Text -- 1 Corinthians 15:56 (NET)

15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.)

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

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

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.

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.

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.

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 15:51-58

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 15:51-57

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.

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 15:50-58

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 15:56

The sting of death is sin [Rom 6:23]; and the power of sin is the law [Rom 4:15 ; Rom 7:10-12]:

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.

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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_____. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus. London: SCM Press, 1969.

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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