1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

1 Corinthians Chapter 15.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.

           

Some Christians at Corinth, presumably a small group, denied the resurrection of the bodies of believers.  They did not deny the survival of the soul, nor, as yet, the resurrection of Christ.  However, the apostle saw that the scepticism that denied the resurrection of the body must eventually deny that Christ was raised.  Paul was also sure that the faith which seriously accepts Christ's resurrection, will be prepared to accept the resurrection of the body.

           

The source of their scepticism.  It is unlikely that it was due to the influence of the Sadducees.  More likely its source was their native Greek way of thinking.  Greek thought was generally unfriendly to the doctrine of the resurrection.  The Epicureans held that there was no survival beyond death and the Stoics taught that at death the soul lost its individual existence and was absorbed into the divine soul.  The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body emphasized that survival is individual and personal.  Paul's discussion falls into two principle sections:

*   He establishes the fact of the resurrection of the body.          15:1-34.

*   The mode or manner of the resurrection.                    15:35-58.

           

The chapter may be divided into six parts:-

1/  15:1-11.  The resurrection of Christ is fundamental to the truth of the Gospel.  He shows          the threefold relationship of the Corinthians to the gospel (v.1-2), and the basic facts of the apostolic testimony and preaching.                      v.3-11.

2/  15:12-19.  The denial of the resurrection of the body involves a denial of Christ's resurrection, and with dire consequences to the gospel.

3/  15:20-28.  The resurrection of Christ is the pledge of the ultimate victory and rule of  God.

4/  15:29-34.  Two practical arguments and a warning.

5/  15:35-50.  The nature of the resurrection body.

*   Analogies from nature.                                                          v.35-41.

*   The distinctive character of the resurrection body.                  v.42-50.

6/  15:50-58.  The mystery of the great change.

*   The transformation of the body; instantaneous, complete and victorious.

*   Be steadfast in hope, active in serving the Lord.

           

15:1.  Paul brings again to their memory the Gospel which he had preached to them.  They were thinking and talking like men who did not know the gospel.  He had preached to them the gospel years before, but they were still ignorant of its significance and implications.  Their denial of the resurrection of the body indicated their poor understanding of the gospel.  He had proclaimed the facts of the gospel, now he must remind them of these facts, and make known to them their true significance.    The Gospel was the agency that God was using to bring them final salvation.   Paul is precise as to their relationship to the gospel:

*   Received it.  It did not originate with them, but it was a gift they received.

*   Stand.          It was their one and sure spiritual foundation.  Everything depended upon it.

*   Being saved.            Present continuous tense.

           

15:2.  The Gospel is received by faith and is held fast by faith.  Paul contemplates the possibility that some of them may have believed in vain.  In the A.V. "(in) vain" translates three different Greek words in this chapter, `Eike' v.2;  `Kenos' v.10,14,58;  `Mataios' v.17.

           

In verse 2, Vine gives three possible meanings to `eike' (in vain).  They are:-

Without consideration, to no purpose and without cause.  Vine prefers "without cause" R.V.m., but we choose, "without consideration", i.e. "thoughtlessly at random, by chance, in a hap-hazard or heedless manner."  It is possible to profess faith in Christ without proper consideration of its meaning and demand.  The man who accepts the gospel whole-heartedly and with seriousness, will want to think out its implications.  the Christian must be prepared to do hard and serious thinking.

           

15:3.  The facts of the gospel that Paul had delivered to them, he had received.  See Gal.1:11-24.  "First of all."  The N.E.B. has "first and foremost," that is, as fundamental.  The emphasis is not on the fact that it was what he had first told them, but it was that which occupied the central place in his preaching.

           

Three basic events form the facts of the gospel.  It is not a philosophy or a theory, but it is the proclamation of certain historic events which are central for our salvation.  They are saving events revealing God's intervention and His coming into the sphere of human history, hence to have the character of historical events and of the Divine Act by which God saves.  God revealed himself in what He does, but to the philosopher of this world, it constitutes the scandal of particularity.

           

Paul's preaching in a nutshell:

*   Christ the Messiah died voluntarily on the Cross to bring to us the forgiveness of sins.  That He died constitutes an historical event and, that He died for our sins, constitutes it a saving event.   

"According to the Scripture."  This is the full guarantee that it is a saving event.  The death of Christ was no afterthought, but was the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.  It was the accomplishment of God's plan for man's salvation.  It was his obedience to the will of God that gave special significance to Messiah's death.

           

*   "He was buried." 15:4.  In the evangelical record of Jesus, the burial has a place.  It formed part of the testimony of apostolic preaching.  The mention of the burial emphasizes the reality of His death.  It testifies to the "body-character" of His resurrection, for the body of Jesus was buried, and that same body was raised.

           

*   "Hath been raised." R.V.  The perfect tense means He continues to be the risen and living Christ.  Glorious fact of our faith!

           

*  "The third day."  The Lord foretold this fact.  Death could not hold Him for a moment longer than He willed.  It suggests the completeness of His victory over death.  It was the working out of the Divine plan.  The third day was V.day. The third day is the day after tomorrow.  The tradition that Jesus was crucified on Friday is likely to be correct.

           

*  "According to the Scriptures."  This is affirmed of  Christ's death for our sins, and of His resurrection, and emphasizes the great significance of these two events.  The final verses of Isaiah 53; Psa.16; and 118 are important in respect to Christ's resurrection.  The Old Testament bears witness to Christ.  This function is the distinctive value of the Old Testament.  The important place that these Scriptures still hold in the Church is because of their abiding and integral witness to Christ.

             

Paul seems to say that the occurrence of the resurrection on the third day was a matter of prophecy.  He may have seen in Jonah a type of Christ.  Goudge points out that the number 3 is connected with revival and deliverance, e.g. Gen.40:20; 42:17,18; Hosea 6:2.

           

THE RESURRECTION AND CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE.  15:5-9.

           

The resurrection of Christ was certified by many witnesses.  The Lord appeared (R.V.) to numerous witnesses.  It is based on adequate testimony.  The testimony of this chapter is of great importance, for the epistle was written about 25 years after the resurrection of Jesus and Paul, the author, was converted about 4 years after the resurrection.  The epistle is the earliest written account we have of the appearances of the risen Lord to His disciples.

           

The epistle testifies that Jesus appeared to many and the resurrection was an accepted fact from the beginning.  It was central to their preaching and fundamental to their faith in Jesus as the Messiah.  It is impossible to think that it had anything else from the earliest preaching.  It had always been the fundamental conviction of the Church's faith.

Paul himself claimed to have seen Jesus, the risen Lord, and this conviction was central to his conversion.  The vision of the risen Lord was the occasion of his becoming a Christian but he was well aware that, before his conversion, the resurrection was the fundamental conviction of the Church.  There was nothing that the Church was more sure about than that Jesus had been raised and was now enthroned in Heaven.  This tremendous conviction conditioned all their thinking.  It became to them the central interpreting fact of the gospel.

           

15:5-7.  The appearance to Cephas (Peter).  See Luke 24:34.  Note also Mark 16:17. 

"The Twelve."  An official designation for the apostles, though only ten were present on this occasion.   

"Above 500 brethren."  There is no certain reference to this in the Gospels, but it may be the occasion of Matthew 28:16. 

 "James."  This James is almost certainly the Lord's brother. Gal.1:19.  He was converted and became a leader in the Palestinian Churches.   

"All the Apostles."  This may represent a larger circle than the twelve.

           

"Paul."  He is the last and final witness to the risen Lord.  Paul was born out of due time. `Ektroma' is, "an untimely birth" or a miscarriage.  It does not mean a late birth, though the contrast with other apostles might suggest this, but the point of contrast is not the time of conversion.  It is rather a term of contempt that his adversaries hurled at him, belittling his apostleship.  "By this so-called abortion" as his enemies sneered.  They called him a malformed apostle lacking the vitality of the real apostles. - Moffatt.

           

Paul gladly owned himself the least of the apostles, not because his conversion was irregular as his enemies said, but because he had persecuted the Church of God.  The remembrance of that evil course always awakened in him a feeling of penitence.  He thought of his apostolic calling with such humility, but for a different reason to those advanced by his opponent. To such who were ready to disparage his apostleship he replies that it was the grace of God that had called him to be an apostle and all that had been wrought in him was by God's free favour.

           

What if his conversion was irregular, an abortion?  It is what God's grace makes of a man that really counts.  Paul's labours were greater than all other apostles and this had not been done in his own strength, malformed as he was, but by the grace of God.  The abundance of his labours and the fruit attending them, was the best proof of God's grace working with him.  None could deny the success of his preaching.

           

15:11.  However, comparisons are odious, and Paul did not care for them.  The important thing was that Paul and the other apostles proclaimed the same message, and it was this same message that the Corinthians believed. There was no indecision in the Church as to the Gospel.

           

15:12-19.  He who denies the resurrection of the body is in peril of denying the resurrection of Christ.  This is the logical end of such unbelief, but the fact of Christ's resurrection is proof that there is such a thing as the resurrection of the body.  If there can be no such thing as the resurrection of the body, then Christ cannot have been raised.  Paul argues this kind of argument and insists that if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith also vain.  Furthermore, the apostles would be found (detected, exposed, found out), to be false witnesses for God.  The special testimony of the apostles was that God had raised up Christ.  Paul was confident of the truth of their testimony.  They were not lying witnesses for God.

           

15:16.  Paul reiterates his argument that if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.

           

15:17.  Paul continues to press his argument as to the centrality of the resurrection of Christ and its significance for the faith and hope of the Christian.  See also verses 18 and 19.

           

15:20-28.  The certainty of Christ's resurrection assures us concerning the resurrection of all who are Christ's.  The resurrection of Christ is the fundamental event in God's saving purpose.  It is of first importance for the working out of the Divine plan.

           

15:20.  A note of triumph, hope and gladness.  The figure of the firstfruits goes back to Lev.23:10-12.  A sheaf of barley was brought, waved before and dedicated to the Lord.  A peculiar feature of this ceremony was that it was performed on the day following the Sabbath.  The waving of the barley sheaf was a dedication of the entire harvest to God.  Likewise, there is an inseparable tie between Christ the firstfruit, and all his people.  His resurrection is the pledge and guarantee that all who sleep in Christ will rise.   It is not merely a proof that the dead can be raised, but the first stage in the Divine purpose of final victory over death.  Paul thinks of the totality of God's saving purpose in which the resurrection of Christ has a central place.

           

15:21-22.  A new argument, further illustrating the bond between Christ and all His people, so that His resurrection involves and necessitates theirs also.  The Lord's resurrection was necessary because of the Fall of Adam.  It was through Adam that death came into the world.  Therefore, it was necessary that Christ should die and rise again, for only by His resurrection could deliverance come to us.  The argument of this verse implies that Christ retained manhood in resurrection.  He did not lay manhood aside when taking His place in Heaven.  This point is vital to Paul's argument that through this man is the resurrection from the dead.  The Mediator is a man, the man Christ Jesus. See 1.Tim.2:5.

           

15:22.  Compare Romans 5:12.  Paul considers two heads and two humanities.  The one race derived from Adam and the other founded by Christ.  "So in Christ shall all be brought to life."  The context points exclusively to the Christian dead, such as have fallen asleep in Christ (v.18), they that are Christ's at His coming (v.23).  In Adam men are continually dying, but in Christ all who are united to Him as members of His body shall be made alive in the fullness of resurrection life at His coming.

           

15:23. Though believers are to be made alive in Christ they are not immediately raised up when they die, for there is a Divine order.  The ancient ceremony of the firstfruits illustrate this order.  Christ is the firstfruits in His resurrection, and His resurrection is the basic fact for all Paul has to say about the resurrection of the dead.  The next group consists of "those who belong to Christ."  N.E.B.  This is the harvest at the Coming (Parousia) of Christ.

           

15:24.  The End.  At the end, Christ shall hand over the Kingdom to His God and Father, after abolishing every foe.  The end arrives when He delivers up the Kingdom, for His work shall be fully accomplished.  Until that moment, Christ must Himself rule and wage ceaseless war with all that is opposed to the rule of God.  When He hands over the Kingdom to God it does not mean He shall cease to be King, but the great purpose of His mediatorial reign shall have achieved its goal.

           

Paul emphasizes the significance of the resurrection of the body in declaring the final enemy to be destroyed is death.  For death shall be completely deprived of its power.  It's sting shall be taken away forever, and the disastrous effects of the Fall shall be fully overcome.  The Creation itself shall rejoice in the manifestation of the sons of God.

           

15:28.  The purpose of the mediatorial work of Christ is to restore harmony in the Universe. To this end He must reign until He shall have brought all things into subjection to God and He shall lead the restored harmony by Himself becoming subordinate to God, that God may reign supreme over all.

           

15:29.  There is much diversity of interpretation of this verse.  It is folly to build a doctrine on a verse when the interpretation is uncertain.  This verse is not parallel with Rom.6.  Neither is the interpretation of St Parry satisfactory.  We think that of Joachim Jeremiahs the most likely.  That it refers to pagans who became baptized, that is, became Christians, with the purpose of becoming united with their deceased Christian relatives (or friends) at the resurrection.  For example, the Christian wife of a pagan husband dies and her death moves him to become a Christian and he is baptized.  Paul is asking the question here, and not making any new doctrine.  Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead, if the dead are not raised up at all? R.S.V.

           

15:30-32.  Paul is asking a question here, not using it figuratively.   He writes of the dangers that the apostles and missionaries had continually to face.  Their lives were constantly in peril.  Why were they prepared to face such dangers?  How useless would be their life of peril if there is no resurrection of the body.  As the servant of Christ, Paul's life was in hourly peril.  He could not carry out his task otherwise.  Therefore, he daily prepared himself for death.  How worthless all this was, if the Christian hope is unreal.

           

Paul was probably three years at Ephesus, but as Luke was not with him, then we have not a full account in Acts of his sojourn there.  But there are grounds for thinking that they were the most dangerous and difficult years of his career.  See 2.Cor.1:8-10.

           

15:32.  Paul was a Roman citizen, it was unlikely he fought with wild beasts in the arena; he is speaking figuratively.  He came into the hands of men as ferocious as savage beasts, and to have dealings with them was as perilous as to contend with lions in the arena.  "If as a mere man like other men, without these motives which fellowship with Christ inspires and having a hope better than other men, then it is no profit to me to be nearly torn to pieces by infuriated men.  The task of evangelism would not be worth the risk."

           

Men without hope lose moral incentive.  Life loses its meaning and the spirit of sacrifice fades.  The moral outlook becomes, "Let us eat and drink, for we shall be dead tomorrow."  Isa.22:13.  The thing that nerved Paul to such labours and perils was his unshakable conviction that Christ was risen and the Christian hope was no delusion.  It is obvious that, for Paul, there is no realisation of the Christian hope apart from the resurrection of the body.

           

15:33.  A citation from the Comedies of Menander.  "Evil communications corrupt good morals."   Teachers of morals in every age and realm have recognize the deteriorating influence of bad company on mens' characters.  Paul discerns that loose living and evil associations breed scepticism.  There was a moral link between their loose living and their denial of the resurrection of the body.  Paul may have had in view a group of loose-living libertines in the Church.  They must beware of such men.

           

15:34.  A practical exhortation.  "Rouse yourselves to what is fitting."  Moral sleep is perilous.  They must awake to soberness once and for all; live uprightly and not begin to sin by dallying with evil company.  They prided themselves in their knowledge and were self-styled Gnostics, but some were pitifully ignorant of God.  This lay at the root of their low standards, and their denial of the resurrection of the body. Matt.22:29.  The knowledge of God is always accompanied by moral discernment and power.

           

15:35.  Paul now begins the second half of his argument in which he discusses the distinctive character of the resurrection of the body.  The Greek ridiculed the resurrection, and thought it impossible that a body completely decayed should be raised.  They emphasized the impossibility of the thing.  Again to the Greek, it suggested a new prison for a human spirit.

           

15:36-38. Paul illustrates from agriculture the relationship of the resurrection body to our present mortal bodies.  The seed that is sown dies before it brings forth a new and greater organism.  The illustration would be apt to the ancient readers who conceived the burying or planting of the seed as death.  The main point is that there is a big difference between the seed sown and the plant that springs from the seed and yet there is a real identity.

           

To their question, "In what kind of body?"  Paul insists on continuity and identity.  The seed and the plant are not merely in some way related, but there is an organic identity.  This cannot be insisted upon too strongly.  However, the resurrection body is distinctly different.  The seed that is put in the earth is altogether different in appearance to the plant that grows from it.  The analogy of the grain points to the vast difference between the present body of flesh and the resurrection body which springs from it.

           

15:39-44.  The celestial bodies may refer to the sun, moon and stars (v.39-41).  Paul applies the analogy of the sowing to show in a fourfold way the nature and the superiority of the resurrection body.  The body that is sown in burial is set in contrast to the body that is raised.  We cannot think of the resurrection body in earthly categories, for its distinctive characteristics are incorruptible glory (as opposed to dishonour), full of power, a spiritual body.

           

The word "natural" is `psychikos' from `psuche', soul, the life-principle which animates our earthly bodies. Gen.2:7.  The natural body is suited for life on earth, but it is unfitted for life in heaven.  The spiritual body is the body fitted for life in the spirit.  Our present bodies are an impediment to spiritual life, but the spiritual body is the perfect organ for the fullness of the spiritual life.  There is an identity between our present bodies and the spiritual bodies of the resurrection, a oneness of entity, between our present bodies and the spiritual bodies of the resurrection.  A oneness of entity, yet gloriously distinct.

           

The spiritual body is not composed of bone, flesh and blood.  Hering suggests that the "inner man" is linked between the earthly and heavenly body.  See 2.Cor.4:16; Eph.3:16. But the spiritual body is not ghostly nor immaterial.  It is a real body, more real than the physical, for it is powerful and glorious.  It is not necessarily made of spirit, just as the natural (soulish) body is not composed of soul.

           

15:45.  Paul argues from the two Adams that there is a natural body and a spiritual body.  The Last Adam is a life-giving spirit, for He possesses, imparts life, and that life is of a spiritual order.  Adam is the first man, the founder and head of the human race.  Christ is the Last Adam.  The relationship of Christians to Christ is final and can never be superseded by any other.  There is no third race or humanity.

           

The Risen Lord has not laid aside His humanity, but is the Head of a new humanity that shares in the life He gives.  The resurrection manhood that is Christ's, is defined by the word spirit rather than flesh.  See Rom.1:4; 1.Tim.3:10; 1.Pet.3:18.  Observe how these two aspects are distinguished in Rom.1:3-4.  All those who receive His Spirit share in this new spiritual humanity, Rom.8:9.  The contrasts between the two Adams, more clearly shows the nature of the resurrection body than could be done by the analogy of the seed sown and springing up.

           

15:46-47.  The natural, though coming  first, is inferior.  The Divine order is manifested in the order in which the two Adams appeared. The first was earthy in origin and confined to earth, having the limitations belonging to his lowly origin.  The Second Man is from heaven, the Founder of a spiritual race, destined to live in heaven.  In this new and heavenly order, the earthly can have no part, for it is not constituted to share that which is spiritual and heavenly.  The spiritual body has an altogether different character from the natural and earthy.

           

15:50.  Paul now begins to discuss where and how living Christians shall fit into the order of things at Christ's coming.  Two groups are in view:

*   Flesh and blood, that in which Christians live when He, Christ comes.

*   Corruption, that is, the bodies of the deceased Christians.

           

"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God."  It is frequently argued that whilst this is true, yet flesh and bone can enter the Kingdom.  This distinction seems based on Luke 24:39.  But the discussion that is concluded by verse 50, suggests that the resurrection and the great change affected in the living, completely transforms the body.  See Phil.3:21.  The heavenly will be quite different to the earthly.  We can hardly describe the heavenly in earthly categories, whether flesh and blood or flesh and bone.  However, for a different emphasis see Dahl's exposition.  In verse 50 the words "Kingdom of God" is almost a synonym for heaven.  Our present bodies in their material natural state, could not inherit heaven nor the future Kingdom.  There must be a change.

15:51.  This passage discusses the great event, when the living shall  be changed and the dead raised.  This is the mystery of the great transformation.  New Testament mysteries are not riddles, they are revelations.

           

Not all Christians shall sleep, but they must be changed.  It is as imperative that the living Christians be changed, as it is for the dead to be raised.  It is not only the dead who shall be changed, but surviving Christians as well, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  Paul contemplates an inheritance that is in heaven.

           

The occasion of this great event is the Lord's Coming, as 1.Thess.4:13-18 makes clear.  It is at the sounding of the Last Trumpet, the proclamation of the coming and victory of Christ.  It is the final trump of victory, for the last trumpet shall gather all the redeemed.  It is the last trumpet, for they shall no more be scattered abroad.  The change shall take a moment. 

           

The word is `atmos', uncuttable.  An atom of time is a unit of time that cannot be cut or divided any more.  The dead shall be raised first, then the living shall be changed, that both groups may be caught up together as one group, to meet the Lord in the air.

           

15:53.  This corruptible (body in the grave); this mortal (body) subject to death and destined to die, shall be clothed upon with incorruptibility and immortality.

           

15:54.  At that great moment of triumph, the final victory over death is accomplished, for "death is swallowed up in victory."  It shall be for the believer the total extinction of death.  Isaiah 25:68.

           

15:55-56.  See Hosea 13:14.  Paul makes some alterations from the LXX.  `Kentron' or "sting " may figuratively express the sting of some creature or goad (spur) used to poke the donkey or ox to make them go.  See Acts 26:14.

           

The statement that "the strength of sin is the law" might suggest that the law is the strong arm that drives home the goad.  On the other hand, the background of Hosea 13:14, as well as the present context which thinks of victory over death's tyranny, suggests the figure of an animal with a sting.  A monstrous scorpion which stings its victim to death; that sting has been removed.

           

15:56.  See Rom.6:23.  Sin gives death its sting.  The Law is the power of sin, rather, than holiness. Rom.7:7-9.

           

15:57.  Thanksgiving to God. The prospect of victory provokes thanksgiving.  "Which giveth" - present tense. God is already giving us the victory over sin, law, and death.  The context points especially to victory over death, but sin, law and death have a close relationship as Rom.5-7 confirms.  Therefore, victory is to be understood in a comprehensive sense.  It is the fact of victory that is emphasized.

           

15:58.  The practical conclusion.  "Wherefore" - since we are confident of final victory.

           

 "My beloved brethren" - a word of affection and tenderness, which often moves people where elaborate arguments fail.

           

"Be ye" - become ye, show yourselves to be.

"Steadfast" - firm in the faith.

"Unmovable" - from your hope of glory; Col.1:23.

"Always abounding" - in the labour that springs from love. Christian steadfastness is not that kind which bogs down.  There must be sail as well as ballast.  Christianity is a thing to work at.

"Always" - not spasmodically, but continually. 

"For as much as ye know" - if Christ had not been raised there would be no incentive for Christian service.  The Christian hope inspires service.

"Labour" - the toil, difficult work, that love provokes. 

            "In vain" - without result or profit.  The service of Christ is rich in reward.