1 Corinthians 15:1-58

1 Corinthians 15:1-58. THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION

This chapter is one of the deepest and most mysterious in the Bible. It is the one exception to the statement in ch. 3 that St Paul was unable to feed the Corinthians with meat; for it ranks with the profound exposition of the principles of Justification in the Epistle to the Romans, and the weighty but most difficult enunciation of the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge and man’s call in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians.
A short sketch of the Apostle’s argument here will be useful. He comes now to the most important point on which his opinion had been asked (see note on ch. 1 Corinthians 7:1), the discussion of which he reserves to the last. It appears to him the most satisfactory course to begin by restating the message he had proclaimed to the Corinthians at the beginning. This message related to the actual facts of the Resurrection of Christ, the persons to whom, and the circumstances under which, He had appeared (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). He next begins to combat the opinions of those who maintained that there was no resurrection of the dead and shews (1 Corinthians 15:12-19) that a denial of the resurrection of the dead involves a denial of the Resurrection of Christ, and is fatal altogether to all belief in the Gospel. Next (1 Corinthians 15:20-28), the Apostle views the Resurrection of Christ as the virtual resurrection of the whole human race. As the death of Adam involved the death of all his descendants, so the Resurrection of Christ involved the resurrection of all who share His life. After having conquered all the enemies of God and man, He, the representative man, assumes for Himself and for all He represents the due position of submission to God which it is fitting man should assume, even (1 Corinthians 15:28) laying His mediatorial crown aside, that none may even seem to stand between man and God. Then (1 Corinthians 15:29-34) the Apostle discusses the reasonableness of baptism on behalf of the dead, and the endurance by himself of all kinds of trials and sufferings, on the hypothesis that there would be no resurrection, and winds up this portion of his argument by an appeal to the Corinthians not to be led into licentiousness by teaching involving grave moral dangers. His next question has regard to the mode of the Resurrection. He discusses the question how the dead are raised. This he does, 1 Corinthians 15:36, by comparing the body to a seed which falls into the ground and dies before it springs up. Then (1 Corinthians 15:37-41) he enlarges on the various forms and excellences of visible objects as a type of the variety of degrees of glory which the human body may assume in the world to come. He next (1 Corinthians 15:42-45) enters into the contrast between the present and the future life, shewing that the very circumstances of our existence in this world point to a higher stage of existence in another. Then (1 Corinthians 15:46-49) he refers to the necessary priority of the lower existence as a step toward the higher, and (1 Corinthians 15:50-53) points out the nature of the change which must pass over us before we can attain to our final perfection. That perfection, he explains (1 Corinthians 15:54-57), consists in the victory of the spiritual part of our nature over the sensual, and he concludes (1 Corinthians 15:58) by encouraging those to whom he writes to stedfastness in their spiritual course, on the ground that they may be well assured that their efforts after perfection will not be in vain.