The religion of Greece was but the worship of Nature in all its chief features, through symbolic forms. To the genuine Greek, therefore, the resurrection of the dead could not but be repulsive. Presupposing, as this doctrine did, the vanity of all present things, as blighted and doomed on account of... [ Continue Reading ]
_The certainty of the Resurrection of Believers from the Resurrection of Christ,_ 1-23. 1 Corinthians 15:1. NOW I MAKE KNOWN UNTO YOU, BRETHREN, THE GOSPEL WHICH I PREACHED UNTO YOU, WHICH ALSO YE RECEIVED, BY WHICH ALSO YE ARE SAVED _(Gr._ ‘being saved,' see on 1 Corinthians 1:18), _I MAKE KNOWN,... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:3. FOR I DELIVERED UNTO YOU FIRST OF ALL as being of primary importance (not ‘first' in point of time) THAT WHICH I ALSO RECEIVED by immediate revelation (Galatians 1:12) HOW THAT CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES; [1] [1] Four Greek prepositions are used in the N... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:4. AND THAT HE WAS BURIED and how buried? “As the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40). All the Evangelists record the burial so circumstantially as to shew that the object was to preclude possible doubt of the reality of the burial. The body being taken down from the cross,... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:7. THEN HE APPEARED TO JAMES the James of the Acts (Acts 12:17; Acts 15:13; Acts 21:18 not Acts 12:2). This James, we believe, was “James the Lord's brother,” not James the apostle. It has been thought that this special manifestation was what removed his last misgivings as to the cl... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:8. AND LAST OF ALL, AS UNTO ONE BORN OUT OF DUE TIME _(Gr._ ‘the abortion,' ‘the mistimed birth'), HE APPEARED TO ME ALSO. The allusion is no doubt to the great manifestation at Damascus.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:9. FOR I AM THE LEAST OF THE APOSTLES though still I am one. While deprecating the occupant, he magnifies the office.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:10. BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM: AND HIS GRACE WHICH WAS BESTOWED UPON ME WAS NOT IN VAIN; I LABOURED MORE ABUNDANTLY THAN THEY ALL, YET NOT I, etc. With perfect freedom does he at once abuse himself for what he had done against Christ in the days of his ignorance, and cl... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:11. WHETHER THEN _IT BE_ I OR THEY no matter who the preachers, SO WE PREACH (as said 1 Corinthians 15:3), AND SO YE BELIEVED. _Note._ Observe here what the primitive apostolic Gospel consisted of a connected series of _historical facts,_ the story of Christ's life in its main featu... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:12. NOW IF CHRIST IS PREACHED THAT HE HATH BEEN RAISED (see on 1 Corinthians 15:4) FROM THE DEAD, HOW SAY SOME AMONG YOU THAT THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD?... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:13. BUT IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, NEITHER HATH CHRIST BEEN RAISED for, as logicians say, the _genus_ being destroyed, the _species_ of necessity goes with it; the root and the branches, the head and the members, stand and fall together.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:14. AND ... THEN IS OUR PREACHING VAIN, YOUR FAITH ALSO IS VAIN all Christianity, as a historical fact, is subverted.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:15-17 . YEA, AND WE ARE FOUND FALSE WITNESSES OF GOD, etc. The repetition and reiteration, in slightly varied forms, of the same truth gives to the statement momentous emphasis. How strikingly the expiatory character of Christ's death, as taught at Corinth, and there joyfully embrac... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:19. IF IN THIS LIFE ONLY WE HAVE HOPED IN CHRIST, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST PITIABLE building our hope of a future resurrection on a mere delusion, to die at length as a fool dieth.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:20. BUT NOW HATH CHRIST BEEN RAISED FROM THE DEAD. As if impatient at having to linger over such wretched speculations, with what a bound does the apostle here spring on the firm ground and into the clear air of an indubitable resurrection in the Person of Christ THE FIRST-FRUITS O... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:21. FOR SINCE BY MAN CAME DEATH a grandly rhythmical expression of the grand truth, that the ruin and recovery of humanity spring alike _from within itself._ __... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:22. FOR AS IN ADAM ALL DIE, SO ALSO IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE. _Note._ It has been the Divine plan from the first, and will be to the last, that mankind shall be dealt with under two heads Adam and Christ hence called “the first man” and “the second man;” as if there never h... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:23. BUT EACH IN HIS OWN ORDER: CHRIST THE FIRST-FRUITS, THEN THEY THAT ARE CHRIST'S AT HIS COMING not each individual of the human race, but each party represented by its respective head. The one head involves “them that are his” in “death;” the other, for “them that are His” secure... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:24. THEN COMETH THE END that is, when the saints are raised; not after a whole dispensation of risen saints ruling the earth has elapsed after their resurrection, as Alford and such as hold the ‘premillennial' theory maintain, WHEN HE SHALL DELIVER UP THE KINGDOM TO GOD, EVEN THE FA... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Issues of the Resurrection,_ 24-28. This is a digression, involving disclosures so mysterious there being nothing elsewhere with which to compare and throw light upon it that we must, in interpreting it, keep very close to the text.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:25. FOR HE MUST REIGN, TILL HE HATH PUT ALL HIS ENEMIES UNDER HIS FEET. The “must” here seems a predictive “must,” as if he had said Psalms 110:6 _must_ be fulfilled; though there is a deeper necessity still, in the nature of the thing God cannot let His enemies for ever prevail. Th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:26. THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE ABOLISHED IS DEATH. Though death to the believer, stripped of its sting, only ushers him into the presence of his Lord, yet in itself and to nature instinct with the love of life, it is utterly repulsive, rupturing a tie formed for perpetuity: it is... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:27. FOR (as it is written, Psalms 8:6; Hebrews 7) HE PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. BUT WHEN HE SAITH, ALL THINGS ARE PUT IN SUBJECTION, IT IS EVIDENT THAT HE IS EXCEPTED, WHO DID PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIM. The Son, as Mediator, is with His own royal hand to put all ene... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:28. AND WHEN ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED UNTO HIM, THEN SHALL THE SON ALSO HIMSELF BE SUBJECTED TO HIM THAT DID SUBJECT ALL THINGS UNTO HIM, THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL all things in all persons. _Note._ To those who deny the supreme Divinity of Christ, this ultimate subjection of... [ Continue Reading ]
_A Remonstrance,_ 29-34. 1 Corinthians 15:29. ELSE WHAT SHALL THEY DO WHICH ARE BAPTISED FOR THE DEAD, IF THE DEAD RISE NOT AT ALL? WHY ARE THEY THEN BAPTISED FOR THE DEAD? a most difficult verse, of which the interpretations that have been given are endless. Some excellent expositors think it refer... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:30. WHY DO WE ALSO (we preachers) STAND IN JEOPARDY EVERY HOUR? ‘If _their_ conduct, supposing there is no resurrection, is folly, are _we_ preachers, in hourly peril of our lives, any wiser?'... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:31. I PROTEST BY THAT GLORYING IN YOU WHICH I HAVE IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD _Gr._ ‘by your glorifying' (as in 1 Corinthians 11:24; Romans 11:31), I DIE DAILY. By the joy and glory which I have in you as my children in Christ, I protest I am in daily peril for Jesus sake.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:32. IF AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN (if speaking humanly) I FOUGHT WITH BEASTS AT EPHESUS. To take this literally is most unnatural. For, besides that as a Roman citizen the apostle would be exempt from such a thing, we can hardly suppose that such an occurrence, if it did take place, wo... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:34. AWAKE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, [1] AND SIN NOT ‘These opinions spring not from honest conviction, but are bred of too intimate association with men of free thought and lax life, sucking you down into their corrupt atmosphere, and deadening your Christian instincts. Shake yourselves fro... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:35. BUT SOME ONE WILL SAY, HOW ARE THE DEAD RAISED UP? AND WITH WHAT MANNER OF BODY DO THEY COME? Two questions are asked here. The first “How are the dead raised?” is answered half scornfully.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Mode and Issues of the Resurrection,_ 35-57. The invaluable information on the subject of the resurrection here given is drawn forth in the way of reply to objections, arising from the difficulty of conceiving how such a thing can be a form of objection urged in our day with a plausibility whi... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:36. SENSELESS MAN! “ Fool” is too strong a rendering of the word here used (which is not that rightly rendered “fool” in Matthew 23:17; Matthew 23:19; Luke 11:40; Luke 12:20) THAT WHICH THOU THYSELF SOWEST IS NOT QUICKENED, EXCEPT IT DIE (compare John 12:24). ‘Not more truly does th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:38. BUT GOD GIVETH IT A BODY EVEN AS IT HATH PLEASED HIM at its original creation, AND TO EACH SEED A BODY OF ITS OWN. ‘In the vegetable world the Creator has shown inexhaustible resources in point of variety; how easy then to give to the body at its resurrection other properties th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:39. ALL FLESH IS NOT THE SAME FLESH. ‘Take the members of the animal creation too; neither are they, any more than those of the vegetable world, all of one type,' BUT THERE IS ONE FLESH OF MEN, AND ANOTHER FLESH OF BEASTS, AND ANOTHER FLESH OF BIRDS, AND ANOTHER OF FISHES. [1] In th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:40. THERE ARE ALSO CELESTIAL BODIES not those of good angels (as Alford, after De Wette and Meyer, unnaturally), but, as the next verse clearly shews, what we call the ‘heavenly bodies' sun, moon, and stars (as Bengel, Neander, and Stanley), AND BODIES TERRESTRIAL embracing all that... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:41. THERE IS ONE GLORY OF THE SUN, etc. There is here no reference to the different degrees of glory among the saints in heaven (as some of the Greek fathers thought, and some moderns think). It is simply the amazing variety observable in the spangled vault above us, suggesting the... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:43. IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOUR becoming so repulsive that one is fain to say with Abraham, of the dearest object in life, “Bury my dead out of my sight,” IT IS RAISED IN GLORY resplendent and ravishing to behold (compare Matthew 28:3; Luke 9:29-31; 1 John 3:2), IT IS SOWN IN WEAKNESS t... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:44. IT IS SOWN A NATURAL BODY _Gr._ ‘an animal body,' animated by the same vital principle which we have in common with the entire animal kingdom, IT IS RAISED A SPIRITUAL BODY not meaning a body simply of finer material than the present (the contrast does not lie in that), but a bo... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:45. SO ALSO IT IS WRITTEN, THE FIRST MAN ADAM BECAME A LIVING SOUL (Genesis 2:7). THE LAST ADAM BECAME A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT. “The last Adam,” as a name for the promised Messiah, is not unknown to the rabbinical writers, though that feature in His constitution which is here expressed... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:46. HOWBEIT THAT IS NOT FIRST WHICH IS SPIRITUAL, BUT THAT WHICH IS NATURAL by an ascent from the lower to the higher, as is the law of all God's works.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:47. THE FIRST MAN IS OF THE EARTH. The word signifies ‘rubbish,' ‘loose earth,' ‘dust' (as in Genesis 2:7; Ecclesiastes 12:7 in LXX.), THE SECOND MAN IS OF HEAVEN. [1] The reference here is not to the properties of Christ's flesh, as received from the Virgin, but to the properties o... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:48. AS IS THE EARTHY (man) the first Adam, SUCH... THE EARTHY: AND AS IS THE HEAVENLY (One), SUCH ARE THEY ALSO THAT ARE HEAVENLY the risen saints shall be invested with heavenly properties, like their Head (see Philippians 3:21).... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:49. AND AS WE HAVE BORNE THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHY, WE SHALL ALSO BEAR [1] THE HEAVENLY. [1] Nothing better illustrates the vicious tendency of the early interpreters of the Epistles to give a hortatory turn to statements manifestly affirmative, than the reading “let us bear” in this... [ Continue Reading ]
Now come sublime disclosures. Ver. 50. NOW THIS I SAY, BRETHREN, THAT FLESH AND BLOOD _i.e._ humanity as now constituted, “mortal,” “corruptible,” “weak,” etc. (James 1:10; 1 Peter 1:24) CANNOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD which is “incorruptible, undefiled, unfading,” 1 Peter 1:4.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:51. BEHOLD, I TELL YOU A MYSTERY in the sense so often explained a thing hitherto undisclosed, and even now known only by revelation. The disclosure here referred to, and the corresponding one in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, appears to have been made exclusively to the apostle himself WE... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:52. IN A MOMENT, IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE a sublime expression of all but instantaneousness. There will, indeed, be an interval between the “resurrection” of the dead and the “changing” of the living saints for “the dead in Christ shall _rise first”_ (1 Thessalonians 4:16), but so... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:53. FOR THIS CORRUPTIBLE MUST PUT ON INCORRUPTION, AND THIS MORTAL (of ours) [1] PUT ON IMMORTALITY. The same figure of “putting off” and “putting on” the _dress_ of our present and future state is found in 2 Corinthians 5:2-4. [1] Not “this mortal” of _mine,_ as Meyer and Alford u... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:54. AND 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 (Isaiah 25:8), DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY. [1] Having closed his argument with these sublime words of one proph... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:55. O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? (Hosea 13:14). The textual evidence for this reading of so familiar a verse is decisive; and though it may be less grateful to the ear accustomed to the old form of it, it will be found on reflection to be more expressi... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:56. THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN as it inflicts on the sinner a wound which is mortal (Romans 6:23), AND THE POWER OF SIN IS THE LAW. Law is the expression of sovereign authority. A law which has “no power” to avenge the breach of itself is no law at all. But the Divine law has deadly... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 15:57. BUT THANKS BE TO GOD, WHICH GIVETH US THE VICTORY THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST whose full name in this closing word the apostle expressively gives.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Inference from the_ _whole subject,_ 58. 1 Corinthians 15:58. WHEREFORE, MY BELOVED BRETHREN in view of all that has been held forth to you on this subject BE YE STEDFAST, UNMOVEABLE not moved either by the specious reasonings or by the lax life of “men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth”... [ Continue Reading ]