1 Corinthians 15:11

Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.

There were, it seems, false apostles or very ignorant members at Corinth, men that claimed there was no resurrection of the dead. St. Paul, therefore, includes a detailed defense and exposition of the doctrine in his letter. The section is the crowning glory of the epistle, a demonstration of the truth of a future resurrection. The doubt which the apostle here combats is one that strikes at the root of Christianity, which concerns the fundamental fact of the Gospel-truth. In a burst of lofty and sustained eloquence the patient teacher again gives the Corinthians instructions concerning the first things, the doctrine without which Christianity would be a riddle: But I make known to you, I declare to you, brethren, the Gospel which I proclaimed to you. The words convey a measure of censure, of blame, that it should have become necessary for him so soon to repeat some information which belonged to the fundamental tenets of their faith. Mark that Paul here, as elsewhere, does not refer his readers to human feelings or opinions, but to a fixed fund of Christian knowledge, to the Gospel, the good news of the redemption of mankind as it was being carried out into the world by all the apostles. Of this Gospel he says: Which also you received, in which also you stand fast, through which also you are being saved. These are the steps in Christian life: Faith is kindled in the heart, the Gospel news is accepted; faith continues in the heart, the believer places all his hope for salvation in the Gospel day by day, and thus the benefits of the Gospel, being continuous, are also progressive, salvation is altogether certain to the believer, he has its benefits, he enjoys them day by day. The Gospel is the means of our salvation; it is the beginning, middle, and end of our redemption unto eternal life, since it appropriates to us the riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Faith in the Gospel, belief in the resurrection of Jesus, was still found in the congregation at Corinth, otherwise the apostle could not have built up his great argument on this historical fact.

But the Corinthians needed a warning: In what word I preached to you, if you hold fast, unless you believed idly. He had given them the content of the Gospel, as they well knew if they were adhering to it as they should. The power of that word was such as to work conviction in their minds, to give them the continuous benefit of the salvation appropriated to them. It surely could not be that they had believed idly, that their acceptance of the Word of the Gospel was a mere external acceptance, in heedless levity, without serious apprehension of the issues involved! The fullness of salvation and all its benefits is given through the Gospel, but foolishness and frivolousness will lose its glories.

With great emphasis Paul refers to the authenticity of his Gospel, to the fact that God alone was its Author: For I delivered to you in the first place, among the things first in importance, as belonging to the weightiest articles of faith, what also I have received. Whether Paul refers here to direct revelation or to his first lessons in Christian faith from the mouth of his teachers, is immaterial. These first and most important articles of faith are that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He arose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. Note the repetition of the reference which shows that the vicarious death of Christ, His burial, and His glorious resurrection were the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and type, just as Christ was wont to point back to the written Scriptures as telling of His suffering, death, and resurrection, Luke 24:46. By His death Christ paid the debt of sin and transgression in full, His burial placed the certainty of His death beyond doubt, and His resurrection on the third day proved the completeness of His redemptive labors. If as much as one sin had not been paid for, as much as one transgression had not been expiated, the resurrection of Christ could not have taken place, the righteousness of God would not have permitted the return to life of Him who had failed in redeeming the world. But His resurrection is a fact, and therefore also our salvation is a fact.

And for this fact the apostle brings the testimony of the eye-witnesses, of men that had seen the risen Lord, for He had been seen by Cephas, Peter, some time on Easter Day, Luke 24:34, probably in the afternoon. Then He had been seen by the Twelve, that is, by the eleven disciples or apostles, on the evening of Easter Day, Luke 24:36; John 20:19, the appearance of the following Sunday evening being included. Sometime after that Christ was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once, at one time, in one big gathering, probably in Galilee, by the entire number of men and women that had come to faith in Him during His earthly ministry. See Matthew 26:32. The hundred and twenty that were present about the time of Pentecost include the brethren that lived in and around Jerusalem. Of those five hundred fortunate eyewitnesses to whom Paul refers, the majority were still living when he penned this letter, some twenty-five years after the event so prominently emphasized here, but some had fallen asleep; as children of the resurrection they had closed their eyes to this world, knowing that they would presently be with their Lord forever. After that Jesus had been seen by James, the brother of the Lord, afterwards associated with Peter as a pillar of the congregation at Jerusalem, Galatians 1:19; Galatians 2:9: then He appeared to all the apostles, for the last time, on the day of His ascension, Acts 1:1. And every one of these disciples was a witness to the truth of the resurrection of Christ.

Paul adds his own testimony: But last of all He appeared also to me, to the abortion, as it were. His great humility causes the apostle to refer to himself in this uncomplimentary way, as an unfit and repulsive creature, brought into the world before the proper time. As one commentator says, Paul describes himself thus in contrast with those who, when Jesus appeared to them, were already brothers or apostles, already born as God's children into the life of faith in Christ. And he repeats this depreciatory opinion of himself, with a confession of his own unworthiness: For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to bear the name of apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. The fact that he had, in the blindness of his Pharisaic pride, been a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious always caused the apostle deep distress, Galatians 1:13; 1 Timothy 1:13, made him protest his unworthiness, his lack of moral qualification, of fitness, of competence. Nevertheless, he adds his word of testimony to that of the other disciples, since he actually saw the risen Christ, Acts 9:5; Acts 22:7; Acts 26:15. And he praised and magnified the Lord for accounting him worthy of being a witness of the resurrection and its glorious benefits: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which was shown to me was not vain, void of actuality. As a mercy, as an utterly undeserved favor, Paul considered the fact that he had been summoned into the ranks of the apostles, especially since this implied previous forgiveness and adoption. Of himself, of his own personal achievements, he did not glory, but had only one thought, to magnify the grace of God, Romans 1:5. And the result was that more abundantly than they all did he labor. It was hard, painful, exhausting toil, but it also brought rich returns; by his continuous, systematic application Paul had achieved more in the extension of the kingdom of God than all the other apostles up to this time. And yet, once more, he dismisses the thought of personal worth or merit: But not I, the grace of God, rather, which was with me. Paul was but the instrument of the mercy and power of God for the benefit of many people, Jews and Gentiles. So he can conclude this passage with the cheerful words: Whether, then, it was I that did the preaching or they, the other apostles that had been placed into this office: so we preach, and so you believed. There was a perfect agreement among all the apostles as to the need of presenting the great facts of man's redemption first of all, of presenting the fundamental doctrines first. And the Corinthians themselves, in accepting the doctrine as preached by Paul and by the other apostles, testified to its soundness by their faith.