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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"><title>1 Corinthians 15 Pulpit Commentary</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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No human words ever written have brought such comfort to millions of mourners as the words of this chapter, which form a part of the Burial Service of almost every Christian community. It is the more deeply imprinted on the memory of men because it comes to us in the most solemn hours of bereavement, when we have most need of a living faith. The chapter falls into six sections. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">1.</span> The evidence of Christ's resurrection (vers. 1-11). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">2.</span> The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our faith in the general resurrection (vers. 12-19). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">3.</span> Results to be deduced from Christ's resurrection (vers. 20 - 28). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">4.</span> The life of believers an argument for the resurrection (vers. 29-34). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">5.</span> Analogies helpful for understanding the subject (vers. 35-49). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">6.</span> Conclusion and exhortation (vers. 50-58). <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 1-11.</span> - <span class="accented">The evidence of the resurrection of Christ.</span> <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 1.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Moreover</span>. The <span class="greek">δὲ</span> of the original merely marks the transition to a new topic. <span class="cmt_word">The gospel</span>. He here uses the word with special reference to the Resurrection, which is one of the most central and necessary doctrines of the "good tidings," and which always occupied a prominent place in St. Paul's preaching (<a href="/acts/17-18.htm">Acts 17:18</a>; <a href="/acts/23-6.htm">Acts 23:6</a>), as well as in that of all the apostles (<a href="/acts/1-22.htm">Acts 1:22</a>; <a href="/acts/4-2.htm">Acts 4:2</a>; <a href="/1_peter/3-21.htm">1 Peter 3:21</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Ye</span> <span class="cmt_word">have received;</span> rather, <span class="accented">ye received.</span> The "also" is emphatic. The Corinthians had not been like Christ's "own," who "received him not" (<a href="/john/1-11.htm">John 1:11</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-2.htm">1 Corinthians 15:2</a></div><div class="verse">By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 2.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">By which also ye are saved;</span> literally, <span class="accented">ye are being saved.</span> It is as if some surprise was expressed at the necessity for again making known to them a gospel which <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> he had preached and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> they also received; and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(3)</span> in which they now stood fast (<a href="/romans/5-2.htm">Romans 5:2</a>; <a href="/ephesians/6-13.htm">Ephesians 6:13</a>); and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(4)</span> by means of which they were now in a state of safety, they were of the class of <span class="accented">sozomenoi</span> (<a href="/acts/2-47.htm">Acts 2:47</a>). <span class="cmt_word">If ye keep in memory what I preached unto you.</span> The order, which is peculiar, is, "In what words I preached to you, if ye hold [it] fast." Possibly the "in what discourse" depends on "I make known to you." The duty of "holding fast" what they had heard is often impressed on the early converts (<a href="/1_corinthians/11-2.htm">1 Corinthians 11:2</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/6-10.htm">2 Corinthians 6:10</a>; <a href="/1_thessalonians/5-21.htm">1 Thessalonians 5:21</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-23.htm">Hebrews 10:23</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Ye have believed;</span> rather, <span class="accented">ye believed</span>; <span class="accented">i.e.</span> ye became believers. <span class="cmt_word">In vain</span>. The word may either mean "rashly," "without evidence," as in classical Greek; or "to no purpose," "without effect," as in <a href="/romans/13-4.htm">Romans 13:4</a>; <a href="/galatians/3-4.htm">Galatians 3:4</a>; <a href="/galatians/4-11.htm">Galatians 4:11</a>. In this case they would have received the seed in stony places (<a href="/matthew/13-21.htm">Matthew 13:21</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-3.htm">1 Corinthians 15:3</a></div><div class="verse">For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 3.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">First of all;</span> literally, <span class="accented">among the first things</span>; but this idiom means "first of all." It does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, but is found in <a href="/genesis/33-2.htm">Genesis 33:2</a>; <a href="/2_samuel/5-8.htm">2 Samuel 5:8</a> (LXX.). This testimony to the Resurrection is very remarkable, because: <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">1.</span> It is the completest summary. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">2.</span> It refers to some incidents which are not mentioned in the Gospels. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">3.</span> It declares that the death and resurrection of Christ were a subject of ancient prophecy. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">4.</span> It shows the force of the evidence on which the apostles relied and the number of living eye witnesses to whom they could appeal. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">5.</span> It is the <span class="accented">earliest</span> written testimony to the Resurrection; for it was penned within twenty-five years of the event itself. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">6.</span> It shows that the evidence for the Resurrection as a literal, historical, objective fact, was sufficient to convince the powerful intellect of a hostile contemporary observer. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">7.</span> It probably embodies, and became the model for, a part of the earliest Creed of the Church. <span class="cmt_word">For our sins;</span> literally, <span class="accented">on behalf of.</span> The passage is remarkable as the only one in which "on behalf of" is used with "sins" in St. Paul. In <a href="/1_corinthians/1-13.htm">1 Corinthians 1:13</a> we are told that he died" on behalf of us" (<a href="/romans/5-8.htm">Romans 5:8</a>; see <a href="/2_corinthians/5-21.htm">2 Corinthians 5:21</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-24.htm">1 Peter 2:24</a>). The expressions involve the image of Christ as a Sin Offering for the forgiveness of sins. <span class="cmt_word">According to the Scriptures.</span> The chief passages alluded to are doubtless <a href="/isaiah/53-5.htm">Isaiah 53:5, 8</a>; <a href="/daniel/9-26.htm">Daniel 9:26</a>; <a href="/psalms/22.htm">Psalm 22</a>; <a href="/zechariah/12-10.htm">Zechariah 12:10</a>; together with such types as the offering of Isaac (<a href="/genesis/22.htm">Genesis 22</a>.) and the Paschal lamb, etc. Our Lord had taught the apostles confidently to refer to the Messianic interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies (<a href="/luke/24-25.htm">Luke 24:25, 46</a>: <a href="/acts/8-35.htm">Acts 8:35</a>; <a href="/acts/17-3.htm">Acts 17:3</a>; <a href="/acts/26-22.htm">Acts 26:22, 23</a>; <a href="/john/2-22.htm">John 2:22</a>; <a href="/john/20-9.htm">John 20:9</a>; <a href="/1_peter/1-11.htm">1 Peter 1:11</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-4.htm">1 Corinthians 15:4</a></div><div class="verse">And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 4.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">And that he rose;</span> rather, <span class="accented">that he had been raised.</span> The burial was a single act; the Resurrection is permanent and eternal in its issues. <span class="cmt_word">According to the Scriptures</span> (<a href="/psalms/16-10.htm">Psalm 16:10</a>; <a href="/isaiah/53-10.htm">Isaiah 53:10</a>; <a href="/hosea/6-2.htm">Hosea 6:2</a>; <a href="/jonah/2-10.htm">Jonah 2:10</a>; comp. <a href="/matthew/12-40.htm">Matthew 12:40</a>; <a href="/matthew/16-4.htm">Matthew 16:4</a>; <a href="/acts/2-31.htm">Acts 2:31</a>; <a href="/acts/13-34.htm">Acts 13:34</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-5.htm">1 Corinthians 15:5</a></div><div class="verse">And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 5.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Was seen of Cephas</span> (<a href="/luke/24-34.htm">Luke 24:34</a>). The appearances to the women (<a href="/john/20-14.htm">John 20:14</a>, etc.) are omitted, as being evidential rather to the apostles than to the world. <span class="cmt_word">The twelve</span> (<a href="/john/20-19.htm">John 20:19, 26</a>). Some officious scribes have in some manuscripts altered the word into" the eleven." But "the twelve" is here the designation of <span class="accented">an office</span>, and great ancient writers are always indifferent to mere pragmatic accuracy in trifles which involve nothing. To witness to the Resurrection was a main function of "the twelve" (<a href="/acts/2-23.htm">Acts 2:23</a>; <a href="/acts/3-15.htm">Acts 3:15</a>; <a href="/acts/10-40.htm">Acts 10:40</a>, etc.). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-6.htm">1 Corinthians 15:6</a></div><div class="verse">After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 6.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Above five hundred brethren at once.</span> We cannot be certain whether this memorable appearance took place in Jerusalem or in Galilee. It is, however, most probable that this was the appearance on the mountain (<a href="/matthew/28-16.htm">Matthew 28:16, 17</a>; comp. <a href="/matthew/26-32.htm">Matthew 26:32</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Of whom the greater part remain unto this present.</span> This sentence - a confident contemporary appeal to a very large number of living witnesses, by one who would rather have died than lied - is of the highest evidential value. It shows that the Resurrection was not "a thing done in a corner "(<a href="/acts/26-26.htm">Acts 26:26</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Fallen asleep.</span> The beautiful and common word for death in the New Testament (<a href="/matthew/27-52.htm">Matthew 27:52</a>; <a href="/john/11-11.htm">John 11:11</a>; <a href="/acts/7-60.htm">Acts 7:60</a>, etc.). Hence the word "cemetery" - "a sleeping place." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-7.htm">1 Corinthians 15:7</a></div><div class="verse">After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 7.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Seen of James</span>. The "James" intended is undoubtedly the only James then living, who was known to the whole Christian Church, namely, "the Lord's brother," the author of the Epistle, and the Bishop of Jerusalem (<a href="/galatians/2-9.htm">Galatians 2:9</a>; <a href="/acts/15-13.htm">Acts 15:13</a>; <a href="/acts/21-18.htm">Acts 21:18</a>). James the son of Zebedee had by this time been martyred, and James the son of Alphaeus was never much more than a name to the Church in general. There is no mention of this appearance in the Gospel; but in the Gospel of the Hebrews was a curious legend (preserved in St. Jerome, 'De Virr. Illust.,' 2.) that James had made a vow that he would neither eat nor drink till he had seen Jesus risen from the dead, and that Jesus, appearing to him, said, "My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from the dead." The truth of the appearance is strongly supported by the fact that James, like the rest of the Lord's "brothers," "did not believe" in Christ before the Crucifixion, whereas <span class="accented">after the Resurrection</span> we find him and the rest of "the Lord's brothers" ardently convinced (<a href="/john/12-3.htm">John 12:3-5</a>; <a href="/acts/1-14.htm">Acts 1:14</a>; <a href="/acts/9-5.htm">Acts 9:5</a>, etc.). Of all the apostles (<a href="/acts/1-3.htm">Acts 1:3</a>; <a href="/luke/24-50.htm">Luke 24:50</a>). James the Lord's brother was only an apostle in the wider sense of the word. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-8.htm">1 Corinthians 15:8</a></div><div class="verse">And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 8.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">He was seen of me also.</span> The reference undoubtedly is to the vision on the road to Damascus (<a href="/acts/9-5.htm">Acts 9:5</a>; <a href="/acts/22-14.htm">Acts 22:14</a>; <a href="/acts/26-16.htm">Acts 26:16</a>). <span class="cmt_word">As of one born out of due time;</span> literally, <span class="accented">as to the abortive born.</span> The word means "the untimely fruit of a woman," a child born out of the due time or natural course; and hence "diminutive" and "weakly." The Greek <span class="accented">ektroma</span> is represented by the Latin <span class="accented">abortivus.</span> St. Paul, when he remembered the lateness of his conversion, and his past persecution of the saints, regards himself as standing in this relation to the twelve. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-9.htm">1 Corinthians 15:9</a></div><div class="verse">For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 9.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">For</span>. This and the next verse are an explanation of the strong and strange term which he had applied to himself. <span class="cmt_word">The least of the apostles.</span> In St. Paul there was a true and most deep humility, but no mock modesty. He knew the special gifts which he had received from God. He was well aware that to him had been entrusted the ten talents rather than the one talent. He could appeal to far vaster results than had been achieved by the work of any other apostle. He knew his own importance as "a chosen vessel," a special instrument in God's hands to work out exceptional results. But <span class="accented">in himself</span> he always felt, and did not shrink from confessing, that he was "nothing" (<a href="/2_corinthians/12-11.htm">2 Corinthians 12:11</a>). The notion that he here alludes to the meaning of his own name (<span class="accented">Paulus</span>, connected with <span class="greek">παῦρος</span>, <span class="greek">φαῦρος</span>, equivalent to "little") is very unlikely. In <a href="/ephesians/3-8.htm">Ephesians 3:8</a> he goes further, and calls himself "less than the least of all saints," though even there he claims to have been the special apostle of the Gentiles. <span class="cmt_word">Because I persecuted the Church of God.</span> This was the one sin for which, though he knew that God had forgiven him (<a href="/1_timothy/1-13.htm">1 Timothy 1:13</a>), yet he could never quite forgive himself (<a href="/galatians/1-13.htm">Galatians 1:13</a>). In my 'Life of St. Paul' I have shown from the language used, that this persecution was probably more deadly than has been usually supposed, involving not only torture, but actual bloodshed (<a href="/acts/8-4.htm">Acts 8:4</a>; <a href="/acts/9-1.htm">Acts 9:1</a>), besides the martyrdom of St. Stephen. We can imagine how such deeds and such scenes would, even after forgiveness, lie like sparks of fire in a sensitive conscience. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="accented">"Saints, did I say? with your remembered faces;<br />Dear men and women whom I sought and slew?<br />Oh, when I meet you in the heavenly places,<br />How will I weep to Stephen and to you!"</span> </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-10.htm">1 Corinthians 15:10</a></div><div class="verse">But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which <i>was bestowed</i> upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 10.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">By the grace of God I am.</span> what I am. And therefore he was "in nothing behind the very chiefest apostles." However humbly he thought of himself, it would have been mere unfaithfulness to disparage his own work (<a href="/2_corinthians/3-5.htm">2 Corinthians 3:5, 6</a>). I laboured more abundantly than they all. Because God wrought effectually in him (<a href="/galatians/2-8.htm">Galatians 2:8</a>). The word used for "labour" implies the extreme of toil (<a href="/matthew/6-28.htm">Matthew 6:28</a>: <a href="/philippians/2-16.htm">Philippians 2:16</a>), etc. But the grace of God. "It is God that worketh in you" (<a href="/philippians/2-13.htm">Philippians 2:13</a>; <a href="/matthew/10-20.htm">Matthew 10:20</a>; <a href="/colossians/1-29.htm">Colossians 1:29</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-11.htm">1 Corinthians 15:11</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore whether <i>it were</i> I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 11.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Whether it were I or they;</span> namely, who preached this gospel to you. It is not his <span class="accented">immediate</span> object to maintain his independent apostolic claims, but only to appeal to the fact of the Resurrection which was preached by all the apostles alike. <span class="cmt_word">So</span>. In accordance with the testimony just given (vers. 4-8). <span class="cmt_word">We preach.</span> There are in the New Testament two words for "preaching." One is often rendered "prophesy," and refers to spiritual instruction and exhortation. The other, which is used here, is "we proclaim," or "herald" (<span class="accented">kerusso</span>), and refers to the statement of the facts of the gospel - Christ crucified and risen (<a href="/1_corinthians/2-2.htm">1 Corinthians 2:2</a>; <a href="/acts/4-2.htm">Acts 4:2</a>; <a href="/acts/8-5.htm">Acts 8:5</a>). Besides these, there is the one word for "to preach the gospel," or "evangelize." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-12.htm">1 Corinthians 15:12</a></div><div class="verse">Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 12-19.</span> - <span class="accented">The resurrection of Christ is the basis of our faith in the general resurrection.</span> <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 12.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead.</span> St. Paul sees that if <span class="accented">One</span> has risen from the dead, the fact of that miracle, taken in connection with the rest of the gospel, furnishes Christians with a sufficient proof that they shall rise. "For," he had already said to the Thessalonians, "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" (see the same argument in <a href="/romans/8-11.htm">Romans 8:11</a>). <span class="cmt_word">That there is no resurrection of the dead.</span> These deniers of the resurrection are usually called "the Corinthian Sadducees." After the state of social and moral laxity of which we have been reading, we can scarcely be surprised at the existence of <span class="accented">any</span> disorder or anomaly in the Church of Corinth. Yet it comes with something of a shock on our paralyzed sense of astonishment to read that some of these Christians actually denied a resurrection! The fact at once proves two remarkable truths, namely, <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> that the early Christian Church had none of the ideal purity of doctrine which is sometimes ecclesiastically attributed to it; and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> that there was in the bosom of that Church a wide and most forbearing tolerance. We have no data to enable us to determine what were the influences which led to the denial of the resurrection. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">1.</span> They can hardly have been Jewish. The mass of Jews at this time shared the views of the Pharisees, who strongly maintained the resurrection (<a href="/acts/23-6.htm">Acts 23:6</a>). If they were Jews at all, they could only have been Sadducees or Essenes. But <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> the <span class="accented">Sadducees</span> were a small, wealthy, and mainly political sect, who had no religious influence, and can certainly have had no representatives at Corinth; and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> the <span class="accented">Essenes</span>, though they had considerable influence in Asia, do not seem to have established themselves in Greece, nor are we aware that they were hostile to the doctrine of the resurrection. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">2.</span> Probably, then, they were Gentiles. If so, they may have been <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> either <span class="accented">Epicureans</span>, who disbelieved in a future life altogether; or <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> <span class="accented">Stoics</span>, who held that the future life was only an impersonal absorption into the Divine. Both these schools of philosophers "jeered" at the very notion of a bodily resurrection (<a href="/acts/17-32.htm">Acts 17:32</a>). In <a href="/2_timothy/2-18.htm">2 Timothy 2:18</a> we read of some, like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who erred, saying "that the resurrection was past already." These teachers were incipient Gnostics, who <span class="accented">spiritualized</span> the resurrection, or rather said that the term was <span class="accented">only</span> applicable to the rising from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. The Corinthian doubters seem from the arguments which St. Paul addresses to them, to have been rather troubled with <span class="accented">material</span> doubts which they may have inherited from their Gentile training. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-13.htm">1 Corinthians 15:13</a></div><div class="verse">But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 13.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Then is Christ not risen.</span> If the possibility of a resurrection be <span class="accented">generically</span> denied, it cannot in any instance be true. Yet you admit as Christians that Christ rose! and his resurrection "has begotten us again to a lively hope" (<a href="/1_peter/1-3.htm">1 Peter 1:3</a>; see <a href="/2_corinthians/4-14.htm">2 Corinthians 4:14</a>; <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-14.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:14</a>; <a href="/john/14-19.htm">John 14:19</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-14.htm">1 Corinthians 15:14</a></div><div class="verse">And if Christ be not risen, then <i>is</i> our preaching vain, and your faith <i>is</i> also vain.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 14.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Vain</span>. You accepted our proclamation (<span class="accented">kerugma</span>), yet it would be utterly void if its central testimony was false. The word translated "then" has a sort of ironic force - "after all," or "it seems." The whole argument is at once an <span class="accented">argumentum ad hominem</span> and a <span class="accented">reductio ad absurdum. <span class="cmt_word"></span>Your faith is also vain.</span> For it would be faith in a crucified man, not in the risen Christ. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-15.htm">1 Corinthians 15:15</a></div><div class="verse">Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 15.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">We are found.</span> The word means, "we are proved to be," convicted of being false witnesses. <span class="cmt_word">False witnesses of God;</span> <span class="accented">i.e. concerning God.</span> St. Paul does not shrink from the issue. It is not one - it could not be one - between truth and <span class="accented">mistake</span>, but between truth and <span class="accented">falsehood.</span> We have testified of God that he raised up Christ; rather, <span class="accented">the Christ.</span> "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses" (<a href="/acts/2-32.htm">Acts 2:32</a>; <a href="/acts/4-33.htm">Acts 4:33</a>; <a href="/acts/13-30.htm">Acts 13:30</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-16.htm">1 Corinthians 15:16</a></div><div class="verse">For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 16.</span> - This verse is a repetition of Ver. 13, to emphasize the argument that the Christian faith in the Resurrection rests not on philosophic theory, but on an historic fact. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-17.htm">1 Corinthians 15:17</a></div><div class="verse">And if Christ be not raised, your faith <i>is</i> vain; ye are yet in your sins.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 17.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Vain</span>; rather, <span class="accented">frustrate.</span> The word used (<span class="accented">mataia</span>) is different from the word used (<span class="accented">kene</span>) in ver 14. <span class="cmt_word">Ye are yet in your sins.</span> Because a <span class="accented">dead</span> Redeemer could be <span class="accented">no</span> Redeemer. Christ's resurrection is the pledge of his Divine power. He was "raised for our justification" (<a href="/romans/4-25.htm">Romans 4:25</a>). It is only "as a Prince and Saviour" that "God hath exalted him to give repentance and forgiveness of sins" (<a href="/acts/5-31.htm">Acts 5:31</a>; <a href="/romans/5-10.htm">Romans 5:10</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-18.htm">1 Corinthians 15:18</a></div><div class="verse">Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 18.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Which are fallen asleep in Christ.</span> Christians whose bodies have sunk into the sleep of death. <span class="cmt_word">Are perished.</span> A notion which he feels that Christians must reject as utterly impossible. All that goodness, faith, tenderness, love, have not been dissolved to nothing. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-19.htm">1 Corinthians 15:19</a></div><div class="verse">If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 19.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">If in this life only we have hope in Christ.</span> The word to which "in Christ" should be joined is uncertain; the order st the original is, "If in this life in Christ we have hoped only." The "only" seems therefore to qualify the whole sentence: "If we have merely <span class="accented">hoped</span> in Christ, and that only in this life." <span class="cmt_word">We are of all men most miserable;</span> literally, <span class="accented">we are more pitiable than all men.</span> The remark only has an <span class="accented">absolute</span> bearing when Christians really are suffering from persecutions, as they did in St. Paul's day (<a href="/2_corinthians/1-5.htm">2 Corinthians 1:5</a>; <a href="/2_timothy/3-12.htm">2 Timothy 3:12</a>). But to some extent all Christians have to bear their cross, and if all that they give up and suffer is sacrificed to a delusion, they deserve most pity in one sense, because they have been most conspicuously befooled. In <span class="accented">another</span> sense they are still the happiest of men; for their delusion, judged by its fruits, is more blessed than the dreary blank which is the only alternative. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-20.htm">1 Corinthians 15:20</a></div><div class="verse">But now is Christ risen from the dead, <i>and</i> become the firstfruits of them that slept.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 20-28.</span> - <span class="accented">Results to be deduced from the fact of Christ's resurrection.</span> <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 20.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">But now.</span> Since the supposition that Christ has not risen involves so many suppositions which you will rightly reject as absurd, we may assume the eternal fact that Christ has been raised. <span class="cmt_word">And become the firstfruits of them that slept.</span> As the wave sheaf (<a href="/leviticus/23-10.htm">Leviticus 23:10</a>), which was the firstfruits of the harvest, is also a pledge of the harvest, so Christ is the firstfruits and pledge of the resurrection of all mankind. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-21.htm">1 Corinthians 15:21</a></div><div class="verse">For since by man <i>came</i> death, by man <i>came</i> also the resurrection of the dead.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 21.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">By man came death</span> (see <a href="/romans/5-12.htm">Romans 5:12, 17</a>; <a href="/romans/6-21.htm">Romans 6:21, 23</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-22.htm">1 Corinthians 15:22</a></div><div class="verse">For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 22.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">As in Adam all die.</span> All of us partake of Adam's nature, and are therefore liable to the death which that nature incurred as the law and condition of its humanity. <span class="cmt_word">In Christ shall all be made alive.</span> It is St. Paul's invariable habit to isolate his immediate subject; to think and to treat of one topic at a time. He is not here thinking directly and immediately of the resurrection in general. In this verse, writing to Christians who are "in Christ," he is only thinking and speaking of the resurrection of those who are "in Christ." That any can be <span class="accented">nominally</span> "in Christ," yet not <span class="accented">really</span> so, is a fact which is not at present under his cognizance; still less is he thinking of the world in general. In other words, he is here dealing with "the resurrection of life" alone, and not also with the "resurrection of judgment" (<a href="/john/5-26.htm">John 5:26-29</a>). Still, as far as his words alone are concerned, it is so impossible to understand the phrase, "shall all be made alive," of a resurrection to endless torments, that his language at least <span class="accented">suggests</span> the conclusion that "the principle which has come to actuality in Christ is of sufficient energy to quicken <span class="accented">all men</span> for the resurrection to the blessed life" (Baur, 'Life of St. Paul,' 2:219). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-23.htm">1 Corinthians 15:23</a></div><div class="verse">But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 23.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">In his own order.</span> The word in classic Greek means "a cohort." Here it must either mean "rank" or be used as in St. Clement ('Ad. Corinthians,' 1:37), in the sense of "order of succession." <span class="cmt_word">They that are Christ's.</span> "The dead in Christ" (<a href="/1_thessalonians/4-16.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:16</a>). <span class="cmt_word">At his coming.</span> The word here used for the second Advent is <span class="accented">Parousia</span>, which means literally, <span class="accented">presence.</span> It is implied (apparently) both here and in <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-15.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:15-17</a>; <a href="/revelation/20-5.htm">Revelation 20:5</a>, that there shall be an interval - how long or how short we do not know - between this resurrection of the just and the final resurrection. But all the details are left dim and vague. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-24.htm">1 Corinthians 15:24</a></div><div class="verse">Then <i>cometh</i> the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 24.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">The end.</span> That "end of all things," beyond which the vision of Christian eschatology does not look. <span class="cmt_word">When he shall have</span> <span class="cmt_word">delivered up the kingdom to God.</span> The "kingdom" delivered up is not that of the coequal Godhead, but the mediatorial kingdom. The Divine kingdom "shall have no end" (<a href="/luke/1-33.htm">Luke 1:33</a>, etc.), and "shall not pass away" (<a href="/daniel/7-13.htm">Daniel 7:13</a>). But the mediatorial kingdom shall end in completion when the redemptive act has achieved its final end. <span class="cmt_word">When he shall have put down;</span> rather, <span class="accented">shall have annulled</span> or <span class="accented">abolished.<span class="cmt_word"></span> All rule.</span> Because then "the kingdoms of the world" shall all "have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ" (<a href="/revelation/11-15.htm">Revelation 11:15</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-25.htm">1 Corinthians 15:25</a></div><div class="verse">For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 25.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">He must reign.</span> He must reign in his mediatorial kingdom as the God Man. <span class="cmt_word">He hath put.</span> The "he" probably means Christ himself (comp. <a href="/psalms/2-9.htm">Psalm 2:9</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-13.htm">Hebrews 10:13</a>), though it makes no real difference in the sense if we understand it of God, as in <a href="/psalms/110-1.htm">Psalm 110:1</a>. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-26.htm">1 Corinthians 15:26</a></div><div class="verse">The last enemy <i>that</i> shall be destroyed <i>is</i> death.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 26.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.</span> This rendering might imply that other enemies should still exist, though Death should be the last who would be destroyed. The original is more forcible, and implies, "Last of enemies doomed to annulment is Death;" or, as in Tyndale's version, "Lastly, Death the enemy shall be destroyed;" or, as in the Rhemish Version, "And at the last, Death the enemy scal be distried." The present, "is being annulled," is the <span class="accented">praesens futurascens</span>, or the present of which the accomplishment is regarded as already begun and continuing by an inevitable law. Death and Hades and the devil, "who hath the power of death," are all doomed to abolition (<a href="/2_timothy/1-10.htm">2 Timothy 1:10</a>; <a href="/hebrews/2-14.htm">Hebrews 2:14</a>; <a href="/revelation/20-14.htm">Revelation 20:14</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-27.htm">1 Corinthians 15:27</a></div><div class="verse">For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under <i>him, it is</i> manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 27.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">But when he saith.</span> The "he" refers to God. This indirect method of quotation is common in the rabbis. The reference is to <a href="/psalms/8-7.htm">Psalm 8:7</a> (LXX.), and the words, spoken of man in general, are here Messianically transferred to the federal Head of humanity, the ideal and perfect God Man, Jesus Christ. (For the fuller explanation of the matter, see <a href="/hebrews/2-5.htm">Hebrews 2:5-10</a>.) <span class="cmt_word">He is excepted, which did put all things under him.</span> So our Lord says, "All things are delivered unto me <span class="accented">of my Father"</span> (<a href="/matthew/11-7.htm">Matthew 11:7</a>). The universal dominion of Christ is also insisted on in <a href="/ephesians/1-20.htm">Ephesians 1:20-22</a>; <a href="/1_peter/3-22.htm">1 Peter 3:22</a>. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-28.htm">1 Corinthians 15:28</a></div><div class="verse">And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 28.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Then shall the Son also</span> <span class="cmt_word">himself be subject,</span> etc. The words can only be taken as they stand. The attempts to explain them have usually been nothing but ingenious methods of explaining them away. Of these the one usually adopted by the Fathers is the limitation of the statement to Christ's human nature (<a href="/john/5-26.htm">John 5:26, 27, 30</a>) and mediatorial kingdom, just as we find in <a href="/1_corinthians/11-3.htm">1 Corinthians 11:3</a>. The head of Christ is God." We can easily "darken counsel by words without knowledge" in dealing with this subject, and hide an absolute ignorance under a semblance of knowledge; but anything and everything which we can say in "explanation" of this self subjection of the Son to the Father is simply involved in the words which follow. <span class="cmt_word">That God may be all in all.</span> "All things in all things" or "all things in all men." The words involve a complete and absolute supremacy. It is quite an easy matter for commentators to say that the scope of the words "must be confined to believers," if they chose to make "all" mean "some." Such methods often lead to an irreligious religionism and a heterodox orthodoxy. The reader will find the same phrase in <a href="/colossians/3-11.htm">Colossians 3:11</a>. I confine myself to the comment of the profound and saintly Bengel: "There is implied something new, but also supreme and eternal. All things, and therefore all men, without any interruption, no created thing claiming a place, no enemy creating opposition, shall be subordinated to the Son, the Son to the Father. All things shall say, 'God is all things to me.' This is the consummation; this the end and summit. Further than this not even an apostle can go." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-29.htm">1 Corinthians 15:29</a></div><div class="verse">Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 29-34.</span> - <span class="accented">Arguments from the practices and lives of Christians.</span> The three arguments used in these verses are: If there be no resurrection: <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">1.</span> Why do some of you get yourselves baptized on behalf of your dead friends? <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">2.</span> Why do we face lives of daily peril? <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="Text_Heading">3.</span> How would it be otherwise possible to resist Epicurean views of life? <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 29.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead,</span> etc.? This clause can have but one meaning, and that its obvious one, namely, that, among the many strange opinions and practices which then prevailed, was one which was entirely un-warranted-but which St. Paul does not here stop to examine - of persons getting themselves baptized as it were by <span class="accented">proxy</span> for others who had died. Doubtless some of the deaths alluded to in <a href="/1_corinthians/11-30.htm">1 Corinthians 11:30</a> had happened to persons who had been cut off before they were actually baptized; and their friends had as it were gone through the rite <span class="accented">in their stead</span>, in the hope of extending to them some of its benefits. It is argued that St. Paul could not possibly mention such a practice without reprobation; but that is an <span class="accented">a priori</span> assumption not warranted by St. Paul's methods (see <a href="/1_corinthians/10-8.htm">1 Corinthians 10:8</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/11-6.htm">1 Corinthians 11:6</a>). He always confines his attention to the question immediately before him, and his present object is merely to urge a passing <span class="accented">argumentum ad hominem.</span> There is nothing at all surprising in the existence of such an abuse in the medley of wild opinions and wild practices observable in this disorganized Church. It accords with the known tendency of later times to postpone baptism, as a rite which was supposed to work as a charm. We also find that the actual practice of baptism on behalf of the dead lingered on among Corinthians (Epiph., 'Haer.,' 28:7) and Marcionites (Tertullian, 'De Resurrect.,' 48; 'Adv. Marc.,' 5:10). Tertullian accepts the words in their obvious sense in his 'De Praeser. Haer.,' 48, but accepts the absurdity of "the dead" meaning "the body" ("pro mortuis tingui est pro corporibus tingui") in his book against Marcion (5:10). St. Chrysostom tells us further that the proxy who was to be baptized used to be concealed under the bier of the dead man, who was supposed to answer in his name that he desired to be baptized. How perfectly natural the custom was may be seen from the fact that among the Jews also a man dying under ceremonial pollution was cleansed by proxy. The "interpretations" of this verse are so numerous that it is not even possible to give a catalogue of them. Many of them are not worth recording, and are only worth alluding to at all as specimens of the wilful bias which goes to Scripture, not to seek truth, but to support tradition. They are mostly futile and fantastic, because they pervert the plain meaning of the plain words. It is a waste of time and space to give perpetuity to baseless fancies. Such are the notions that "for the dead" can mean "for our mortal bodies" (Chrysostom); or "for those about to die" (Estius, Calvin, etc.); or "over (the sepulchres of) the dead" (Luther); or "to supply the vacancies left by the dead" (Le Clerc, etc.). Equally unwarrantable are the "explanations" (?) which make those who are being "baptized" mean those who are "passing through a baptism of suffering" (!). Not a single argument which is worth a moment's consideration can be urged in favour of any one of these, or scores of similar views. If we are to get rid of everything that is surprising on the ground that it is "immensely improbable," we may as well discard Scripture at once, and reconstruct early Christian history out of our own consciousness. It has been very usual to represent it as we think that it ought to have been, and not as it was. The disuse of this vicarious baptism among orthodox Christians may have been due to the discouragement of it by St. Paul when he went to Corinth, and "set in order" various erroneous customs (<a href="/1_corinthians/11-34.htm">1 Corinthians 11:34</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-30.htm">1 Corinthians 15:30</a></div><div class="verse">And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 30.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?</span> The verb means "Why do we incur peril?" The best comment on it will be found in <a href="/2_corinthians/11-26.htm">2 Corinthians 11:26</a>. Cicero says ('Tusc. Disp.,' 1:15) that "no one would be so mad as to live in labour and perils if our instinctive anticipation of future life were taken away." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-31.htm">1 Corinthians 15:31</a></div><div class="verse">I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 31.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">I protest</span>. The particle of adjuration here used (<span class="greek">νὴ</span>) is found nowhere else in the New Testament. <span class="cmt_word">By your rejoicing.</span> This is an erroneous translation. The words mean "by my glorying in you." St. Paul's one subject of earthly glory, his "hope, and joy, and crown of rejoicing," was the conversion of Churches (<a href="/romans/15-16.htm">Romans 15:16, 17</a>). <span class="cmt_word">In Christ Jesus our Lord.</span> His boasting was not a worldly boasting, but was sanctifled by its reference to the work of Christ. <span class="cmt_word">I die daily.</span> St. Paul "died daily" a double death - the ever deepening death unto sin and unto the world; and the daily death of sufferings borne for Christ's sake (see <a href="/2_corinthians/4-10.htm">2 Corinthians 4:10, 11</a>). It is the latter to which he here alludes. "For thy sake are we killed all the day long" (<a href="/romans/8-36.htm">Romans 8:36</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-32.htm">1 Corinthians 15:32</a></div><div class="verse">If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 32.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">After the manner of men.</span> The phrase is a qualification of the strong metaphor, "I fought with beasts." It is equivalent to "humanly speaking." This is Chrysostom's view. It is the most reasonable, and accords with the use of the phrase in <a href="/romans/3-5.htm">Romans 3:5</a>; <a href="/galatians/3-15.htm">Galatians 3:15</a>. Meyer, however, explains it to mean "with mere human motives." <span class="cmt_word">I have fought with beasts.</span> Not literally, for in that case he would have mentioned it in <a href="/2_corinthians/11.htm">2 Corinthians 11</a>. as one of his deadliest perils, and it must have been recorded by St. Luke in his full account of St. Paul's life at Ephesus. A Roman citizen was legally exempt from this mode of punishment. The word points to some special peril incurred in resisting the hostility of the worshippers of Artemis (<a href="/acts/20-19.htm">Acts 20:19</a>), but not to the tumult in the theatre, which did not happen till after this letter was despatched (<a href="/1_corinthians/16-8.htm">1 Corinthians 16:8, 9</a>). The metaphor is not uncommon. Thus in <a href="/2_timothy/4-17.htm">2 Timothy 4:17</a> St. Paul alludes to Nero (probably) as "the lion." David often compares his enemies to wild beasts (<a href="/psalms/22-21.htm">Psalm 22:21</a>, etc.). When his jailor informed Agrippa of the death of Tiberius, he did so in the words, "The lion is dead." St. Ignatius writes of the ten soldiers who were conducting him to Rome as "ten leopards." Epimenides, in the line quoted by St. Paul in <a href="/titus/1-12.htm">Titus 1:12</a>, spoke of the Cretans as "evil wild beasts," and the pseudo-Heraclitus gives this same uncomplimentary title to these very Ephesians. <span class="cmt_word">Let as eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.</span> Perhaps the "if the dead are not raised" belongs to this clause. He means that such an Epicurean maxim, if never <span class="accented">excusable</span>, would at least be <span class="accented">natural</span>, if men could only look to life in the present. The sentiment is found on the lips of the despairing and the sensual alike in <a href="/isaiah/22-13.htm">Isaiah 22:13</a>, and in the writings of the heathen (Horace, 'Od.,' 1:4, 13-17, etc.). St. Paul would be all the more familiar with it because it formed the infamous epitaph of a statue of Sardauapalus, which he must have often seen in his boyhood at Anchiale, near Tarsus. It represented the debased king as snapping his fingers, and using almost these very words. It is strange that similar passages should be found even in the Talmud. Shemuel said to Rav Yehudah, "Seize and eat, seize and drink; for the world is like a wedding feast (soon over)" ('Eiruvin,' fol. 54, 1). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-33.htm">1 Corinthians 15:33</a></div><div class="verse">Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 33.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Be</span> <span class="cmt_word">net deceived.</span> Do not be led astray by such specious maxims. They can only arise from that too great familiarity with the heathen against which I have already put you on your guard. <span class="cmt_word">Evil communications corrupt good manners.</span> An iambic line from the 'Thais' of Menander, and perhaps taken by Menander from a play of Euripides. More accurately it means "evil associations corrupt excellent morals." According to the best reading (<span class="greek">χρηστὰ</span>, not <span class="greek">χρησθ</span>), St. Paul does not quote it as an iambic, and in itself it does not offer the least shadow of proof that St. Paul was familiar with classic literature. It is just such a line as he might have seen carved on the Hermae of any Greek town, or preserved in any chrestomathy or gnomology which may have chanced to pass through his hands. His other classic quotations (from Epimenides, <a href="/titus/1-12.htm">Titus 1:12</a>; and Aratus or Cleanthes, <a href="/acts/17-28.htm">Acts 17:28</a>) are of the same common and proverbial character. It is very unlikely that he would have deliberately quoted from the immoral play of a corrupt comedian like Menander. (For the sentiment, see <a href="/2_timothy/2-16.htm">2 Timothy 2:16-18</a>.) </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-34.htm">1 Corinthians 15:34</a></div><div class="verse">Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak <i>this</i> to your shame.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 34.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Awake to righteousness.</span> The word rendered "awake" means "awake at once from a drunken sleep." This verb does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The word rendered "awake" in <a href="/ephesians/5-14.htm">Ephesians 5:14</a> and <a href="/romans/13-11.htm">Romans 13:11</a> is a different one. The metaphor, however, occurs in the simple verb in <a href="/1_thessalonians/5-6.htm">1 Thessalonians 5:6, 8</a>; <a href="/2_timothy/4-5.htm">2 Timothy 4:5</a>; <a href="/1_peter/5-8.htm">1 Peter 5:8</a>, etc. The word rendered "to righteousness" is literally an adverb, <span class="accented">righteously.</span> It may mean "as is fit." <span class="cmt_word">And sin not.</span> Here the present tense, "be not sinning," is contrasted with the instantaneous aorist, "awake." <span class="cmt_word">Have not the knowledge.</span> The original is stronger, "have an ignorance." They have not a vacuum of nescience, but a <span class="accented">plenuum</span> of ignorance. <span class="cmt_word">I speak this to your shame;</span> rather, <span class="accented">I am speaking to shame you.</span> The object of all I am saying is to excite your shame - not, as in some previous instances, "to spare you." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-35.htm">1 Corinthians 15:35</a></div><div class="verse">But some <i>man</i> will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 35-49.</span> - <span class="accented">Material objections answered.</span> <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 35.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">But some man will say.</span> The objection is that of some philosophical materialist. The resurrection of the <span class="accented">body</span> was a difficulty alike to Sadducees and Gentiles. St. Paul meets this difficulty by natural analogies, which are intended to show that the resurrection body, though identical with the mortal body so far as the preservation of personal identity is concerned, is yet a glorified body, so that the objections urged on the ground that it is impossible to preserve the same material particles which have passed into dust, are beside the mark. St. Paul gives no sanction to the coarse physical conceptions of the resurrection which described the human being as rising (to use the words of the Christian poet Prudentius) "with every tooth and every nail." <span class="cmt_word">How are</span> <span class="cmt_word">the dead raised up?</span> This question is one which, of course, admits of no answer. <span class="cmt_word">And with what body do they come?</span> literally, <span class="accented">with what kind of body?</span> St. Paul, while he only answers the question indirectly and <span class="accented">by analogy</span>, implies that the resurrection body is the same body, not so much by way of material identity as of glorified individuality. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-36.htm">1 Corinthians 15:36</a></div><div class="verse"><i>Thou</i> fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 36.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Thou fool.</span> The expression is too strong, and it is unfortunate that in English it seems to run contrary to the distinct censure of such language by our Lord. But here the Greek word is <span class="accented">aphron</span>, "O unreasonable!" (the nominative is used for the vocative); Vulgate, <span class="accented">insipiens</span>; Wickliffe, "unwise man." It is merely a reproach for neglecting to exercise the understanding. The word "fool!" (<span class="accented">more</span>) forbidden by our Lord (<a href="/matthew/5-22.htm">Matthew 5:22</a>) has quite a different meaning, and implies quite a different tone. It involves moral depravity or obstinacy (<a href="/matthew/7-26.htm">Matthew 7:26</a>; <a href="/matthew/23-17.htm">Matthew 23:17</a>, etc.). The milder <span class="accented">aphron</span> is used in <a href="/2_corinthians/11-16.htm">2 Corinthians 11:16, 19</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/12-11.htm">2 Corinthians 12:11</a>; <a href="/ephesians/5-17.htm">Ephesians 5:17</a>; and by our Lord himself. <span class="cmt_word">That which thou sowest.</span> The "thou" is emphatic. It merely means "Even the analogy of human sowing ought to remove thy difficulty." The growth of the seed shows that there may be personal identity under a complete change of material conditions. Is not quickened, except it die. The metaphor is used by our Lord (<a href="/john/12-24.htm">John 12:24</a>, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit"). It is also found in the Talmud. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-37.htm">1 Corinthians 15:37</a></div><div class="verse">And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other <i>grain</i>:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 37.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Not that body that shall be.</span> This deep remark should have checked the idly and offensively materialistic form in which the doctrine of the resurrection is often taught. <span class="cmt_word">But bare grain.</span> Wickliffe, "a naked corne." In this passage, almost alone in all his Epistles, St. Paul, who does not seem to have been at all a close observer of external phenomena, uses metaphors drawn from natural life. His usual metaphors are chiefly architectural and agonistic - derived, that is, from buildings and games. That he was not a student of nature arose, no doubt, partly kern his Semitic cast of mind, but chiefly from his being short sighted, and from his having spent most of his early life in large cities. <span class="cmt_word">It may chance;</span> <span class="accented">if it so happen</span>, (see note on 1 Corinthians 14:10). The English word "chance" occurs but four times in the whole Bible (<a href="/1_samuel/6-9.htm">1 Samuel 6:9</a>; <a href="/ecclesiastes/9-11.htm">Ecclesiastes 9:11</a>). In <a href="/luke/10-31.htm">Luke 10:31</a> the words rendered "by chance" mean rather "by coincidence." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-38.htm">1 Corinthians 15:38</a></div><div class="verse">But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 38.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">But God giveth it a body.</span> The material body of each living organism results from those laws of assimilation which God has made a part of His secret of life. They are not the life, only the instrument and expression and manifestation of the life. The "life" is the individual identity. The life of Hamlet is not in its essence the physical life of "the machine which is to him Hamlet," but the spiritual life which is <span class="accented">linked</span> on earth to that perpetual flux of material particles which we call the body, but is independent of those particles. <span class="cmt_word">As it hath pleased him;</span> literally, <span class="accented">as</span> <span class="accented">he willed.</span> And in the word "as" lies the scope for all theories about the part played by what are called "natural laws." Their action is a part of God's will. To every seed his own body. Each of the seeds sown is provided with a body of its own, which is not identical with the seed, but results from the germ of life in the seed. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-39.htm">1 Corinthians 15:39</a></div><div class="verse">All flesh <i>is</i> not the same flesh: but <i>there is</i> one <i>kind of</i> flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, <i>and</i> another of birds.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 39.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">All flesh is not the same flesh.</span> In other words, animal organisms differ from each other, just as do the vegetable. <span class="cmt_word">Another... of beasts.</span> "The germinal power of the plant transmutes the fixed air and the elementary base of water into grass or leaves, and on these the organic principle in the ox or the elephant exercises an alchemy still more stupendous. As the unseen agency weaves its magic eddies, the foliage becomes indifferently the bone and its marrow, the pulpy brain and the solid ivory. That which you see is blood, is flesh, is itself the work, or shall I say the translucence of the invisible energy which soon surrenders or abandons them to inferior powers (for there is no pause nor chasm in the activities of nature) which repeat a similar metamorphosis according to their kind: these are not fancies, conjectures, or even hypotheses, but facts" (Coleridge, 'Aids to Reflection '). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-40.htm">1 Corinthians 15:40</a></div><div class="verse"><i>There are</i> also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial <i>is</i> one, and the <i>glory</i> of the terrestrial <i>is</i> another.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 40.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial</span>. The words are often misunderstood. The "celestial bodies" are not the sun, moon, and stars of the next verse - for that would be a false antithesis to "bodies terrestrial" - but bodies (or organisms) which belong to heavenly beings, such as the resurrection body of our Lord and of glorified saints, or even in some sense of angels (<a href="/matthew/22-30.htm">Matthew 22:30</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-41.htm">1 Corinthians 15:41</a></div><div class="verse"><i>There is</i> one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for <i>one</i> star differeth from <i>another</i> star in glory.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 41.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">There is one glory of the sun.</span> "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun" (<a href="/matthew/13-43.htm">Matthew 13:43</a>). The point of the illustration is the difference between the earthly and the resurrection body; not the supposed differences between the saints themselves in glory. <span class="accented">This</span> is not a question under consideration, and St. Paul, as we have seen, is not in the habit of mixing up half a dozen different questions in the same immediate argument. St. Augustine says of the saints, "Their splendour is unequal; their heaven is one." This may be very true, but to deduce it from this verse is to press into the argument an illustration used for another purpose. Tertullian's comment is very unhappy. He makes "men" mean servants of God; "beasts," Gentiles; "birds," martyrs; "fishes,<span class="accented">" those who have been baptized</span>; the "sun," <span class="accented">Christ</span>; the "moon," the <span class="accented">Church</span>, etc. <span class="cmt_word">One star differeth from another star in glory.</span> All the righteous shall shine as "the brightness of the firmament and ... as the stars forever and ever" (<a href="/daniel/12-3.htm">Daniel 12:3</a>), and their future bodies shall differ from their present, as one star differs from another. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-42.htm">1 Corinthians 15:42</a></div><div class="verse">So also <i>is</i> the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 42.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">So also is the resurrection of the dead.</span> In like manner the dead, when raised, shall have bodies which differ from their body of humiliation (<a href="/philippians/3-21.htm">Philippians 3:21</a>). <span class="cmt_word">It is sown in corruption.</span> "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (<a href="/genesis/3-19.htm">Genesis 3:19</a>). It is raised in incorruption. The word means strictly, "incorruptibility." The resurrection body will not be subjected to earthly conditions (<a href="/luke/20-35.htm">Luke 20:35, 36</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-43.htm">1 Corinthians 15:43</a></div><div class="verse">It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 43.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">It is sown in dishonour.</span> "The awful and intolerable indignity of dust to dust." <span class="cmt_word">In glory.</span> "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with silver wings, and her feathers like gold" (<a href="/psalms/68-13.htm">Psalm 68:13</a>). The expression shows that, throughout, St. Paul is thinking exclusively of the resurrection <span class="accented">of the saints.</span> </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-44.htm">1 Corinthians 15:44</a></div><div class="verse">It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 44.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">A natural body.</span> The adjective is the word <span class="greek">ψυχικόν</span>, which is so difficult to translate; it means a body only animated by the <span class="accented">psyche</span>, or natural life. The word is sometimes in our Authorized Version rendered "carnal." <span class="cmt_word">A spiritual body.</span> The apparent contradiction in terms is inevitable. The thing meant is a body which is not under the sway of corporeal desires or of intellectual and passionate impulses, but is wholly dominated by the Spirit, and therefore has no desire or capacity to fulfil the lusts of the flesh. There is. The better supported reading (<span class="hebrew">א</span>, A, B, C, D, F, G), is, <span class="accented">if there is a natural body</span>, etc. The existence of the one is no more impossible than the existence of the other. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-45.htm">1 Corinthians 15:45</a></div><div class="verse">And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam <i>was made</i> a quickening spirit.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 45.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">The first man Adam was made a living soul</span> (<a href="/genesis/2-7.htm">Genesis 2:7</a>). <span class="cmt_word">The last Adam.</span> A rabbinic expression also for the Messiah. <span class="cmt_word">A quickening Spirit.</span> "The Son quickeneth whom he will" (<a href="/john/5-21.htm">John 5:21</a>; comp. 6:23). The best comment on the expression will be found in <a href="/romans/8-2.htm">Romans 8:2, 11</a>. Christ is "a quickening," <span class="accented">i.e.</span> a life giving, "Spirit," here mainly in the sense that we shall only be raised by "the power of his resurrection" (<a href="/john/5-24.htm">John 5:24, 25</a>), but also in the sense that his Spirit dwelleth in us, and is our true Life. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-46.htm">1 Corinthians 15:46</a></div><div class="verse">Howbeit that <i>was</i> not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 46.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">That was not first which is spiritual.</span> The imperfect precedes the perfect. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-47.htm">1 Corinthians 15:47</a></div><div class="verse">The first man <i>is</i> of the earth, earthy: the second man <i>is</i> the Lord from heaven.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 47.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Earthy</span>. Made of" the dust of the ground" (<a href="/genesis/2-7.htm">Genesis 2:7</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Is the Lord from heaven.</span> The words "the Lord" are a gloss, not found in <span class="hebrew">א</span>, B, C, D, E, F, G. The verse remarkably resembles <a href="/john/3-31.htm">John 3:31</a>, and probably oral reminiscences of our Lord's discourses were current among the apostles long before the Gospels were written. Tertullian attributes the insertion of "the Lord" to Marcion. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-48.htm">1 Corinthians 15:48</a></div><div class="verse">As <i>is</i> the earthy, such <i>are</i> they also that are earthy: and as <i>is</i> the heavenly, such <i>are</i> they also that are heavenly.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 48.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">As is the earthy,</span> etc. Men resemble their first parent Adam; Christians, their spiritual Redeemer, Christ (<a href="/philippians/3-20.htm">Philippians 3:20, 21</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-49.htm">1 Corinthians 15:49</a></div><div class="verse">And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 49.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">We shall also bear the image of the heavenly</span> (for the fact, see <a href="/romans/8-29.htm">Romans 8:29</a>; <a href="/1_john/3-2.htm">1 John 3:2</a>). For "we shall bear," the best manuscripts (<span class="hebrew">א</span>, A, C, D, E, F, G, etc.) read "Let us bear." Our reading is, however, supported by B, and this is just one of the cases in which manuscript evidence (or as it is called "diplomatic evidence") has a minimum value, and other evidence (paradiplomatic) is decisive. For <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> the pronunciation of the indicative and subjunctive at that time was almost identical, because in conversation the vowels seem to have been much slurred; and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> there was a universal tendency to substitute hortative for direct forms, with a view to edification (as in <a href="/1_corinthians/14-15.htm">1 Corinthians 14:15</a>; <a href="/romans/6-2.htm">Romans 6:2, 8</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/5-11.htm">2 Corinthians 5:11</a>, etc.). Here the exhortation would ruin the texture of the argument. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-50.htm">1 Corinthians 15:50</a></div><div class="verse">Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verses 50-58.</span> - <span class="accented">Conclusion and exhortation.</span> <span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 50.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Now this I say.</span> This sums up my meaning. <span class="cmt_word">Flesh and blood.</span> Our mortal nature and human organism; our "earthly house of this tabernacle" (<a href="/2_corinthians/5-1.htm">2 Corinthians 5:1</a>; <a href="/luke/20-35.htm">Luke 20:35</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Inherit incorruption.</span> A body liable to corruption, with all its loathly accompaniments, cannot enter into the "inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away" (<a href="/1_peter/1-4.htm">1 Peter 1:4</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-51.htm">1 Corinthians 15:51</a></div><div class="verse">Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 51.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">I show you a mystery.</span> I make known to you a truth now made known to me by revelation. <span class="cmt_word">We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.</span> There is a great diversity of readings in this verse, noticed even by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. St. Jerome says that all the Latin manuscripts had "we shall all rise," and that the Greek manuscripts wavered between "we shall all sleep" and "we shall not all sleep." Some Greek manuscripts had "we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed." This reading cannot be right, for it contradicts the next verse. There is little doubt that the reading of the Authorized version is right. It accounts for all the variations. They arose from a desire to shelter St. Paul from an apparent mistake, since he and his readers <span class="accented">did</span> all sleep. But <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> St. Paul may have written under that conception of the imminence of Christ's personal return which he expresses in <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-15.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:15-17</a>, where he evidently imagines that the majority of those to whom he was writing would be of those who would be "alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord;" or <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> even if he no longer entertained that expectation, the "we" may naturally apply to the continuity of the Christian Church. For in <a href="/2_corinthians/4-14.htm">2 Corinthians 4:14</a> he uses "us" of those who shall die and be raised. The universal expectation of the immediate return of Christ in the first century rose <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> from their non apprehension of the truth that the close of the old dispensation <span class="accented">was</span> the "coming" to which our Lord had primarily referred in his great eschatological discourse (<a href="/matthew/24-34.htm">Matthew 24:34</a>), and <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> from the fact that watchfulness was intended to be the attitude of the Church, and the day and hour of Christ's coming were kept absolutely unrevealed (<a href="/matthew/24-36.htm">Matthew 24:36</a>; <a href="/matthew/25-13.htm">Matthew 25:13</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-52.htm">1 Corinthians 15:52</a></div><div class="verse">In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 52.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">The trumpet shall sound.</span> The Lord, he says, in <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-16.htm">1 Thessalonians 4:16</a>, "shall descend from heaven with... the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." The trumpet is, of course, only a natural symbol. It is also found in rabbinic writers, and in the Old Testament (<a href="/zechariah/9-14.htm">Zechariah 9:14</a>), as well as in <a href="/revelation/11-15.htm">Revelation 11:15</a>. <span class="cmt_word">We shall be changed.</span> The dead shall be changed by resurrection, the living by transition, into a glorified body. St. Paul, dealing with the essence of the question as it bore on the difficulties of his readers, says nothing here <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(1)</span> of those who will arise to judgment, or <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="note_emph">(2)</span> of any intermediate condition. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>As to the former question, he scarcely ever alludes to it with any definiteness, but seems with deliberate choice to contemplate the final and absolute triumph of good (<a href="/romans/8-19.htm">Romans 8:19-23</a>; <a href="/romans/11-30.htm">Romans 11:30-36</a>). To the intermediate state he does not here allude. He is here only speaking of death and glorious resurrection. In <a href="/2_corinthians/5-1.htm">2 Corinthians 5:1-4</a> he says all that he has to say on this latter question. It was not prominent in the minds of the early Christians, who, as Calvin says, were awaiting the return of Christ "from hour to hour." </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-53.htm">1 Corinthians 15:53</a></div><div class="verse">For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal <i>must</i> put on immortality.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 53.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">This mortal must put on immortality.</span> When we are "clothed upon" by our "house from heaven," and have put off "this tabernacle," in which we groan being burdened, then "mortality will be swallowed up of life" (<a href="/2_corinthians/5-3.htm">2 Corinthians 5:3, 4</a>, where we also find the metaphor of a <span class="accented">robe</span> of immortality, mixed up with the metaphor of a building). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-54.htm">1 Corinthians 15:54</a></div><div class="verse">So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 54.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Death is swallowed up in victory</span>. A free citation from the Hebrew of <a href="/isaiah/25-8.htm">Isaiah 25:8</a>. The words "into victory" are the LXX. rendering in other passages (<a href="/amos/1-11.htm">Amos 1:11</a>; <a href="/amos/8-8.htm">Amos 8:8</a>) for the Hebrew <span class="accented">lanetsach</span>, forever. The metaphor, "is swallowed up," implying "the swallowing of the all swallower," is found in the rabbis (comp. <a href="/hebrews/2-14.htm">Hebrews 2:14, 15</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-55.htm">1 Corinthians 15:55</a></div><div class="verse">O death, where <i>is</i> thy sting? O grave, where <i>is</i> thy victory?</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 55.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">O death, where is thy sting?</span> A triumphantly fervid exclamation of the apostle, loosely cited from <a href="/hosea/13-14.htm">Hosea 13:14</a>. The apostles and evangelists, not holding the slavish and superstitious fetish worship of the dead letter, often regard it as sufficient to give the general sense of the passages to which they refer. <span class="cmt_word">O grave, where is thy victory?</span> In the best attested reading (A, B, C, D, E, F, G), "death" is repeated, and in the best manuscripts this clause precedes the last. But if the reading, "O Hades," were correct, our translators, since they held it here impossible in accordance with their views to render it by "hell," ought to have taken warning, and seen the pernicious inapplicability of that rendering in other places where they have used it to express this same Greek word. Here "Hades" has probably been introduced into the Greek text from the LXX., which uses it for the <span class="accented">Sheol</span> of the original. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-56.htm">1 Corinthians 15:56</a></div><div class="verse">The sting of death <i>is</i> sin; and the strength of sin <i>is</i> the law.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 56.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">The sting of death is sin.</span> Because death is the wages of sin (<a href="/romans/6-23.htm">Romans 6:23</a>). Death is represented as a venomous serpent. <span class="cmt_word">The strength of sin is the Law.</span> The best comment on this expression is to be found in the Epistle to the Romans; see especially <a href="/romans/4-15.htm">Romans 4:15</a>; <a href="/romans/7-10.htm">Romans 7:10-12</a>. It must be admitted that this passing allusion to a distinct doctrine does not seem, at first sight, to harmonize with the glorious unity of the subject. No one can read it without a slight sense of <span class="accented">jar</span>, because it seems to introduce the element of dogmatic controversy. But this sense of incongruity is removed when we remember how intensely St. Paul felt that man is confronted with the horror of a broken Law, which at once reminds him of a Being infinitely holy, and of his own self condemnation (<a href="/romans/7.htm">Romans 7</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/3.htm">2 Corinthians 3</a>.). It is the sense that the Law in its deathful aspect is annulled, and the sinful soul delivered, which prompts the outburst of the next verse. </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-57.htm">1 Corinthians 15:57</a></div><div class="verse">But thanks <i>be</i> to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 57.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory.</span> The victory consists in the defeat of death by the Resurrection, and the forgiveness of sin through Christ's atone-merit, and the nailing to his cross of the torn and abrogated Law which made us slaves to sin and death (<a href="/colossians/2-14.htm">Colossians 2:14</a>). "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (<a href="/romans/8-37.htm">Romans 8:37</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Through our Lord Jesus Christ.</span> Who, by fulfilling the Law, has robbed it of its condemning power (<a href="/romans/8-1.htm">Romans 8:1</a>), and by his death "hath destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil" (<a href="/hebrews/2-14.htm">Hebrews 2:14, 15</a>). </div> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-58.htm">1 Corinthians 15:58</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.</div><div class="comm"><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 58.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Therefore.</span> Seeing that you ought not to despair, but to share in this confidence of triumph. <span class="cmt_word">Steadfast</span>. Firmly fixed in <span class="accented">your own</span> conviction (<a href="/colossians/1-23.htm">Colossians 1:23</a> 2John 9). <span class="cmt_word">Unmoveable</span>. By others (<a href="/ephesians/4-14.htm">Ephesians 4:14</a>). <span class="cmt_word">Abounding in the work of the Lord.</span> Doing diligently and ungrudgingly the work of your lives, which is <span class="accented">his</span> work. That your labour is not in vain. The thought of the verse is the same as that of <a href="/galatians/6-9.htm">Galatians 6:9</a>, "And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Some general facts are very observable in this glorious chapter. 1. One is that St. Paul does not meet doubt by angry denunciation, or by crushing it with the iron mace of impatient authority. What would now be thought of Christians who denied the resurrection? Doubtless they were net mere speculative deniers of the resurrection, like Hymenaeus and Philetus (<a href="/2_timothy/2-17.htm">2 Timothy 2:17</a>), but recent Gentile converts, who could not get over their pagan difficulties. Yet St. Paul meets them by personal appeals, by helpful analogies, by lofty reasoning, by the glowing force of inspiring convictions. Instead of taking refuge - <span class="accented">more</span> <span class="accented">ecclesiastico</span> - in anathema and excommunication, he meets error by the counter presentation of ennobling truth. 2. Another noteworthy fact is that St. Paul's hope of the resurrection rests, like all his theology, on the thought that the life of the Christian is a life "in Christ." 3. A third is his superiority to false analogies - like those of the butterfly and the phoenix - which sufficed many ancient reasoners. Even Christian writers like St. Clement of Rome continued to appeal to the phoenix as a proof of the resurrection. The greatest ancient thinkers - like Tacitus - believed in the existence of that fabulous bird, and even in the genuineness of a specimen of it which had been exhibited at Rome. Was there no "grace of superintendency" at work which prevented the sacred writers from adopting the universal error of their day? Had St. Paul appealed to the phoenix, centuries of Christian writers would have continued to maintain the existence of that creature; and science, laughing the belief to scorn, would (most unjustly) have made any allusion to it a proof of mental weakness, and of the falsity of the doctrine which it was supposed to prove. 4. A fourth point to be observed is the wisdom with which St. Paul holds himself aloof from speculative fancies, he does not, like Plato, appeal to the doctrine of "reminiscence" (<span class="accented">anamnesis</span>), or of unfulfilled ideas. He does not, like Kant, build any argument on man's failure to obey "the categorical imperative" of duty. He points to the sinless Man - to the fulfilled idea of Christ. His argument, which all could understand, is summed up in the words, "Ye are Christ's, and Christ is risen." Your resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness is a pledge of your participation in Christ's resurrection from the grave. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span> <span class="p"><br /><br /></span> </div></div></div><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">The Pulpit Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010 by <a href="//biblesoft.com">BibleSoft, inc.</a>, Used by permission<span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="/">Bible Hub</a></div></div></div></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="left"><a href="../1_corinthians/14.htm" onmouseover='lft.src="/leftgif.png"' onmouseout='lft.src="/left.png"' title="1 Corinthians 14"><img src="/left.png" name="lft" border="0" alt="1 Corinthians 14" /></a></div><div id="right"><a href="../1_corinthians/16.htm" onmouseover='rght.src="/rightgif.png"' onmouseout='rght.src="/right.png"' title="1 Corinthians 16"><img src="/right.png" name="rght" border="0" alt="1 Corinthians 16" /></a></div><div id="botleft"><a href="#" onmouseover='botleft.src="/botleftgif.png"' onmouseout='botleft.src="/botleft.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botleft.png" name="botleft" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="botright"><a href="#" onmouseover='botright.src="/botrightgif.png"' onmouseout='botright.src="/botright.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botright.png" name="botright" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="rightbox"><div class="padright"><div id="pic"><iframe width="100%" height="860" scrolling="no" src="//biblescan.com/mpc/1_corinthians/15-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div><div id="rightbox4"><div class="padright2"><div id="spons1"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td class="sp1"><br /><br /></td></tr></table></div></div></div> <div id="bot"><div align="center"> <script id="3d27ed63fc4348d5b062c4527ae09445"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=51ce25d5-1a8c-424a-8695-4bd48c750f35&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script> <script id="b817b7107f1d4a7997da1b3c33457e03"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=cb0edd8b-b416-47eb-8c6d-3cc96561f7e8&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-2'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-0' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-3'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-1' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br />  <div align="center" id='div-gpt-ad-1531425649696-0'> </div><br /><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="3592799687"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> <br /><br /> </div><iframe width="100%" height="1500" scrolling="no" src="/botmenubhpar.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></body></html>