June 3, 2014 Corinthians I Chapter 15

First Corinthians Chapter 15

Originally posted Thursday July 24

First Corinthians Chapter 15:1-11 The Resurrection of Christ

The defining doctrine of the earliest forms of Christianity was the resurrection. Given the approximate latest date of 36 CE for Paul's conversion six years after Jesus' death, it is not unreasonable to conclude that belief in Christ's resurrection was essentially coincident with his death. As we will read in this chapter, there was more than one interpretation of the meaning and experience of Christ's resurrection. Just as it is with the cross, how one comes to accept Christ's resurrection as part of one's understanding of what it means to be a Christian is important, perhaps even a defining event.

Paul presents the resurrection tradition as received in his own experience and how he has interpreted it. There are three sections in his development: the resurrection of Christ; the general resurrection of all believers; and the form of the resurrected body. He is writing this extensive and detailed piece as an "apologetic," a defense of the necessity of belief in the resurrection. Apparently there are a number of Greek Christians in Corinth who have challenged or dismissed the possibility of resurrection, for Christ or anyone else. Paul will frame his main defense in the hope for eternal life. In chapter thirteen we read of hope as essential to a Christian's view of life in Christ, along with faith and especially love. Paul frames his argument with hope as the axis around which his premise turns.

The basics of the good news "handed on" to the Corinthians include the three necessary events that call Christianity into existence: Christ has died, Christ was buried, and Christ rose again, all according to Scripture (Isa. 53:5, 10; Ps. 2:7;Hos.6:2). The risen Christ appeared to Peter and all the apostles, to James, his brother, and to as many as five hundred believers, most of whom were still alive. Last of all he appeared to Paul. He uses the lateness of his own resurrection experience to insert some biographical observations of his own apostleship. He considers himself the least among the apostles, unfit to be one of their number because of his history as a persecutor of the earliest Christians in Jerusalem and Judea. It is by God's grace that he is an apostle and that grace has been with him as he has labored harder than the other apostles to prove his worth. Paul and others have proclaimed this same good news and through that good news "you have come to believe."

First Corinthians Chapter 15:12-34 The Resurrection of the Dead and Christ's Return

Paul responds to those "who say there is no resurrection of the dead" with the deductive reasoning addressing the "via negativa." If their understanding is correct then Christ, who was a human being, has not been raised by God. Paul's testimony could then be considered as misrepresenting God, crediting God with something God did not do. If God did not raise Christ then Paul's preaching is in vain and their faith is futile, for they are "still in [their] sins" and all believers who have died "in Christ" have perished. If it is true that there is no resurrection and Christ has not been raised, then it has been just for this life and not eternal life that they have hoped in Christ. If that is the case, they have wasted their time and energies, for Paul and they are "of all people most to be pitied."

Paul continues in something like a doxology, now taking the "via positiva" and testifying to his own experience of the risen Christ. He gives his first century apocalyptic view of the last day when Christ will return. Christ has been raised and as the first fruits laid upon the altar are holy so the whole batch of dough, those believers who have died in Christ, are sanctified. As death came into the world through Adam, so on the last day when Christ returns eternal life will come through Christ to "those who belong to Christ." Paul "sees" a process leading to the end of the old age and beginning of the new. All worldly rule, authority and power, satanic enemies in opposition to the reign of God, the last of which is death itself, will be subjected by God to Christ who will destroy them all. Then the kingdom will be handed over to God and Christ will be subject to God "so that God may be all in all."

Returning now to those who say there is no resurrection, Paul asks why then are they baptizing proxies on behalf of the dead? It is not clear what Paul has in mind. Are the dead loved ones who had not heard the Gospel? Had they heard the Gospel and were preparing to make their confession of faith? There is no hint of Paul's opposition to the practice and all we can do is speculate as to the reasons behind such baptisms. His point in asking is clear: to draw attention to the practice as a futile exercise if there is no resurrection of the dead. Reflecting on his own experience of living day to day in danger for his life, he asks what he has possibly gained by willingly enduring such violence arrayed against him for the sake of Christ if Christ and the believing dead are not raised. It would have been just as well had he followed the philosophy of Ecclesiastes (2:24, 3:13, 5:18, 8:15, 9:7). But those who say there is no resurrection and are led to misunderstand the freedom they have in Christ, and adopting a libertine life style should beware for "Bad company ruins good morals" (from a play by the 4th century BCE Athenian comic playwright Menander).

First Corinthians Chapter 15:35-58 The Resurrection Body

Paul has, to his satisfaction, answered those critics who say there is no resurrection. He has based his argument on his and many others' experiences of the risen Christ. He has even confronted them with their own practice of baptism on behalf of the dead. Now he can answer the questions others have asked concerning the form of the resurrected body. In doing so, Paul will establish a concept that differs from that of the Gospels. He will do so by using the analogy of various kinds of bodies and the seed as a metaphor for understanding what God provides in resurrection.

Against the naive view that the resurrected body will be as the earthly one, Paul uses the sowing of a seed analogy and immediately makes the point behind this entire passage: "what you sow does not come to life unless it dies." As with a seed, what comes from the ground, the seed's new "body," as given by God, will be quite different from the sown seed. There are many kinds of seeds and so many kinds of bodies. Not only of seeds, but humans, animals, birds and fish all have their own bodies. Even the objects of the heavens, the sun, moon and stars have differing bodies. So it is with the resurrected body. Death and burial is the sowing of a perishable body but it is raised as imperishable. The weak gives way to the powerful; the dishonorable to the honorable, the physical becomes the spiritual. Thusly there are two characteristic forms of the human body: the physical inherited from Adam who came from the earth, and the spiritual inherited from the resurrected Christ who comes from heaven.

Paul reduces his broad brush expression of the differences of forms among various kinds of bodies to the human. The metamorphosis from physical to spiritual is necessary because the physical body cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This is an important statement in that it clearly indicates Paul's view that the kingdom of God is spiritual and not physical. However, this does not necessarily lead to a conclusion in favor of a Kingdom in heaven rather than a transformed earthly kingdom as described in Rom. 8:20-21. Paul's view is very close to Jesus' statement to Pilate, "my kingdom is not from this world" (Jn. 18:36). John may also have in mind the transformation of the earth.

Paul leaves us with the mystery of transformation as the perishable physical body takes on the imperishable spiritual body. Not all will die but all will be changed. It is the change from the mortal to the immortal that allows Paul to sing his doxology and death is swallowed up in victory.