The New Testament with Commentary 1 Corinthians 15

About resurrection

A review

1 Now, brothers, I want to add information to the Gospel that I proclaimed to you, that you also received, and in which you stand; 2 through which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word that I proclaimed to you—unless you believed in vain.* 3 Because I transmitted to you at first that which I also received:† that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve.‡ 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, while some have fallen asleep.§ 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 And last of all He was seen by me also, like one born out of season. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy 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 toward me has not been in vain; in fact, I have worked harder than all of them—well, not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 So whether it was I or they, thus we preached and thus you believed.

Resurrection is a fact

12 Now if Christ is being proclaimed as having been raised from among the dead, how can some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is empty, and so is your faith! 15 Further, we are even discovered to be false witnesses of God, because we have testified about God that He raised the Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if no dead are raised, neither has Christ been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If it is only for this life that we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.*

The sequence of events

20 But indeed, Christ has been raised from the dead; He became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, resurrection of the dead also came through a man.† 22 For as all in Adam are dying, so also all in the Christ will be made alive.‡ 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at His coming; 24 then the end,§ when He hands over the Kingdom to the God and Father, whenever He puts an end to every ruler and all authority and power. 25 Because it is necessary that He reign until He has put all the enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.* 27 For “He has put all things under His feet.”† But when it says that all things have been subordinated, it is obvious that He who put all things under Him is excepted. 28 Now whenever all things have been subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

Consequences of denial

29 Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized in place of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, just why are they being baptized in the place of the dead?‡ 30 And why do we face danger every hour? 31 I die every day§—so I affirm by the boasting about you that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If I fought human ‘animals’ in Ephesus,* what did I gain? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”† 33 Stop kidding yourselves: evil associations corrupt good habits. 34 Sober up righteously, and stop sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.‡

A philosophical objection

35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 Ignorant, what you plant is not brought to life unless it dies. 37 And what you plant is a bare seed (perhaps of wheat or some one of the others); you do not plant the body that it will become. 38 But God gives it a body just as He determined, to each of the seeds its own body. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh: that of humans is one kind, and the flesh of animals is another,§ that of fish is another, that of birds is yet another. 40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is one, while that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one splendor of the sun, another splendor of the moon, and another splendor of the stars; and star differs from star in brightness.

42 The resurrection of the dead is like that: the body is ‘planted’ in deterioration and it is raised in incorruptibility; 43 it is ‘planted’ in dishonor and it is raised in glory; it is ‘planted’ in weakness and it is raised in power; 44 it is ‘planted’ a natural body and it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.*

45 So also it is written: “The first man, Adam, became a living being”;† the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, of soil; the second man was the Lord‡ from heaven. 48 As was the earth-man, just so are the earth-people; and as was the heaven-man, just so are the heaven-people. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earth-man, we should also bear the image of the heaven-man.§

Our turn is coming

50 Now this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither will deterioration inherit incorruptibility. 51 And now, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed 52 —in a split second, in an eye twinkle, at the last trumpet—the trumpet will blast and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 53 Because this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. 54 So whenever this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, then this written word will happen: “Death has been swallowed down into victory.”*

55 “Where, O Death, is your sting?

Where, O Hades, is your victory?”†

56 The stinger of death is sin, and the adjunct of sin is the law.

57 Now thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 So then, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

*15:2 Is this just a ‘scarecrow’?

†15:3 Received from whom? From God, either directly, or indirectly (through people like Peter).

‡15:5 Evidently ‘the Twelve’ became like a technical term to refer to the recognized group of apostles. When Jesus first appeared to that group during the evening of Resurrection Day, there were actually only ten present—the Iscariot was no longer a member and Thomas was absent.

§15:6 A euphemism for death used mainly of believers in the New Testament.

*15:19 We would be ‘pitiable’ because of contrast between reality and our expectations—our high hopes would be dashed; the higher the hopes, the greater the disappointment. The Christian lifestyle is the best available, even without a resurrection. Paul comes at the question from several angles precisely because the resurrection of Christ is the center piece of our faith. Without it there is no Gospel.

†15:21 Although Jesus was God, it was as a man that He defeated Satan.

‡15:22 Since all human beings are in Adam, all are dying; but it is only those who are in Christ who will be made alive.

§15:24 The ‘first’ resurrection refers to that of the saved (the ‘second’ being that of the lost), and apparently occurs in three stages: 1) Christ, the firstfruits, and those He took with Him at that time; 2) the Rapture; 3) after the Millennium.

*15:26 Death is definitely our enemy, having been introduced into human experience by sin.

†15:27 See Psalm 8:6.

‡15:29 To be ‘dead’, they were once alive, and will be judged on the basis of what they did while alive; once dead their account is closed. So Paul is here presumably referring to those who are replacing the dead in the ranks of believers by being baptized. If there is no resurrection, what is the point of doing so, especially if all you are going to get is persecution?

§15:31 Paul could not have been referring to actual physical death, obviously, since Hebrews 9:27 affirms that it is appointed to men to die only once (no reincarnation). He may well have faced possible death often enough, but I suppose he is referring to dying to himself, to his own ambitions, ideas and wishes, so as to embrace God's will.

*15:32 Many versions have Paul actually fighting wild animals, but had he done so as a punishment in an arena, he would have lost his Roman citizenship, which he claimed to have until the end. (And presumably the only place in the city of Ephesus where you could fight with wild animals would be in the arena.) The Text has ‘against man’, that the above mentioned versions give as ‘for human purposes’ or ‘in the manner of men’. But 16:9 refers to many adversaries in Ephesus, and if their tactics were especially nasty, Paul may have felt it appropriate to liken them to animals.

†15:32 See Isaiah 22:13.

‡15:34 Dear me, what is Paul saying? As long as anyone around us does not know about God, we should be ashamed. Since he speaks of ‘evil associations’ and ‘sobering up’, I suppose that they had not made a clean break with their surrounding culture, and their former associates were not seeing all that much difference in their lifestyle. A clean break would require an explanation.

§15:39 Human meat is not the same as animal meat!

*15:44 The spiritual body is still a body. Verses 42-44 are describing the saved, not the lost.

†15:45 See Genesis 2:7.

‡15:47 The eclectic Greek text currently in vogue omits ‘the Lord’ (following 2.4% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality); and so NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. do the same—now really, to omit ‘the Lord’ is clearly an inferior reading, and to do so on such slender evidence is irresponsible and reprehensible.

§15:49 Since both the Textus Receptus and the eclectic Greek text currently in vogue have the Indicative here (‘we will bear’), almost all versions so read. But over 80% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission, have the Subjunctive, which I have followed. It is not automatic; it is up to us.

*15:54 See Isaiah 25:8. This whole paragraph is addressed to “brothers” (verse 50).

†15:55 See Hosea 13:14. Hades is not the Lake of fire. Less than 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘death’, instead of “Hades”, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.