) throughout God's creation. Frogs don't reproduce oysters, cows don't have lambs, and pregnant pigs don't give birth to rabbits. God made monkeys as monkeys, and man as man. Each creature brings forth after its own kind. That's no theory; that's a fact.

Why then should we believe that man comes from another species? If evolution is true, then it is proof that the Bible is false. However, the whole of creation stands in contradiction to the theory of evolution. Dr. Kent Hovind of Florida has a standing offer of $250,000 to "anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution." Evolution-true science fiction. His website is http://www.drdino.com.

"This notion of species as 'natural kinds' fits splendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian age. Louis Agassiz even argued that species are God's individual thoughts, made incarnate so that we might perceive both His majesty and His message. Species, Agassiz wrote, are 'instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories of his mode of thinking.' But how could a division of the organic world into discrete entities be justified by an evolutionary theory that proclaimed ceaseless change as the fundamental fact of nature?" Stephen J. Gould, professor of geology and paleontology, Harvard University

Evidence: 1Co 15:45

QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS

" Adam was a mythical figure who never really lived."

Adam is a key figure in Scripture. He is described as the " first Adam," the one who brought sin into the world. He made it necessary for Jesus, the " last Adam," to atone for all humans, and then rise from the grave with the promise of complete redemption for fallen man and fallen creation.

If Adam was just a myth, we would not be able to fully understand the work of Jesus. If Adam and Eve were not real, then we ought to doubt whether their children were real too, and their children...and then we ought to doubt the first 11 chapters of Genesis, and so on. All the genealogies accept Adam as being a literal person, so their children Cain and Abel ( Gen 4:9-10 ; Luk 11:50-51 ) must be real too. Jesus was descended from Adam, and it is impossible to be descended from a myth.

Evidence: 1Co 15:55

Last Words of Famous People

Fearful Last Words :

Cardinal Borgia : " I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death, and now, alas, I am to die unprepared."

Elizabeth the First : " All my possessions for one moment of time."

Kurt Cobain (suicide note): " Frances and Courtney, I’ll be at your altar. Please keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life will be so much happier without me. I love you. I love you."

Ludwig van Beethoven : " Too bad, too bad! It’s too late!"

Thomas Hobbs : " I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

Anne Boleyn : " O God, have pity on my soul. O God, have pity on my soul."

Prince Henry of Wales : " Tie a rope round my body, pull me out of bed, and lay me in ashes, that I may die with repentant prayers to an offended God. O! I in vain wish for that time I lost with you and others in vain recreations."

Socrates : " All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word."

Sigmund Freud : " The meager satisfaction that man can extract from reality leaves him starving."

Tony Hancock (British comedian): " Nobody will ever know I existed. Nothing to leave behind me. Nothing to pass on. Nobody to mourn me. That’s the bitterest blow of all."

Phillip III, King of France : " What an account I shall have to give to God! How I should like to live otherwise than I have lived."

Luther Burbank : " I don’t feel good."

Voltaire (skeptic): " I am abandoned by God and man! I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months’ life. Then I shall go to hell; and you will go with me. O Christ! O Jesus Christ!" (The talented French writer once said of Jesus, " Curse the wretch!" He stated, " Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror... Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." )

He also boasted, " In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took twelve apostles to rear." Some years later, Voltaire’s house was used by the Geneva Bible Society to print Bibles.

Philosophical Last Words :

Aldus Huxley (humanist): " It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try and be a little kinder.’"

Karl Marx: " Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!"

Napoleon: " I marvel that where the ambitious dreams of myself and of Alexander and of Caesar should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant—Jesus—should be able to stretch his hands across the centuries, and control the destinies of men and nations."

Leonardo da Vinci : " I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have."

Tolstoy : " Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six."

Benjamin Franklin : " A dying man can do nothing easy."

Grotius : " I have lived my life in a laborious doing of nothing."

Unexpected Demise :

H. G. Wells : " Go away: I’m alright."

General John Sedgwick (during the heat of battle in 1864): " They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist——!"

Bing Crosby : " That was a great game of golf."

Mahatma Ghandi : " I am late by ten minutes. I hate being late. I like to be at the prayer punctually at the stroke of five."

Diana (Spencer), Princess of Wales : " My God. What’s happened?" (per police files)

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. : " Never felt better."

Franklin D. Roosevelt : " I have a terrific headache."

Sal Mineo : (stabbed through the heart): " Oh God! No! Help! Someone help!"

Jesse James : " It’s awfully hot today."

Lee Harvey Oswald : " I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and that after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you."

Unusual Last Words :

Vincent Van Gogh : " I shall never get rid ofthis depression."

James Dean : " My fun days are over."

Oscar Wilde : " My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go..."

W. C. Fields : " I’m looking for a loophole."

Louis XVII : " I have something to tell you..."

Assurance of Salvation :

Jonathan Edwards : " Trust in God and you shall have nothing to fear."

Patrick Henry : " Doctor, I wish you to observe how real and beneficial the religion of Christ is to a man about to die..." In his will he wrote: " This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ which will give them one which will make them rich indeed."

John Owen : " I am going to Him whom my soul loveth, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the sole ground of all my consolation."

D. L. Moody : " I see earth receding; heaven is opening. God is calling me."

Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur): " Thy will be done."

Alexander Hamilton : " I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy."

William Shakespeare : " I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Savior, to be made partaker of life everlasting; and my body to the earth, whereof it was made."

Martin Luther : " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, O God of truth."

John Milton (British poet): " Death is the great key that opens the palace of Eternity."

Sir Walter Raleigh (at his execution): " So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth."

Daniel Webster (just before his death): " The great mystery is Jesus Christ—the gospel. What would the condition of any of us be if we had not the hope of immortality?...Thank God, the gospel of Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light." His last words were: " I still live."

General William Booth (to his son): " And the homeless children, Bramwell, look after the homeless. Promise me..."

David Livingstone : " Build me a hut to die in. I am going home."

Charles Dickens : " I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try and guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament."

Andrew Jackson : " My dear children, do not grieve for me...I am my God’s. I belong to Him. I go but a short time before you, and...I hope and trust to meet you all in heaven."

Isaac Watts (hymn-writer): " It is a great mercy that I have no manner of fear or dread of death. I could, if God please, lay my head back and die without terror this afternoon."

Evidence: 1Co 15:58

Discouragement in witnessing . It is easy to become discouraged after trying to reason with sinners. But to do so is to demean the influence of the Holy Spirit in our witness. If the salvation of a single soul depended solely upon us, we should be depressed if we see little visible and immediate fruit for our labors. However, the Bible tells us that " salvation is of the Lord." We do play a part as a co-laborer with Christ—He may instruct us to roll the stone away, but it is the Lord alone who calls the sinner from the tomb of his deathly state. He gives us opportunity, but He opens the heart of the sinner, and it is Him alone that makes the sinner come to life.

Our confidence should then be in Him. Jesus said, " With God, nothing shall be impossible." We therefore can always abound in the Lord, knowing that our labors (even with cults) are not in vain. His Word cannot return void. Our part is simply to be true and faithful in our witness, then to stand back and watch the miracle work of our God. Who knows, perhaps the words we placed in the heart of the person may bear fruit years after they were spoken, and we will have the joy of unwrapping the grave clothes when God, in His time, calls them.

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

First Corinthians

From Ephesus a.d. 54 Or 55

By Way of Introduction

It would be a hard-boiled critic today who would dare deny the genuineness of I Corinthians. The Dutch wild man, Van Manen, did indeed argue that Paul wrote no epistles if indeed he ever lived. Such intellectual banality is well answered by Whateley’s Historic Doubts about Napolean Bonaparte which was so cleverly done that some readers were actually convinced that no such man ever existed, but is the product of myth and legend. Even Baur was compelled to acknowledge the genuineness of I and II Corinthians, Galatians and Romans (the Big Four of Pauline criticism). It is a waste of time now to prove what all admit to be true. Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle to the Gentiles, wrote I Corinthians.

We know where Paul was when he wrote the letter for he tells us in 1Co_16:8 : " But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." That was, indeed, his plan, but the uproar in Ephesus at the hands of Demetrius caused his departure sooner than he expected (Acts 18:21-20:1; 2Co_2:12.). But he is in Ephesus when he writes.

We know also the time of the year when he writes, in the spring before pentecost. Unfortunately we do not know the precise year, though it was at the close of his stay of three years (in round numbers) at Ephesus (Act_20:31). Like all the years in Paul’s ministry we have to allow a sliding scale in relation to his other engagements. One may guess the early spring of a.d. 54 or 55.

The occasion of the Epistle is made plain by numerous allusions personal and otherwise. Paul had arrived in Ephesus from Antioch shortly after the departure of Apollos for Corinth with letters of commendation from Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:28-19:1). It is not clear how long Apollos remained in Corinth, but he is back in Ephesus when Paul writes the letter and he has declined Paul’s request to go back to Corinth (1Co_16:12). Some of the household of Chloe had heard or come from Corinth with full details of the factions in the church over Apollos and Paul, clearly the reason why Apollos left (1Co_1:10-12). Even Cephas nominally was drawn into it, though there is no evidence that Peter himself had come to Corinth. Paul had sent Timothy over to Corinth to put an end to the factions (1Co_4:17), though he was uneasy over the outcome (1Co_16:10.). This disturbance was enough of itself to call forth a letter from Paul. But it was by no means the whole story. Paul had already written a letter, now lost to us, concerning a peculiarly disgusting case of incest in the membership (1Co_5:9). They were having lawsuits with one another before heathen judges. Members of the church had written Paul a letter about marriage whether any or all should marry (1Co_7:1). They were troubled also whether it was right to eat meat that had been offered to idols in the heathen temples (1Co_8:1). Spiritual gifts of an unusual nature were manifested in Corinth and these were the occasion of a deal of trouble (1Co_12:1). The doctrine of the resurrection gave much trouble in Corinth (1Co_15:12). Paul was interested in the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem (1Co_16:1) and in their share in it. The church in Corinth had sent a committee (Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus) to Paul in Ephesus. He hopes to come himself after passing through Macedonia (1Co_16:5.). It is possible that he had made a short visit before this letter (2Co_13:1), though not certain as he may have intended to go one time without going as he certainly once changed his plans on the subject (2Co_1:15-22). Whether Titus took the letter on his visit or it was sent on after the return of Timothy is not perfectly clear. Probably Timothy returned to Ephesus from Corinth shortly after the epistle was sent on, possibly by the committee who returned to Corinth (1Co_16:17), for Timothy and Erastus were sent on from Ephesus to Macedonia before the outbreak at the hands of Demetrius (Act_19:22). Apparently Timothy had not fully succeeded in reconciling the factions in Corinth for Paul dispatched Titus who was to meet him at Troas as he went on to Macedonia. Paul’s hurried departure from Ephesus (Act_20:1) took him to Troas before Titus arrived and Paul’s impatience there brought him to Macedonia where he did meet Titus on his return from Corinth (2Co_2:12.).

It is clear therefore that Paul wrote what we call I Corinthians in a disturbed state of mind. He had founded the church there, had spent two years there (Acts 18), and took pardonable pride in his work there as a wise architect (1Co_3:10) for he had built the church on Christ as the foundation. He was anxious that his work should abide. It is plain that the disturbances in the church in Corinth were fomented from without by the Judaizers whom Paul had defeated at the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15:1-35; Gal_2:1-10). They were overwhelmed there, but renewed their attacks in Antioch (Gal_2:11-21). Henceforth throughout the second mission tour they are a disturbing element in Galatia, in Corinth, in Jerusalem. While Paul is winning the Gentiles in the Roman Empire to Christ, these Judaizers are trying to win Paul’s converts to Judaism. Nowhere do we see the conflict at so white a heat as in Corinth. Paul finally will expose them with withering sarcasm (2 Corinthians 10-13) as Jesus did the Pharisees in Matthew 23 on that last day in the temple. Factional strife, immorality, perverted ideas about marriage, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection, these complicated problems are a vivid picture of church life in our cities today. The discussion of them shows Paul’s many-sidedness and also the powerful grasp that he has upon the realities of the gospel. Questions of casuistry are faced fairly and serious ethical issues are met squarely. But along with the treatment of these vexed matters Paul sings the noblest song of the ages on love (chapter 1Co_13:1-13) and writes the classic discussion on the resurrection (chapter 1 Corinthians 15). If one knows clearly and fully the Corinthian Epistles and Paul’s dealings with Corinth, he has an understanding of a large section of his life and ministry. No church caused him more anxiety than did Corinth (2Co_11:28).

JFB: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

The AUTHENTICITY of this Epistle is attested by CLEMENT OF ROME [First Epistle to the Corinthians, 47], POLYCARP [Epistle to the Philippians, 11], and IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 4.27.3]. The city to which it was sent was famed for its wealth and commerce, which were chiefly due to its situation between the Ionian and Ægean Seas on the isthmus connecting the Peloponese with Greece. In Paul's time it was the capital of the province Achaia and the seat of the Roman proconsul (Act 18:12). The state of morals in it was notorious for debauchery, even in the profligate heathen world; so much so that "to Corinthianize" was a proverbial phrase for "to play the wanton"; hence arose dangers to the purity of the Christian Church at Corinth. That Church was founded by Paul on his first visit (Acts 18:1-17).

He had been the instrument of converting many Gentiles (1Co 12:2), and some Jews (Act 18:8), notwithstanding the vehement opposition of the countrymen of the latter (Act 18:5), during the year and a half in which he sojourned there. The converts were chiefly of the humbler classes (1Co 1:26, &c.). Crispus (1Co 1:14; Act 18:8), Erastus, and Gaius (Caius) were, however, men of rank (Rom 16:23). A variety of classes is also implied in 1Co 11:22. The risk of contamination by contact with the surrounding corruptions, and the temptation to a craving for Greek philosophy and rhetoric (which Apollos' eloquent style rather tended to foster, Act 18:24, &c.) in contrast to Paul's simple preaching of Christ crucified (1Co 2:1, &c.), as well as the opposition of certain teachers to him, naturally caused him anxiety. Emissaries from the Judaizers of Palestine boasted of "letters of commendation" from Jerusalem, the metropolis of the faith. They did not, it is true, insist on circumcision in refined Corinth, where the attempt would have been hopeless, as they did among the simpler people of Galatia; but they attacked the apostolic authority of Paul (1Co 9:1-2; 2Co 10:1, 2Co 10:7-8), some of them declaring themselves followers of Cephas, the chief apostle, others boasting that they belonged to Christ Himself (1Co 1:12; 2Co 10:7), while they haughtily repudiated all subordinate teaching. Those persons gave out themselves for apostles (2Co 11:5, 2Co 11:13). The ground taken by them was that Paul was not one of the Twelve, and not an eye-witness of the Gospel facts, and durst not prove his apostleship by claiming sustenance from the Christian Church. Another section avowed themselves followers of Paul himself, but did so in a party spirit, exalting the minister rather than Christ. The followers of Apollos, again, unduly prized his Alexandrian learning and eloquence, to the disparagement of the apostle, who studiously avoided any deviation from Christian simplicity (1Co 2:1-5). In some of this last philosophizing party there may have arisen the Antinomian tendency which tried to defend theoretically their own practical immorality: hence their denial of the future resurrection, and their adoption of the Epicurean motto, prevalent in heathen Corinth, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" (1Co 15:32). Hence, perhaps, arose their connivance at the incestuous intercourse kept up by one of the so-called Christian body with his stepmother during his father's life. The household of Chloe informed Paul of many other evils: such as contentions, divisions, and lawsuits brought against brethren in heathen law courts by professing Christians; the abuse of their spiritual gifts into occasions of display and fanaticism; the interruption of public worship by simultaneous and disorderly ministrations, and decorum violated by women speaking unveiled (contrary to Oriental usage), and so usurping the office of men, and even the holy communion desecrated by greediness and revelling on the part of the communicants. Other messengers, also, came from Corinth, consulting him on the subject of (1) the controversy about meats offered to idols; (2) the disputes about celibacy and marriage; (3) the due exercise of spiritual gifts in public worship; (4) the best mode of making the collection which he had requested for the saints at Jerusalem (1Co 16:1, &c.). Such were the circumstances which called forth the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the most varied in its topics of all the Epistles.

In 1Co 5:9, "I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with fornicators," it is implied that Paul had written a previous letter to the Corinthians (now lost). Probably in it he had also enjoined them to make a contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem, whereupon they seem to have asked directions as to the mode of doing so, to which he now replies (1Co 16:2). It also probably announced his intention of visiting them on way to Macedonia, and again on his return from Macedonia (2Co 1:15-16), which purpose he changed hearing the unfavorable report from Chloe's household (1Co 16:5-7), for which he was charged with (2Co 1:17). In the first Epistle which we have, the subject of fornication is alluded to only in a way, as if he were rather replying to an excuse set up after rebuke in the matter, than introducing for the first time [ALFORD]. Preceding this former letter, he seems to have paid a second visit to Corinth. For in 2Co 12:4; 2Co 13:1, he speaks of his intention of paying them a third visit, implying he had already twice visited them. See on 2Co 2:1; 2Co 13:2; also see on 2Co 1:15; 2Co 1:16. It is hardly likely that during his three years' sojourn at Ephesus he would have failed to revisit his Corinthian converts, which he could so readily do by sea, there being constant maritime intercourse between the two cities. This second visit was probably a short one (compare 1Co 16:7); and attended with pain and humiliation (2Co 2:1; 2Co 12:21), occasioned by the scandalous conduct of so many of his own converts. His milder censures having then failed to produce reformation, he wrote briefly directing them "not to company with fornicators." On their misapprehending this injunction, he explained it more fully in the Epistle, the first of the two extant (1Co 5:9, 1Co 5:12). That the second visit is not mentioned in Acts is no objection to its having really taken place, as that book is fragmentary and omits other leading incidents in Paul's life; for example, his visit to Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia (Gal 1:17-21).

The PLACE OF WRITING is fixed to be Ephesus (1Co 16:8). The subscription in English Version, "From Philippi," has no authority whatever, and probably arose from a mistaken translation of 1Co 16:5, "For I am passing through Macedonia." At the time of writing Paul implies (1Co 16:8) that he intended to leave Ephesus after Pentecost of that year. He really did leave it about Pentecost (A.D. 57). Compare Act 19:20. The allusion to Passover imagery in connection with our Christian Passover, Easter (1Co 5:7), makes it likely that the season was about Easter. Thus the date of the Epistle is fixed with tolerable accuracy, about Easter, certainly before Pentecost, in the third year of his residence at Ephesus, A.D. 57. For other arguments, see CONYBEARE and HOWSON'S Life and Epistles of St. Paul.

The Epistle is written in the name of Sosthenes "[our] brother." BIRKS supposes he is the same as the Sosthenes, Act 18:17, who, he thinks, was converted subsequently to that occurrence. He bears no part in the Epistle itself, the apostle in the very next verses (1Co 1:4, &c.) using the first person: so Timothy is introduced, 2Co 1:1. The bearers of the Epistle were probably Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (see the subscription, 1Co 16:24), whom he mentions (1Co 16:17-18) as with him then, but who he implies are about to return back to Corinth; and therefore he commends them to the regard of the Corinthians.

JFB: 1 Corinthians (Outline)

• THE INSCRIPTION; THANKSGIVING FOR THE SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH; REPROOF OF PARTY DIVISIONS: HIS OWN METHOD OF PREACHING ONLY CHRIST. (1Co. 1:1-31)
• PAUL'S SUBJECT OF PREACHING, CHRIST CRUCIFIED, NOT IN WORLDLY, BUT IN HEAVENLY, WISDOM AMONG THE PERFECT. (1Co. 2:1-16)
• PAUL COULD NOT SPEAK TO THEM OF DEEP SPIRITUAL TRUTHS, AS THEY WERE CARNAL, CONTENDING FOR THEIR SEVERAL TEACHERS; THESE ARE NOTHING BUT WORKERS FOR GOD, TO WHOM THEY MUST GIVE ACCOUNT IN THE DAY OF FIERY JUDGMENT. THE HEARERS ARE GOD'S TEMPLE, WHICH THEY MUST NOT DEFILE BY CONTENTIONS FOR TEACHERS, WHO, AS WELL AS ALL THINGS, ARE THEIRS, BEING CHRIST'S. (1Co. 3:1-23)
• TRUE VIEW OF MINISTERS: THE JUDGMENT IS NOT TO BE FORESTALLED; MEANWHILE THE APOSTLES' LOW STATE CONTRASTS WITH THE CORINTHIANS' PARTY PRIDE, NOT THAT PAUL WOULD SHAME THEM, BUT AS A FATHER WARN THEM; FOR WHICH END HE SENT TIMOTHY, AND WILL SOON COME HIMSELF. (1Co. 4:1-21)
• THE INCESTUOUS PERSON AT CORINTH: THE CORINTHIANS REPROVED FOR CONNIVANCE, AND WARNED TO PURGE OUT THE BAD LEAVEN. QUALIFICATION OF HIS FORMER COMMAND AS TO ASSOCIATION WITH SINNERS OF THE WORLD. (1Co 5:1-13)
• LITIGATION OF CHRISTIANS IN HEATHEN COURTS CENSURED: ITS VERY EXISTENCE BETRAYS A WRONG SPIRIT: BETTER TO BEAR WRONG NOW, AND HEREAFTER THE DOERS OF WRONG SHALL BE SHUT OUT OF HEAVEN. (1Co 6:1-11)
• REFUTATION OF THE ANTINOMIAN DEFENSE OF FORNICATION AS IF IT WAS LAWFUL BECAUSE MEATS ARE SO. (1Co 6:12-20)
• REPLY TO THEIR INQUIRIES AS TO MARRIAGE; THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE IN OTHER THINGS IS, ABIDE IN YOUR STATION, FOR THE TIME IS SHORT. (1Co. 7:1-40) The Corinthians in their letter had probably asked questions which tended to disparage marriage, and had implied that it was better to break it off when contracted with an unbeliever.
• ON PARTAKING OF MEATS OFFERED TO IDOLS. (1Co 8:1-13) Though to those knowing that an idol has no existence, the question of eating meats offered to idols (referred to in the letter of the Corinthians, compare 1Co 7:1) might seem unimportant, it is not so with some, and the infirmities of such should be respected. The portions of the victims not offered on the altars belonged partly to the priests, partly to the offerers; and were eaten at feasts in the temples and in private houses and were often sold in the markets; so that Christians were constantly exposed to the temptation of receiving them, which was forbidden (Num 25:2; Psa 106:28). The apostles forbade it in their decree issued from Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29; Act 21:25); but Paul does not allude here to that decree, as he rests his precepts rather on his own independent apostolic authority.
• HE CONFIRMS HIS TEACHING AS TO NOT PUTTING A STUMBLING-BLOCK IN A BROTHER'S WAY (1Co 8:13) BY HIS OWN EXAMPLE IN NOT USING HIS UNDOUBTED RIGHTS AS AN APOSTLE, SO AS TO WIN MEN TO CHRIST. (1Co. 9:1-27)
• DANGER OF FELLOWSHIP WITH IDOLATRY ILLUSTRATED IN THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL: SUCH FELLOWSHIP INCOMPATIBLE WITH FELLOWSHIP IN THE LORD'S SUPPER. EVEN LAWFUL THINGS ARE TO BE FORBORNE, SO AS NOT TO HURT WEAK BRETHREN. (1Co. 10:1-33)
• CENSURE ON DISORDERS IN THEIR ASSEMBLIES: THEIR WOMEN NOT BEING VEILED, AND ABUSES AT THE LOVE-FEASTS. (1Co. 11:1-34) Rather belonging to the end of the tenth chapter, than to this chapter.
• THE USE AND THE ABUSE OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS, ESPECIALLY PROPHESYING AND TONGUES. (1Co. 12:1-31)
• CHARITY OR LOVE SUPERIOR TO ALL GIFTS. (1Co 13:1-13)
• SUPERIORITY OF PROPHECY OVER TONGUES. (1Co. 14:1-25)
• RULES FOR THE EXERCISE OF GIFTS IN THE CONGREGATION. (1Co 14:26-40)
• THE RESURRECTION PROVED AGAINST THE DENIERS OF IT AT CORINTH. (1Co. 15:1-58)
• DIRECTIONS AS TO THE COLLECTION FOR THE JUDEAN CHRISTIANS: PAUL'S FUTURE PLANS: HE COMMENDS TO THEM TIMOTHY, APOLLOS, &C. SALUTATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. (1Co. 16:1-24)

TSK: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

1Co 15:1, By Christ’s resurrection, 1Co 15:12. he proves the necessity of our resurrection, against all such as deny the resurrection of the body; 1Co 15:21, The fruit, 1Co 15:35. and the manner thereof; 1Co 15:51, and of the changing of them that shall be found alive at the last day.

Poole: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 15

MHCC: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

The Corinthian church contained some Jews, but more Gentiles, and the apostle had to contend with the superstition of the one, and the sinful conduct of the other. The peace of this church was disturbed by false teachers, who undermined the influence of the apostle. Two parties were the result; one contending earnestly for the Jewish ceremonies, the other indulging in excesses contrary to the gospel, to which they were especially led by the luxury and the sins which prevailed around them. This epistle was written to rebuke some disorderly conduct, of which the apostle had been apprized, and to give advice as to some points whereon his judgment was requested by the Corinthians. Thus the scope was twofold. 1. To apply suitable remedies to the disorders and abuses which prevailed among them. 2. To give satisfactory answers on all the points upon which his advice had been desired. The address, and Christian mildness, yet firmness, with which the apostle writes, and goes on from general truths directly to oppose the errors and evil conduct of the Corinthians, is very remarkable. He states the truth and the will of God, as to various matters, with great force of argument and animation of style.

MHCC: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

(1Co 15:1-11) The apostle proves the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

(1Co 15:12-19) Those answered who deny the resurrection of the body.

(1Co 15:20-34) The resurrection of believers to eternal life.

(v. 35-50) Objections against it answered.

(1Co 15:51-54) The mystery of the change that will be made on those living at Christ's second coming.

(1Co 15:55-58) The believer's triumph over death and the grave, An exhortation to diligence.

Matthew Henry: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians

Corinth was a principal city of Greece, in that particular division of it which was called Achaia. It was situated on the isthmus (or neck of land) that joined Peloponnesus to the rest of Greece, on the southern side, and had two ports adjoining, one at the bottom of the Corinthian Gulf, called Lechaeum, not far from the city, whence they traded to Italy and the west, the other at the bottom of the Sinus Saronicus, called Cenchrea, at a more remote distance, whence they traded to Asia. From this situation, it is no wonder that Corinth should be a place of great trade and wealth; and, as affluence is apt to produce luxury of all kinds, neither is it to be wondered at if a place so famous for wealth and arts should be infamous for vice. It was in a particular manner noted for fornication, insomuch that a Corinthian woman was a proverbial phrase for a strumpet, and korinthiazein , korinthiasesthai - to play the Corinthian, is to play the whore, or indulge whorish inclinations. Yet in this lewd city did Paul, by the blessing of God on his labours, plant and raise a Christian church, chiefly among the Gentiles, as seems very probable from the history of this matter, Acts 18:1-18, compared with some passages in this epistle, particularly 1Co 12:2, where the apostle tells them, You know that you wee Gentiles, carried away to those dumb idols even as you were led, though it is not improbable that many Jewish converts might be also among them, for we are told that Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord, with all his house, Act 18:8. He continued in this city nearly two years, as is plain from Act 18:11 and Act 18:18 compared, and laboured with great success, being encouraged by a divine vision assuring him God had much people in that city, Act 18:9, Act 18:10. Nor did he use to stay long in a place where his ministry met not with acceptance and success.

Some time after he left them he wrote this epistle to them, to water what he had planted and rectify some gross disorders which during his absence had been introduced, partly from the interest some false teacher or teachers had obtained amongst them, and partly from the leaven of their old maxims and manners, that had not been thoroughly purged out by the Christian principles they had entertained. And it is but too visible how much their wealth had helped to corrupt their manners, from the several faults for which the apostle reprehends them. Pride, avarice, luxury, lust (the natural offspring of a carnal and corrupt mind), are all fed and prompted by outward affluence. And with all these either the body of this people or some particular persons among them are here charged by the apostle. Their pride discovered itself in their parties and factions, and the notorious disorders they committed in the exercise of their spiritual gifts. And this vice was not wholly fed by their wealth, but by the insight they had into the Greek learning and philosophy. Some of the ancients tell us that the city abounded with rhetoricians and philosophers. And these were men naturally vain, full of self-conceit, and apt to despise the plain doctrine of the gospel, because it did not feed the curiosity of an inquisitive and disputing temper, nor please the ear with artful speeches and a flow of fine words. Their avarice was manifest in their law-suits and litigations about meum - mine, and tuum - thine, before heathen judges. Their luxury appeared in more instances than one, in their dress, in their debauching themselves even at the Lord's table, when the rich, who were most faulty on this account, were guilty also of a very proud and criminal contempt of their poor brethren. Their lust broke out in a most flagrant and infamous instance, such as had not been named among the Gentiles, not spoken of without detestation - that a man should have his father's wife, either as his wife, or so as to commit fornication with her. This indeed seems to be the fault of a particular person; but the whole church were to blame that they had his crime in no greater abhorrence, that they could endure one of such very corrupt morals and of so flagitious a behaviour among them. But their participation in his sin was yet greater, if, as some of the ancients tell us, they were puffed up on behalf of the great learning and eloquence of this incestuous person. And it is plain from other passages of the epistle that they were not so entirely free from their former lewd inclinations as not to need very strict cautions and strong arguments against fornication: see 1Co 6:9-20. The pride of their learning had also carried many of them so far as to disbelieve or dispute against the doctrine of the resurrection. It is not improbable that they treated this question problematically, as they did many questions in philosophy, and tried their skill by arguing it pro and con.

It is manifest from this state of things that there was much that deserved reprehension, and needed correction, in this church. And the apostle, under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit, sets himself to do both with all wisdom and faithfulness, and with a due mixture of tenderness and authority, as became one in so elevated and important a station in the church. After a short introduction at the beginning of the epistle, he first blames them for their discord and factions, enters into the origin and source of them, shows them how much pride and vanity, and the affectation of science, and learning, and eloquence, flattered by false teachers, contributed to the scandalous schism; and prescribes humility, and submission to divine instruction, the teaching of God by his Spirit, both by external revelation and internal illumination, as a remedy for the evils that abounded amongst them. He shows them the vanity of their pretended science and eloquence on many accounts. This he does through the first four chapters. In the fifth he treats of the case of the incestuous person, and orders him to be put out from among them. Nor is what the ancients say improbable, that this incestuous person was a man in great esteem, and head of one party at least among them. The apostle seems to tax them with being puffed up on his account, 1Co 5:2. In the sixth chapter he blames them for their law-suits, carried on before heathen judges, when their disputes about property should have been amicably determined amongst themselves, and in the close of the chapter warns them against the sin of fornication, and urges his caution with a variety of arguments. In the seventh chapter he gives advice upon a case of conscience, which some of that church had proposed to him in an epistle, about marriage, and shows it to be appointed of God as a remedy against fornication, that the ties of it were not dissolved, though a husband or wife continued a heathen, when the other became a Christian; and, in short, that Christianity made no change in men's civil states and relations. He gives also some directions here about virgins, in answer, as is probable, to the Corinthians' enquiries. In the eighth he directs them about meats offered to idols, and cautions them against abusing their Christian liberty. From this he also takes occasion, in the ninth chapter, to expatiate a little on his own conduct upon this head of liberty. For, though he might have insisted on a maintenance from the churches where he ministered, he waived this demand, that he might make the gospel of Christ without charge, and did in other things comply with and suit himself to the tempers and circumstances of those among whom he laboured, for their good. In the tenth chapter he dissuades them, from the example of the Jews, against having communion with idolaters, by eating of their sacrifices, inasmuch as they could not be at once partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils, though they were not bound to enquire concerning meat sold in the shambles, or set before them at a feast made by unbelievers, whether it were a part of the idol-sacrifices or no, but were at liberty to eat without asking questions. In the eleventh chapter he gives direction about their habit in public worship, blames them for their gross irregularities and scandalous disorders in receiving the Lord's supper, and solemnly warns them against the abuse of so sacred an institution. In the twelfth chapter he enters on the consideration of spiritual gifts, which were poured forth in great abundance on this church, upon which they were not a little elated. He tells them, in this chapter, that all came from the same original, and were all directed to the same end. They issued from one Spirit, and were intended for the good of the church, and must be abused when they were not made to minister to this purpose. Towards the close he informs them that they were indeed valuable gifts, but he could recommend to them something far more excellent, upon which he breaks out, in the thirteenth chapter, into the commendation and characteristics of charity. And them, in the fourteenth, he directs them how to keep up decency and order in the churches in the use of their spiritual gifts, in which they seem to have been exceedingly irregular, through pride of their gifts and a vanity of showing them. The fifteenth chapter is taken up in confirming and explaining the great doctrine of the resurrection. The last chapter consists of some particular advices and salutations; and thus the epistle closes.

Matthew Henry: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter the apostle treats of that great article of Christianity - the resurrection of the dead. I. He establishes the certainty of our Saviour's resurrection (1Co 15:1-11). II. He, from this truth, sets himself to refute those who said, There is no resurrection of the dead (1Co 15:12-19). III. From our Saviour's resurrection he establishes the resurrection of the dead and confirms the Corinthians in the belief of it by some other considerations (1Co 15:20-34). IV. He answers an objection against this truth, and takes occasion thence to show what a vast change will be made in the bodies of believers at the resurrection (v. 35-50). V. He informs us what a change will be made in those who shall be living at the sound of the last trumpet, and the complete conquest the just shall then obtain over death and the grave (1Co 15:51-57). And, VI. He sums up the argument with a very serious exhortation to Christians, to be resolved and diligent in their Lord's service, because they know they shall be so gloriously rewarded by him (1Co 15:58).

Barclay: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS OF PAUL

The Letters Of Paul

There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because of all forms of literature a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the old Greek literary critics, once wrote, "Every one reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writercharacter, but in none so clearly as the epistolary." (Demetrius, On Style, 227). It is just because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them he opened his mind and heart to the folk he loved so much; and in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early church, and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men, even when they were misguided and mistaken.

The Difficulty Of Letters

At the same time, there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a dialogue. In other words, to read a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So when we read the letters of Paul we are often in a difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering; we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing; it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation which produced it.

The Ancient Letters

It is a great pity that Paulletters were ever called epistles. They are in the most literal sense letters. One of the great lights shed on the interpretation of the New Testament has been the discovery and the publication of the papyri. In the ancient world, papyrus was the substance on which most documents were written. It was composed of strips of the pith of a certain bulrush that grew on the banks of the Nile. These strips were laid one on top of the other to form a substance very like brown paper. The sands of the Egyptian desert were ideal for preservation, for papyrus, although very brittle, will last forever so long as moisture does not get at it. As a result, from the Egyptian rubbish heaps, archaeologists have rescued hundreds of documents, marriage contracts, legal agreements, government forms, and, most interesting of all, private letters. When we read these private letters we find that there was a pattern to which nearly all conformed; and we find that Paulletters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage.

"Apion sends heartiest greetings to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are

going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my brother.

I thank my Lord Serapis [his god] that he kept me safe when I was

in peril on the sea. As soon as I got to Misenum I got my journey

money from Caesar--three gold pieces. And things are going fine

with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a line, first to

let me know how you are, and then about my brothers, and thirdly,

that I may kiss your hand, because you brought me up well, and

because of that I hope, God willing, soon to be promoted. Give

Capito my heartiest greetings, and my brothers and Serenilla and

my friends. I sent you a little picture of myself painted by

Euctemon. My military name is Antonius Maximus, I pray for your

good health. Serenus sends good wishes, Agathos Daimonboy, and

Turbo, Galloniuson." (G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek

Papyri, 36).

Little did Apion think that we would be reading his letter to his father 1800 years after he had written it. It shows how little human nature changes. The lad is hoping for promotion quickly. Who will Serenilla be but the girl he left behind him? He sends the ancient equivalent of a photograph to the folk at home. Now that letter falls into certain sections. (i) There is a greeting. (ii) There is a prayer for the health of the recipients. (iii) There is a thanksgiving to the gods. (iv) There are the special contents. (v) Finally, there are the special salutations and the personal greetings. Practically every one of Paulletters shows exactly the same sections, as we now demonstrate.

(i) The Greeting: Rom_1:1 ; 1Co_1:1 ; 2Co_1:1 ; Gal_1:1 ; Eph_1:1 ; Phi_1:1 ; Col_1:1-2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:1 .

(ii) The Prayer: in every case Paul prays for the grace of God on the people to whom he writes: Rom_1:7 ; 1Co_1:3 ; 2Co_1:2 ; Gal_1:3 ; Eph_1:2 ; Phi_1:3 ; Col_1:2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:2 .

(iii) The Thanksgiving: Rom_1:8 ; 1Co_1:4 ; 2Co_1:3 ; Eph_1:3 ; Phi_1:3 ; 1Th_1:3 ; 2Th_1:3 .

(iv) The Special Contents: the main body of the letters.

(v) Special Salutations and Personal Greetings: Rom 16 ; 1Co_16:19 ; 2Co_13:13 ; Phi_4:21-22 ; Col_4:12-15 ; 1Th_5:26 .

When Paul wrote letters, he wrote them on the pattern which everyone used. Deissmann says of them, "They differ from the messages of the homely papyrus leaves of Egypt, not as letters but only as the letters of Paul." When we read Paulletters we are not reading things which were meant to be academic exercises and theological treatises, but human documents written by a friend to his friends.

The Immediate Situation

With a very few exceptions, all Paulletters were written to meet an immediate situation and not treatises which he sat down to write in the peace and silence of his study. There was some threatening situation in Corinth, or Galatia, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, and he wrote a letter to meet it. He was not in the least thinking of us when he wrote, but solely of the people to whom he was writing. Deissmann writes, "Paul had no thought of adding a few fresh compositions to the already extant Jewish epistles; still less of enriching the sacred literature of his nation.... He had no presentiment of the place his words would occupy in universal history; not so much that they would be in existence in the next generation, far less that one day people would look at them as Holy Scripture." We must always remember that a thing need not be transient because it was written to meet an immediate situation. All the great love songs of the world were written for one person, but they live on for the whole of mankind. It is just because Paulletters were written to meet a threatening danger or a clamant need that they still throb with life. And it is because human need and the human situation do not change that God speaks to us through them today.

The Spoken Word

One other thing we must note about these letters. Paul did what most people did in his day. He did not normally pen his own letters but dictated them to a secretary, and then added his own authenticating signature. (We actually know the name of one of the people who did the writing for him. In Rom_16:22 Tertius, the secretary, slips in his own greeting before the letter draws to an end). In 1Co_16:21 Paul says, "This is my own signature, my autograph, so that you can be sure this letter comes from me." (compare Col_4:18 ; 2Th_3:17 .

This explains a great deal. Sometimes Paul is hard to understand, because his sentences begin and never finish; his grammar breaks down and the construction becomes involved. We must not think of him sitting quietly at a desk, carefully polishing each sentence as he writes. We must think of him striding up and down some little room, pouring out a torrent of words, while his secretary races to get them down. When Paul composed his letters, he had in his mindeye a vision of the folk to whom he was writing, and he was pouring out his heart to them in words that fell over each other in his eagerness to help.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS TO THE CORINTHIANS

The Greatness Of Corinth

A glance at the map will show that Corinth was made for greatness. The southern part of Greece is very nearly an island. On the west the Corinthian Gulf deeply indents the land and on the east the Saronic Gulf. All that is left to join the two parts of Greece together is a little isthmus only four miles across. On that narrow neck of land Corinth stands. Such a position made it inevitable that it should be one of the greatest trading and commercial centres of the ancient world. All traffic from Athens and the north of Greece to Sparta and the Peloponnese had to be routed through Corinth, because it stood on the little neck of land that connected the two.

Not only did the north to south traffic of Greece pass through Corinth of necessity, by far the greater part of the east to west traffic of the Mediterranean passed through her from choice. The extreme southern tip of Greece was known as Cape Malea (now called Cape Matapan). It was dangerous, and to round Cape Malea had much the same sound as to round Cape Horn had in later times. The Greeks had two sayings which showed what they thought of it--"Let him who sails round Malea forget his home," and, "Let him who sails round Malea first make his will."

The consequence was that mariners followed one of two courses. They sailed up the Saronic Gulf, and, if their ships were small enough, dragged them out of the water, set them on rollers, hauled them across the isthmus, and re-launched them on the other side. The isthmus was actually called the Diolkos, the place of dragging across. The idea is the same as that which is contained in the Scottish place name Tarbert, which means a place where the land is so narrow that a boat can be dragged from loch to loch. If that course was not possible because the ship was too large, the cargo was disembarked, carried by porters across the isthmus, and re-embarked on another ship at the other side. This four mile journey across the isthmus, where the Corinth Canal now runs, saved a journey of two hundred and two miles round Cape Malea, the most dangerous cape in the Mediterranean.

It is easy to see how great a commercial city Corinth must have been. The north to south traffic of Greece had no alternative but to pass through her; by far the greater part of the east to west trade of the Mediterranean world chose to pass through her. Round Corinth there clustered three other towns, Lechaeum at the west end of the isthmus, Cenchrea at the east end and Schoenus just a short distance away. Farrar writes, "Objects of luxury soon found their way to the markets which were visited by every nation in the civilized world--Arabian balsam, Phoenician dates, Libyan ivory, Babylonian carpets, Cilician goatsair, Lycaonian wool, Phrygian slaves."

Corinth, as Farrar calls her, was the Vanity Fair of the ancient world. Men called her The Bridge of Greece; one called her The Lounge of Greece. It has been said that if a man stands long enough in Piccadilly Circus he will in the end meet everyone in the country. Corinth was the Piccadilly Circus of the Mediterranean. To add to the concourse which came to it, Corinth was the place where the Isthmian Games were held, which were second only to the Olympics. Corinth was a rich and populous city with one of the greatest commercial trades in the ancient world.

The Wickedness Of Corinth

There was another side to Corinth. She had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai, to live like a Corinthian, had become a part of the Greek language, and meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery. The word actually penetrated to the English language, and, in Regency times, a Corinthian was one of the wealthy young bucks who lived in reckless and riotous living. Aelian, the late Greek writer, tells us that if ever a Corinthian was shown upon the stage in a Greek play he was shown drunk. The very name Corinth was synonymous with debauchery and there was one source of evil in the city which was known all over the civilized world. Above the isthmus towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple there were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, and in the evenings they descended from the Acropolis and plied their trade upon the streets of Corinth, until it became a Greek proverb, "It is not every man who can afford a journey to Corinth." In addition to these cruder sins, there flourished far more recondite vices, which had come in with the traders and the sailors from the ends of the earth, until Corinth became not only a synonym for wealth and luxury, drunkenness and debauchery, but also for filth.

The History Of Corinth

The history of Corinth falls into two parts. She was a very ancient city. Thucydides, the Greek historian, claims that it was in Corinth that the first triremes, the Greek battleships, were built. Legend has it that it was in Corinth that the Argo was built, the ship in which Jason sailed the seas, searching for the golden fleece. But in 146 B.C. disaster befell her. The Romans were engaged in conquering the world. When they sought to reduce Greece, Corinth was the leader of the opposition. But the Greeks could not stand against the disciplined Romans, and in 146 B.C. Lucius Mummius, the Roman general, captured Corinth and left her a desolate heap of ruins.

But any place with the geographical situation of Corinth could not remain a devastation. Almost exactly one hundred years later, in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar rebuilt her and she arose from her ruins. Now she became a Roman colony. More, she became a capital city, the metropolis of the Roman province of Achaea, which included practically all Greece.

In those days, which were the days of Paul, her population was very mixed. (i) There were the Roman veterans whom Julius Caesar had settled there. When a Roman soldier had served his time, he was granted the citizenship and was then sent out to some newly-founded city and given a grant of land so that he might become a settler there. These Roman colonies were planted all over the world, and always the backbone of them was the contingent of veteran regular soldiers whose faithful service had won them the citizenship. (ii) When Corinth was rebuilt the merchants came back, for her situation still gave her commercial supremacy. (iii) There were many Jews among the population. The rebuilt city offered them commercial opportunities which they were not slow to take. (iv) There was a sprinkling of Phoenicians and Phrygians and people from the east, with their exotic customs and their hysterical ways. Farrar speaks of "this mongrel and heterogeneous population of Greek adventurers and Roman bourgeois, with a tainting infusion of Phoenicians; this mass of Jews, ex-soldiers, philosophers, merchants, sailors, freedmen, slaves, trades-people, hucksters and agents of every form of vice." He characterizes her as a colony "without aristocracy, without traditions and without well-established citizens."

Remember the background of Corinth, remember its name for wealth and luxury, for drunkenness and immorality and vice, and then read 1Co_6:9-10 .

Are you not aware that the unrighteous will not inherit the

Kingdom of God? Make no mistake--neither fornicators, nor

idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sensualists, nor homosexuals, nor

thieves, nor rapacious men, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor

robbers shall inherit the Kingdom of God--and such were some of

you.

In this hotbed of vice, in the most unlikely place in all the Greek world, some of Paulgreatest work was done, and some of the mightiest triumphs of Christianity were won.

Paul In Corinth

Paul stayed longer in Corinth than in any other city, with the single exception of Ephesus. He had left Macedonia with his life in peril and had crossed over to Athens. There he had had little success and had gone on to Corinth, and he remained there for eighteen months. We realize how little we really know of his work when we see that the whole story of that eighteen months is compressed by Luke into 17 verses (Act_18:1-17 ).

When Paul arrived in Corinth he took up residence with Aquila and Prisca. He preached in the synagogue with great success. With the arrival of Timothy and Silas from Macedonia, he redoubled his efforts, but the Jews were so stubbornly hostile that he had to leave the synagogue. He took up his residence with one Justus who lived next door to the synagogue. His most notable convert was Crispus, who was actually the ruler of the synagogue, and amongst the general public he had good success.

In the year A.D. 52 there came to Corinth as its new governor a Roman called Gallio. He was famous for his charm and gentleness. The Jews tried to take advantage of his newness and good nature and brought Paul to trial before him on a charge of teaching contrary to their law. But Gallio, with impartial Roman justice, refused to have anything to do with the case or to take any action. So Paul completed his work in Corinth and moved on to Syria.

The Correspondence With Corinth

It was when he was in Ephesus in the year A.D. 55 that Paul, learning that things were not all well in Corinth, wrote to the church there. There is every possibility that the Corinthian correspondence as we have it is out of order. We must remember that it was not until A.D. 90 or thereby that Paulcorrespondence was collected. In many churches it must have existed only on scraps of papyrus and the putting it together would be a problem: and it seems that, when the Corinthian letters were collected, they were not all discovered and were not arranged in the right order. Let us see if we can reconstruct what happened.

(i) There was a letter which preceded 1 Corinthians. In 1Co_5:9 Paul writes, "I wrote you a letter not to associate with immoral men." This obviously refers to some previous letter. Some scholars believe that letter is lost without trace. Others think it is contained in 2Co_6:14-18 and 2Co_7:1 . Certainly that passage suits what Paul said he wrote about. It occurs rather awkwardly in its context, and, if we take it out and read straight on from 2Co_6:13 to 2Co_7:2 , we get excellent sense and connection. Scholars call this letter The Previous Letter. (In the original letters there were no chapter or verse divisions. The chapters were not divided up until the thirteenth century and the verses not till the sixteenth, and because of that the arranging of the collection of letters would be much more difficult).

(ii) News came to Paul from various sources of trouble at Corinth. (a) News came from those who were of the household of Chloe (1Co_1:11 ). They brought news of the contentions with which the church was torn. (b) News came with the visit of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus to Ephesus. (1Co_16:17 ). By personal contact they were able to fill up the gaps in Paulinformation. (c) News came in a letter in which the Corinthian Church had asked Paul guidance on various problems. In 1Co_7:1 Paul begins, "Concerning the matters about which you wrote..." In answer to all this information Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and despatched it to Corinth apparently by the hand of Timothy (1Co_4:17 ).

(iii) The result of the letter was that things became worse than ever, and, although we have no direct record of it, we can deduce that Paul paid a personal visit to Corinth. In 2Co_12:14 he writes, "The third time I am ready to come to you." In 2Co_13:1-2 , he says again that he is coming to them for the third time. Now, if there was a third time, there must have been a second time. We have the record of only one visit, whose story is told in Act_18:1-17 . We have no record at all of the second, but Corinth was only two or three daysailing from Ephesus.

(iv) The visit did no good at all. Matters were only exacerbated and the result was an exceedingly severe letter. We learn about that letter from certain passages in 2 Corinthians. In 2Co_2:4 Paul writes, "I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears." In 2Co_7:8 he writes, "For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it though I did regret it; for I see that that letter has grieved you, though only for a while." It was a letter which was the product of anguish of mind, a letter so severe that Paul was almost sorry that he ever sent it.

Scholars call this The Severe Letter. Have we got it? It obviously cannot be I Corinthians, because it is not a tear-stained and anguished letter. When Paul wrote it, it is clear enough that things were under control. Now if we read through 2 Corinthians we find an odd circumstance. In 2Cor 1-9 everything is made up, there is complete reconciliation and all are friends again; but at 2Cor 10 comes the strangest break. 2Cor 10-13 are the most heartbroken cry Paul ever wrote. They show that he has been hurt and insulted as he never was before or afterwards by any church. His appearance, his speech, his apostleship, his honesty have all been under attack.

Most scholars believe that 2Cor 10-13 are the severe letter, and that they have become misplaced when Paulletters were put together. If we want the real chronological course of Paulcorrespondence with Corinth, we really ought to read 2Cor 10-13 before 2Cor 1-9. We do know that this letter was sent off with Titus. (2Co_2:13 ; 2Co_7:13 ).

(v) Paul was worried about this letter. He could not wait until Titus came back with an answer, so he set out to meet him (2Co_2:13 ; 2Co_7:5 , 2Co_7:13 ). Somewhere in Macedonia he met him and learned that all was well, and, probably at Philippi, he sat down and wrote 2Cor 1-9, the letter of reconciliation.

Stalker has said that the letters of Paul take the roof off the early churches and let us see what went on inside. Of none of them is that truer than the letters to Corinth. Here we see what "the care of all the churches" must have meant to Paul. Here we see the heart-breaks and the joys. Here we see Paul, the shepherd of his flock, bearing the sorrows and the problems of his people on his heart.

The Corinthian Correspondence

Before we read the letters in detail let us set down the progress of the Corinthian correspondence in tabular form.

(i) The Previous Letter, which may be contained in 2Co_6:14-18 and 2Co_7:1 .

(ii) The arrival of Chloepeople, of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, and of the letter to Paul from the Corinthian Church.

(iii) 1 Corinthians is written in reply and is despatched with Timothy.

(iv) The situation grows worse and Paul pays a personal visit to Corinth, which is so complete a failure that it almost breaks his heart.

(v) The consequence is The Severe Letter, which is almost certainly contained in 2Cor 10-13, and which was despatched with Titus.

(vi) Unable to wait for an answer, Paul sets out to meet Titus. He meets him in Macedonia, learns that all is well and, probably from Philippi, writes 2Cor 1-9, The Letter of Reconciliation.

The first four chapters of 1 Corinthians deal with the divided state of the Church of God at Corinth. Instead of being a unity in Christ it was split into sects and parties, who had attached themselves to the names of various leaders and teachers. It is Paulteaching that these divisions had emerged because the Corinthians thought too much about human wisdom and knowledge and too little about the sheer grace of God. In fact, for all their so-called wisdom, they are really in a state of immaturity. They think that they are wise men, but really they are no better than babies.

FURTHER READING

1 Corinthians

F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians (NCB; E)

J. Hering, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (translated by A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock)

J. Moffatt, 1 Corinthians (MC; E)

A. Robertson and A. Plummer, 1 Corinthians (ICC; G)

Abbreviations

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

NCB: New Century Bible

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

Jesus' Resurrection And Ours (1Cor 15)

1Cor 15 is both one of the greatest and one of the most difficult chapters in the New Testament. Not only is it in itself difficult, but it has also given to the creed a phrase which many people have grave difficulty in affirming, for it is from this chapter that we mainly derive the idea of the resurrection of the body. The chapter will be far less difficult if we study it against its background, and even that troublesome phrase will become quite clear and acceptable when we realize what Paul really meant by it. So then, before we study the chapter, there are certain things we would do well to have in mind. (i) It is of great importance to remember that the Corinthians were denying not the Resurrection of Jesus Christ but the resurrection of the body; and what Paul was insistent upon was that if a man denied the resurrection of the body he thereby denied the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and therefore emptied the Christian message of its truth and the Christian life of its reality. (ii) In any early Christian church there must have been two backgrounds, for in all churches there were Jews and Greeks. First, there was the Jewish background. To the end of the day the Sadducees denied that there was any life after death at all. There was therefore one line of Jewish thought which completely denied both the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body (Act_23:8). In the Old Testament there is very little hope of anything that can be called life after death. According to the general Old Testament belief all men, without distinction, went to Sheol after death. Sheol, often wrongly translated Hell, was a gray land beneath the world, where the dead lived a shadowy existence, without strength, without light, cut off alike from men and from God. The Old Testament is full of this bleak, grim pessimism regarding what is to happen after death. For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in Sheol who can give thee praise? (Psa_6:5). What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise thee? Will it tell of thy faithfulness? (Psa_30:9). Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise thee? Is thy steadfast love declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in Abaddon? Are thy wonders known in the darkness, or thy saving help in the land of forgetfulness? (Psa_88:10-12). The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence. (Psa_115:17). For Sheol cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for thy faithfulness. (Isa_38:18). Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before I depart and be no more. (Psa_39:13). But he who is joined with all the living has hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing.... Whatever your hand finds to do do it with your might; for there is no work, or thought, or knowledge, or wisdom, in Sheol to which you are going. (Ecc_9:4-5; Ecc_9:10). Who shall give praise to the Most High in the grave? (Ecc_17:27). The dead that are in the grave, whose breath is taken from their bodies, will give unto the Lord neither glory nor righteousness. (Bar 2:17). J. E. McFadyen, a great Old Testament scholar, says that this lack of a belief in immortality in the Old Testament is due "to the power with which those men apprehended God in this world." He goes on to say, "There are few more wonderful things than this in the long story of religion, that for centuries men lived the noblest lives, doing their duties and bearing their sorrows, without hope of future reward; and they did this because in all their going out and coming in they were very sure of God." It is true that in the Old Testament there are some few, some very few, glimpses of a real life to come. There were times when a man felt that, if God be God at all, there must be something which would reverse the incomprehensible verdicts of this world. So Job cries out,

Still, I know One to champion me at last, to stand up for me upon earth. This body may break up, but even then my life shall have a sight of God. (Job_19:25-27 . Moffatt).

The real feeling of the saint was that even in this life a man might enter into a relationship with God so close and so precious that not even death could break it. My body also dwells secure. For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psa_16:9-11). Thou dost hold my right hand. Thou dost guide me with thy counsel, and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory. (Psa_73:24). It is also true that in Israel the immortal hope developed. Two things helped that development. (a) Israel was the chosen people, and yet her history was one continued tale of disaster. Men began to feel that it required another world to redress the balance. (b) For many centuries it is true to say that the individual hardly existed. God was the God of the nation and the individual was an unimportant unit. But as the centuries went on religion became more and more personal. God became not the God of the nation but the friend of every individual; and so men began dimly and instinctively to feel that once a man knows God and is known by him, a relationship has been created which not even death can break. (iii) When we turn to the Greek world, we must firmly grasp one thing, which is at the back of the whole chapter. The Greeks had an instinctive fear of death. Euripides wrote, "Yet mortals, burdened with countless ills, still love life. They long for each coming day, glad to bear the thing they know, rather than face death the unknown." (Fragment 813). But on the whole the Greeks, and that part of the world influenced by Greek thought, did believe in the immortality of the soul. But for them the immortality of the soul involved the complete dissolution of the body. They had a proverb, "The body is a tomb." "I am a poor soul," said one of them, "shackled to a corpse." "It pleased me," said Seneca, "to enquire into the eternity of the soul--nay! to believe in it. I surrendered myself to that great hope." But he also says, "When the day shall come which shall part this mixture of divine and human, here, where I found it, I will leave my body, myself I will give back to the gods." Epictetus writes, "When God does not supply what is necessary, he is sounding the signal for retreat--he has opened the door and says to you 'Come!' But whither? To nothing terrible, but to whence you came, to the things which are dear and kin to you, to the elements. What in you was fire shall go to fire, earth to earth, water to water." Seneca talks about things at death "being resolved into their ancient elements." For Plato "the body is the antithesis of the soul, as the source of all weaknesses as opposed to what alone is capable of independence and goodness." We can see this best in the Stoic belief. To the Stoic God was fiery spirit, purer than anything on earth. What gave men life was that a spark of this divine fire came and dwelt in a man's body. When a man died, his body simply dissolved into the elements of which it was made, but the divine spark returned to God and was absorbed in the divinity of which it was a part. For the Greek immortality lay precisely in getting rid of the body. For him the resurrection of the body was unthinkable. Personal immortality did not really exist because that which gave men life was absorbed again in God the source of all life. (iv) Paul's view was quite different. If we begin with one immense fact, the rest will become clear. The Christian belief is that after death individuality will survive, that you will still be you and I will still be I. Beside that we have to set another immense fact. To the Greek the body could not be consecrated. It was matter, the source of all evil, the prison-house of the soul. But to the Christian the body is not evil. Jesus, the Son of God, has taken this human body upon him and therefore it is not contemptible because it has been inhabited by God. To the Christian, therefore the life to come involves the total man, body and soul. Now it is easy to misinterpret and to caricature the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Celsus, who lived about A.D. 220, a bitter opponent of Christianity, did this very thing long ago. How can those who have died rise with their identical bodies? he demands. "Really it is the hope of worms! For what soul of a man would any longer wish for a body that had rotted?" It is easy to cite the case of a person smashed up in an accident or dying of cancer. But Paul never said that we would rise with the body with which we died. He insisted that we would have a spiritual body. What he really meant was that a man's personality would survive. It is almost impossible to conceive of personality without a body, because it is through the body that the personality expresses itself. What Paul is contending for is that after death the individual remains. He did not inherit the Greek contempt of the body but believed in the resurrection of the whole man. He will still be himself; he will survive as a person. That is what Paul means by the resurrection of the body. Everything of the body and of the soul that is necessary to make a man a person will survive, but, at the same time, all things will be new, and body and spirit will alike be very different from earthly things, for they will alike be divine.

The Risen Lord (1Co_15:1-11)

If Christ Be Not Raised (1Co_15:12-19)

The First-Fruits Of Those That Sleep (1Co_15:20-28)

If There Is No Resurrection (1Co_15:29-34)

The Physical And The Spiritual (1Co_15:35-49)

The Conquest Of Death (1Co_15:50-58)

Constable: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical Background

Corinth had a long history stretching back into the Bronze Age (before 1200 B.C.).¹ In Paul's day it was a Roman colony and the capital of the province of Achaia. The population consisted of Roman citizens who had migrated from Italy, native Greeks, Jews (Acts 18:4), and other people from various places who chose to settle there.

The ancient city of Corinth enjoyed an ideal situation as a commercial center. It stood just southwest of the Isthmus of Corinth, the land bridge that connected Northern Greece and Southern Greece, the Peloponnesus. This site made Corinth a crossroads for trade by land, north and south, as well as by sea, east and west. In Paul's day large ships would transfer their cargoes to land vehicles that would cart them from the Corinthian Gulf to the Saronic Gulf, or vice versa. There stevedores would reload them onto other ships. If a ship was small enough, they would drag the whole vessel across the four and a half mile isthmus from one gulf to the other. This did away with the long voyage around the Peloponnesus. Later the Greeks cut a canal linking these two gulfs.²

Corinth's strategic location brought commerce and all that goes with it to its populace: wealth, a steady stream of travelers and merchants, and vice. In Paul's day many of the pagan religions included prostitution as part of the worship of their god or goddess. Consequently fornication flourished in Corinth.

"Old Corinth had gained such a reputation for sexual vice that Aristophanes (ca. 450-385 B.C.) coined the verb korinthiazo (= to act like a Corinthian, i.e., to commit fornication)."³

"The old city had been the most licentious city in Greece, and perhaps the most licentious city in the Empire."⁴

The most notorious shrine was the temple of Aphrodite that stood on top of an approximately 1,900 foot high mountain just south of the city, the Acrocorinthus. Hundreds of female slaves served the men who "worshipped" there.⁵ Other major deities honored in Corinth included Melicertes, the patron of seafarers, and Poseidon, the sea god.

"All of this evidence together suggests that Paul's Corinth was at once the New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas of the ancient world."⁶

There were several other local sites of importance to the student of 1 Corinthians. These included the bema (judgment seat or platform), the place where judges tried important cases including Paul's (Acts 18:12).⁷ Cenchrea, the port of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, was the town from which Paul set sail for Ephesus during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:18). Isthmia was another little town east of Corinth, just north of Cenchrea, that hosted the Isthmian Games every two or three years. These athletic contests were important in the life of the Greeks, and Paul referred to them in this epistle (9:24-27).

Paul had arrived in Corinth first from Athens, which lay to the east. There he preached the gospel and planted a church. There, too, he met Priscilla and Aquila, Jews who had recently left Rome. After local Jewish officials expelled the church from the synagogue, it met in a large house next door that Titius Justus owned. Paul ministered in Corinth for 18 months, probably in 51 and 52 A.D. He left taking Priscilla and Aquila with him to Ephesus. Paul then proceeded on to Syrian Antioch by way of Caesarea.

Returning to Ephesus on his third journey Paul made that city his base of operations for almost three years (53-56 A.D.). There he heard disquieting news about immorality in the Corinthian church. Therefore he wrote a letter urging the believers not to tolerate such conduct in their midst. Paul referred to this letter as his "former letter" (1 Cor. 5:9). It is not extant today.

Then he heard from "Chloe's people" that factions had developed in the church. He also received a letter from the church in Corinth requesting his guidance in certain matters. These matters were marriage, divorce, food offered to idols, the exercise of spiritual gifts in the church, and the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. Those who carried this letter also reported other disturbing conditions in the church. These conditions were the condoning rather than disciplining of immorality, Christians suing one another in the pagan courts, and disorders in their church meetings. These factors led Paul to compose another letter, "1 Corinthians." In it he dealt with the problem of factions, promised to visit them soon, and said he was sending Timothy to Corinth (chs. 1-4). Paul added his responses to the Corinthians' questions to what he had already written. He dealt next with the oral reports (chs. 5-6) and then with the questions that the Corinthian believers had written to him (chs. 7-16). He evidently sent this epistle from Ephesus by trusted messengers in the late winter or early spring of 56 A.D. (cf. 16:8).

It seems that a conflict had developed between the Corinthian church and its founder. There was internal strife in the church, as the epistle makes clear. However the larger problem seems to have been that some in the community were leading the church into a view of things that was contrary to that of Paul. This resulted in a questioning of Paul's authority and his gospel. The key issue between Paul and the Corinthians was what it means to be "spiritual."⁸

"It [1 Corinthians] is not the fullest and clearest statement of Paul's Gospel; for this we must turn to Romans. Nor is it the letter that shows Paul's own heart most clearly, for in this respect it is surpassed by 2 Corinthians, and perhaps by other epistles too. But it has the great value of showing theology at work, theology being used as it was intended to be used, in the criticism and establishing of persons, institutions, practices, and ideas."⁹

Paul's Corinthian Contacts
Paul's founding visit	His "former letter"	The Corin-thians' letter to him	First Corin-thians	Paul's "painful visit"	His "severe letter"	Second Corin-thians	Paul's antici-pated visit

Message¹⁰

A phrase in 1:2 suggests the theme of this great epistle. That phrase is "the church of God which is at Corinth." Two entities are in view in this phrase and these are the two entities with which the whole epistle deals. They are the church of God and the city of Corinth. The church of God is a community of people who share the life of God, are under the governing will of God, and cooperate in the work of God. The city of Corinth was ignorant of the life of God, governed by self-will, and antagonistic to the purposes of God. These two entities stand in vivid contrast to one another and account for the conflict we find in this epistle.

The church of God in view in this epistle is not the universal church but the local church. These two churches are really not that different from one another. The local church is the micro form of the universal church. Moreover the universal church is the macro form of the local church. What is true of one is true of the other. Whatever we find in a local church exists on a larger scale in the universal church. Whatever we find in one local church exists in many local churches. Remember that the New Testament consistently speaks of the church as people, not buildings. The Apostle Paul addressed these people as believers because that is what they were. Today there may be quite a few unsaved people in a local church's membership. This was not the case in the first century. Believers composed local churches. They shared the life of God because the Holy Spirit indwelt them. They had submitted to God's rule over them to some extent. They were people whom God had commissioned to carry the gospel to every creature. We need to bear these things in mind as we read about the church of God in Corinth.

The city of Corinth is the other entity of primary importance in our grasping the major significance of this epistle. What characterizes the world generally marked Corinth. In the first century when other people described a person as a Corinthian they were implying that lust, lasciviousness, and luxury characterized that one. These were the marks of Corinth. Corinth as a city was ignorant of the true God, entirely self-governing as a Roman colony, and self-centered in her world. These traits marked the lives of individual unbelievers in Corinth as well. The city was going in the opposite direction from the direction God had called the church to go.

The atmosphere of this epistle is Paul's concept of the responsibilities of the church in the city. The apostle articulated this underlying emphasis in 1:9. Fellowship involves both privilege and responsibility. On the one hand, all God's resources are at our disposal. On the other hand, all our resources should be at His disposal as well. The church in any place has a debt to the people who live there to proclaim the gospel to them (Rom. 1:14-16). Paul wrote this whole letter out of an underlying sense of the church's responsibility for the city where it existed.

The church in Corinth was struggling to discharge its debt. It was failing in some very important areas: in readiness, in courage, and in conviction to declare the gospel. The Corinthian church was a carnal church. However, its carnality, as big a problem as that was, was only part of a larger problem. The bigger problem was its failure to carry out its God-given purpose in the city, namely to proclaim a powerful spiritual message to the city. The Christians could not fulfill their purpose unless they dealt with their carnality. Why is carnality wrong? It is wrong because it keeps us from fulfilling the purpose for which God has left us on this planet.

In this letter we discover the causes of the church's failure. Another major emphasis is the secrets of the church's success. On the one hand, we find correctives of carnality. On the other, we have construction of spirituality. Let's consider the causes of failure first.

The first cause of failure was the fact that the spirit of the city had invaded the church as a virus. Every evil thing in the church to which Paul referred was prevalent in Corinth. Three things merit particular mention.

One of the symptoms of Corinthian cultural influence was intellectual freedom. There was much interest in intellectual speculation in Corinth as there was in its neighbor city of Athens. The phrase "Corinthian words" was a synonym for rhetoric in Paul's day. Corinth glorified human wisdom. The Corinthians discussed and debated all sorts of opinions. Each intellectual leader had his group of disciples. Discussion of every subject under the sun prevailed with great diversity of opinion. Unfortunately this spirit had invaded the church. There was a veneration of human wisdom among the Christians. They had chosen their own Christian leaders whom they followed as disciples (ch. 1). Intellectual restlessness prevailed in the church as well as in the city. The believers sampled Christian teaching as the general populace dabbled in philosophical argumentation. This extended to such fundamental doctrines as the Resurrection (ch. 15).

Another evidence that the city had invaded the church was the moral laxity that prevailed. Intellectual permissiveness led to the lowering of moral standards. When people view any idea as legitimate, there are few moral absolutes. The worship of Aphrodite on the hill behind the city was extremely immoral, but the unsaved citizens viewed this worship as perfectly acceptable. "Live and let live" was their motto. Regrettably some Corinthians in the church were viewing morals in the same way (ch. 5).

A third mark of the city's effect on the church was personal selfishness. In the city every person did what was right in his own eyes. The result was there was very little concern for other people and their welfare. One of the evidences of this attitude in the church was the Christians' behavior in their meetings. They were not sharing their food with one another (ch. 11). They were also interrupting speakers in the meetings rather than waiting for the speaker to finish what he had to say (ch. 14). Where edification and order should have prevailed, self-glorification and chaos reigned.

These were only symptoms of a deeper problem. The real root issue was that the church had failed to recognize its uniqueness. The Christians had not grasped and retained some central truths the apostles had taught them that identified the essence of their Christianity. Paul reminded them of these things in this epistle.

They had forgotten the central importance of the message of the Cross of Christ. This was a message not subject to debate. It rested on eyewitness testimony and divine revelation, not human speculation. Christians should unite around this message, share a common commitment to it, and make it the subject of their proclamation. We should appreciate the unity of the body of Christ while at the same time glorying in the diversity of its leaders.

The Corinthians had also forgotten the central importance of the power of the resurrection of Christ. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in Christians to enable us to live morally pure lives. Immorality is not an option for the believer. One of the most outstanding marks of a Christian should be purity. Because Jesus Christ was pure, we should be pure. Because He was pure, we can be pure.

The Corinthians had also forgotten the importance of Christ's command that we love one another. Selfishness had invaded the church. The believers needed to put the welfare of others, their fellow believers and their unsaved neighbors, before their own personal inclinations and preferences.

One of the central revelations of this epistle then is that the church fails to fulfill her function in the city (i.e., culture) when the spirit of the city invades her. The church allows the spirit of the city to invade her when she forgets that God wants her to be unique. The church fails when it adopts the ideas and activities of its environment rather than those revealed for it in God's Word. In view of this, Paul constantly appealed to his readers to be what they were in reality. We are not the people we were. We are saints (1:2). We need to remember that and act accordingly. We do not need to catch the spirit of our age. We need to correct the spirit of our age. When the church catches the spirit of its age, it catches a disease and becomes anemic, weak, and sickly. We avoid catching this spirit by staying spiritually healthy and by constantly imbibing the message of the Cross. We do it by exercising the power of the Resurrection and by keeping others rather than self primary.

I have already begun to hint at the secrets of the church's success, the second major revelation in this epistle.

The church must realize what it is to fulfill its function in the city. We must appreciate our life in Christ.

The life of the church is the life of an organism (ch. 12). It has one Lord whose life we share. It has one Spirit who governs it distributing abilities, assigning positions, and determining results as He sees fit in view of God's overall purpose. The church has one God--not many as in Corinth--whose glory it should determine to promote. To the extent a church realizes these truths, it will be ready to be successful in the sight of God. If it shares the spiritual life of her Lord, submits to the Spirit's leading, and seeks to glorify God, it will succeed. By separating from the spirit of the city, it can help and lift the city.

The law of the church must be the law of love. This is the opposite of the selfish outlook. Paul emphasized the importance of love in chapter 13.

The power of the church is the Resurrection life of Christ (ch. 15). We presently live between two resurrections, the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection. These resurrections are facts of history. One has already taken place, and the other is yet to come. Between these resurrections the church must fulfill its function in the world. The life that God has given to every believer is life that has power over death. One who overcame death has given it to us. This life is essentially different from what unbelievers possess. It is eternal divine life. With such life we can face any enemy as we serve God. Even the final enemy, death, cannot hold us. It could not hold Him who gave us His life.

Not only must we appreciate the uniqueness of our life as a church to fulfill our function, but we must also fulfill our function by invading the city. Rather than allowing it to invade us, we must invade it to be successful.

We do this by proclaiming that Jesus is Lord. He is the only Lord. The proof of this is His resurrection.

We also do this by rebuking the immorality of the city, not just by decrying it but, what is more important, by overcoming it in our own lives. We do it by demonstrating the power of Christ's life within us by living morally pure lives.

Third, we do this by counteracting the selfishness of our culture by practicing genuine Christian love. This means living for the glory of God and the good of others rather than putting self first.

The church always fails when it becomes conformed to the maxims, methods, and manners of the city--the world in which it lives. It always succeeds when it stands separate from the city and touches it with its supernatural healing life.

This epistle calls the church in every age to recognize its responsibility to its city. The church is responsible for the intellectual, moral, and social conditions in its city. Unfortunately many churches believe they exist merely to conserve the life of their members. We live in a cultural climate very similar to the one in which the Corinthian Christians lived. It is a culture characterized by intellectual pluralism, situation ethics, and personal selfishness. We face the same challenge the Corinthian believers did. Consequently what this epistle reveals is extremely relevant for us. We have responsibility for how people in our city think, how they behave, and whom they glorify. What they need is the message of the Cross delivered in the power of the Resurrection.

This letter is also a call to separation.

First, we must separate from absolute intellectual freedom and willingly submit our understanding and thinking to the revelation that God has given us in Scripture (chs. 1-4). There is a growing notion that all religions lead to God. Increasingly we hear that it does not matter too much what someone believes because we will all end up in the same place eventually. We need to counter that view with the revelation of the exclusive way of salvation that God has provided for people who are hopelessly lost and dead in their sins.

God has also called us to separation from moral laxity. Our culture is playing down personal morality and marital morality today. We need to proclaim the standards of God in these areas even though we may face strong opposition for doing so. Paul held these standards up in chapters 5-7.

Likewise we need to separate from selfish living. We need to make a break with goals and plans designed to glorify ourselves. Instead we need to evaluate all of our activities by the standard of chapter 13.

By way of application we can conclude several things from these observations about the emphases in this epistle.

First, the influence of the church is the influence of its individual members. The sum of its individual members' influence is the church's influence. Everything that is true of the church, therefore, is true of the individual believer in it to some extent.

Second, there should be perpetual conflict between the church and the city. If there is no conflict, the church is not having its proper influence. It may be that the city has invaded the church.

Third, the message of the church must ever be the message of the Cross and the Resurrection. It is a message of failure and success, of success out of failure. That is the message of hope the city needs to hear. Consequently we need to "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," because we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord (15:58).

Constable: 1 Corinthians (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1-9

A. Salutation 1:1-3

B. Thanksgiving 1:4-9

II. Conditions reported to Paul 1:10-6:20

A. Divisions in the church 1:10-4:21

1. The manifestation of the problem 1:10-17

2. The gospel as a contradiction to human wisdom 1:18-2:5

3. The Spirit's ministry of revealing God's wisdom 2:6-16

4. The spiritual yet carnal condition 3:1-4

5. The role of God's servants 3:5-17

6. Human wisdom and limited blessing 3:18-23

7. The Corinthians' relationship with Paul 4:1-21

B. Lack of discipline in the church chs. 5-6

1. Incest in the church ch. 5

2. Litigation in the church 6:1-11

3. Prostitution in the church 6:12-20

III. Questions asked of Paul 7:1-16:12

A. Marriage and related matters ch. 7

1. Advice to the married or formerly married 7:1-16

2. Basic principles 7:17-24

3. Advice concerning virgins 7:25-40

B. Food offered to idols 8:1-11:1

1. The priority of love over knowledge in Christian conduct ch. 8

2. Paul's apostolic defense ch. 9

3. The sinfulness of idolatry 10:1-22

4. The issue of marketplace food 10:23-11:1

C. Propriety in worship 11:2-16

1. The argument from culture 11:2-6

2. The argument from creation 11:7-12

3. The argument from propriety 11:13-16

D. The Lord's Supper 11:17-34

1. The abuses 11:17-26

2. The correctives 11:27-34

E. Spiritual gifts and spiritual people chs. 12-14

1. The test of Spirit control 12:1-3

2. The need for varieties of spiritual gifts 12:4-31

3. The supremacy of love ch. 13

4. The need for intelligibility 14:1-25

5. The need for order 14:26-40

F. The resurrection of believers ch. 15

l. The resurrection of Jesus Christ 15:1-11

2. The certainty of resurrection 15:12-34

3. The resurrection body 15:35-49

4. The assurance of victory over death 15:50-58

G. The collection for the Jerusalem believers 16:1-12

1. Arrangements for the collection 16:1-4

2. The travel plans of Paul and his fellow apostles 16:5-12

IV. Conclusion 16:13-24

A. Final exhortations 16:13-18

B. Final greetings and benediction 16:19-24

Constable: 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

THE FIRST

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE CORINTHIANS.

INTRODUCTION.

Corinth was the capital of Achaia, a very rich and populous city, where St. Paul had preached a year and a half, and converted a great many. See Acts xviii. 10. Now having received a letter from them, (chap. vii. 1.) and being informed of divers disputes and divisions among them, (chap. i. ver. 11.) he wrote this letter to them, and sent it by the same persons, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who had brought him their letter, chap. xvi. 17. It was written about the year 56, not from Philippi, as it is commonly marked at the end of the Greek copies, but rather from Ephesus. The subject and main design of this Epistle was to take away the divisions among them about the talents and merits of those who had baptized and preached to them, and to settle divers matters of ecclesiastical discipline. The apostle justifieth his mission, and his manner of preaching, chap. i, ii, iii, and iv. He teacheth them what was to be done with the man guilty of a scandalous sin of incest, chap. v. He speaks of sins against chastity; of matrimony; and of the state of continency, chap. vi and vii. Of meats offered to idols, chap. viii. Of his manner of conversing with them, and what their conversation ought to be, chap. ix and x. Of the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, chap. xi. Of the different gifts of the Holy Ghost, and how to employ them, chap. xii, xiii, and xiv. Of the faith of the resurrection, chap. xv. Of charitable contributions, and of his design of coming again to them, chap. xvi. (Witham) --- St. Paul having planted the faith in Corinth, where he had preached a year and a half, and converted a great many, went to Ephesus. After being there three years, he wrote this first Epistle to the Corinthians, and sent it by the same persons, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who had brought their letter to him. It was written about twenty-four years after our Lord's ascension, and contains several matters appertaining to faith and morals, and also to ecclesiastical discipline. (Challoner)

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Gill: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO 1 CORINTHIANS

This was not the first epistle that was written by the apostle to the Corinthians, for we read in this of his having written an epistle to them before, 1Co 5:9, but this is the first epistle of his unto them, that is now extant; and has been received by the churches, as of divine authority, being written by the inspiration of God, of which there has been no doubt in any age. The apostle himself was nearly two years at Corinth; where he preached with great success; and was the instrument of converting many persons, who by him were formed into a church state, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, as is clear from many passages in this epistle, and whom be left in good order, and in great peace and harmony; but quickly after his departure, false teachers got in among them, and bad principles were imbibed by many of them, and evil practices prevailed among them, and they fell into factions and parties, which occasioned the apostle to write this epistle to them, as well as their writing to him concerning certain things, they desired to have his judgment and opinion of, 1Co 7:1, It is thought to be written about the year of Christ 55, and in the first year of Nero, though some place it in the year 59. It was written not from Philippi, as the subscription added to it affirms, but from Ephesus, as appears from 1Co 16:8, and, it may be, after the uproar raised there by Demetrius, as should seem from a passage in 1Co 15:32. The matter of it is various. The apostle first rebukes them for their schisms and divisions; suggests that their regard to the wisdom of men, and the philosophy of the Gentiles, had brought the simplicity of the Gospel into contempt with them; blames them for their conduct in the case of the incestuous person, and urges them to put him away from them; reproves them for going to law with one another before Heathen magistrates, and warmly inveighs against fornication; and then answers several questions, and resolves several cases concerning marriage; treats of things offered to idols, and of the maintenance of ministers; and dissuades from idolatry, and all appearance of it; takes notice of the unbecoming conduct of the members of the church at the Lord's supper; and discourses concerning the nature and use of spiritual gifts, and commends charity above them; observes and corrects some irregularities in the use of their gifts; proves by various arguments the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which some of them denied; exhorts to a collection for the poor saints, and to several other things, and concludes the epistle with the salutations of others, and of himself.

Gill: 1 Corinthians 15 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO 1 CORINTHIANS 15

The apostle, in this chapter, recommends the Gospel, and gives a summary of it, proves the resurrection of Christ, and by various arguments establishes the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and answers objections made unto it. He also sets forth the glory there will be upon the bodies of risen saints, and the change that will be made on living ones; and concludes with an exhortation to perseverance in faith and holiness. As his chief view is the doctrine of the resurrection, he introduces this by recommending the Gospel in general, or by observing that this is a principal doctrine which should be remembered and retained, because it was the Gospel which he had preached, and they had received, and had hitherto persevered in, 1Co 15:1 and besides was essential to salvation, and the means of it, by which they would be saved, if they retained it, except their faith in it was in vain, as it would be should they drop it, 1Co 15:2. And moreover, the apostle had received it by divine revelation, and had faithfully delivered it to them, and therefore it became them to hold it fast; the sum of which were the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, agreeably to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 1Co 15:3 and then he reckons up the eyewitnesses of the latter, as first Peter, then the twelve disciples, then five hundred brethren at one time; next James, and all the apostles; and last of all himself, 1Co 15:5 of whom he speaks in a very diminishing style, describing himself as an abortive, affirming himself to be the least of the apostles, and unworthy to be in that office, or bear that name, giving this as a reason for it, because he had been a persecutor of the church of Christ, 1Co 15:9 wherefore he ascribes the dignity he was raised to entirely to the free grace of God; and yet he magnifies his office, and observes, that the gifts of grace bestowed upon him were not in vain, and that he was a more abundant labourer than the rest of the apostles, and had more success; but then he freely declares that all he had, and all he did, were by the grace of God, 1Co 15:10. But however, not to insist upon the difference between him and other apostles; he observes, that the subject matter of their ministry was the same, namely, a suffering and risen Saviour, and who was also the object of the faith of the believing Corinthians, 1Co 15:11 wherefore the apostle proceeds to blame some among them for denying the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, seeing it was a principal part of the ministry of the Gospel, that Christ was risen from the dead, 1Co 15:12 whereas that would not be true, if there is no resurrection of the dead, 1Co 15:13 but that Christ is risen, is not only evident from the testimonies of eyewitnesses before produced, but from the absurdities that follow upon a denial of it, as that the preaching of the Gospel was a vain thing, and faith in it also, 1Co 15:14 yea, the apostles would be no other than false witnesses of God, testifying that he raised up Christ, when he is not risen, if the dead rise not, 1Co 15:15 which argument is repeated, 1Co 15:16 and other absurdities following such an hypothesis are added; as besides what was before mentioned, that faith becomes hereby a vain thing, such as have believed in him must be in an unregenerate state, and both under the power and guilt of sin, 1Co 15:17 nay, not only so, but such who are dead in Christ, or for his sake are lost and perished, 1Co 15:18 and even those of the saints who are alive must be the most unhappy and miserable of all mortals, 1Co 15:19. But inasmuch as it is a certain point that Christ is risen, it is as clear a case that the saints will rise, which is argued from Christ being the firstfruits of those that are fallen asleep in him, which secures their resurrection to them, 1Co 15:20 and from his being their covenant head, as Adam was to his posterity; so that as all his offspring died in him, all the saints will be quickened by Christ, death coming by the one, and the resurrection by the other, 1Co 15:21. And whereas it might be objected, if this is the case, why did not the saints, who were dead before the resurrection of Christ, rise from the dead when he did, or quickly after? To which it is answered, there is an order observed agreeable to the firstfruits and lump: Christ, the firstfruits, is first, and then they that believe in him, 1Co 15:23 and this will not be until the second coming of Christ, and the end of all things, when all the elect of God shall be gathered in; and then they will be raised and presented to the Father complete in soul and body, and all rule and authority among men will cease, 1Co 15:24. But in the mean while Christ must reign until all enemies are subject to him, and the last of all that will be destroyed by him is death; which is another argument proving the resurrection of the dead; for if death is destroyed, the dead must rise, and never die more, 1Co 15:25 That all things will be put under the feet of Christ, every enemy, and so death, is proved from a testimony out of Psa 8:6. But to prevent a cavil, and secure the honour of God the Father, he is excepted from being subject to him, 1Co 15:27 so far is he from being so, that the Son shall be subject to him, and appear to be so as Mediator, by giving up the account of things to him; the end of which is, that God, Father, Son, and Spirit, may be all in all, 1Co 15:28. The resurrection of the dead is further argued from the sufferings of the saints and martyrs of Jesus, for the sake of him and his Gospel, and particularly this doctrine of it, which are first figuratively expressed under the notion of a baptism, 1Co 15:29 and then more literally and clearly signified by being in jeopardy, and exposed to danger of life continually, 1Co 15:30 and which is exemplified in the case of the apostle himself, who was liable to death daily, 1Co 15:31 of which he gives a particular instance in his fighting with beasts at Ephesus. Moreover, another absurdity would follow upon this, should this doctrine not be true; and that is, that a loose and licentious life, such an one as the Epicureans live, would be encouraged hereby, 1Co 15:32 from which the apostle dissuades; partly from the pernicious effect of it, which he shows by a passage cited out of one of the Heathens, 1Co 15:33 and partly from its being contrary to a righteous conversation, and from the stupidity, sinfulness, and ignorance, which such a course of life, upon such principles, declares, 1Co 15:34. And then the apostle proceeds to answer questions, and remove objections relating to the resurrection of the dead; which questions and objections are put, 1Co 15:35 which suppose the thing to be impossible and absurd, and to which answers are returned, first by observing, that grain which is sown in the earth first dies before it is quickened, and that it does not rise up bare grain as it was sown, but in a different form and shape, with additional circumstances greatly to its advantage; and has a body given by the power, and according to the pleasure of God, and suitable to the nature of the seed; by which is suggested, that in like manner the body first dies, and then is raised;, and though the same body, yet it is raised in a different form with different qualities, by the power, and according to the will of God; and therefore seeing there are every year such innumerable instances in nature, of dead and putrefied grain being revived, it need not be thought incredible, impracticable, and absurd, that God should raise the dead, 1Co 15:36 and that the body, though the same shall rise different from what it was when laid in the grave, is illustrated by the difference of flesh in men, beasts, fishes, and birds; which, though all of it flesh, differs from each other; and so will the flesh of the body, in the resurrection, differ from the flesh it is now clothed with, 1Co 15:39. And the same is further illustrated by the difference there is in the heavenly and earthly bodies, in the sun, and moon, and stars, and in one star from another; all which have respect to the same, showing not any difference there will be in risen bodies among themselves, but in risen bodies from what they now are, 1Co 15:40 as appears by the accommodation of these similes to the resurrection of the dead; and which differences are clearly expressed, the present bodies being corrupt, dishonourable, weak, and natural, the risen ones being incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, 1Co 15:42. And that the risen bodies will be spiritual, the apostle proves, by comparing Adam and Christ together; the one had a natural body, the other had a spiritual body after his resurrection, 1Co 15:45 the order of which is given, the natural body of Adam was before the spiritual body of Christ, 1Co 15:46. Their original is also taken notice of, the one being of the earth, the other front heaven, 1Co 15:47 and so accordingly the offspring of the one, and of the other, are different; the offspring of the first Adam are earthly like him, and have a natural body, as he had; the offspring of the second Adam are heavenly, as he was, and will have a body like to his; for as they bear the image of the first man, from whom they naturally descend, by having a natural body like to his, so they must bear the image of the second man, the Lord from heaven, by having a spiritual body fashioned like to his glorious body, 1Co 15:48. And there is an absolute necessity for this, seeing bodies, in their present state, and case, as natural, mortal, and sinful, cannot be admitted into the possession of the kingdom and glory of the Lord, 1Co 15:50 but inasmuch as all will not die, and so be raised again, but some will be alive at the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, a difficulty arises how the living saints will come by spiritual bodies, in order to inherit the kingdom of God, without which they cannot inherit it: this difficulty the apostle removes, by making known a secret never divulged before, that at the same time the dead will be raised, which will be at the sounding of a trumpet; in a moment, at once the living saints will be changed, and become immortal and incorruptible, as the raised ones, 1Co 15:51 for so it must be that these corruptible and mortal bodies be clothed with incorruption and immortality, either by the resurrection of them, or a change upon them, when either way they will become spiritual, 1Co 15:53. And hereby some prophecies in Isaiah and Hoses will have their accomplishment, 1Co 15:54 on the mention of which, some things in them are explained, as that sin is the sting of death, and the law is the strength of sin, which regard the prophecy in Hosea, 1Co 15:56 and the victory obtained over death, which is mentioned in the prophecy of Isaiah, is ascribed to God, who gives it through Christ, to whom thanks are returned for it, 1Co 15:57. And the chapter is concluded with an exhortation steadfastly to abide by the cause of Christ, and in his service; to which the saints are encouraged from this consideration, that they will find their account in it, 1Co 15:58.

College: 1 Corinthians (Book Introduction)

FOREWORD

Since the past few decades have seen an explosion in the number of books, articles, and commentaries on First Corinthians, a brief word to the readers might help them know what to expect or not to expect from this commentary. This commentary is intended for use by studious lay people, Bible teachers, and seminary students. Most scholars and specialists in the area of New Testament will probably find this commentary's treatment of 1 Corinthians and its problems too elementary. Because of the intended audience for this work and the constraints of length, the user should be aware of certain acknowledged limitations. There are at least four of these:

1. This commentary does not pretend to look at every problem, real or imaginary, which has caught the eye of previous scholarship.

2. The commentary does not attempt to cite continuously the interpretations of leading Christian thinkers as they have written on this Pauline letter.

3. Interpretations are given on individual passages without always citing the full evidence and without working through the attendant arguments, either for or against particular views.

4. Only a moderate number of footnotes have been used. In addition, the vast majority of the secondary literature cited will be English language and will, when possible, be in book form. The nonspecialist for whom this commentary is intended has little interest in or access to technical materials, journal literature, or foreign language materials.

Those who wish to study this letter of Paul in more detail should look to some of the more technical commentaries (e.g., Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians ).

I owe a special word of thanks to two individuals. My friend Gail Brady graciously typed the entire manuscript of this commentary for me. My friend and colleague Prof. Allen Black read the entire manuscript for me and saved me and my readers from more than one instance of an inappropriate choice of words as well as an occasional overstatement.

I dedicate this volume to my parents who shared with me over the years their own faith, hope, and love.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

The text of Scripture known as 1 Corinthians has provided a well from which believers have drunk for almost two millennia. This portion of Scripture has served the church as a resource for theology, for homiletical exposition, for pastoral issues, and more recently as a source for reconstructing social dimensions and dynamics of early Pauline Christianity. Whatever else one wants to say about 1 Corinthians, it cannot be doubted that it has had a significant impact on the Christian church.

Notwithstanding the necessity and value of this diversity of perspectives and interpretive methodologies which have come across the stage of Christian history, this present work is more narrowly focused in its approach. This work is primarily a historical-exegetical commentary, the goal of which is to understand and set forth the ideas, doctrines, and feelings Paul communicated in the letter of 1 Corinthians. The phrase "ideas, doctrines, and feelings" is not intended to describe an "intellectual history" of the great Apostle. Rather, Paul's ideas, doctrines, and feelings, as recorded in 1 Corinthians, are engendered and evoked by a series of practices and beliefs, diverse in themselves, coming from individuals and groups in the church of God at Corinth.

A decision to write a historical-exegetical commentary brings with it several assumptions and commitments.

1. This means in the first instance that the feelings, doctrines, and ideas of Paul must, as far as possible, be understood in the historical framework, both in which he wrote them and in which the first readers lived. A historical-exegetical approach has little in common with simplistic attempts to modernize Paul, to re-create him after the image of western Christianity. To be sure, every practicing believer knows firsthand the need to bring forward, with God's help and wisdom, the meaning of the ancient text into the modern world. How strange it appears, however, when those who wish to contextualize the Gospel in the modern setting have not invested the time and effort to first learn what it meant in its original context. Just as a good translation of Russian literature into French requires that one be familiar with both languages, so a good translation of the ideas of Paul's letter to the Corinthians into modern idiom requires a competent grasp of the original meaning of this letter as well as the modern world.

2. A commitment to a historical-exegetical methodology means that one must always recognize that Paul's letter to the Corinthians is an occasional document, arising in the first instance as direct responses to ad hoc issues and problems in the lives of believers living in a certain region of the Roman Empire, at a specific time, and under particular historical and cultural circumstances. Since the historical method infers that Paul's commands, arguments, and instructions were given in direct response to the issues raised by the lives and ideas of the Corinthians, one must openly acknowledge that 1 Corinthians may not address every issue that we, living two millennia later, hope it would. In fact, 1 Corinthians was not even adequate or appropriate for addressing the problem in all the Pauline churches. I am certain, for example, that the churches of Galatia would have been perplexed to receive 1 Corinthians as a solution to their specific problems. Indeed, even at Corinth it had to be supplemented by 2 Corinthians.

Not only does the historical method help restrain us from foisting our own agendas and ecclesiastical problems upon that small group of believers who lived at a particular time in Roman Achaia almost 2000 years ago, it also serves as a restraint for those who would twist the Scriptures and put forth their own ideology masquerading as exegesis. Time and again commentators have found a theology or doctrinal imprimatur in the text of 1 Corinthians which, even if generally true, has little in common with Paul's own intention and goals for this letter. Throughout the centuries preachers and theologians have strolled through the cafeteria of 1 Corinthians, appetite whetted, looking for some word, idea, or verse to place upon the plate from which they feed the church. At some point this kind of pragmatism in handling Scripture, which is driven by a variety of appetites, must be labeled as malpractice, and the student of Scripture needs to obey again the pastoral admonition to become "a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" (2 Tim 2:15).

Even though a historical-exegetical method is the underpinning of this commentary, it is in no way the final task for the church in the interpretation of 1 Corinthians. Rather, the historical-exegetical approach should be the first step, and a necessary one, which is followed by many other steps taken by believers who, through the course of their journey, translate the manifold and variegated message of 1 Corinthians for the contemporary and global church of Jesus Christ. The individual tools and methods used in this process of contextualization would hopefully come from the guidance of God as well as study in the traditional theological disciplines of homiletics, systematic theology, pastoral theology, ethnotheology, and the like.

THE LETTER OF 1 CORINTHIANS

DESTINATION

The letter of 1 Corinthians was sent by Paul and Sosthenes to the congregation of believers in the city of Corinth. This is in contrast to 2 Corinthians, which was written not only to believers in Corinth but also to believers in the province of Achaia, of which Corinth was the capital (2 Cor 1:1). The content of 1 Cor 5:9 "I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people" makes it evident that the letter of 1 Corinthians is not Paul's first written communication with the church at Corinth since he here refers to a previous letter he had already sent them and which they apparently misunderstood (5:9-11).

DATE

Even though the Acts of the Apostles was not written for the purpose of providing a historical framework for the Pauline Corpus, there are instances where Acts and facts from ancient historical records do supplement the letters of Paul. One very important way in which Acts supplements the less specific material in the Pauline letters is in regard to chronology. Without the chronological framework of Acts, it would be much harder to know how to arrange in sequence materials from Paul's letters and to assign dates to them. It is our good fortune to be able to assign dates to about five episodes mentioned in Acts, and thereby, assign relative dates to parts of Paul's correspondence. One of these instances is the case of Acts 18 where Luke narrates the beginning of the Pauline mission in Corinth. At that point we have firm evidence for the date of the Christian mission based upon supplemental historical data. In particular, Acts indicates that Paul's work at Corinth took place while Gallio was the proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12). This Roman official, who was the brother of the Roman philosopher Seneca, is known from ancient Roman literature as well as archaeological data. It is this latter realm of evidence which helps specify the time of his career when he was proconsul in Corinth. This would put Paul's work at Corinth and his appearance before Gallio in the early 50s. Acts 18:11 indicates that Paul worked in Corinth for 18 months; this means that Paul's correspondence in 1 Corinthians would have occurred in approximately A.D. 55. While some interpreters have attempted to get even more precise with the dating, it seems that A.D. 55 is as specific as the evidence can support.

PROVENANCE

Paul was actually not far from Corinth when he wrote 1 Corinthians. First Corinthians 16:8 points decisively to a site on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea, in Ephesus, on the western coast of the Roman province of Asia. Travel between large port cities such as Corinth and Ephesus was frequent and relatively easy in the Roman world. Consequently, it is no surprise to find Corinthians visiting Paul, and Paul and his co-workers making visits from Asia to Corinth.

ROMAN CORINTH

The Greek city of Corinth had suffered defeat at the hands of the expanding Roman Republic in 146 B.C. The archaeological evidence does not support, however, the idea that in the ensuing years all life and Greek influence vanished from this conquered and partially desolate site. While the Greek Corinth was clearly defeated, it was not totally deserted in the decades following 146 B.C. When Julius Caesar, shortly before his assassination in 44 B.C., reestablished the city as a Roman colony, it would have quickly become a city which was dominantly, but not exclusively, Roman. Consequently, any study of Paul's letter to the church of God at Corinth must take seriously the fact that Paul was addressing a city which had been, since 44 B.C., a Roman colony ( Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis ). Roman colonies were typically established as outposts for promoting Roman culture, religion, language, and political systems as well as providing lands for retired Roman soldiers. And even though Corinth was located geographically in Greece, there is no doubt that Roman mores and ideas impacted the local populace since, as Aulus Gellius noted (2nd cent. A.D.), Roman colonies "seemed to be miniatures, as it were, and in a way copies" of the Roman people. Therefore, Corinth possessed all the appropriate Roman laws, magistrates and officials.

Because of Corinth's mercantile character and important geographical location, it quickly attracted new residents from throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Consequently, by the time of Paul's arrival in Corinth, almost one century after its reestablishment as a city, the population would have included not only Romans, but also Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, Syrians, etc.

ORIGIN, STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF 1 CORINTHIANS

Even though there is not a consensus among interpreters regarding the exact nature and causes of the problems which Paul treats in 1 Corinthians, there is general agreement that the letter is organized around the cluster of problems which Paul is striving to remedy by his apostolic instruction. The letter is basically a series of smaller units of thought, each of which seems to be directed to a particular aberration in the beliefs and/or practices of the Corinthians. Paul's style in the letter is to acknowledge the existence of a sin or problem, address the sin or problem, and then move on to the next one.

Paul's information about these various problems at Corinth did not come from firsthand knowledge of his own nor through inspiration. The majority, if not all, of Paul's information about the various issues with which he dealt in the letter came most likely from two distinct human sources. The information and problems treated in 1 Cor 1-6 came from those from the house of Chloe. First Corinthians 1:11 states that "some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you," thereby identifying Paul's source of information for the problem he treats in 1 Cor 1-4. The wording of 1 Cor 5:1 "It is actually reported" points probably to additional information in 1 Cor 5-6 which was also supplied by those from Chloe's house. If this is not the case, then we have no idea who provided this report of immorality among the Corinthians.

A second major source for Paul's information is mentioned in 1 Cor 7:1 when he wrote, " Now for the matters you wrote about ." Paul is expressly acknowledging here that the list of issues and problems that he is going to respond to came from a document authored and sent by Corinthian believers to him. Numerous modern interpreters believe, rightly so in my opinion, that this Corinthian document informed Paul not only about the issue discussed in 1 Cor 7:1ff, but also the matters discussed at 8:1ff ( Now about food sacrificed to idols), 12:1ff ( Now about spiritual gifts), and 16:1ff ( Now about the collection for God's people).

At least two points can be drawn from this information. The first is that the Corinthians themselves should receive credit for the broad outline of what was discussed and treated in 1 Corinthians. In addition, one ought not overlook the fact that Paul's treatment of the Corinthians' problems is a treatment of the problems as communicated to him through an unnamed informant of one of the women members of the congregation and through a letter (authors unknown) sent to Paul which already had, regardless of its tone, an agenda for which Paul was not responsible. It is obvious, then, that even though no one seriously doubts the Pauline authorship of 1 Corinthians, it is important for the interpreter to appreciate the complex role of the Corinthians in their contribution to the content and structure of the epistle.

PROBLEMS AT CORINTH

The task of identifying and reconstructing the multiple problems within the church of God at Corinth on the basis of Paul's letter to them is not a simple one. Writing decades ago on this very problem Prof. Kirsopp Lake commented,

The difficulty which undoubtedly attends any attempt to understand the Epistles of St. Paul is largely due to the fact that they are letters; for the writer of letters assumes the knowledge of a whole series of facts, which are, as he is quite aware, equally familiar to his correspondent and to himself. But as time goes on this knowledge is gradually forgotten and what was originally quite plain becomes difficult and obscure; it has to be recovered from stray hints and from other documents by a process of laborious research, before it is possible for the letters to be read with anything approaching to the ease and intelligence possessed by those to whom they were originally sent.

There are some scholars who wish to interpret most, if not all, of the problems in 1 Corinthians as arising from one group of individuals at Corinth. The evidence of 1 Corinthians does not, in my judgment, support such a theory. There are, admittedly, aspects of this approach which are attractive. Common traits, to be sure, can be found among some of the problems. For example, Paul refers to the sin of boasting as an ingredient in more than one of the problems within the Corinthians fellowship. Likewise, the terms "division" ( , schisma ) (1 Cor 1:10; 11:18) and "dissension" (also schisma ) (1 Cor 12:25) are used by Paul in describing more than one problem situation among the letter's recipients. This common denominator of schisma does not require the conclusion that the problems of "party loyalty" in 1 Cor 1-4, abuse of the Lord's Meal in 11:17-22, and misunderstanding and misuse of spiritual gifts in 12-14 must all be traced back to a common theological aberration, to the same social stratum in the church, or to a particular house church in Corinth.

Since the goal in this commentary is to interpret 1 Corinthians as Paul's coherent letter, we must respect Paul's own categorization of the issues at Corinth if we want to understand the intent of his instruction and flow of thought as he responded and gave directions to the church of God at Corinth. If direct and explicit social links between the organizational subunits within 1 Corinthians can be isolated, so much the better for exegesis. However, to this point in time many of the rhetorical, sociological and anthropological reconstructions of the Christian community(ies) at Corinth resemble, at times, a Procrustean Bed rather than a picture put together on the basis of an exegetical-historical model.

Throughout the modern period of Pauline interpretation scholars have regularly commented on the issue of Paul's opponents at Corinth. In this interpretive context, the term opponent has become almost synonymous with those who promoted or participated in the spiritual aberrations opposed by Paul in 1 Corinthians. More recently, however, other scholars have rightly attempted to both refine and redefine the term opponent. From this ongoing discussion two points are relevant to this study of 1 Corinthians. First, one must not automatically equate the personalities, groups and aberrations behind 2 Corinthians with those behind 1 Corinthians. There is no compelling reason to believe that the two letters were written to address the exact same problems. In fact, the internal evidence leads away from such a position. (1) 1 Corinthians was written only to the church in Corinth, while 2 Corinthians was written not only to the church in Corinth but also to all believers in all the Roman province of Achaia, of which Corinth was the capital. (2) Most of the key terms and ideas of each letter are not found in the other. (3) The tenor and literary characteristics of each letter are distinctive.

The second observation from the contemporary discussion of Pauline opponents is the question of whether every spiritual aberration within a Pauline church should be interpreted as intentional and direct opposition to Paul himself. It is not a question of whether Paul ever had opponents (e.g., 2 Corinthians, Galatians), but whether the term opponent is the appropriate term for everyone who was guilty of spiritual perceptions and doctrines different than Paul's or whose lifestyle was not in harmony with Paul's ethical teachings. John Calvin touched on this point in his commentary on 1 Corinthians when he wrote, "Now, I have good reason for thinking that those worthless fellows, who had caused trouble in the Corinthian church, were not open enemies of the truth." Calvin's point is well taken and his caution in using the term opponent will be followed in this work. More explicit and extended discussions on the topic of opponents will be found at the appropriate junctures in the commentary itself.

OUTLINE OF 1 CORINTHIANS

The recognition of literary units in 1 Corinthians is part and parcel of the task of exegesis. The opening and closing of units of thought are not merely arbitrary literary embellishments nor are they just convenient ways to structure Paul's thought and feelings. These units put linguistic and semantic limits on the words and thoughts of Paul. The recognition of these demarcations in 1 Corinthians is mandated, since it helps ensure that the flow of Paul's rhetorical argument remains within the limits set by the Apostle himself. Moreover, a respect for the conceptual units and subunits of Paul's letter will greatly reduce the tendency to make his words mean more than he intended them to mean. This tendency to generalize Paul's thought and words beyond the immediate rhetorical setting comes at a high price, since it can only be maintained by denying the occasional nature of the Pauline correspondence as well as the universally recognized fact that meaning emerges from rhetorical and contextual usage.

Introduction etc. 1:1-9

Issue 1 Disunity and Community Fragmentation 1:10-4:20

Issue 2 Reports of Immorality 5:1-6:20

Issue 3 Sexuality/Celibacy/Marriage 7:1-40

Issue 4 Foods Offered to Idols 8:1-11:1

Issue 5 Liturgical Aberrations 11:2-34

Issue 6 Misunderstanding of Spiritual Gifts 12:1-14:40

Issue 7 Misunderstanding of Believers' Resurrection 15:1-58

Issue 8 Instruction for the Collection 16:1-11

Concluding topics 16:12-24

HISTORICAL MATRIX FOR THE CORINTHIAN PROBLEMS

Without going into the multifaceted issues about the historical evidence from Acts for Paul's churches and how this relates to the evidence for Paul and his churches from his own letters, it seems prudent to rely initially and primarily upon the evidence of 1 Corinthians itself rather than Luke's material in Acts to understand the nature and extent of the problems in the church at Corinth. To be specific, one must not falsely conclude, on the basis of the Lukan picture of a predominant Jewish matrix of the church in Corinth, that Jewish beliefs and practices provide the matrix for most of the aberrations within the Corinthian church. In this regard, Gordon Fee is correct when he points out that many of the problems at Corinth are explicitly traced by Paul to the converts' pagan heritage. It can be argued, furthermore, that even those issues not explicitly traced to pagan heritage by Paul can be best understood by seeing them against the backdrop of Greco-Roman rather than Jewish mores and values.

The issues depicted in 1 Corinthians arose directly from the lives of that first generation Christian community, most of whom had been believers no more than 48 months. Since Paul nowhere implies in 1 Corinthians that the Corinthian problems were introduced by outsiders, the most reasonable course to follow in evaluating the origin of the Corinthian issues is to investigate the urban setting of Roman Corinth from which the converts came. This means that the religious and cultural perspectives which shaped the beliefs and practices of those whom Paul addressed in this letter provide the best circumstantial evidence and clues for the interpretation of 1 Corinthians.

While the need to recognize the Greco-Roman matrix of the Corinthian problems might seem self-evident, the history of the interpretation of 1 Corinthians clearly reveals that not all interpreters have shared this methodological concern. In practice this approach to 1 Corinthians means that:

1. One must not attribute the Jewishness of Paul and the Scriptural basis of his own theology to those recent converts whom he was correcting. To extract texts and vocabulary from Jewish sources (e.g., Mishnah, Dead Sea Scrolls, Gospels, etc.) to understand the matrix of the Corinthians' problems is highly suspect. The fact that Paul often cites Scripture to remedy the problems at Corinth speaks more of his own Jewish heritage, his apostolic ministry, and his convictions that all Christians are to be guided by Scripture than it does that there was some significant Jewish background to the Corinthian problems.

2. The mores, patterns of culture and specific religious institutions of Greco-Roman paganism must be seen as the soil in which the Corinthian problems were germinated and grew.

3. The specific condition of the Corinth of Paul's day should be taken as the immediate setting for the converts. One must exercise caution in using information about an earlier Greek Corinth which had been destroyed in the second century B.C. and no longer existed in Paul's day in order to describe the Corinth of Paul's day.

4. One must recognize the multicultural nature of Corinth at Paul's time. It was geographically Greek, it was administratively and politically Roman, and its denizens came from throughout the central and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin. Consequently, one must reckon with ethnic influences in Paul's Corinth which reflect Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Syrian, Jewish, and Anatolian influences.

5. Vague and anachronistic labels such as gnosticism should be avoided until appropriate historical evidence and documentation can be discovered and shown to be relevant to the issues at Corinth addressed by Paul. A commitment to the notion of a gnostic background to 1 Corinthians still has advocates, though their numbers are surely down from that of the 19th and earlier part of the 20th century. Quite recently, for example, Pheme Perkins argued that

. . . gnostic mythologizing does form part of the horizon within which the New Testament should be interpreted. Students of Christian origins have become accustomed to comparing the New Testament material with a wide variety of Jewish and Greco-Roman sources. The same efforts of analysis and comparison should be applied to the gnostic material.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

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-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

ABD . . . Anchor Bible Dictionary

AUSS . . . Andrews University Seminary Studies

BA . . . Biblical Archaeology

BAGD . . . Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker

BAR . . . Biblical Archaeology Review

BiblThecSac . . . Bibliotheca Sacra

BJRL . . . Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

BTr . . . Bible Translator

CMM . . . Introduction to the New Testament by Carson, Moo, L. Morris

ChrSt . . . Christian Standard

DPL . . . Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

ed. . . . edited by

EQ . . . Evangelical Quarterly

ExpT . . . Expository Times

HTR . . . Harvard Theological Review

JBL . . . Journal of Biblical Literature

JSNT . . . Journal of Studies in the New Testament

JETS . . . Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JTS . . . Journal of Theological Studies

n. . . . note

NovT . . . Novum Testamentum

NTS . . . New Testament Studies

RevEx . . . Review and Expositor

TB . . . Tyndale Bulletin

TDNT . . . Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

TS . . . Theological Studies

trans . . . translated by

WThJ . . . Westminster Theological Journal

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: 1 Corinthians (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. INTRODUCTION - 1:1-9

A. Salutation - 1:1-3

B. Thanksgiving - 1:4-9

II. DISUNITY AND COMMUNITY FRAGMENTATION - 1:10-4:21

A. Divisions in the Church - 1:10-17

1. Report Received by Paul - 1:10-12

2. Christ Undivided - 1:13-17

B. Christ the Wisdom and Power of God - 1:18-2:5

1. The Message of the Cross - 1:18-19

2. Both Jews and Gentiles Offended - 1:20-25

3. God's Choice of Foolish Things - 1:26-31

4. Paul's Message Not Based on Eloquence - 2:1-5

C. Wisdom and Spiritual Maturity - 2:6-3:4

1. God's Secret Wisdom - 2:6-9

2. The Teaching of the Spirit - 2:10-16

3. Divisions a Sign of Worldliness - 3:1-4

D. God the Master Builder - 3:5-23

1. Paul and Apollos Merely Servants - 3:5-9

2. Building on the Foundation Laid by Paul - 3:10-17

3. God's View of Wisdom - 3:18-23

E. Apostles of Christ - 4:1-21

1. The Apostles as Servants of Christ - 4:1-5

2. Overcoming Human Pride - 4:6-7

3. Honor and Dishonor - 4:8-13

4. Paul's Warning as Father - 4:14-17

5. Arrogance to Be Confronted - 4:18-21

III. REPORTS OF IMMORALITY - 5:1-6:20

A. Discipline for the Immoral Brother - 5:1-13

1. The Corinthians' Pride in Tolerance - 5:1-5

2. Getting Rid of the Old Yeast - 5:6-8

3. Separating From Evil - 5:9-13

B. Lawsuits among Believers - 6:1-11

1. Settling Disputes in the Church - 6:1-8

2. The Inheritance of the Wicked - 6:9-11

C. Sexual Immorality - 6:12-20

1. The Body As a Member of Christ- 6:12-17

2. The Body As the Temple of the Holy Spirit - 6:18-20

IV. SEXUALITY, CELIBACY, AND MARRIAGE - 7:1-40

A. Godly Use of Sexuality - 7:1-7

B. Celibacy vs. Marriage - 7:8-11

C. Divorce and Separation - 7:12-16

D. Remaining as You Were Called - 7:17-28

E. Freedom from Concern - 7:29-40

V. DEALING WITH IDOLATRY - 8:1-11:1

A. Food Sacrificed to Idols - 8:1-13

1. The General Principle - 8:1-3

2. The Nonreality of Idols - 8:4-6

3. The Weak Brother's Dilemma - 8:7-8

4. The Proper Use of Freedom - 8:9-13

B. The Rights of an Apostle - 9:1-27

1. Paul's Rights as Apostle - 9:1-6

2. General Principle Stated - 9:7-14

3. Paul's Deferment of Rights - 9:15-18

4. To the Jew as a Jew - 9:19-23

5. Looking Forward to the Prize - 9:24-27

C. Warnings From Israel's History - 10:1-13

1. Wandering in the Desert - 10:1-5

2. Punishment for Sins - 10:6-10

3. Examples for Us - 10:11-13

D. Idol Feasts and the Lord's Supper - 10:14-22

1. The Lord's Supper a Participation - 10:14-17

2. The Lord's Table and the Table of Demons - 10:18-22

3. The Christian's Freedom - 10:23-11:1

VI. LITURGICAL ABERRATIONS - 11:2-34

A. Propriety in Worship - 11:2-16

1. Head Coverings in Worship - 11:2-10

2. Hair in the Nature of Things - 11:11-16

B. The Lord's Supper - 11:17-34

1. The Corinthians' Practice - 11:17-22

2. The Lord's Supper As Instituted - 11:23-26

3. Self-examination to Avoid Judgment - 11:27-34

VII. MISUNDERSTANDING OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS - 12:1-14:40

A. Spiritual Gifts - 12:1-11

1. Influence of the Spirit - 12:1-3

2. Different Gifts for a Common Good - 12:4-11

B. One Body, Many Parts - 12:12-31a

1. One Body in Christ - 12:12-13

2. Body Members Not Independent - 12:14-20

3. Special Honor for Weaker Parts - 12:21-26

4. Application to the Body of Christ - 12:27-31a

C. Love - 12:31b-13:13

1. Gifts Without Love Pointless - 12:31b-13:3

2. The Virtues of Love - 13:4-7

3. The Permanence of Love - 13:8-13

D. Gifts of Prophecy and Tongues - 14:1-25

1. Tongues and Prophecy Compared - 14:1-5

2. Tongues and Clarity - 14:6-12

3. The Spirit and the Mind - 14:13-19

4. Maturity and Spiritual Gifts - 14:20-25

E. Orderly Worship - 14:26-40

1. Control of Tongues and Prophecy - 14:26-33

2. Submission of Women - 14:34-35

3. Everything Fitting and Orderly - 14:36-40

VIII. MISUNDERSTANDING OF BELIEVERS' RESURRECTION - 15:1-58

A. The Gospel Paul Preached - 15:1-11

1. Relation of the Corinthians to the Gospel - 15:1-2

2. Basic Issues of the Gospel - 15:3-4

3. Appearances and Apostleship - 15:5-11

B. Christ's Resurrection and the Resurrection

of the Dead - 15:12-34

1. Consequences of Denying the Resurrection - 15:12-19

2. The Fact of Christ's Resurrection - 15:20-28

3. Baptism, Suffering, and the Resurrection - 15:29-34

C. Answers to Some Problems about the

Resurrection - 15: 35-58

1. A Twofold Question - 15:35-41

2. An Explanation of the Resurrection of the Dead - 15:42-50

3. The Secret Revealed - 15:51-58

IX. INSTRUCTION FOR THE COLLECTION - 16:1-11

A. The Collection for God's People - 16:1-4

B. Paul's Travel Plans - 16:5-9

C. Assisting Timothy - 16:10-11

X. CONCLUSION - 16:12-24

A. Personal Requests - 16:12-18

B. Final Greetings - 16:19-24

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV