If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s, at his coming. Then the end comes, when he will deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For, “He put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when he says, “All things are put in subjection”, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him. When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.
Or else what will they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised at all, why then are they baptized for the dead? Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then “let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.” Wake up righteously, and don’t sin, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind. But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly. Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54 The third argument, which is also taken from an…
The third argument, which is also taken from an absurdity: for unless there be another life, wherein such as trust and believe in Christ shall be blessed, they were the most miserable of all creatures, because in this life they are the most miserable.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv19–54 19 If in this life only we have hope…
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Ver. 19. Most miserable] Because none out of hell ever suffered more than the saints have done.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv19–54 The apostle here argueth the resurrection of believers from…
The apostle here argueth the resurrection of believers from a new head. It is not reasonable for any to imagine, that those who believe in Jesus Christ should of all others be the most miserable; but this they must be, if there be no resurrection from the dead. He enlargeth upon this head or argument further, 1Co 15:30,31. The reason of it is, because it must then follow, that they could have no hope in Christ beyond this life; and the condition of the apostles, and the generality of Christians, at least in those first and furious times, was a most afflicted state and condition. The apostle was in jeopardy every hour, 1Co 15:30, he died daily, 1Co 15:31. If any say: How doth this follow? For their souls might be in glory, though their bodies, once dead, were not raised? It is answered:
1. That it still must hold as to their bodily, fleshy part.
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2. That those who denied the resurrection of the body, denied also the immortality of the soul.
3. That Paul speaketh upon the supposition of the Divine ordination; God having so ordered it, that the death of Christ, without his resurrection, should be of no avail to us to save either soul or body; and that our souls and bodies should not be separately, but jointly, glorified upon their re-union in the end of the world: 1Pe 1:3, we are said to be begotten to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 39, 42, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54 Observe here, 1. The resurrection of Christ declared: Now…
Observe here, 1. The resurrection of Christ declared: Now is Christ risen from the dead.
2. Our resurrection from his is inferred and insured: he arose as the first-fruits of them that slept. The term of first-fruits in the Levitical law, Lev 23:10. These were offered both as an acknowledgment that the whole crop was God’s, and as a pledge and assurance of their enjoying the whole crop from God, and as a mean by which the whole crop was consecrated and sanctified to their use.
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As sure as the whole harvest follows the first-fruits, so shall the saints’ resurrection follow the resurrection of Christ, as an effect follows its proper cause; for Christ’s resurrection is the meritorious cause, the efficient cause, and the exemplary cause, of our resurrection; and as it is the cause, so is it the pledge, the earnest and the full assurance of ours.
Observe, 3. Christ is called the first-fruits of them that slept; that is, the first-fruits from the dead of them that slept; not as if Christ were absolutely the first that was raised from the dead, for we read of one raised by Elijah, and another by Elisha, and of Lazarus raised by Christ; but these were so raised as to die again; they were not raised to a life of immortality: but now Christ was the first that arose never to die more; the first that arose by his own power, the first that arose to give others a pledge and assurance of their rising after him, and of their rising like unto him. Christ’s resurrection is the cause, the pattern, the pledge, the assurance of the believer’s resurrection: Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv20, 35, 51 In this passage the apostle establishes the truth of…
In this passage the apostle establishes the truth of the resurrection of the dead, the holy dead, the dead in Christ,
I. On the resurrection of Christ. 1. Because he is indeed the first-fruits of those that slept, Co1 15:20. He has truly risen himself, and he has risen in this very quality and character, as the first-fruits of those who sleep in him. As he has assuredly risen, so in his resurrection there is as much an earnest given that the dead in him shall rise as there was that the Jewish harvest in general should be accepted and blessed by the offering and acceptance of the first-fruits. The whole lump was made holy by the consecration of the first-fruits (Rom 11:16), and the whole body of Christ, all that are by faith united to him, are by his resurrection assured of their own. As he has risen, they shall rise; just as the lump is holy because the first fruits are so. He has not risen merely for himself, but as head of the body, the church; and those that sleep in him God will bring with him, Th1 4:14. Note, Christ's resurrection is a pledge and earnest of ours, if we are true believers in him; because he has risen, we shall rise. We are a part of the consecrated lump, and shall partake of the acceptance and favour vouchsafed the first-fruits. This is the first argument used by the apostle in confirmation of the truth; and it is, 2. Illustrated by a parallel between the first and second Adam. For, since by man came death, it was every way proper that by man should come deliverance from it, or, which is all one, a resurrection, Co1 15:21. And so, as in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive; as through the sin of the first Adam all men became mortal, because all derived from him the same sinful nature, so through the merit and resurrection of Christ shall all who are made to partake of the Spirit, and the spiritual nature, revive, and become immortal. All who die die through the sin of Adam; all who are raised, in the sense of the apostle, rise through the merit and power of Christ. But the meaning is not that, as all men died in Adam, so all men, without exception, shall be made alive in Christ; for the scope of the apostle's argument restrains the general meaning. Christ rose as the first-fruits; therefore those that are Christ's (Co1 15:23) shall rise too. Hence it will not follow that all men without exception shall rise too; but it will fitly follow that all who thus rise, rise in virtue of Christ's resurrection, and so that their revival is owing to the man Christ Jesus, as the mortality of all mankind was owing to the first man; and so, as by man came death, by man came deliverance. Thus it seemed fit to the divine wisdom that, as the first Adam ruined his posterity by sin, the second Adam should raise his seed to a glorious immortality. 3. Before he leaves the argument he states that there will be an order observed in their resurrection. What that precisely will be we are nowhere told, but in the general only here that there will be order observed. Possibly those may rise first who have held the highest rank, and done the most eminent service, or suffered the most grievous evils, or cruel deaths, for Christ's sake. It is only here said that the first-fruits are supposed to rise first, and afterwards all who are Christ's, when he shall come again. Not that Christ's resurrection must in fact go before the resurrection of any of his, but it must be laid as the foundation: as it was not necessary that those who lived remote from Jerusalem must go thither and offer the first-fruits before they could account the lump holy, yet they must be set apart for this purpose, till they could be offered, which might be done at any time from pentecost till the feast of dedication. See Bishop Patrick on Num 24:2. The offering of the first-fruits was what made the lump holy; and the lump was made holy by this offering, though it was not made before the harvest was gathered in, so it were set apart for that end, and duly offered afterwards. So Christ's resurrection must, in order of nature, precede that of his saints, though some of these might rise in order of time before him. It is because he has risen that they rise. Note, Those that are Christ's must rise, because of their relation to him.
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II. He argues from the continuance of the mediatorial kingdom till all Christ's enemies are destroyed, the last of which is death, Co1 15:24-26. He has risen, and, upon his resurrection, was invested with sovereign empire, had all power in heaven and earth put into his hands (Mat 28:18), had a name given him above every name, that every knee might bow to him, and every tongue confess him Lord. Phi 2:9-11. And the administration of this kingdom must continue in his hands till all opposing power, and rule, and authority, be put down (Co1 15:24), till all enemies are put under his feet (Co1 15:25), and till the last enemy is destroyed, which is death, Co1 15:26.
1. This argument implies in it all these particulars: - (1.) That our Saviour rose from the dead to have all power put into his hands, and have and administer a kingdom, as Mediator: For this end he died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living, Rom 14:9. (2.) That this mediatorial kingdom is to have an end, at least as far as it is concerned in bringing his people safely to glory, and subduing all his and their enemies: Then cometh the end, Co1 15:24. (3.) That it is not to have an end till all opposing power be put down, and all enemies brought to his feet, Co1 15:24, Co1 15:25. (4.) That, among other enemies, death must be destroyed (Co1 15:26) or abolished; its powers over its members must be disannulled. Thus far the apostle is express; but he leaves us to make the inference that therefore the saints must rise, else death and the grave would have power over them, nor would our Saviour's kingly power prevail against the last enemy of his people and annul its power. When saints shall live again, and die no more, then, and not till then, will death be abolished, which must be brought about before our Saviour's mediatorial kingdom is delivered up, which yet must be in due time. The saints therefore shall live again and die no more. This is the scope of the argument; but,
2. The apostle drops several hints in the course of it which it will be proper to notice: as, (1.) That our Saviour, as man and mediator between God and man, has a delegated royalty, a kingdom given: All things are put under him, he excepted that did put all things under him, Co1 15:27. As man, all his authority must be delegated. And, though his mediation supposes his divine nature, yet as Mediator he does not so explicitly sustain the character of God, but a middle person between God and man, partaking of both natures, human and divine, as he was to reconcile both parties, God and man, and receiving commission and authority from God the Father to act in this office. The Father appears, in this whole dispensation, in the majesty and with the authority of God: the Son, made man, appears as the minister of the Father, though he is God as well as the Father. Nor is this passage to be understood of the eternal dominion over all his creatures which belongs to him as God, but of a kingdom committed to him as Mediator and God-man, and that chiefly after his resurrection, when, having overcome, he sat down with his Father on his throne, Rev 3:21. Then was the prediction verified, I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion (Psa 2:6), placed him on his throne. This is meant by the phrase so frequent in the writings of the New Testament, of sitting at the right hand of God (Mar 16:19; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1 etc.), on the right hand of power (Mar 14:62; Luk 22:69), on the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:2), on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, Heb 8:1. Sitting down in this seat is taking upon him the exercise of his mediatorial power and royalty, which was done upon his ascension into heaven, Mar 16:19. And it is spoken of in scripture as a recompence made him for his deep humiliation and self-abasement, in becoming man, and dying for man the accursed death of the cross, Phi 2:6-12. Upon his ascension, he was made head over all things to the church, had power given him to govern and protect it against all its enemies, and in the end destroy them and complete the salvation of all that believe in him. This is not a power appertaining to Godhead as such; it is not original and unlimited power, but power given and limited to special purposes. And though he who has it is God, yet, inasmuch as he is somewhat else besides God, and in this whole dispensation acts not as God, but as Mediator, not as the offended Majesty, but as one interposing in favour of his offending creatures, and this by virtue of his consent and commission who acts and appears always in that character, he may properly be said to have this power given him; he may reign as God, with power unlimited, and yet may reign as Mediator, with a power delegated, and limited to these particular purposes. (2.) That this delegated royalty must at length be delivered up to the Father, from whom it was received (Co1 15:24); for it is a power received for particular ends and purposes, a power to govern and protect his church till all the members of it be gathered in, and the enemies of it for ever subdued and destroyed (Co1 15:25, Co1 15:26), and when these ends shall be obtained the power and authority will not need to be continued. The Redeemer must reign till his enemies be destroyed, and the salvation of his church and people accomplished; and, when this end is attained, then will he deliver up the power which he had only for this purpose, though he may continue to reign over his glorified church and body in heaven; and in this sense it may notwithstanding be said that he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev 11:15), that he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luk 1:33), that his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, Dan 7:14. See also Mic 4:7. (3.) The Redeemer shall certainly reign till the last enemy of his people be destroyed, till death itself be abolished, till his saints revive and recover perfect life, never to be in fear and danger of dying any more. He shall have all power in heaven and earth till then - he who loved us, and gave himself for us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood - he who is so nearly related to us, and so much concerned for us. What support should this be to his saints in every hour of distress and temptation! He is alive who was dead, and liveth for ever, and doth reign, and will continue to reign, till the redemption of his people be completed, and the utter ruin of their enemies effected. (4.) When this is done, and all things are put under his feet, then shall the Son become subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all, Co1 15:28. The meaning of this I take to be that then the man Christ Jesus, who hath appeared in so much majesty during the whole administration of his kingdom, shall appear upon giving it up to be a subject of the Father. Things are in scripture many times said to be when they are manifested and made to appear; and this delivering up of the kingdom will make it manifest that he who appeared in the majesty of the sovereign king was, during this administration, a subject of God. The glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the dignity and power conferred on it, was no more than a glorious creature. This will appear when the kingdom shall be delivered up; and it will appear to the divine glory, that God may be all in all, that the accomplishment of our salvation may appear altogether divine, and God alone may have the honour of it. Note, Though the human nature must be employed in the work of our redemption, yet God was all in all in it. It was the Lord's doing and should be marvellous in our eyes.
III. He argues for the resurrection, from the case of those who were baptized for the dead (Co1 15:29): What shall those do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they baptized for the dead? What shall they do if the dead rise not? What have they done? How vain a thing hath their baptism been! Must they stand by it, or renounce it? why are they baptized for huper the dead, if the dead rise not? tō nekrōn. But what is this baptism for the dead? It is necessary to be known, that the apostle's argument may be understood; whether it be only argumentum ad hominem, or ad rem; that is, whether it conclude for the thing in dispute universally, or only against the particular persons who were baptized for the dead. But who shall interpret this very obscure passage, which, though it consists of no more than three words, besides the articles, has had more than three times three senses put on it by interpreters? It is not agreed what is meant by baptism, whether it is to be taken in a proper or figurative sense, and, if in a proper sense, whether it is to be understood or Christian baptism properly so called, or some other ablution. And as little is it agreed who are the dead, or in what sense the preposition huper is to be taken. Some understand the dead of our Saviour himself; vide Whitby in loc. Why are persons baptized in the name of a dead Saviour, a Saviour who remains among the dead, if the dead rise not? But it is, I believe, and instance perfectly singular for hoi nekroi to mean no more than one dead person; it is a signification which the words have nowhere else. And the hoi baptizomenoi (the baptized) seem plainly to mean some particular persons, not Christians in general, which yet must be the signification if the hoi nekroi (the dead) be understood of our Saviour. Some understand the passage of the martyrs: Why do they suffer martyrdom for their religion? This is sometimes called the baptism of blood by ancients, and, by our Saviour himself, baptism indefinitely, Mat 20:22; Luk 12:50. But in what sense can those who die martyrs for their religion be said to be baptized (that is, die martyrs) for the dead? Some understand it of a custom that was observed, as some of the ancients tell us, among many who professed the Christian name in the first ages, of baptizing some in the name and stead of catechumens dying without baptism. But this savoured of such superstition that, if the custom had prevailed in the church so soon, the apostle would hardly have mentioned it without signifying a dislike of it. Some understand it of baptizing over the dead, which was a custom, they tell us, that early obtained; and this to testify their hope of the resurrection. This sense is pertinent to the apostle's argument, but it appears not that any such practice was in use in the apostle's time. Others understand it of those who have been baptized for the sake, or on occasion, of the martyrs, that is, the constancy with which they died for their religion. Some were doubtless converted to Christianity by observing this: and it would have been a vain thing for persons to have become Christians upon this motive, if the martyrs, by losing their lives for religion, became utterly extinct, and were to live no more. But the church at Corinth had not, in all probability, suffered much persecution at this time, or seem many instances of martyrdom among them, nor had many converts been made by the constancy and firmness which the martyrs discovered. Not to observe that hoi nekroi seems to be too general an expression to mean only the martyred dead. It is as easy an explication of the phrase as any I have met with, and as pertinent to the argument, to suppose the hoi nekroi to mean some among the Corinthians, who had been taken off by the hand of God. We read that many were sickly among them, and many slept (Co1 11:30), because of their disorderly behaviour at the Lord's table. These executions might terrify some into Christianity; as the miraculous earthquake did the jailer, Act 16:29, Act 16:30, etc. Persons baptized on such an occasion might be properly said to be baptized for the dead, that is, on their account. And the hoi baptizomenoi (the baptized) and the hoi nekroi (the dead) answer to one another; and upon this supposition the Corinthians could not mistake the apostle's meaning. "Now," says he, "what shall they do, and why were they baptized, if the dead rise not? You have a general persuasion that these men have done right, and acted wisely, and as they ought, on this occasion; but why, if the dead rise not, seeing they may perhaps hasten their death, by provoking a jealous God, and have no hopes beyond it?" But whether this be the meaning, or whatever else be, doubtless the apostle's argument was good and intelligible to the Corinthians. And his next is as plain to us.
IV. He argues from the absurdity of his own conduct and that of other Christians upon this supposition,
1. It would be a foolish thing for them to run so many hazards (Co1 15:30): "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Why do we expose ourselves to continual peril - we Christians, especially we apostles?" Every one knows that it was dangerous being a Christian, and much more a preacher and an apostle, at that time. "Now," says the apostle, "what fools are we to run these hazards, if we have no better hopes beyond death, if when we die we die wholly, and revive no more!" Note, Christianity were a foolish profession if it proposed no hopes beyond this life, at least in such hazardous times as attended the first profession of it; it required men to risk all the blessings and comforts of this life, and to face and endure all the evils of it, without any future prospects. And is this a character of his religion fit for a Christian to endure? And must he not fix this character on it if he give up his future hopes, and deny the resurrection of the dead? This argument the apostle brings home to himself: "I protest," says he, "by your rejoicing in Jesus Christ, by all the comforts of Christianity, and all the peculiar succours and supports of our holy faith, that I die daily," Co1 15:31. He was in continual danger of death, and carried his life, as we say, in his hand. And why should he thus expose himself, if he had no hopes after life? To live in daily view and expectation of death, and yet have no prospect beyond it, must be very heartless and uncomfortable, and his case, upon this account, a very melancholy one. He had need be very well assured of the resurrection of the dead, or he was guilty of extreme weakness, in hazarding all that was dear to him in this world, and his life into the bargain. He had encountered very great difficulties and fierce enemies; he had fought with beasts at Ephesus (Co1 15:32), and was in danger of being pulled to pieces by an enraged multitude, stirred up by Demetrius and the other craftsmen (Act 19:24, etc.), though some understand this literally of Paul's being exposed to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, at a Roman show in that city. And Nicephorus tells a formal story to this purport, and of the miraculous complaisance of the lions to him when they came near him. But so remarkable a trial and circumstance of his life, methinks, would not have been passed over by Luke, and much less by himself, when he gives us so large and particular a detail of his sufferings, Co2 11:24, ad fin. When he mentioned that he was five times scourged of the Jews, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice shipwrecked, it is strange that he should not have said that he was once exposed to fight with the beasts. I take it, therefore, that this fighting with beasts is a figurative expression, that the beasts intended were men of a fierce and ferine disposition, and that this refers to the passage above cited. "Now," says he, "what advantage have I from such contests, if the dead rise not? Why should I die daily, expose myself daily to the danger of dying by violent hands, if the dead rise not? And if post mortem nihil - if I am to perish by death, and expect nothing after it, could any thing be more weak?" Was Paul so senseless? Had he given the Corinthians any ground to entertain such a thought of him? If he had not been well assured that death would have been to his advantage, would he, in this stupid manner, have thrown away his life? Could any thing but the sure hopes of a better life after death have extinguished the love of life in him to this degree? "What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? What can I propose to myself?" Note, It is very lawful and fit for a Christian to propose advantage to himself by his fidelity to God. Thus did Paul. Thus did our blessed Lord himself, Heb 12:2. And thus we are bidden to do after his example, and have our fruit to holiness, that our end may be everlasting life. This is the very end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls (Pe1 1:9), not only what it will issue in, but what we should aim at.
2. It would be a much wiser thing to take the comforts of this life: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (Co1 15:32); let us turn epicures. Thus this sentence means in the prophet, Isa 22:13. Let us even live like beasts, if we must die like them. This would be a wiser course, if there were no resurrection, no after-life or state, than to abandon all the pleasures of life, and offer and expose ourselves to all the miseries of life, and live in continual peril of perishing by savage rage and cruelty. This passage also plainly implies, as I have hinted above, that those who denied the resurrection among the Corinthians were perfect Sadducees, of whose principles we have this account in the holy writings, that they say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit (Act 23:8), that is, "Man is all body, there is nothing in him to survive the body, nor will that, when once he is dead, ever revive again." Such Sadducees were the men against whom the apostle argued; otherwise his arguments had no force in them; for, though the body should never revive, yet, as long as the mind survived it, he might have much advantage from all the hazards he ran for Christ's sake. Nay, it is certain that the mind is to be the principal seat and subject of the heavenly glory and happiness. But, if there were no hopes after death, would not every wise man prefer an easy comfortable life before such a wretched one as the apostle led; nay, and endeavour to enjoy the comforts of life as fast as possible, because the continuance of it is short? Note, Nothing but the hopes of better things hereafter can enable a man to forego all the comforts and pleasures here, and embrace poverty, contempt, misery, and death. Thus did the apostles and primitive Christians; but how wretched was their case, and how foolish their conduct, if they deceived themselves, and abused the world with vain and false hopes!
V. The apostle closes his argument with a caution, exhortation, and reproof. 1. A caution against the dangerous conversation of bad men, men of loose lives and principles: Be not deceived, says he; evil communications corrupt good manners, Co1 15:33. Possibly, some of those who said that there was no resurrection of the dead were men of loose lives, and endeavoured to countenance their vicious practices by so corrupt a principle; and had that speech often in their mouths Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Now, the apostle grants that their talk was to the purpose if there was no future state. But, having confuted their principle, he now warns the Corinthians how dangerous such men's conversation must prove. He tells them that they would probably be corrupted by them, and fall in with their course of life, if they gave into their evil principles. Note, Bad company and conversation are likely to make bad men. Those who would keep their innocence must keep good company. Error and vice are infectious: and, if we would avoid the contagion, we must keep clear of those who have taken it. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed, Pro 13:20. 2. Here is an exhortation to break off their sins, and rouse themselves, and lead a more holy and righteous life (Co1 15:34): Awake to righteousness, or awake righteously, eknēpsate dikaiōs, and sin not, or sin no more. "Rouse yourselves, break off your sins by repentance: renounce and forsake every evil way, correct whatever is amiss, and do not, by sloth and stupidity, be led away into such conversation and principles as will sap your Christian hopes, and corrupt your practice." The disbelief of a future state destroys all virtue and piety. But the best improvement to be made of the truth is to cease from sin, and set ourselves to the business of religion, and that in good earnest. If there will be a resurrection and a future life, we should live and act as those who believe it, and should not give into such senseless and sottish notions as will debauch our morals, and render us loose and sensual in our lives. 3. Here is a reproof, and a sharp one, to some at least among them: Some of you have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame. Note, It is a shame in Christians not to have the knowledge of God. The Christian religion gives the best information that can be had about God, his nature, and grace, and government. Those who profess this religion reproach themselves, by remaining without the knowledge of God; for it must be owing to their own sloth, and slight of God, that they are ignorant of him. And is it not a horrid shame for a Christian to slight God, and be so wretchedly ignorant in matters that so nearly and highly concern him? Note, also, It must be ignorance of God that leads men into the disbelief of a resurrection and future life. Those who know God know that he will not abandon his faithful servants, nor leave them exposed to such hardships and sufferings without any recompence or reward. They know he is not unfaithful nor unkind, to forget their labour and patience, their faithful services and cheerful sufferings, or let their labour be in vain. But I am apt to think that the expression has a much stronger meaning; that there were atheistical people among them who hardly owned a God, or one who had any concern with or took cognizance of human affairs. These were indeed a scandal and shame to any Christian church. Note, Real atheism lies at the bottom of men's disbelief of a future state. Those who own a God and a providence, and observe how unequal the distributions of the present life are, and how frequently the best men fare worst, can hardly doubt an after state, where every thing will be set to rights.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv19–54 But now is Christ risen from the dead,.... As…
But now is Christ risen from the dead,.... As was before proved by ocular testimonies, and before preached and asserted; and now reassumed and concluded, from the glaring contradictions, and dreadful absurdities that follow the denial of it:
and became the firstfruits of them that slept; who were already fallen asleep; respecting chiefly the saints that died before the resurrection of Christ; and if Christ was the firstfruit of them, there is no difficulty of conceiving how he is the firstfruits of those that die since. The allusion is to the firstfruits of the earth, which were offered to the Lord: and especially to the sheaf of the firstfruits, which was waved by the priest before him, Deu 26:2 and to which Christ, in his resurrection from the dead, is here compared. The firstfruits were what first sprung out of the earth, were soonest ripe, and were first reaped and gathered in, and then offered unto the Lord; so Christ first rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven, and presented himself to God; as the representative of his people; for though there were others that were raised before him, as the widow of Sarepta's son by Elijah, the Shunammite's son by Elisha, and the man that touched the prophet's bones when put into his grave, and Jairus's daughter, the widow of Naam's son, and Lazarus by Christ; yet as these did not rise by their own power, so only to a mortal life: but Christ, as he raised himself by his own power, so he rose again to an immortal life, and was the first that ever did so; he was the first to whom God showed, and who first trod this path of life. The firstfruits were the best, what was then ripest, and so most valuable; Christ is the first, and rose the first in dignity, as well as in time; he rose as the head of the body, as the firstborn, the beginning, that in all things he might have, and appear to have, as he ought to have, the pre-eminence. The firstfruits sanctified the rest of the harvest, represented the whole, gave right to the ingathering of it, and ensured it; Christ by lying in the grave, and rising out of it, sanctified it for his people, and in his resurrection represented them; they rose with him, and in him; and their resurrection is secured by his; because he lives, they shall live also. The firstfruits were only such, and all this to the fruits of the earth, that were of the same kind with them, not to tares and chaff, to briers and thorns; so Christ, in rising from the dead, is only the firstfruits of the saints; of such as are the fruits of his death and of his grace, who have the fruits of his Spirit in them, and are filled with the fruits of righteousness by him; just as he is the firstborn from the dead, with respect to the many brethren, whom he stands in the relation of a firstborn: once more, as the allusion is particularly to the sheaf of the firstfruits, it is to be observed, that that was waved before the Lord, the morrow after the sabbath, Lev 23:11 which, as the Jews (f) interpret, was the morrow after the first good day, or festival of the passover; the passover was on the fourteenth day of the month; the festival, or Chagiga, on the fifteenth, and which, in the year that Christ suffered, was a sabbath day also; and the morrow after that, the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved; now Christ suffered on the passover, rested in the grave on the seventh day sabbath, and on the morrow after that, rose from the dead, the very day that the first fruits were offered to the Lord: so that the allusion and phrase are very appropriately used by the apostle.
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(f) Targum & Jarchi in Lev. xxiii. 11.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54 If in this life only we have hope -…
If in this life only we have hope - If we look for nothing beyond the grave. But if we have a divine evidence of things not seen, if we have "a hope full of immortality," if we now taste of "the powers of the world to come," and see "the crown that fadeth not away," then, notwithstanding" all our present trials, we are more happy than all men.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 Verse 19. If in this life only we have…
Verse 19. If in this life only we have hope] It would be better to translate and point this verse as follows:-
And, if in this life we have hoped in Christ only, we are more to be pitied than all men. If, in this life, we have no other hope and confidence but in Christ, (and if he be still dead, and not yet risen,) we are more to be pitied than any other men; we are sadly deceived; we have denied ourselves, and been denied by others; have mortified ourselves, and been persecuted by our fellow creatures on account of our belief and hope in One who is not existing, and therefore can neither succour us here, nor reward us hereafter. Bishop Pearce.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 39, 42, 45, 47, 50, 53 1Co 15:19. If in this life only we have…
1Co 15:19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ — We, who are exposed to such a variety of dangers and sufferings, for his sake; we are of all men most miserable — Ελεεινοτεροι, most to be pitied; that is, if we look for nothing beyond the grave. But if we have a divine evidence of things not seen; if we have a hope full of immortality; if we now taste the powers of the world to come, and see the crown that fadeth not away; then, notwithstanding all our present trials, we are more happy than all men. Some have argued from this verse, that if there were no future state, piety and virtue would make men more miserable in this world than they otherwise would be. But, as Dr. Doddridge observes, it is evident the apostle is not speaking here of the case of good men in general, if their hopes of future happiness should be disappointed; but of the case of the first Christians, and especially of the apostles and other preachers of Christianity, amid the hardships and persecutions to which they were continually exposed. If they had not known that there was a state of immortal felicity and glory before them, and if they had not been supported amid their various sufferings with a well-grounded and lively hope of it, they must have been peculiarly miserable. For besides all the external calamities to which they were exposed, they must have been perpetually subjected to the upbraidings of their own minds, for sacrificing every view of happiness in this world or another, to advance what they knew to be a pernicious falsehood. It must be observed, the apostle does not say, that if there should be no resurrection of the body, the Christian could only hope in Christ in this life; for if the soul be immortal, and may be happy after its separation from the body, that would not follow. But he argues thus: If Christ is not risen for our justification, we are yet under the guilt of sin, 1Co 15:17; and if so, both soul and body must perish after death, 1Co 15:18; and then the hope of Christians must terminate with this life, which being more especially to many of them a life of misery, by reason of the sufferings to which their faith here often exposes them, they would of all men be most miserable. Macknight considers the apostle as answering an objection, which he supposes the reader to have made in his own mind, namely, this: “The apostles know that Christ hath not risen, and that there will be no resurrection of the dead, but they preach these things for the sake of some present advantage.” “To this Paul replies, If in this life only we have hope, &c., we are of all men the most miserable — Because, by preaching Christ’s resurrection, we expose ourselves to every possible present evil, and if there is to be no resurrection of the dead, there is no future state in which we can enjoy anything. This argument is levelled against the Sadducees, who, believing the soul to be material, affirmed that it perishes with the body; and will have no existence after death, the body being never to be raised. The apostle’s argument is equally conclusive on supposition that the soul is immaterial, and that it will exist and enjoy [happiness] after death, although the body is not raised. For if the apostles were false witnesses and impostors, they could look for no happiness from God after death.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv19–54 If in this life only we have hope in…
If in this life only we have hope in Christ - If our hope in Christ shall not be followed by the resurrection of the dead and future glory, and if all our hopes shall be disappointed.
We are ... - Doddridge, Macknight, Grotius, and some others, suppose that this refers to the apostles only, and that the sense is, that if there was no resurrection, they, of all people would be most to be pitied, since they had exposed themselves to such a variety of dangers and trials, in which nothing could sustain them but the hope of immortality. If they failed in that they failed in everything. They were regarded as the most vile of the human family; they suffered more from persecution, poverty, and perils than other people; and if, after all, they were to be deprived of all their hopes, and disappointed in their expectation of the resurrection, their condition would be more deplorable than that of any other people. But there is no good reason for supposing that the word “we,” here, is to be limited to the apostles. For:
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Paul had not mentioned the apostles particularly in the previous verses; and, The argument demands that it should be understood of all Christians, and the declaration is as true, substantially, of all Christians as it was of the apostles.
Of all men most miserable - More to be pitied or commiserated than any other class of people. The word used here (ἐληινότεροι elēinoteroi) means, properly, more deserving of pity, more pitiable. It may mean sometimes, more wretched or unhappy; but this is not necessarily its meaning, nor is it its meaning here. It refers rather to their condition and hopes than to their personal feeling; and does not mean that Christians are unhappy, or that their religion does not produce comfort, but that their condition would be most deplorable; they would be more deserving of pity than any other class of people. This would be:
(1) Because no other people had so elevated hopes, and, of course, no others could experience so great disappointment.
(2) They were subjected to more trials than any other class of people. They were persecuted and reviled, and subjected to toil, and privation, and want, on account of their religion; and if, after all, they were to be disappointed, their condition was truly deplorable.
(3) They do not indulge in the pleasures of this life; they do not give themselves, as ethers do, to the enjoyments of this world. They voluntarily subject themselves to trial and self-denial; and if they are not admitted to eternal life, they are not only disappointed in this but they are cut off from the sources of happiness which their fellow-men enjoy in this world - Calvin.
(4) On the whole, therefore, there would be disappointed hopes, and trials, and poverty, and want, and all for nothing; and no condition could be conceived to be more deplorable than where a man was looking for eternal life, and for it subjecting himself to a life of want, and poverty, persecution, and tears, and should be finally disappointed. This passage, therefore, does not mean that virtue and piety are not attended with happiness; it does not mean that, even if there were no future state, a man would not be more happy if he walked in the paths of virtue than if he lived a life of sin; it does not mean that the Christian has no happiness in “religion itself” - in the love of God, and in prayer, and praise, and in purity of life. In all this he has enjoyment and even if there were no heaven, a life of virtue and piety would be more happy than a life of sin. But it means that the condition of the Christian would be more “deplorable” than that of other people; he would be more to be pitied. All his high hopes would be disappointed. Other people have no such hopes to be dashed to the ground; and, of course, no other people would be such objects of pity and compassion. The “argument” in this verse is derived from the high hopes of the Christian. “Could they believe that all their hopes were to be frustrated? Could they subject themselves to all these trials and privations, without believing that they would rise from the dead? Were they prepared, by the denial of the doctrine of the resurrection, to put themselves in the condition of the most miserable and wretched of the human family - to “admit” that they were in a condition most to be deplored?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 51, 52, 54 Afterwards the end; i.e. after the general resurrection of…
Afterwards the end; i.e. after the general resurrection of all, will be the end of the world. Then Christ shall deliver up his kingdom, as to this world, over all men, over the devil and his apostate angels, signified by principalities and powers; not but that Christ, both as God and man, shall reign for all eternity, not only over his elect but over all creatures, having triumphed by his resurrection over the enemy of mankind, the devil, over sin, and over death, which is as it were the last enemy of his elect. At the general resurrection, Christ will present these elect to his heavenly Father, as the fruits of his victory over sin and death; and though as man he came to suffer and die, and was also made subject to his eternal Father, yet being God as well as man, he is Lord of all, and will make his faithful servants partakers of his glory in his heavenly kingdom. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv29, 35, 51 B. Refutation of the impugners of the resurrection of…
B. Refutation of the impugners of the resurrection of the dead (2) from the inconceivableness of certain facts, except on its supposition
1Co_15:29-34
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29Else what shall they do which are baptized [have themselves baptized, οἱ βαπτίζόμενοι] for the dead, if the dead rise not [are not raised, οὐχ ἐγείρονται] at all? why are they then baptized [do they have themselves baptized, βαπτιζονται] for the dead? 30[om. the dead. ins. them, αὐτῶν23]? And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? 31I protest by your24 rejoicing [by the boasting which I have concerning you,2 brethren, νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν καύχησιν, ἀδειλφοί25] which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32If after the manner of men [with the views of common men, κατὰ ἄνθρωπον] I have [om. have] fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let [me? If the dead rise not, let] us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. 33Be not deceived: evil communications [associations, ὁμιλίαι] corrupt good manners 34[useful habits, ἤθη χρηστὰ26] Awake to righteousness [awake at once, as it is right, ἐκνἡφατε δικαίως], and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak27 this to your shame.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Co_15:29.—Else what shall they do, —The connection here with what precedes involves some difficulties. [As Stanley remarks: “it is one of the most abrupt to be found in St. Paul’s Epistles. He leaves the new topic just at the moment when he has pursued it, as it were, to the remotest point, and goes back to the general argument as suddenly as if nothing had intervened. The two instances most similar are 1Co_5:9, 1Co_2:6; 1Co_2:8; 2Co_6:14; 2Co_7:1. Here, as there, the confusion may possibly have arisen from some actual interruption in the writing or the material, of the letter; the main argument proceeding continuously from 1Co_15:20 to 1Co_15:29, and the whole intervening passage being analogous to what in modern composition would be called a note”]. Inasmuch as ἑπεί, since, ordinarily indicates a connection with what immediately precedes, Meyer insists upon our interpreting it so here, q. d., ‘for if there is nothing in this development of human history onward to the end, when God shall be all in all, then what shall they do, etc’ Such a construction can be maintained only in so far as we regard the resurrection as the chief event in this final consummation. Neander, on the contrary, says: “We must suppose a digression to begin at 1Co_15:22, since, at that point, there opened upon the Apostle’s view a prospect of the whole process of the world’s development proceeding from the redemption of Christ. He started with the idea of the necessary connection which the resurrection to eternal life has with Christianity; and with this he now proceeds.” [The ellipsis hero may be thus supplied: ‘The dead are certainly to be raised, else what shall they do, etc.’ (Hodge); or, inserting it after “else,” ‘if it be as the adversaries suppose, what, etc.’ (Alford)].—The question here suggests the utter uselessness of the practice ho is about to adduce in confirmation of his position. “Every baptism that you perform in behalf of the dead, would be without meaning, if those who deny the resurrection were in the right. He indicates the subjective absurdity of the proceeding in this case.” Meyer.—who are baptized for the dead,—How are we to understand these words? The simplest explanation of the act here spoken of is, the suffering of one’s self to be baptized for the benefit of deceased persons, or in their stead, so as to redound to their advantage, i. e., that the salvation mediated by baptism, might fall to their lot, so that those who themselves died unbaptized, might pass for baptized, and thus have part in the resurrection and in the kingdom of Christ. A custom of this sort is discoverable in subsequent times; yet, however, only among heretical sects, such as the Cerinthians and the Marcionites (comp. Epiph. haer. 28, 3; Tertull. de resurr. 48; adv. Marc. 5, 10; Christ, i.h. 1.). The article before νεκῤῶν, dead, points to definite cases (‘for the dead’ in question). “We might imagine that many, having come to the exercise of faith, resolved to receive baptism, but died ere the rite could be performed. This was so much the more likely to have been the case, inasmuch as according to 1Co_11:30, there was an epidemic prevalent. If, then, a relative had suffered himself to be baptized in the conviction that he was only doing what the deceased would have done had he survived, the proceeding would not have been quite so superstitious.” Neander. But it is probable that this custom could have sprung up so early, and could have been mentioned by the Apostle without disapproval, when it was so inconsistent with his fundamental views of faith and of its efficiency for the attainment of salvation?—The latter, indeed, is perhaps supposable, since he has here primarily to do only with the testimony which might be adduced from an actual occurrence; respecting the relation of which, however, to the truth, there was no need of his explaining himself.28 Bisping considers the use of the third person (“what shall they do”) as an indirect intimation of disapproval. [And so. Alford: “There is in these words a tacit reprehension of the practice which it is hardly possible altogether to miss. Both by the third person and by the article before βαπτ. he indirectly separates himself and those to whom he is writing from participation in, or approval of the practice.” He translates βαπτιζόμενοι ‘those who are in the habit of being baptized,’ not οἱ βαπτίσθεντες. The distinction, he says, is important as affecting the interpretation]. Indeed, that Paul, as well as the other apostles, exercised a counteracting influence upon this custom, may be inferred from the fact that it afterwards vanished out of the orthodox church, and was perpetuated only among heretics. It is by no means improbable, that the high estimation of baptism, at so early a period, had acquired a superstitious taint. Since the deeply-rooted heathenish notion of the magical influence of sacred rites might easily have been preserved, or at least, have re-appeared, among those of whom the Apostle asserts that they were yet carnal, and who took so low a position in their estimate of spiritual gifts. This view is to be maintained all the more decidedly from the circumstance that all other views are, in part, opposed to the ordinary use of terms, and in part, improbable, and arbitrary on other grounds. But what we have adduced cannot well be questioned.—Proceeding from the signification of ὑπέρ here pre-supposed, viz: in behalf of, Olshausen could have interpretated it to imply that it was done for the benefit of the dead, in so far as a definite number (pleroma) must needs be baptized ere the second adventand resurrection could ensue; but this view appears in itself questionable, since there is nothing in the context intimating it, and it inclines to another signification of words, viz: ‘instead of the dead,’ i.e., to fill up the gap made by these deceased. But this interpretation would be devoide of significance, and also, in respect to the use of language, very doubtful. Luther’s translation, “over the dead,” i.e., over their graves, is opposed: 1. by the N. T. use of language which no where takes ὑπέρ with the genitive in a local sense; 2. by a lack of all historical trace of any such burial ceremony in apostolic times. Still less admissible is the explanation that applies it to the baptism of the Clinici, those upon the bed of death, jamjam morituri (Estius), or, quum mortem ante oculos positam hebeant (Bengel); since the words could not mean this, and besides we hear nothing of the baptism of the Clinici at this time. Equally untenable is the reference of the words “in behalf of the dead” to Christ (the plural here being taken in a general sense to designate the category [as Wordsworth,]; since water baptism would require the preposition etc, and to the blood-baptism no allusion whatever can be found in the context, and the word is never used in this sense by Paul. Besser interprets still differently: “Not a few heathen [convinced by the sight of a believer’s triumph over death] would allow themselves to be baptized for the sake of those deceased ones whom they had seen to depart in peace and joy—and before the dying beds and graves over which there seemed to flourish an unfading hope; in order to pass from death into life in company with those who slept in Christ.” Here ὑπέρ is taken in the sense of, on account of, because of, [not, to their advantage, but, out of admiration, or love for them], as in Rom_15:9. “That the Gentiles might glorify God for (ὑπέρ) his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name.”29
[The most favorite interpretation for the last half century is that of Lightfoot and Rosenmüller, adopted by Robinson in his Lexicon, which takes βαπτιζόμενοι in the sense of ‘being immersed in sufferings,’ as parallel to ‘being in jeopardy,’ in the next clause. Referring to Mar_10:33; Mar_10:39, and Luk_12:50, it takes ὑπέρ in the sense of ἕνεκα, and τῶν νεκρῶν for death. The complete meaning of the words then would be, ‘those who have been overwhelmed with calamities, trials and sufferings, in the hope of the resurrection or with the expectation that the dead would rise.’ But the objections to this view are that the words are here taken in an unusual and unnatural sense, to which we are not to resort, unless compelled by some most evident reason; and also, the ellipsis implied is much too harsh to be admitted. Bloomfield and Barnes follow the interpretation of Chrys., and the early Greek Fathers, supported by Hammond! and Wetstein, which takes the baptism here alluded to as that which is applied to all believers, who, in receiving the rite, witness to their faith in the resurrection of the dead. Here an ellipsis of the word “resurrection” is presupposed. The great objection to this view is, that in this case the persons alluded to, instead of being, as they obviously are, a distinct class in the church, are the whole body of believers, leaving us nothing special here as the ground of the Apostle’s appeal]. The latest attempt now only remains to be mentioned (Theol. Stud, und Krit. 1860. 1. S. 135 ff.) There we have the interpretation, “why should a person suffer himself to be baptized on account of the dead,” i.e., to belong to! them, to come to them, so as to form a kingdom of the dead? However easy and simple this may I appear, yet such an interpretation of the phrase βαπτ. ὑπέρ τῶν νεκρῶν is an artificial one, and not sufficiently well grounded. Properly it should read, ‘who are baptized on account of the resurrection and in the hope of the same; because death, or coming into the kingdom of the dead, was the only thing to be anticipated without any further hope for this life. Something similar to this appears in Chrys., Theod. and others. Other interpretations may as well be passed over. [For a full list of these, see Pool’s synopsis and also Notes by Stanley and Barnes on this text].—The correct parallelism requires that the next clause, which in the Rec. is connected with that just considered, should be joined with what follows.—if the dead rise not at all?—ὀλως as in v. 1.—why are they even yet baptized for them?—καί intensive, still, even yet. The meaning is, [if we adopt the explanation first maintained above,] in this case nothing at all could be accomplished for the dead: it is therefore, perfectly useless any longer to submit to baptism in their behalf.’
1Co_15:30-34. As a second argument in his apogogical demonstration he refers to the perilous self-devotion and the hazards of martyr-death which were incurred by himself and his associates. The utter uselessness and folly of such conduct, in case the dead rose not, are indicated in the form of a question.—And why also do we stand in jeopardy every hour?—[With baptizing for the dead, he had nothing to do. But he, no less than those before mentioned, were pursuing a most absurd and irrational course, if they could count upon no compensation for the pains of their self-denial in a resurrection state. Here, it will be observed, all the way through, that, in the Apostle’s mind, future existence, apart from the resurrection, was as nothing. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul seems with him to have been identified with that of the restoration of the body. What he looked for was the glorification of his entire constitution, body, soul, and! spirit; and to be bereft of any part, was with him a marring of the whole. He “would not be unclothed, but clothed upon,” with a nobler vesture than that he had here. His reasoning is of force only on this supposition]. Dropping his associates he now passes over to himself individually.—Daily do I die.—As he before speaks of himself and his associates being in hourly jeopardy, so here he expresses the continuance of his own still worse condition, by exhibiting it as a daily death. And this dying may be explained, either of the extreme danger he was ever in, being so much greater than that just spoken of, q.d., ‘I daily hover on the brink of death’ (comp. Rom_8:36; 2Co_4:10; 2Co_1:10); or, it may be construed subjectively of his sense of dying (Osiander, according to Luther). Meyer explains it: “I go about dying; I am moribund,’—a vividly symbolic designation of the fatal dangers by which Paul saw himself to be daily threatened.” This explanation also slides over into the subjective, which is supported by the parallels adduced by Wetstein on this passage. This suits well with the adjuration following—(I protest) by your rejoicing,—This is the only place in the New Testament where νή occurs; but we meet with, it frequently in the LXX. It belongs to the Attic style, [and occurs in the celebrated oath of Demosthenes, where he swore by the shades of those who had met death in the field of Marathon, exhorting the Athenians to defend the Republic (Calvin)]. It is here used for strengthening the previous assertion [—“an oath by which he wished to arouse the Corinthians to be more attentive in listening to him as to the matter in hand, q. d. ‘brethren, I am not some philosopher, prattling in the shade. As I expose myself every day to death, it is necessary that I should think in good earnest of the heavenly life. Believe, therefore, a man who is thoroughly experienced.’ ” Calvin. And, in explaining the nature of the oath, Theophylact acutely observes, that, in, swearing by his boast over them, “he meant to remind them that he expects them to maintain with constancy this their faith; q. d. ‘If I boast on account of your improvement, so shall I be ashamed, if, at last, ye so wretchedly act as to disbelieve the resurrection,’ ” (cited by Bloomfield)].—That by which he protests, is the boasting which he had over the Corinthians; for we are here to take ὑμέτεραν, your, as standing in place of the genitive of the object, ὐμῶν, as in Rom_11:31; τὸκαύχημα ἡμῶν τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, 2Co_9:3. In reference to this boasting, comp. 2Co_3:1; 2Co_10:15. There is something very touching in this declaration, which is still further enhanced by the affectionate address.—brethren,—[On this see Critical Notes]. This boasting over the Corinthians, over their subjection to the faith, and his great success in establishing a church so renowned and gifted, he says, he holds—in Christ Jesus our Lord.—i.e., in virtue of his fellowship with Christ, as a servant, who had accomplished great things by His power. The meaning then is, ‘as truly as I can boast of you, in Jesus Christ our Lord, do I daily tremble amid the dangers of death.’ Meyer Ed. 3, laying particular emphasis on “you,” explains it somewhat differently: “So truly as ye, yourselves, are the object of my boasting.” “The Corinthians, whose conversion was an apostolic triumph for Him, could themselves bear witness what fatal dangers beset him in his apostolic work” (?). From the general he now passes over into the special.—If after the manner of men—Here is where the emphasis in this clause lies. The meaning is not, ‘if, according to man’s ability, with the exercise of the utmost strength’ (Rückert); since neither the contrast points to this, nor is the phrase ordinarily used in this sense. Nor yet does it mean ‘to speak after the manner of men,’ for there is no λέγω or λαλῶ connected with it; [nor yet, ‘as far as man was concerned.’ (Wordsworth)]. But it means, ‘according to the ways of common men,’ ‘according to those interests and views by which men are governed,’—aiming, for example, at reward, or glory, and the like; or, as Neander: “with a merely human hope, and without any expectation of eternal life.”—I fought with beasts at Ephesus,—Respecting the allusion here, expositors are divided. Some take the words literally, and understand by them that the apostle, when at Ephesus, had been actually condemned to fight with beasts in the amphitheatre, from which contest he had been marvelously rescued; others, construe metaphorically, understanding the apostle to speak of a conflict with violent and dangerous men, or with strong and embittered foes. Expressions implying the latter are found in Appian (οί́οις θηρίοις μαχόμεθα), and in Ignatius Ad. Romans 5. (comp. 2Ti_4:17; Tit_1:12; Mat_7:6). The former interpretation is rendered improbable, not only because of the rights of Roman citizenship, which Paul enjoyed, which precluded such punishment, and to which he would have appealed, in case he had been condemned to it; but also from the fact that no mention of any such extraordinary occurrence is made in the Acts, nor in 2Co_11:23 ff.—But in adopting the metaphorical explanation, we are not to suppose the allusion here to be to the uproar excited by Demetrius (Acts 19), which did not occur until after this epistle was written, and in which Paul incurred no personal danger; nor yet, perhaps, to any one particular circumstance, but rather to his whole conflict with his Jewish opponents. (Comp. Act_20:19.) [The arguments for its being taken literally are thus set forth by Stanley, who, however, regards the metaphorical interpretation as the more likely.” 1. The metaphor would be more violent here than in Ignatius, where it is evidently drawn from the actual prospect of the wild beasts in the amphitheatre; 2. The Asiarchs, who are mentioned Act_19:31 of Acts, as restraining the tumult of Demetrius, appear in Polycarp’s Martyrdom to have had the charge of the wild beasts; 3. Although there are no remains of an amphitheatre at Ephesus, yet traces of a stadium are to be seen; and in the case of Polycarp, wild beasts were used in the stadium at Smyrna; 4. the young men at Ephesus were famous for their bull-fights. Artimedor. 1Co_1:9 (Wetstein); 5. that ἐν Σφέσω̣ seems a forced expression, if the allusion is merely to opponents generally. Whatever be the danger, it must be the same of which he speaks in Rom_16:4; 2Co_1:8; Act_20:19.”] what advantageth it me,—a strong way of putting the negative. His conflict was an aimless, useless hazarding of life.—if the dead rise not?—This clause is not to be connected with what precedes [as in the E. V.], as though designed to explain the words “after the manner of men;” or as forming a second condition to the question just put—although according to the sense, it belongs with it; but, because of the concinnity of the clauses, it must be connected with what follows, where it gives a frivolous turn to the question, “What advantageth it me?” in the spirit of a light hearted unbelief, in order to exhibit in its proper light, how unsuitable, even in a moral aspect, that supposition was, and how it involved the most absurd consequences.—let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.—These words are taken literally from Isa_22:13, where they occur as the utterance of a God-forgetting light-mindedness. The meaning is ‘He who denies the resurrection of the dead, by thus robbing himself of all the consolations of faith and hope, comes by natural consequence to surrender himself to the constant enjoyment of the present life, since death was soon coming to put an end to all enjoyment. We are not, however, to infer from this that the Corinthian opponents of the resurrection had actually preached such doctrine. All Paul intends is to let them see the consequences of their own position; and he here intimates that this denial was not altogether unconnected with the cultivation of too great intimacy with the profligate society around them. Similar expressions of Epicurean frivolity occur in Isa_56:12; Wis_2:1 ff, and in the classics;30 (Comp. Wetstein 1. h. 1.) The words “rise not,” and “die,” do not necessarily involve annihilation. Even existence in Hades, without the hope of resurrection, was a joyless state.
That the frivolous tendency indicated in the foregoing words actually existed among the Corinthian deniers of the resurrection is clear from the warning which follows; for in the “evil communications” he speaks of, he no doubt has these persons in mind, and by reference to a verse of the comedian Menander, expressive of a general truth which perhaps had also taken the form of a proverb among them, he admonishes his readers that they had reason to guard against the influences of such people.—Be not deceived:—The caution implies a strong temptation [inherent in human nature and its social tendencies, by which many are insensibly beguiled into the formation of views and habits from which they would at first have strongly recoiled],—Evil communications corrupt good manners.—’Ομιλία means association, intercourse, and conversation which arises from it; the plural form is found in the New Testament only here. Ηθος, a mode of action, character, disposition, moral quality. Χρηστός elsewhere in the New Testament means kind, mild, good, suitable, etc., here being contrasted with κακαί it implies moral goodness (Plato: χρηστότης=ῆθους σπονδαιότης). Lachmann gives the reading χρήσθ’. So it reads in the original of Menander ; but it is a question whether the apostle observed the metre. The authorities are not sufficient to decide. [“The quotation shows the apostle’s acquaintance with heathen literature, and to a certain extent his sanction of it, as in his quotation from Aratus in Act_17:28, and Epimedes in Tit_1:12. Menander was famous for the elegance with which he threw into the form of single verses or short sentences, the maxims of that practical wisdom in the affairs of common life which forms so important a feature in the new comedy. In the sentence cited, each word is emphatic; character (ἠ̓θη) may be undermined by talk (ὁμιλίαι): honesty (χρηστά) may be undermined by roguery (κακαί).” Stanley].—To those already contaminated by the treacherous influences of such frivolous men he now calls out abruptly—ἐκνήψατε δικαίως lit:—sober out rightly,—[“An exclamation full of apostolic majesty.” Bengel.] By this he gives them to understand that the susceptibility to such trifling communications lies in a state of spiritual drunkenness, out of which they ought at once to rouse themselves. The same expression is used of drunkards in Joe_1:5. [The aorist form adds force to the imperative, implying that the act must be done instantly.] Δικαίως means as it befits them, in the right way. By this he indicates, not so much the degree as the kind of sobriety he would have them cultivate—in contrast perhaps with the false sobriety of their new light which might appear to them as an emerging from the narrowness of their traditional notions into a state of luminous thought and feeling. Others explain the word of the direction which they were to take; or they refer it to the object to be pursued. So Calvin: ‘Turn your mind to good and holy things.’ But this transcends the simple meaning of the term. [Alford says, however, “The last meaning is well defended by Dr. Peil from Thuc. 1Co 1Co_1:21 : ἀπίστως ἐπὶ τὸ μυθῶδες ἐκνενικηότα,—where the adverb ἀπιστως must be rendered ‘so as to become incredible,’ and seems to be the best”]. and sin not;—The imperative is here in the present, and so implies the continued and perpetual abstaining from all sin. The words convey an exhortation, and not in inference, [as Bengel, who says that the imperative after an imperative has the force of a future (Joh_7:37. Note)], ‘so ye will not sin.’ Nor are we to understand by ‘sin,’ a mere error of the understanding (Bengel), (this may accord with the classical use of the word ἀμαρτάνειν, but not with its Biblical and Pauline use); but a turning aside from the ways of righteousness, moral error in consequence of unbelief and a denial of the resurrection. “In the apostle’s view, a frivolous mind appeared as something sinful.” Neander.—The reason for this admonition he further assigns by referring that treacherous unbelief which appeared to them as the result of profounder knowledge, to a lack of that true knowledge which is the ground of all other knowledge.—for some have ignorance of God.—As his previous admonition was directed to those in the church who were in danger of being ensnared by the talk of the frivolous deniers of the resur rection, so does this statement here point to the false teachers themselves, setting them in such light as to open the eyes of the others in regard to their true character and to bring them to see the vanity of this unbelief. Accordingly, by the word “some,” we are not to understand another portion of the church, but those mentioned in 1Co_15:12, and of these, not simply a portion, but the whole. “The ignorance of God” which they manifested and which was nothing less than a practical alienation from God, is exhibited as an abiding trait by the use of the word “have,” i. e. they are permanently affected with it. They are thus represented as having settled down upon the platform of heathenism. The thought is essentially the same as in Mat_22:29. “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Not knowing God as the Living and Omnipotent One, is the reason why people assert the impossibility of the resurrection.—That such persons should be found in the church of God was a disgrace to the whole church. This he gives them to understand in the words annexed.—To your shame do I speak.—[“boldly—he speaks more severely than at the beginning on another subject.” 1Co_4:14. Bengel. There is no need of adding “this,” as the E. V., since the language here refers to what is said in the whole passage].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The power of the believer’s faith and hope. Faith in a living Saviour, who was dead and rose again, and now lives eternally to take His own into the fellowship of His eternal and perfect life,—and also the root of this faith, even the knowledge of the living God, who is exalted above all changes of life and death, and lifts His kindred creature man out from his transient, mortal state, into His own unchanging felicity, through the redemption of His incarnate Son,—awakens in the believer a lofty, cheerful courage, which shrinks from no danger, which readily exposes itself to the most painful and appalling conflicts, and which is willing to lead a dying life, yea even to lay down body and soul when the Master’s cause requires it. For what is temporal life, with all its joys and pleasures, with all its needs and struggles, in comparison with that eternal life, from whence all that is transient has vanished, and where all that is now upon us and in us worthy of preservation, is insured and perpetuated after having been purified, developed and matured for unspeakable blessedness and glory?
Far different is it, where that faith and knowledge are wanting, and where a person is constrained to give up the hope of such blessedness. In such a case all sacrifices of whatever is transient, all hazards and self denials and conflicts, must appear useless and absurd. The sole reasonable course is to seize the passing moment, and enjoy to the full whatever this life may afford, and to use all means for obtaining, preserving and increasing such enjoyment.—Experience teaches, also, that that system of speculation which abandons the true Gospel foundation—a pantheistic gnosis, for example—however spiritual it may appear at the first, and even though asserting an ethical character, sinks at last gradually, if not suddenly, into downright materialism and carnal license. Its earlier aspects and attitude, both in its theoretical and practical bearings, must be ascribed to a previous knowledge, and regarded as the lingering result of the truth which has been essentially abandoned. We may also say, that the higher moral attitude maintained by any system which lacks the true faith and its attendant hope, is owing to a hidden faith and hope, still slumbering in the depths of the spirit, which, however, in consequence of the prevailing views can attain to no settled form in the thoughtful mind. But those who are of a frivolous nature, and who shamelessly proclaim their folly in word and deed, form a dangerous class for the unsteadfast to associate with. Against these it is needful to guard, since by them the fruit of a good education is often destroyed. And these influences are the more dangerous, in proportion as they carry the appearance of a high tone of spirituality, or fall in with the current of the time. In such a case we may well call to mind the language of the apostle where he speaks of Satan as “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Luther:
1Co_15:34. “He who would recognize God, must learn to know Him through His Word. This they [the worldly-wise] don’t do; but they go directly at the articles of faith with their own understandings, and with their own thoughts, and so presume to judge of God, and of all things concerning Him. Hence they never hit Him.”
Starke:
1Co_15:30. No pains, or labors, or watchings, or strivings, to serve God are lost. As surely as God is a righteous judge will there come a resurrection of the dead.
1Co_15:31. What is the daily spiritual dying of the faithful, and their constant familiarity with sufferings and persecutions other than a confirmation of the resurrection to a life eternal? 1Co_15:32. Hostile, dangerous men are worse than wild beasts. If thou hast to deal with such, sigh to God; be watchful, circumspect, and patient.—Unhappy man, who believest not in the resurrection of the dead! For such a one grows secure, falls from one sin to another, and slides on towards damnation.
Hed.:
1Co_15:33. If we flee the plague and contagion, why not also evil companionship? Is temporal life more than the soul? Ordinarily, men guard against disease more than against sin. (2Ti_2:17).—There are words and speeches which, under cover of worldly respect and courtesy, conceal a dangerous poison to faith and life. Whoso is wise let him take heed. (Jam_3:8).
1Co_15:34. All who have the means for knowing God, and still are blind, are involved in disgrace. Oh! that they may not thereby be brought to shame and everlasting contempt! (Dan_12:2).
Berlenburger Bibel:
1Co_15:31. Dying means to hate one’s own life in true self denial, and to give it over to death and destruction, with everything which is in and upon man from the fall.—The fact itself is well substantiated, but what a great, deep, rich mystery of God is in it, that faith alone can see. This is already a kind of secret dying, when we dare not even reckon upon our own righteousness before God, but condemn it as a filthy rag. (Php_3:8-10). Accordingly, it is a sort of dying when we abandon ourselves in contradiction to, and beyond our own reason, solely to the unseen, and rest upon the simple promise of God, and that, too, after we have been accustomed to stand upon our own gifts and, works. And these secret crucifixions of nature, in its pride and self-willedness, and seeming sanctity, must take place daily, yea, momentarily, in the very best of Christians if they would not backslide. Yea, in all believers there is no surer safeguard against all kinds of pride which may arise easily in connection with much grace, than this daily dying to self, and one’s own life. But traces of this are manifest only in the children of light. Crude and unbroken spirits know as little of this as do hypocrites, who put their Christianity in much outward show. No one can occupy himself in this save he who is trained in conflict against the mysteries of iniquity hidden in himself.—He who does not of his own accord daily die unto the old man and his evil lusts, constrains God to lay hold on him with power and humble him; but he who willingly resolves to follow Christ, and confesses him honestly before men, will not long be exercised with tribulations.—In sum: Every thing with which man has to do, gives a believer cause and opportunity for mortifying his own life, and hastening to a complete separation from the false things of ‘this world.
1Co_15:32. The Christian’s life-walk, which consists in the constant renouncing of the works of darkness, in the mortification of the flesh and sin, in turning away from the godless; ways of this world, and in the denial of all lusts, desires, and vanities, is an earnest preparation! for the resurrection. Hence Christians prefer the Cross of Christ, and all the shame, and persecution, and contempt which may be heaped I upon them daily by the children of unbelief, to all the treasures, and honors, and enjoyments, and friendships of this present life. And this they could not certainly do, if they believed in no resurrection. The last refuge and comfort of the world is, to take what one can get.—But is there so much depending upon the resurrection? Could not the simple happiness of the soul after death recompense every thing? No. However much of enjoyment it may have, the soul must still always miss something, and through its natural inward longing, must ceaselessly urge God to bestow upon it again a suitable body.
1Co_15:33. There are many spirits who transform themselves into angels of light, and go about in sheep’s clothing, by whom many persons are befooled into dancing around some Aaron’s calf that has been set up. But if any one imagines that he is fully competent to take care of himself, such a person is altogether too confident, and will be certain not to escape unharmed.—Man has in himself enough which should humble him. But if he insists on spreading his feathers, alas! it is all over with him. The excuse: ‘I was young then, does not exonerate a person.
1Co_15:34. Ah! what charm is there not for throwing men into a deep sleep? Hence the necessity of holding fast, betimes, to what is fundamental. Wake at once out of such a fool’s sleep! Oh, how willingly does man linger in the haven of carnal security and indifference! From such places of case does He who walks in the midst of His Church summon all to come forth to earnest labor, and to advancement in their holy calling.—People deem it a disgrace if they are told, ‘they know not God,’ but it should only shame them into improvement.—There are two sorts of divine knowledge; the one is external, literal, dead, and unfruitful; the other is internal, spiritual, living, and fruitful. The former is grounded simply in natural knowledge, in learning, or speaking of God, as when one can use the language of Scripture, or repeat it again to others without experiencing its power. But if that which has been externally apprehended is sealed upon the conscience through the Holy Spirit, and if all the testimonies of God awaken in one a new life, so that he is actually changed and improved thereby, then does God appear before the eyes of the heart, and the man becomes inwardly convinced how righteous, true, good, and holy He is; then are the eyes of the understanding widely opened to see what and how much God does for him, and what he is bound to do in return—what God has promised, and what we have to expect of Him.
Rieger:
1Co_15:30 ff. In all the joy won by communion with Christ, there is daily opportunity to bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Now if, with all this, I could not: set my hope upon the living God who raises the! dead; if I could not regard all the steps I take in the communion of His sufferings and in the likeness of His death as well-measured approaches to the resurrection of the dead; if all this is only for the maintenance of my own opinion,! and only with reference to this short life, what availeth it for me? To suppose that Divine! blessedness and also the sufferings endured in behalf of righteousness should avail nothing, is a thought which destroys all religion and sunders the connection between God and man. If we hold not to the word of promise, and to the hope afforded therein, we have no certainty for eternity, and consequently no assurance that we shall not slide into the old forms of speech, wherein everything runs to the enjoyment of this life, but where death, and its sting are frivolously denied, and all the weighty things which follow thereupon, together with all Christian hope, are thrust out of sight, and all exhortation to diligence in salvation will be heard no more.—That which deserves to be called good morals, and sound knowledge, and correct taste, I should aim at what is unseen and eternal, and be sustained and be kept in exercise by a spirit of faith and self-denial. But how full the world is of such idle talk which turns us away from this, and makes us uncertain and credulous, as if overcome by some magic potion. Error, slumber and in difference towards God and his counsel, and the observance of His ways, are the cause of much sin.
Heubner:
1Co_15:30 ff. Without faith in a future life, many acts of the Christian life, many sacrifices and hazards, would be foolish and purposeless. This faith and steadfast virtue are inseparable. Without this faith that virtue which looks not to the unseen, would be a vain over-straining and fanaticism; and a prudent enjoyment of life would be the highest wisdom. 1Co_15:34. Sobriety, is the clear consciousness of God and His will. A correct self-knowledge leads to a correct faith. Unbelief comes from thorough self-ignorance, dissipation and unrestrained frivolity.
W. F. Besser:
1Co_15:33. If traitors to God find ready helpers in our own lusts, then is it a Christian duty to avoid all needless intercourse with them, and not allow ourselves to purchase their vain words for the sake of setting forth our own hateful inclinations in a seemly garb (Eph_5:6-7).
1Co_15:34. The poison of all erroneous doctrine is intoxicating; and in imbibing it, we allow ourselves to be intoxicated. Well for us, if we properly awake when the voice of truth arouses us, in order that we may spue out the poison of sin, ere we die therein!—“God is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Mat_22:32). Hence, he who denies the resurrection of the dead knows not the true God.
[Robertson:
1Co_15:32. “How many of the myriads of the human race would do right for the sake of right, if they were only to live fifty years and then die for ever more? Go to the sensualist, and tell him that a nobler life is better than a base one, even for that time, and he will answer: ‘I like pleasure better than virtue; you can do as you please; for me, I will enjoy my time. It is a matter of taste. By taking away my hope of a resurrection you have dwarfed good and evil, and shortened their consequences. If I am only to live sixty or seventy years, there is no eternal right or wrong. By destroying the thought of immortality, I have lost the sense of the infinitude of evil, and the eternal nature of good.’ Besides, with our hopes of immortality gone, the value of humanity ceases and people become not worth living for. We have not got a motive strong enough to keep us from sin. Tell the sensualist that, though the theory of the life to come be a dream, yet that here the pleasure of doing right is sublimer than that of self indulgence, and he will answer: ‘Yes, but my appetites are strong; the struggle will be painful, and at last, only a few years will be left. The victory is uncertain, the present enjoyment is sure, why should I refrain? Do you think you can arrest that with some fine sentiment about nobler and baser being. No, the instincts of the animal will be more than a match for all the transcendental reasonings of the philosopher” (abbreviated).
Hodge:
1Co_15:33. “It is only when men associate with the wicked with the desire and purpose of doing them good, that they can rely on the protection of God to preserve them from contamination.”]
[Sermons.—J. Owen:
1Co_15:31. The Christian’s work of dying daily. This to be done cheerfully, comfortably, and triumphantly in the Lord. To this three things requisite: 1. The constant exercise of faith as to the resignation of a departing soul unto the hand and sovereign will-of God. 2. A readiness and willingness to part with this body on the grounds: a, That to depart is to be with Christ; b, That the body is dead because of sin. 3. Constant watchfulness against being surprised by death. R. Hall:
1Co_15:33. Nature and danger of evil communications. 1. What these communications are; a, such as tend to sensualize the mind; b, such as utterly lack a religious spirit; c, such as abound in skeptical objections to Christianity; d, such as are full of hatred to Christianity; e, such as are loose with respects to fundamental moral principles. 2. The way in which they corrupt through the natural suceptibilities of the human mind. 3. The need of the warning, “be not deceived”: a, by the adduction of false precedents; b, by your past experience; c, by any complacent reference to your age and attainments in piety; d, by any supposed strength of resolution].
Footnotes:
[24]1Co_15:31.—Others have ἡμετἐραν. Meyer thinks that ὑμετέραν was not understood, and ἡμετέραν seemed demanded by ἥν ἕχω. It has however, the weight of evidence against it.
[25]1Co_15:31.—The Rec. leaves out ἀδελφοί with D. E. F. G. L. several Ital. versions, the later Arm. Orig. Chrys. Theodt. Damasc. Ambrst.; but A. B. K. Siuait. Vulg. Syr. (both) Goth. Basm. Ann. Aeth. Arab. and Slav. Dial. Aug. Pel. Bede insert it. Some of these add μου C. P. W.]
[26][1Co_15:33.—The Rec. has χρῆσθ̀, Lachmann edits χρῆσθ̀ but they have no good MSS to support them. Clemens Alex. and Amphilochius (of Leon.) have the word thus abbreviated to constitute with the previous syllable a spondee; in our passage read as an iambic trimeter acataletic, which the Latins call senarius. Winer, Gram, of the N.T.§ 68.—JC. P.W.]
[27]1Co_15:34—Lachmann and Tischendorf have λαλῶ. The Rec. gives λώγω on equally good authority. [The former is sustained by B. D. E. Sinait. Dial. Several Latin versions and Armbrst. have loquor. The latter is favored by A. F. G. K. L., Chrys. Theodt. The Vulg. (Flor.) and two Latin and one Vulg. MSS. have dico—C. P. W.]
[28][In similar style Hodge accounts for Paul’s appeal to a wrong custom. “This method of arguing against others from their own concessions, is one which the Apostle frequently employs. When his mind is full of a particular subject, he does not leave it, to pronounce judgment on things incidentally introduced. Thus, in 1Co_11:5, when treating of women speaking in the church unveiled, he expresses no disapprobation of their speaking in public, although he afterwards condemned it. A still more striking example of the same thing is to he found 1Co_10:8, where ho speaks of the Corinthians “sitting at meat in an idol’s temple,” without any disapprobation of the thing itself, but only of its influence on the weaker brethren. Yet, in 1Co_10:14-22, he proves that the thing itself was an act of idolatry. The entire disappearance of this custom in the orthodox church, although other superstitious observances, not less objectionable, soon prevailed, is probably to be referred to the practice, having been forbidden by the Apostle as soon as he reached Corinth. This may have been one of the things which he left to be set in order when he came. 1Co_11:34.”]
[29][See this view wrought out with great originality and convincing argument by the Rev. H. D. Ganse. in the Amer. Pres. and Theo. Review, 1863, p. 83. It merits the preference over all others, because, while answering all the requirements of grammar, and conceding to each word its full and proper meaning, it rests on a natural hypothesis and relieves us of the difficulty of supposing that the Apostle here appeals for support to a practice wholly at variance with his fundamental doctrines. The whole article merits attention as a masterly specimen of exegesis, and as illustrating other points in this chapter with great beauty and force.]
[30] [The following instances may be quoted as a specimen: “O beate Sesti!
Vitae summa brevis nos vetat inchoare longam,
l am te premet nox, fabulaeque Manes
Et domus exilis Plutonia:
O happy Sestius! the brief span of human life forbids us to indulge a distant hope. Soon will night descend upon thee, and the fabulous Manes, and the shadowy mansion of Pluto.” Hor. Carm. 1Co_1:4; 1Co_1:13-17.
Sapias, vina liqnes, et spatio brevi
Speram longam reseces. Durn loquimur, fugerit invida
Aetas. Carpe diem, quam minimuu credula postero.
Be wise: rack off your wines; and abridge your distant hopes in adaptation to the brevity of life. While we speak, envious age has been flying. Seize the present day, depending as little as possible on any future one.”—Hor. Carm. 1Co_1:11; 1Co_1:6-8.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv19–54 If our hopes in Christ were limited to this…
If our hopes in Christ were limited to this life only, we should be, of all men, most to be pitied; namely, because, while others live unmolested, we are exposed to every trial and persecution, and, after all, are doomed to bitter disappointment in our most cherished hope; for all our hope of salvation, even of the soul (not merely of the body), hangs on the resurrection of Christ, without which His death would be of no avail to us (Eph 1:19-20; Pe1 1:3). The heathen are "without hope" (Eph 2:12; Th1 4:13). We should be even worse, for we should be also without present enjoyment (Co1 4:9).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv19–54 19. In this life—The Sadducees, Stoics, and Epicureans held…
19. In this life—The Sadducees, Stoics, and Epicureans held to rewards of virtue in this life. Paul could concede that; but when they proceeded to add in this life only, he objected.
Most miserable—Rather, most pitiable. They were more pitiable than either of the above three sects, because they underwent persecution, privation, and martyrdom; but still more because, on the supposition stated, they did all this inflated with false visions of eternal glory hereafter. And so pagan authors held the Christian readiness for suffering and death an infatuation. Said the philosopher Epictetus, “Is it possible that a man may arrive at this temper and become indifferent to those things, from madness or from habit, like the Galileans?” And the Emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “Let this preparedness of mind (for death) arise from its own judgment, and not from obstinacy, like the Christians.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv19–54 19. we are of all men most miserable] Literally,…
19. we are of all men most miserable] Literally, more to be pitied than all men. Because of the sufferings and labours and persecutions they endured for a creed which was false after all. See notes on ch. 1Co_4:9-13.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 (20) But now . . .—From the hopeless and…
(20) But now . . .—From the hopeless and ghastly conclusion in which the hypothetical propositions of the previous verse would logically land us, the Apostle turns, with the consciousness of truth, to the hopeful faith to which a belief in the resurrection leads. It cannot be so. Now is Christ risen from the dead. And that is no isolated fact. As the firstfruits were typical of the whole harvest (Lev_23:10-11), so is Christ. He rose, not to the exclusion but to the inclusion of all Humanity. If St. Paul wrote this Epistle about the time of Passover (see Introduction, and 1Co_5:6; 1Co_16:8), the fact that the Paschal Sabbath was immediately followed by the day of offering of firstfruits may have suggested this thought.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv19–54 If in this life only we have hope in…
If in this life only we have hope in Christ. 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 hoped in Christ, and that only in this life." We are of all men most miserable; literally, we are more pitiable than all men. The remark only has an absolute bearing when Christians really are suffering from persecutions, as they did in St. Paul"s (2Co_1:5; 2Ti_3:12) 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 another 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 50, 53 If in this life only we have hope in…
1Co_15:19
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Read full note →
Observe
I. What is implied.
1. That all men are miserable.
2. In different degrees, but are comforted by hope.
II. What is assumed.
1. That our hope in Christ is false.
2. That it only extends to this life.
III. What is hypothetically asserted. That in such a case we are subject to greater--
1. Delusion.
2. Sacrifice.
3. Disappointment.
4. Sense of destitution.
IV. What is the fact.
1. We are not most miserable.
2. Our hope is sure. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
One life only an argument against God
If human life, redeemed by Christ, be limited to this world, God has committed a cruel mistake in creating man. The greatness of man becomes a terrible charge against God. He has created appetites which He cannot satisfy, excited hopes which must perish, built a great ship and must destroy it because He cannot create a sea in which it can float. What would be thought of a man who built a splendid chariot and could not get it out of the workshop? A man believes in Christ, and so becomes identified with all that is known of purity, joy, and hope. He rejects the promises of the world; he gets all that the world can give and finds that it is a stone, not bread; his whole life becomes a hunger after something higher. Having thus developed he is told that his grave is dug, and that into it must be thrown every dream, hope, desire. This world is enough for creatures destitute of aspiration--for the lion and the eagle. They cannot hope, pray, aspire. One life only is an argument against--
I. Gods goodness. Take men like the psalmists. They often sang as if they had laid hold of eternal life. They declared Jehovah to be all their salvation and all their desire. To all this Gods answer is extinction. Can a more revolting blasphemy be conceived?
II. His wisdom. Could not man have been made so as to be satisfied with the present world? We know how our generosity may become a pain and temptation to those upon whom we have bestowed it. Our gifts may be large enough to create dissatisfaction with our daily lot, yet too small to secure contentment with another. If it is not Gods purpose to continue the consciousness with which He has endowed us, He has, so to speak, overbuilt Himself in creation. He should either have gone farther, or not so far.
III. His power. But herein is God unlike His creatures. Impair one of Gods attributes and you overturn the whole Godhead. Man may have special excellences and redeeming points of character; but in the case of God every point must be of equal strength and glory. Suppose His goodness to be infinite, and His power limited; then He is Jehovah no more. When He created man, did He not know that His power was incomplete? Has He been taught the insufficiency of His strength by results which He failed to foresee? Conclusion:
1. We have before us, then, a strong presumptive argument in favour of another and higher life. That life suggests itself as the required complement of our present existence, and urges itself upon us in vindication of all that is Divine in God. Whatever speculative difficulties may arise in connection with immortality, the practical difficulties of the negative theory are insurmountable.
2. The theory of our life only bears more vividly up m the mediation of Christ. How bitter the irony of His appeals, how wasteful the sacrifice of His life, if a few pulsations be the measure of our existence. He spoke much of the life eternal: did it all mean that His most loving followers must be blotted out of existence? If so, His attempts at redemption aggravated the original injustice of our creation.
3. Granted that you never doubted the existence of the future life, this discussion is of the first importance. We may be called upon to give to others a reason for the hope that is in us, and we may feel more keenly the obligations which another life imposes on us to live nobly in this present world. If there is another life--
(1) In what relation does our present existence stand to it? Is it disciplinary?
(2) What will be its effect in regard to, the moral confusion and restlessness of our present existence. Here virtue is often undervalued and vice successful. Is the glory of the Divine righteousness to shine through all the obscurities of the Divine government? Christian hope answers, Yes!
(3) Can they be wise who exhaust themselves within the limits of the present world? What a fool is the mere money-gatherer! How deluded is he who mistakes the part for the whole.
(4) Is not he the wise man who regulates the present by all that is solemn and sublime in the future? (J. Parker, D.D.)
Hope in this world only
I. What the text implies.
1. That there is misery amongst men on this earth. This is obvious. Man is born to trouble. But great as it is--
(1) It is not as great as man deserves. All suffering springs from sin. Misery does not grow out of the constitution of things.
(2) It is not as great as mans happiness. For days and weeks of affliction he has months and years of happiness.
(3) It is not as great as the good it will ultimately work out.
2. That misery amongst men exists in different degrees. Paul speaks of the most miserable. There is a great inequality of suffering here. There must come a day for eternal justice to balance these accounts.
3. That the degree of misery is sometimes regulated by hope. Paul speaks of hope as having to do with making men most miserable. Man is ever living in the future; he seldom turns willingly to the past; his past sins terrify him, and even his past pleasures depress him. The present satisfies him not. His home is in the future. It is obvious that a principle so powerful must exert a wonderful influence, either for weal or woe. If the hope is directed to right objects, and rightly founded, it will be as a firm anchor, holding his ship securely amidst the tumultuous billows of his stormy life. But should his hope be not rightly directed and grounded, it is clear that though it may afford him for a time some amount of enjoyment, it will ultimately end in his confusion and distress.
4. That the hope of a Christian, if false, will make him of all men most miserable.
II. What the text means.
1. Not--
(1) That apart from the resurrection of Christ, man has no evidence of a future state. All the Jews except the Sadducees believed in the existence of a future retribution; and Paul as a philosopher knew that human nature and human history prophesied a future state.
(2) That on the supposition that there is no future life, the practice of virtue here would place man in a worse condition than that of vice. This would not be true; the life of virtue as embodied in Christianity would give a man considerable advantage even in this world.
(3) That apart from a future state a godly life is not binding on man. Were there no heaven, no hell, mans obligation to love his Maker with all his heart, soul, strength, would still remain.
2. Two things must be distinctly kept in mind in order fully to apprehend the idea of the apostle.
(1) That he is speaking of himself and his evangelical contemporaries. The sufferings which they brought upon themselves in consequence of their faith in Christianity, and their efforts to extend it through the world, were unique in their enormity. In this age our faith in Christianity, and our endeavours to propagate it, entail little or no inconvenience.
(2) That he supposes the disappointed to survive the discovery of the delusion. The very first flash of the terrible truth, that there was no future blessedness, would scathe their spirits into everlasting annihilation, and there would of course be no misery at all in the case. We must suppose the apostle therefore having the idea that there was a future state, in which he should live in vivid memories of the past. Up to the time of discovery, however great their suffering, Christians could not be most miserable. An enthusiast, whatever his physical affections, is happy; he revels amidst the hallucinations of his own brain, and requires none of your pity if he survive not the discovery of his delusion.
III. These suppositions enables us to see that the misery of which the apostle speaks is the misery of a tremendous disappointment. Note--
1. The power which the blighted hope had obtained over the whole soul. There are some hopes that take but a slight hold upon the heart: But there are hopes like the tree that strikes its roots deep into the very fibre of our nature. When such hopes are torn away, it is as the giving up of the ghost. Imagine the case of a man who had thrown his whole being into Christianity, being met at the moment when his hopes were at their zenith, and when his death was at hand, with the conviction that all was a delusion; and you have a man of all men most miserable. Imagine that man still further fixed in a future state of deep despair, and regarding himself as the hopeless victim of a life of folly. Would he not say, Fool that I have been in spending a whole life in aiming at objects that were purely visionary. Had I been wise I should have adopted the maxim, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.
2. The deception which the blighted hope prompted its subjects to practise. The apostle declares that on the assumption that Christ rose from the dead, they were false witnesses of God. Most assuredly if there be no future state of blessedness, the whole life of the Christian is a living lie. His deception is--
(1) Earnest. He counts not his life dear unto him, if he can only make men participate in his creed.
(2) Systematic. It is not an occasional or spasmodic effort; it is the organised purpose of his being. He rears temples, forms societies, circulates books, preaches discourses, in order to win men over to his views.
(3) Influential. He succeeds in his proselytism. Such is the deception Christians practise on the hypothesis that there is no future life in Him. How much would the memory of their deception heighten the misery of their disappointment on the discovery of their own terrible mistake! The feeling that they themselves had been deluded would be well-nigh intolerable; but the feeling that they had deluded others would be crushing.
3. The destitution in which the departure of the hope would involve the soul. Christianity works a most radical change in a man. It effects a regeneration. Under its influence man becomes a new creation; old things pass away, all things become new; what he once loved he loathes, what he once sought he shuns, what he once valued he despises, what things were gain to him he counts loss. On the discovery therefore of the delusion, he would be left in possession of tastes and desires for which there was no provision. A thousand times worse is the state of such a soul than that of a parched traveller, who, beneath the agonising fires of thirst, falls prostrate on the Oriental sands, many leagues away from the refreshing streams. Conclusion: Thank God this is only hypothetic. The apostle does not speak as if he had any doubt, but in order to bring out the glorious fact on which it rests with greater fire and force. But now is Christ risen from the dead, etc.
We have hope in a blessed future, and therefore--
1. When bereavement snatches from our embrace the dearest objects of our heart, let us not sorrow as do others.
2. Let us not envy the wicked in their prosperity, but bear up with fortitude, knowing that our light afflictions which are but for a moment, etc.
3. Let us labour earnestly to indoctrinate all within our reach with the soul-saving principles of the everlasting word. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Life most miserable without hope in Christ
These words have been a cause of much distress. Christians have felt that their hope in Christ made this life joyful to them. No doubt the very name hope implies a looking forward. But they do not find that the mere thought of a change in their position constitutes their blessedness. Lo, I am with you always; My peace I give unto you; there, they say, is the secret of it. Certainly they have a right to claim St. Paul in general as the witness and highest authority for their persuasion. All things are yours, etc., he said to these very Corinthians. He speaks of himself as rejoicing in tribulation. He wished that Aguippa, Festus, and Bernice, and all who heard him, were both almost and altogether such as he was, except those bonds. Was, then, that so terrible an exception, that he regarded the worshippers of false gods less miserable, as far as this life went, than he was? Does any one who knows anything of St. Pauls life and words believe this? Those very bonds became a cause of exultation to him, because through them Christs name was made known in Rome. He counted, not some future promised felicity, but his office as an apostle of the Gentiles, which caused him to be the offscouring of all things, the highest privilege ever bestowed upon a mortal. Is this a man who was likely to say, I am utterly miserable here; but I can endure my lot, for I shall he well paid hereafter? But if that is not the meaning of the words, what is it?
1. The Corinthians had heard him say, We are risen with Christ. A party of them had built on this the conclusion that their spiritual resurrection was all that Christ had procured for them. St. Paul shows them that they were turning this half-truth, not to the destruction of the other half merely, but of itself. If they were not to rise in their bodies, Christ their Lord had not risen in His body. The very ground of the spiritual resurrection, of which they boasted, was their union with Him. God had justified them in Him. The new doctrine, in effect, disclaimed, his relation between them and Him. It left them a set of poor, separated, unredeemed creatures; yet in their sins. It was very miserable to believe such a contradiction as this would be.
2. Christ had broken through the barriers of death, had brought the visible and the invisible world into one. Those who said The Resurrection only concerns us here, established this separation again, and treated Death as to all intents and purposes the ultimate ruler, Life as shut up within threescore years and ten of conflict. This was to confound the dim hope of all nations. When the sense of present misery was very acute, there was a prophecy, arising in some minds almost to a conviction, that the other side of death might offer a compensation. Had not St. Paul a right to say then If we possess all that Christ came to give us, He has taken from us something which He has not taken from any others. That which has never been altogether a blank to them, in which there have been some bright Elysian spots, has become entirely a blank to us. But it may be said, The apostle speaks of a hope in Christ. What could such a hope have to do with dreams of Greeks or Goths respecting an Elysium or a Walhalla? Being heathens, they certainly could not hope in Him. But the principle which underlies all the apostles teaching is that when Christ took flesh and dwelt among men, He declared Himself to be that King, whose manifestation in His own true and proper nature all had been desiring. If this be so, I cannot imagine how he could describe any hope which had ever been entertained by any human being, except as a hope in Christ. The gods whom Greeks or Goths worshipped could have kindled no hopes in them, only a vague, inconceivable dread. Whatever hope they had came from a secret source, a hidden root. The apostle, then, might truly say, that if the Corinthians who professed to believe that Jesus was the Christ, made His work upon earth an excuse for not looking beyond the earth, they had parted with some of the hope in Christ which their heathen brethren possessed.
3. But there is an ampler justification of the apostles words. He had a much deeper impression of the misery of the world around him than any person who did not believe in the gospel could have had. The devil-worship and the sin which prevailed was revolting to him who worshipped a God of love, and who believed that the Spirit of Christ had come among men to make them after His image. Feeling as he did their misery, it would absolutely have crushed him if in this life only he had had hope in Christ, if he could have measured the future of mankind merely by anything that he saw or had yet experienced. The thought which we should often bring before ourselves as we walk our streets, and as we read of what is doing in other parts of the world, is--Are our hopes in Christ, for those whom we see perishing in filth, in ignorance, in moral debasement, only hopes for this life? Is the wisdom of rulers, the godliness of teachers, the benevolence of societies, all which seems to us to intervene between them and utter, absolute ruin? Oh, then, surely we must be of all men most miserable! To think of all the wickedness which is crowded into the most fortunate corner of this earth, and not to feel something very like despair, is very difficult. It would be impossible, if we were not encouraged and commanded to place our hopes, not in what we are doing, but in what Christ has done by His death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Holy Spirit. If we think that nothing is given yet; that we are merely to look for something to come, we are most miserable. If we think that all has been given--that we have nothing to long for--we are most miserable. But if we accept the signs and pledges of a perfect sacrifice made once for all, the vision of Him who died once and reigneth for evermore will become brighter and clearer. (F. D. Maurice, M.A.)
Alas for us, if thou wert all, and nought beyond, O earth
The apostle does not say that all men are now miserable if there be no hope of the world to come. There are very many who never think of another life, who are quite happy in their way. But he speaks of Christian people, who are known by this, that they have hope in Christ--hope in His blood for pardon, in His righteousness for justification, in His power for support, in His resurrection for eternal glory.
I. We are not of all men most miserable. He who shall affirm that Christianity makes men miserable is an utter stranger to it. For see--
1. To what a position it exalts us! It makes us sons of God. Shall His foes have mirth, and His own home-born be wretched? We are married unto Christ, and shall our great Bridegroom permit His spouse to linger in grief? The Christian is a king, and shall the king be the most melancholy of men?
2. What God has done for us! The Christian knows that his sins are forgiven. And shall the pardoned offender be less happy than the man upon whom the wrath of God abideth? Moreover, we are made temples of the Holy Ghost, and are these dark, dolorous places? Our God is a God of love, and it is His very nature to make His creatures happy.
3. Their actual joy and peace. Our joy may not be like that of the sinner, noisy and boisterous. As the crackling of thorns under a pot--a great deal of blaze and much noise, and then a handful of ashes, and it is all over. The Chiristians joy does not depend upon circumstances. We have seen the happiest men in the most sorrowful conditions. Every Christian will bear wines that he has found his sad times to be his glad times, his losses to be his gains, his sickness means to promote his souls health. We can rejoice even in death.
II. Without the hope of another life we should be of all men most miserable. This is true, not merely of persecuted, and despised, and poverty-stricken Christians, but of all believers. Note that the Christian--
1. Has renounced those common and ordinary sources of joy from which other men drink. We must have some pleasure. Well, then, there is a vessel filled with muddy, filthy water which the camels feet have stirred: shall I drink it? I see yonder a cool, clear stream, and I say, I will not drink this; I will drink of that. But if it be but the deceitful mirage, then I am worse off than those who were content with the muddy water. So the Christian passes by the pleasures of sin, because he says, I do not care for them, my happiness flows from the river which springs from the throne of God and flows to me through Christ--I will drink of that, but if that were proved to be a deception, then were we more wretched than the profligate.
2. Has learned the vanity of all earthly joys. We have chosen eternal things which are satisfying to the soul. Bat it is the most unhappy to know that this world is vain, if there be not another world abundantly to compensate for all our ills. There is a poor lunatic in Bedlam plaiting straw into a crown which he puts upon his head, and calls himself a king. Do you think that I would undeceive him? Nay, verily. If the delusion makes the man happy, by all means let him indulge in it; but you and I have been undeceived; our dream of perfect bliss beneath the skies is gone for ever; what then if there be no world to come?
3. Has had high, noble, and great expectations, and this is a very sad thing for us if our expectations be not fulfilled. I have known poor men expecting a legacy, and the relative has died and left them nothing; their poverty has ever afterwards seemed to be a heavier drag than before. Poverty is infinitely better endured by persons who were always poor, than by those who have been rich. The Christian has learned to think of eternity, of God, of Christ, and if indeed it be all false, the best thing he could do would be to sit down and weep for ever.
4. Has learned to look upon everything here as fleeting. Well, this is a very unhappy thing, if there be no world to come.
III. Our chief joy in the hope of the world to come. There is--
1. Rest.
2. Victory.
3. Happiness.
4. Perfection.
IV. Thus the future operates upon the present. Here is a man who has a machine for his factory. He wants steam power to work this machine. An engineer puts up a steam engine in a shed at some distance. Well, said the other, I asked you to bring steam power here, to operate upon my machine. That is precisely, says he, what I have done. I put the engine there, you have but to connect it by a band and your machine works as fast as you like; it is not necessary that I should put it just under your nose. So God has been pleased to make our hopes of the future a great engine wherewith the Christian may work the ordinary machine of every-day life, for the band of faith connects the two, and makes all the wheels of ordinary life revolve with rapidity and regularity. To speak against preaching the future as though it would make people neglect the present is as though somebody would say, There, take away the moon, and blot out the sun. What is the use of them--they are not in this world! Precisely so, but take away the moon and you have removed the tides, and the sea becomes a stagnant, putrid pool. Then take away the sun, and light, and heat, and life; everything is gone. Do you believe that apostles and martyrs would ever have sacrificed their lives for truths sake if they had not looked for a hereafter? In the heat of excitement, the soldier may die for honour, but to die in tortures and mockeries in cold blood needs a hope beyond the grave. Would yon poor man go on toiling year after year, refusing to sacrifice his conscience for gain; would yon poor needle-girl refuse to become the slave of lust if she did not see something brighter than earth can picture to her as the reward of sin? The most practical thing in all the world is the hope of the world to come; for it is just this which keeps us from being miserable; and to keep a man from being miserable it is to do a great thing for him, for a miserable Christian--what is the use of him? But the man who has a hope of the next world goes about his work strong, for the joy of the Lord is our strength.
V. This will let us see clearly what our future is to be. There are some persons here to whom my text has nothing whatever to say. Suppose there were no hereafter, would they be more miserable? Why, no; they would be more happy. Do you see, then, this proves that you are not a Christian; for if you were, the taking away of a hereafter would make you miserable. Well, then, what have I to say to you? Why just this--that in the world to come you will be of all men most miserable. What will become of you? said an infidel once to a Christian man, supposing there should be no heaven? Well, said he, I like to have two strings to my bow. If there be no hereafter I am as well off as you are; if there be I am infinitely better off. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The importance of the Resurrection
St. Paul, in this great passage, makes Christianity answer with its life for the truth of our Lords resurrection from the dead (1Co_15:14). If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we have made a capital mistake, and are of all men most miserable.
I. What, then, is the hope respecting a future which we owe to our risen Lord? Is it the hope that we shall exist for ever? Is our continuous existence hereafter altogether dependent upon faith in and communion with the risen Christ? No, our immortality is not a gift of the Redeemer; it is the gift of the Creator. Belief in a future state does not begin with Christianity. It is as deeply rooted in the human soul as belief in God. In some sense it is wellnigh universal. The honour so widely paid to the graves of ancestors is a natural expression of belief in their survival after death. It was this belief which made an ancient Egyptian deem the embalming of his mummy the most important thing that could happen to him: it was this belief which built, the pyramids, which rendered the Greek mysteries of Eleusis so welcome to those upon whom the old popular religion had lost its power, and which made great thinkers, such as Plato, at least in their higher moods, capable of thoughts and aspirations which Christians, in all ages, have welcomed as almost anticipating their own.
II. But to what sort of immortality does this anticipation point? It is not the immortality--
1. Of the race. How is this shadowy survival entitled to the name of immortality? A race of beings does not live apart from the individuals which compose it.
2. Of fame. How many of us will have a place in the public memory and live in history? For most of us life is made up of duties of so humble a kind that they hardly have a place in our own memories from day to day, much less in those of others. But if there is no life after death, what is to become of them, that is, what is to become of this kind of immortality in the case of the greater part of the human race? Is not this immortality only a perpetuation of inequalities which disfigure our earthly life, and of which a future of absolute truth and justice would know nothing?
3. Of our good deeds. To say that a man lives in his good actions may be Christian language (Rev_14:13). To this day the saints of the Bible history live in the works which are recorded of them. But, there are actions in all true and saintly lives which are known only to God, and which, so far as we can see, have no certain consequences here. But if the soul perishes at death, in what sense are they immortal? And are our good deeds our only deeds? Have not our evil deeds--some of them--consequences; and do these consequences punish the agent, if he really perishes at death? Others than he are punished. No; the immortality of our actions is not an immortality which satisfies the yearnings of the heart of man, since this yearning is based always and especially on its sense of justice.
II. What, then, is the hope in Christ which redeems Christian life from the failure and misery alluded to in the text. It is the hope, that through His precious death and His glorious resurrection, our inevitable immortality will be an immortality of bliss. Of course it is not denied that He has brought life and immortality to light. For multitudes before He came it was a vague and dreary anticipation: He has made it a blessed and welcome certainty. He has familiarised us with the idea that all live unto God (Luk_20:37-38); and He has further taught the future resurrection of the body, as completing the life beyond the grave (Joh_6:40). He thus has altogether removed the question from the region of speculation into that of certainty, founded upon experience; since when He rose from death He was Himself but the first-fruits from the dead. But the hope in Christ is the hope of a blessed immortality. This He has won for us by His one perfect and sufficient sacrifice on the Cross, whereby our sins are blotted out, and the grace of His Spirit and His new nature is secured to us, so as to fit us, by sanctification, for His eternal presence. Apart from this conviction, Christianity is a worthless dream; the efforts and sacrifices of the Christian life are wasted; we are the victims of a great delusion; we are of all men most miserable. Conclusion:
1. There are signs in our day that faith in a future after death is less taken for granted than was the case a generation ago. One of these signs is the increased number of suicides all over Europe. There are not merely the pathetic suicides of the very wretched, there are the suicides of votaries of pleasure, who having exhausted all the facilities of enjoyment, throw it away like a toy which has ceased to please. Suicides like these mean that the opportunities for enjoyment have in certain classes outrun the power to enjoy. Suicides are only possible when through continuous enervation of the moral nature the awful realities of immortality have been lost sight of: and their increase is a serious symptom of what must be passing in large classes of minds.
2. Much seems to show that in the modern world two entirely different beliefs about man are confounded with each other. According to one of these man is really only the highest of the beasts that perish. Opposed to this idea is the Christian belief that man differs from the lower creatures altogether, except in the fact that he owns a body, which is governed by the same laws as theirs. For man, his body, instead of being the substantive and central part of his being, is an appendage. The soul of man no more dies when it leaves the body than the musical genius which makes that organ do so much to aid the devotion of Gods people forfeits its knowledge and its skill when it ceases to touch the key-board. In man the central or substantive feature is the soul; and of the life of the soul, this earthly life in the body is but a very small portion indeed. It is related to what follows, as is a brief preface to a very voluminous book: it throws light on what is to come; it is relatively insignificant. The things which are seen are temporal: the things which are not seen are eternal. (Canon Liddon.)
The penalty of piety and its promise
These words
I. Demand explanation of us.
1. Only the heavenly hope could compensate for the severity of their earthly experiences (2Co_6:11.). Speaking for himself, and having in view all of every kind that he was enduring for the sake of the gospel, he felt that all the peace and comfort which solaced other mens lives were absent from his own, and he concluded that without that grand compensation which was in store, he and they were the most to be pitied of all men.
2. In that case they were the victims of a miserable delusion. They were basing their whole life on a faith which was a falsehood; they were building everything on a rotten foundation; they were spending all their energies and surrendering all their opportunities to teach men that which their disciples were bound to disbelieve (1Co_15:14). They might well be pitied as the dupes of a dream.
II. Provide suggestions for us.
1. That there are consequences attending unswerving faithfulness we must all be prepared to meet. Not now the lash or the dungeon. It may be the biting sarcasm or the polite irony, etc. But it must be that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2Ti_3:12).
2. That delusion is always pitiable. Men may be buoyed up by false hopes, and it may seem at a superficial glance that the cherishing of the error is positively gainful. But it is always better to walk in the light than to wander in the darkness. They who give way to plausible but unsound doctrine are to be pitied, however fair in the face these doctrines may be, however excellent be the spirit and intention of those that hold them.
3. That genuine piety has within it sources of pure and lasting joy (1Ti_4:8; 1Ti_6:6); and if the Manor Sorrows could speak of His joy so may we. (W. Clarkson, B.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54 19. If in this life, only, we have hope…
19. If in this life, only, we have hope in Christ. If there is no life beyond, no hope of it, then Christians who deny themselves in this life and endure persecutions and sufferings for the sake of eternal life, are of all men the most miserable. They “lose life” and gain no eternal life. Such are the consequences of this false belief.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv20, 35 1Co_15:20. Hath.—Emphasis here, not on “now” or “Christ.” Over…
CRITICAL NOTES
1Co_15:20. Hath.—Emphasis here, not on “now” or “Christ.” Over against their doubts, and speculations, and “impossibilities,” Paul sets the one conclusive fact. Firstfruits.—Read in the light of Rom_11:16; Jas_1:18; Rev_14:4; Mat_27:52-53. With a variant figure the thought is in Col_1:18; Rev_1:5.
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1Co_15:20-23. By man … by man.—Resurrection actually comes “by man”; we may almost say must so come, and so He became man. He the Judge also because “the Son of Man” (Joh_5:27). All … All.—How wide is the second “all”? Is the verse to read,
(1) “All (men) … (we believers) all”? Not exegetically very natural. Is it
(2) “(We believers) all … (we believers) all”? True; but the first member of the sentence is narrower than the fact, and scarcely worthy of the race-wide view here taken of the two Adams and their connected “posterities.” Urged, from Augustine downwards, that Paul’s argument throughout has only those “in Christ” in view [true]; that the Resurrection existence of these out of Him is never called “life” [true]; also that 1Co_15:23 limits the argument to believers. The Greek fathers [Ellicott] read 1Co_15:22 of physical quickening, and make the verse,
(3) “All (men) … all (men)”; and bring in the limitation of the scope at 1Co_15:23. [One obvious qualification of “all die” is found in 1Th_4:17.] [“The great resurrection chapter is, as it were, an expansion of the Lord’s own word, ‘Because I live, ye shall live also’ ” (Pope).] See Homiletic Analysis. The resurrection of the unsaved is asserted, on the highest authority, in Joh_5:28-29.
1Co_15:23. Order.—Quite another detail as to “order” in the Resurrection is revealed in 1Th_4:16-17 : “first … then.” Order here is “troop.” The race defiles before us, an army in three divisions: First Division—The Lord (Heb_12:2); Second Division—The Church of the Redeemed, some following Him already nearly two millenniums in the rear; Third Division—The rest of mankind (Evans). At His coming.—Note the (exegetical) comma. See Appended Note.
1Co_15:24. The end.—Derived perhaps from Christ’s words, reported in Mat_24:13. “What [this] may signify cannot be determined; alii alia; in all likelihood ‘the end’ is its own [and only] interpreter.” So, wisely, Evans, who adds, with most: “It seems probable that the kingship will be handed over by the Incarnate Son to Him who is God and Father; but the kingdom of His own founding, in its contents of citizens, … Php_3:10, will continue; so that ‘His kingdom shall have no end’ (Dan_7:13-14).” “The only expression about which there may reasonably be some doubt is kingdom. That it is more inclusive than the ‘regnum gratiœ’ in its ordinary acceptance, and that it may have some reference to the millennial kingdom, is probably to be inferred from the wide horizon of this holy revelation. This kingdom the Eternal Son … delivers up to the Eternal Father, not as though He were Himself thereby divested of the kingdom, but as a sharer in it for evermore.” (Ellicott.) “Then” viz. “when,.… (or, again) when.” All the consecrated words re the Second Advent are found in 2Th_1:7; 2Th_2:17 : Parousia, Epiphany, Apocalypse. The kingdom.—Rev_19:15-16. Put down.—, “abolished,” as in 2Ti_1:10 (A.V.). “Not total destruction, but absolute subjugation.” Favourite word of Paul’s; nine times in this Epistle, with various shades of the one meaning: “to reduce to such practical unimportance, or non-importance, that it may be left out of the account altogether.” Rule, authority, power.—Abstract, for personal concretes, as in Eph_1:21; Eph_3:10; Eph_6:13; Col_1:16; Rom_8:38. He.—Viz. Christ.
1Co_15:25. He … He.—Christ … the Father (1Co_15:27, end).
1Co_15:26.—Observe the present tense of a dateless event that is, as it were, seen to be happening.
1Co_15:27.—Combine in exposition Psa_2:6-9; Psa_8:6; (Heb_2:8); Psa_110:1.; (Heb_1:13); Mat_22:44; Act_2:34-35; (Psa_45:6). Observe the margin, “shall have said,”—a solemn announcement to the listening world, by God Himself, parallel to that of Pa. 1Co_2:7-8, the “decree” of the Son’s investiture with His mediatorial royalty.
1Co_15:28. All in all.—Cf. Col_3:11, an anticipatory, suggestive fulfilment of the idea.
1Co_15:29.—Very obscure to us; obviously well known to, and understood by, the Corinthians. An ad homines argument entirely. Q.d. “You deny or question the resurrection; I take you, then, on the ground of your own practice: why, then, do you baptize?” etc. There is some patristic tradition, but of uncertain value even to the Fathers who report it, of a practice of baptizing a “representative” of a man who, as yet only a catechumen, had died without baptism, lest he should for want of it be lost. [Some say putting the living man under the bed, and letting him give answers to the usual questions, addressed to the corpse!] A question is raised whether this very expression of Paul’s did not in some cases occasion such a practice. [Certainly no fair homiletic use is to be made of these words in any sense of appealing to the survivors in a Church to come forward and seek a new baptism of the Spirit, that they may fill the place, and do the work, of some who have died.]
1Co_15:30.—Another ad hominem (or ab homine) argument, but this time of abiding, real value. We.—Primarily the apostles (2Co_1:8-10; 2Co_4:10, etc.); but all Christians, sooner or later, had a taste of peril.
1Co_15:31. Your rejoicing.—As text. Q.d. “I say emphatically, brethren—and to you of whom I so constantly make my boast, should I be likely to say anything but what is the simple fact? You will believe me—I die daily.”
1Co_15:32. After the manner of men.—I.e. “With no better hopes or prospect of the future, than ‘natural’ men, and men without even the Gospel revelation, have when they endure risk, and face conflict and danger.” The converse case is put in 1Co_15:58, “Wherefore,” i.e. “Seeing you have such hopes,” etc. Fought with beasts.—Cf. the unrecorded, perhaps identical, peril of 2Co_1:8. All one word in Greek; no specialising of literal “beasts,” such as the English suggests: “I was like a beast-fighting gladiator in an amphitheatre.” [Precisely similar idealising of the fact in Psa_22:11-13. Also, Ignatius writes of his guards (“leopards,” he calls them): “All the way from Syria to Rome (on his way to martyrdom) did I beast-fight by land and sea.”] Observe the varying connection by punctuation in A.V. and; either good, A.V. better. Quotation from Isa_22:13, of Jerusalem profligacy when Sennacherib was at hand.
1Co_15:33.—Perhaps the fall into immorality in the Church at Corinth had been facilitated by a weakened faith in the Resurrection.
1Co_15:34. “Arouse yourselves,” as if from the sleep after the orgies of Isa_22:13, “and show yourselves, and bear yourselves, righteously.” Well expounded by 1Th_5:2-8. “I speak this, in order to your shaming.” (So 1Co_6:5.)
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—1Co_15:20-34
The Divine Goal of Creation History.
I. Contrasts.—This section divides at 1Co_15:29. In the one half and in the other we are at two levels, in two worlds. [Cf. Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” where literal truth is sacrificed to the higher truth of the nearness and close relation between the upper, mountain-top world of calm, light, heaven, glory, and the lower world of scoffing Pharisees, bewildered disciples, and demon-possessed humanity.] In 1Co_15:20-28 we are amongst the most sublime disclosures of all the Christian Scriptures—disclosures which with their very excess of glory almost cease to disclose anything. They are sublime almost to being obscure. The horizon is so bright, and the facts are so far away and so low down towards it, that we can scarcely make out anything. We hear such words as 1Co_15:28; we repeat the words; but we can scarcely do more than let our hearts ponder, and reverently and soberly imagine; we can make nothing precise. Paul is borne up and along in soaring flights of confident strength, where we can hardly follow, even with our eyes. On the other hand, in 1Co_15:29-34, we are on a very earthly level indeed. There is mystery here, but only such as wraps around an obscure, superstitious practice of a few half Christianised Corinthians. The rest is plain enough! A Paul in the midst of men who are like the very “beasts” of the amphitheatre. Corinthians sinking into a drunken sleep of unrighteousness, from which he seeks to “awaken” them to “righteousness,” or, at the least, to “shame.” [Such revelations to be first given to the world in a letter to such “Christians”! “Kind to the unthankful and to the evil” indeed (Luk_6:35).] So near, also, are the two worlds always. The evil closely enfolds the holy. Or is it the holy which enfolds the evil? The salt is—just where it is wanted—in the midst of what but for it would be corruption. We live in both worlds. In the seclusion of the mountain-top sometimes; oftener at the mountain-foot amongst the enemies and the demons, or in the arena amongst the beasts. Happy if the memories of the upper level are our strength down on the lower. Happy if such truths as are in 1Co_15:20-28 may keep our souls from the infection of “evil communications,” or from the “sleep” of the intoxication of scepticism or sin. So, again, are the two worlds near together, the two levels not very remote, in the inner life of the soul. Glorious revelations; miserable superstitions. Soaring hopes of victories; battles for very life with the “beast” within our nature. Standing by the side of our Lord, with our foot placed where His has first been, on the neck of some foe of our soul’s Life; sinking into the perilous, criminal sloth or torpor induced by an atmosphere of “evil communications.” And thus we knit together the two ends of the paragraph. “Now is Christ risen.” Spite of all the theorisers and speculators and keen creators of “insuperable” difficulties, the fact is sure. Paul stands by the slothful, sleeping, drunken-souled Corinthians, and shouts his cry into the drowsy ear: “Christ is risen! Do ye arise; awake; shake off your sleep; arouse yourselves and be righteous! Righteous! Why you are past shaming. You have not the knowledge of God.” I.e. they are back again in, and of, the “world which knew not God” (1Co_1:21). If Regeneration was an upward development, there has now been Degeneration; these men who “knew God” were only a variation wrought and sustained by Grace. They have now sinned against grace; in them nature has “reverted to type.” “You have not the knowledge of God.” [Observe the close connection between unrighteousness and the loss of the knowledge of God. Cf. Rom_1:18-23.]
II. Christ.—Like the Russians and Greeks on Easter morning, Paul is ready to go up and down, saying with a holy cheerfulness of salutation to every fellow-Christian, “Brother, now is Christ risen!” This is a perpetual Easter-morning age for the Church of the Risen Christ. Every Christian may look every other in the face with the glad cry, “He is risen.” But why should not He be simply treated as an isolated case? Why should we not believe in His rising, whilst disbelieving or doubting any other, or our own?
1. Because He is another “Adam”—The race is not made up of aggregated units. There is a solidarity in the history and fortunes of mankind. Contrast the angels. So far as we know, they are each one an independent creation; probably they have been contemporaries in age from the first; each living a natural life complete within itself, dependent only upon God. But any one generation of mankind owes life to the preceding, and these to another preceding them, and so on till “Adam” [= Adam + Eve] is reached. The angels are an aggregate of individuals only. Each might stand or fall alone. The human race is a unity; it is a tree, where branch springs out of branch in periodic succession. [It is a Vine, a wild vine.] The old theologians called this a federal principle. There is a law of dealing with great Unities in God’s administration of His rule over our race. “Abraham” means for some purposes Abraham and his descendants; “Christ” means Christ and His people; Adam stood for himself and mankind. And so the authorised, official, inspired, “prophetic” exposition of history here given makes it clear that the human race may be summarised in two “Adams.” Or, to change the aspect of the truth, without affecting its substance, there are two Mankinds, each with its Adam, each with its close-knit unity and continuity of life, each with its solidarity of history and fortunes. But the link which forms the unity is in the one case a physical derivation and succession, in the other a spiritual unity and succession. [A real sense in which the Christians of any one age are the descendants of, and owe their life to, those of the next, and all, preceding.] The first, dying Adam involved a race of natural descendants in his death—in all its senses. The Risen Adam includes in His resurrection victory another race in whom His Spirit is the link of continuous, corporate life, quickening even their “mortal bodies.” No man stands or falls alone; isolation, independence, is not the “law” of the history of Humanity. The Christ did not die or rise alone; that is not the law of the new Humanity, of which he is the new “Adam.” To change the figure again,
2. Because He is the Firstfruits of the harvest of rising humanity.—“Sown” through long ages, in all nooks and corners of earth’s field. The field is full of its human seed. The seed is waiting for the touch of the Eternal Springtide. The call of Spring yearly awakens sleeping Nature into bud, and flower, and fruit, and harvest. That other Spring shall come with a “trumpet” call,—
[“Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
Per sepulchra regionum”],—
and every buried seed shall start forth into perfect and eternally mature life. The “firstfruits” says that there is a harvest behind; it promises a harvest; it pledges a harvest; it “samples” the following harvest; the offering of the firstfruits consecrates the coming harvest. [As in another application, the firstfruits of the week, the Sunday, is no quittance paid to God that then we may claim and use the six remaining for ourselves, as if our own. The firstfruits of the week thus given to Him acknowledge that all the days are His, all to be spent as He will approve, whilst He lends us six and keeps only one exclusively for Himself.]
3. Captain of a host.—
(1) Heb_2:10 [which is in closest connection with the quotation here given of Psa_8:6] makes the “perfection” of our “Captain” to lie just here, that He is not isolated as He leads the host, but has been partaker with them of “flesh and blood” and “sufferings.” Else would they who follow look forward “where their Chief precedes them” with a feeling that the Captain knew nothing of the life of the common soldier, that He alone of all the great “sacramental host” had never known the fighting and the “roughing” of their lot. Here the “partaking” looks forward into the future. The great host defiles in glorious resurrection review; each company and rank passes in its “order” before the throne of God. (See the review illustration followed somewhat further in the Homiletic Analysis of whole chapter.)
(2) If no resurrection, it has been seen (1Co_15:16-19) that, hoping to be partakers with Christ, we wake up to find ourselves partakers of nothing! No. “Now is Christ risen,” and we are partakers of His victory. Our resurrection is part of our victory. We rise, that so in that fact the finishing stroke may be given to the dominion of death over our redeemed human nature. A mortal body was the last fetter of death, the last token of our sometime bondage. We rise, that so the last fetter may be stricken off. No part of our nature, spirit, soul, body, that is not delivered. It is part of His victory. We now dare, every one of us, to put our foot on the neck of Goliath, when our David has first brought him down, and planted His victorious foot upon our foe and His. This particular victory is part of a larger victory, by which is regained a lost lordship belonging to mankind. In Psa_8:6 the opened eye of the prophet sees into the heart of things—into the inner secret of the order of Creation as it existed in the mind of the Creator. The geological history of the earth leads up to an earth fitted to be man’s home. A palæontological history can be made out, whether it be an ideal sequence only, or an historical and physical one, leading up to man. And when the home was ready, and the tenant was ready, the investiture of occupancy ran, “Let them have dominion,” etc. (Gen_1:8). Thus he who was the goal of all the earliest history, the climax (and indeed the summation) of all the series of animate creaturely structures, the crown of creation, was also its King. [Perhaps also its High Priest, voicing the praise, the thanksgiving, the prayers, of the mute, unintelligent creation, which found in Him a brain and a heart and a voice.] Yet even this royalty is not the thought of God in its furthest reach. We speak of ascending from this to a higher. Yet it would be the truer order to work backwards and downwards, from the higher to this; as God did. We ascend from the earliest creature-life to man, the ruler of all; nor do we stop there, but go forward and upward to the Son of Man. But though we reverently so shape our thought, God began there, began with Him. He is the mediation between God and the creature, between Spirit and Matter. He is the Link. “In Him all things were created.” Man’s original royalty was but the adumbration of His. As the lower creatures had shadowed Man forth, so did he shadow the Son forth. After all, he was not the last link, but the last but one, in the chain which led up from some quasi-eozoic form to the Incarnate Son. [The Gospel is Creation’s order over again. “All things man’s. Man is Christ’s. Christ is God’s.”] But sin entered. Creation’s course had so far gone true and straight to man; now, when it should have gone true and straight through him to God, it swerved aside and was sinfully deflected. The race “missed its mark.” The race no longer rose to the Son; the Son’s garment of royalty no longer descended on man. But, ever since, slowly, piecemeal, has the lost dominion, the forfeited position, been recovered by all those who are “in” the Second Adam. The first note of the recovered victory is in the Protevangelion (Gen_3:15); fulfilled most gloriously in the Wilderness and the Garden and at Calvary, no doubt; yet even there only anticipating the last crowning triumph of a long series of triumphs for our Captain. And with a heel sore wounded, very often does each Christian soldier step upon his foe and go on to conquer, with the heartening word ringing in his ears, “God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom_16:20). There is an enemy within him, whose dominion is broken [in closest connection with his Lord’s resurrection once more (Rom_6:10-11)]: “Sin shall not have dominion over you” (ib. 1Co_15:14). The very world with all its trials, difficulties, opposition, is a subject thing to them who are in the Man Who has never lost, who has more abundantly fulfilled, the Royalty of Man. “In jeopardy every hour;” “dying daily,” yet “all things work together for good” to men. The world is “under their feet.” [Nor need there be hesitation in seeing more than merely the relics of the original dominion, but a real mediatorially-recovered dominion, in the growing mastery wielded by man over the physical forces of the natural world, subjecting all to his daily service. Certainly in the power of Christ over even His pre-resurrection body, making it vanish from amongst His foes or walk upon the waters,—a power which was once even communicated to Peter,—we get a little opening, giving us largest views into a world of vast, dim possibilities of the power of man’s spirit, itself enfranchised from the dominion of sin, over even the material world.] There is a “last enemy” for him, as for the race,—Death. “Death is his” (1Co_3:22) already; it comes to him conquered by his Captain, and made to run on his Captain’s errand, and bear his Captain’s summons to him to a more glorious life. He is delivered from the bondage to its fear: the fear is “put under his feet”; when at last he meets it, he finds that he has but to deal with a “stingless” serpent, on whose head he can “put his foot” boldly. He is meeting nothing but the Shadow of a great Name, the Shadow of a great Dread, a thing whose substantial power is “abolished,” “destroyed.” And this detailed victory of His dying people, in succession, is part of His own (cf. Luk_10:18), which by-and-by shall be consummated in one grand public demonstration of His triumph, in the day when even the very bodies of His people have death’s yoke struck off and death itself underfoot. “All things under His feet.”
III. Consummation.—What is this “end” and the subjection of even the “Son Himself”? Answer as one did who was asked, “What is heaven like?” “I will tell you when we meet there.”
APPENDED NOTES
1Co_15:23-24. “The coming; the end.”—This “coming” of Christ is not, merely or exclusively, to establish His kingdom, but to judge the quick and the dead … (compare 1Th_2:19; 1Th_3:13; 1Th_4:15; 1Th_5:23, al.). Whether any, and, if any, what interval is to be supposed to exist between this “coming” and “the end” of the following verse—in fact, between “then” and “then”—the sober interpreter cannot presume even to attempt to indicate. This only may be said, that the language seems to imply a kind of interval; but that there is nothing in the particles or in the passage to warrant our conceiving it to be longer than would include the subjugation of every foe and every power of evil, and all that may be immediately associated with the mighty “end” which is specified in the succeeding verse.… It must be carefully remembered that the Apostle is here dealing with a single subject, the resurrection of the dead, and not with the connected details of eschatology. These must be gathered from other passages and other portions of Scripture.… The great difficulty in Christian eschatology is the exact position which all that is specified in Rev_20:4 is to be supposed to hold in the sequences of the unfolding future.… Perhaps all that can be safely said is, that neither here nor in 1Th_4:16 does the Apostle preclude the conception of a resurrection of the just (compare Luk_14:14)—possibly gradual; that in some passages (consider Rom_11:12-15) he does seem to have looked for a “flowering time” of the Church prior to the close of human history; and that here he distinctly implies a closing conflict with all the powers of evil (compare Rev_20:7; Rev_20:15) immediately prior to the end. That the millennial binding of Satan is to be dated from the death and resurrection of our Lord has been recently urged, … but to the detriment, as it would seem, of the distinctive idea of the millennium.—Bishop Ellicott.
1Co_15:23. “His coming.”—Parousia, indicating that when He comes He will always be present; the time of His absence will have passed away for ever.… His presence, which will then be so different from what it is now that the change from the one to the other is no less than a coming again.—Pope.
1Co_15:24. “The end.”—There will be an end and beginning of the Redeemer’s Kingdom, as it is a kingdom of grace translated into glory.
I. The mediatorial economy will cease in its relation to the Triune God; the redemptional Trinity which introduced the economy of subordination in the Two Persons will be again the absolute Trinity. The Son Incarnate will cease to mediate; as Incarnate He will be for ever subordinate, but there will be nothing to declare His subordination: no mediatorial rule over enemies, no mediatorial service or worship of His people. The Triune God will be seen by all mankind in the face of Jesus Christ, and the mediation of grace will become the mediation of glory. The Intercessor will pray for us no more, but will reveal the Father openly for ever.… The prayer of our Lord (Joh_17:21) will then have been fulfilled, “one in Us.” Man taken up into the Us of the Triune God will need a mediator no more.
II. The kingdom will cease because its ends will have been attained. “Then cometh the end” … to the Father as the Representative of the Trinity; “when He shall have put down.” … The process of His victories is declared in the Apocalypse: first and last, the Anti-Christ, which is a spirit of infidelity, Against Christ, having many forms, such as the Beast and the Man of Sin, and also a final personal manifestation; every description of heathenism to the ends of the earth; the corruption of Christianity, exhibited in Babylon and the Second Beast and the Harlot; and finally Death, the last enemy that shall be destroyed. In all these conflicts the Church is the fellowship of companions in “tribulation,” etc. (Rev_1:9). We are one with our Lord, and He is one with us, in this progressive warfare and final victory. It is as “Head over all things to the Church” that the Redeemer exercises now and will end then His rule; nor is any other supression of authority alluded to than that which opposed the designs of His mediatorial kingdom. Moreover, there is nothing said of the destruction, only of the putting down of all hostile authority and power.
III. The kingdom will have a new beginning: new as the kingdom of the “new heavens,” etc.… The Spirit of Christ will be the immanent bond between Him and us, between us and the Holy Trinity (1Co_6:17). The Incarnate Person will then be glorified as never before; His personality as Divine will be no more veiled or obscured by any humiliation, nor will it be intermittently revealed. God shall be all in all, first in the Holy Trinity and then through Christ in us.—Pope, “Compend. of Theology,” iii. 425, 426.
1Co_15:27. “He hath put all things under His feet.”—It has often been asked whether David, in ascribing such dignity as he here does to man, was speaking of man in his present condition, degraded from his supremacy by the fall, or of man as originally made in the image of God and gifted with dominion over the lower creation. Now the language of the Psalm certainly points to the present. There is no trait in it of any difference between man’s original destiny and his present condition, between the ideal and the actual. Man is king of this lower world; though, because he has cast off his allegiance to the King of kings, his own subjects have renounced their allegiance to him, so that he rules by force, or manifold arts, rather than by right acknowledged and respected. But were there any higher thoughts in David’s mind? Was he thinking of man as redeemed and restored in the second Adam to his rightful supremacy?… We, who read these words in the light of the Incarnation, may see in them a significance which to his own mind they would hardly have possessed. Twice in the New Testament passages of this Psalm are applied to Christ: once by St. Paul rather in the way of allusion than of direct quotation (1Co_15:27), where he teaches that what was said by David of man is in its truest and highest sense applicable to Christ as the Great Head of Mankind; and, again, by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (1Co_2:6-9), who, arguing that the words [of our verse] have not yet been literally fulfilled of man, declares that their proper fulfilment is to be seen only in Jesus … “crowned with glory and honour.” He does not say that the Psalm is a direct prophecy of Christ; but he shows that man’s destiny as depicted in the Psalm is not and cannot be accomplished out of Christ. He is the true Lord of all. In Him man recovers his rightful lordship, and shall really be in the new world of Redemption what now he is very imperfectly, God’s vicegerent ruling a subject creation in peace and harmony and love.—Perowne, “Psalms,” Psalms 8.
[Much also of the following passage is illustrative of 1Co_15:27 :] “The use made of this Psalm in the Epistle to the Hebrews proceeds on the understanding that it describes ideal humanity. Where, then, says the writer of the Epistle, shall we look for the realisation of that ideal? Do not the grand words sound liker irony than truth? Is this poor creature that crawls about the world, its slave, discrowned and sure to die, the Man whom the Psalmist saw? No. Then was the fair vision a baseless fabric, and is there nothing to be looked for but a dreary continuance of such abortions dragging out their futile being through hopeless generations? No; the promise shall be fulfilled for humanity, because it has been fulfilled in one man, the Man Christ Jesus. He is the realised ideal, and in Him is a life which will be communicated to all who trust and obey Him, and they, too, will become all that God meant man to be. The Psalm was not intended as a prophecy, but every clear vision of God’s purpose is a prophecy, for none of His purposes remain unfulfilled. It was not intended as a picture of the Christ, but it is so; for He and He alone is the Man who answers to that fair Divine Ideal, and He will make all His people partakers of His royalty and perfect Manhood.”—Maclaren, “Psalms,” Expositor’s Bible.
Who does not know how the tone of evil has communicated itself? Worldly minds, irreverent minds, licentious minds, leaven Society. You cannot be long with persons who by innuendo, double meaning, or lax language show an acquaintance with evil, without feeling in some degree assimilated to them, nor can you easily retain enthusiasm for right amongst those who detract and scoff at goodness. None but Christ could remain with the impenitent and be untainted.—Robertson, “Expos. Lectures,” on 1Co_5:6.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1Co_15:33. “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
I.
1. Hasty, crude thinking would say: “But that is not Scripture, though it is in Scripture. That is a verse from a heathen poet; not an inspired saying at all.” [As might similarly be said of the letter of Claudius Lysias (Act_23:26-30).] But wherever an architect gets his materials, from whatever quarry he gets a stone, and whatever therefore be its varying quality or character, if he puts it into his building, he makes it his own. It becomes part of his embodiment of his design and idea. He is responsible for its selection and presence and use. He is the author of the whole structure and of every part of it, whether he obtained the constituent parts “ready made” to his hand and purpose, or had to find them in the rough and fashion them himself. This sentence, like the pillars of St. Sophia at Constantinople, the spoils of many more ancient temples, is fetched from another earlier building, where it had its fitness and its strength. This is a stone from a heathen quarry. But the wise builder, Paul, working at the growing, and nearly completed, structure of Revelation, under the direction of its Divine Architect works it into the fabric, and when it is once there the Directing Mind is responsible for it; He has made it His own; it serves His purpose of conveying with authority His mind and will to men. [No knowledge—not even of heathen proverbs—comes amiss to a Christian teacher; everything may be made available. All the quarries, all the kingdoms, of the earth belong to our Christ. He will guide His servants how wisely to lay toll on them all!]
2. Whatever be its origin, the saying is truth. He who said it formulated the bitter experience of many a benevolent social reformer, of many a parent filled with the sorrow of hopes for his children blighted into worse than failure, of many an amiable theorist starting with some “natural goodness of human nature,” only to find that his theory is no cadre into which he can fit all the facts. [Take only a limited amount of mental luggage; pack away into the portmanteau of your theory just a few selected facts—just those you need—and you may walk away comfortably, triumphantly, in your path of hope and endeavour. But] take entire, universal human nature; take entire, universal experiment and its results; and human nature is not to be trusted to love and follow and struggle for Good. It may approve it, applaud it, love it with a very platonic sort of devotion; but it is divided against itself, and what seems, unhappily, the stronger part gravitates too easily toward evil. There is not even an even balance; the scale turning for evil is loaded.
3. Classical literature has its many familiar confessions of the innate downward drag of human nature. Indeed, never had every experiment that man could suggest for man’s elevation been more exhaustively tried, and with larger advantage of conditions for the experiment, than in Grecian and Roman society in the centuries just before Christ. Philosophy, art, government, material refinement, and cultured civilisation, had practically done all that has ever been possible to do; later ages scarcely do more than go the round of the old experiment; man had done his best for man; and the universal consent of those who know best the age of the world into which God thrust the leaven of the Gospel of Christ is that never was the failure more complete, never were the world’s “manners” more utterly and hopelessly “corrupt.” Every man who repeats the experiment upon himself comes at last to the same result, and to the same sorrowful confession (his pride may not always suffer him to make the avowal aloud), that man unaided by grace cannot keep man pure. He finds that human nature in itself has its affinities, toward evil, not good, nor God; that it has a ready assimilative power for evil; that the evil leaven soon enters, and spreads widely, whilst God’s leaven of a new life is slowly admitted, and finds resistance more probable than reception and assimilation. “The dyer’s hand is subdued to what it works in.”
4. Yet no man very readily believes in the affinity of human nature for, and its inclination toward, evil; in himself, at any rate. Or if he half admit this, he will not consent to count himself in peril. His unformulated, unspoken thought is that he, at all events, is independent of the influences of his surroundings; he can stand firm; he can keep himself from corruption. From gross and open acts of evil he perhaps may; force of character and of will, pride, shame, self-interest, and the like, may enable him to keep free from, or to break off, acts and open habits. But sin is deeper seated in his nature; its presence is more subtle in its diffusion; the susceptibility is throughout. The graver danger is from subtle and pervasive evil; sin is most dangerous where it is only an influence, an environment, always present, unceasing in its deleterious power. It is most perilous as an atmosphere producing a languor, a torpor toward good, and predisposing the enfeebled spiritual life to receive the infection of disease. It is oftener a poison in the cup than an open wound in the battle. It speaks fair, smooth things, when its “communications” are most full of corruption and deadly mischief. Man will not believe it of Man; the parent will not believe it of the “nice” child; the man will not believe it of himself, spite of many a sharp, disappointing, disheartening lesson. Paul says, “Be not deceived.” All the marvellous, fairytale records of modern science as to the assimilative powers of living things in the presence of any particular environment, have their analogies in the facts of the spiritual realm. As the surroundings such—naturally, and but for the grace of God—is the man. “As the man thinketh in his heart so is he,” no doubt. The root of all evil character is ultimately within. But it may be held in check by a holy environment. “Holy communications”—especially between the soul and its Saviour—“sanctify evil manners” into good. But more commonly, and with greater facility, “evil communications corrupt,” etc. Let no man flatter himself that he shall be any exception. The best weapon of the adversary is the “deceitfulness of sin” (Heb_3:13). Therefore—
II. Mind what company you keep—
1. No doubt the grace of God can keep Obadiah in a court where Jezebel is queen, and in a place where a Nero follows a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Claudius, “saints” may be found. But even these need to be on their strictest guard. The very physician who goes into the midst of spiritual disease needs to have a care of his own health. Only One Physician had absolute immunity from danger. [All who do “rescue” work should keep within a full spiritual vigour, a heart that “hates even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jud_1:23).] A Christian in worldly or distinctly evil company is a red-hot ball of iron in the midst of blocks of ice. No doubt he may melt them; there is grave danger lest they chill him.
2. For the average Christian; worldliness is a more real peril than open, shocking, repellent wickedness. It is also the more ordinary liability. The surface discrepancy between Christian and non-Christian is not perhaps great; non-Christian life is in many ways affected, shaped, restrained, by the moral standard obtaining, in a general way, in a Christian land. But there is a deep chasm of separation in all their underlying principles. The “counsel of the” non-godly can never coincide with the “law of the Lord” (Psalms 1) which is “in the heart” of the Christian man. Their lives may overlap, but they revolve in different circles, struck from distinct centres.
3. E.g. the whole standard according to which persons, motives, conduct, are habitually discussed and estimated in the home, is according to man, not according to God. “God is not in all their thoughts;” they may formulate no system of morals and philosophy, but their ethics of business and their view of life in the daily talk at the table and around the fire are practically without God. The interests consulted for, and by which are regulated the planning and execution of their life-work, lie within the narrow range of the horizon of the earthly life; they know, and care to know, nothing of the readjustment of values and proportions which is inevitable as soon as life is seen running on in unbroken continuity into an eternal duration. E.g. in the education of their children, or their placing out in life, in their marriages, the soul and its interests have no consideration given to them; society interests, good prospects, natural congeniality and affection—however high and worthy the type of these may be—are all. The Christian visitor in such a home is struck, not so much by what is said or done, but rather by what he misses from the customary talk and action and judgments of the family. They are on another, a lower, plane; they are in in closest daily association with him; but they and he live in different worlds of thought and feeling and judgment.
4. He may “endure as seeing Him Who is invisible” (Heb_11:27). If he begin each day by getting into very real rapport with the Unseen, and if, by often intercourse with it during the progress of the hours, he keep his windows open towards it—keep the eyesight of his soul keen and clear to see it—he may pass through unharmed. But the danger for the young, of half-formed principles, or of no definite principles whatever, is that their world should contract to the narrow limits of that of those around them; that their eye should lose its keenness of vision, or that the world’s smoke and mists should besmirch their windows until they cannot see out into the Infinite, nor can the world of the Infinities, the Eternities, the Divinities, reach through to them. The danger is that the standard of judgment, the scales by which they weigh persons, character, motives, aims, should receive—by slight, but continually repeated contacts and impressions—an unhappy, ungodly adjustment. It is natural, and far easier, by little and little to fall into worldling ways of thinking and speaking and action, more than the Christian man is aware; until one day some sudden arrest of circumstance, or some more glaring, startling discrepancy between the worldly and the godly habit and standard, “pulls him up,” and reveals to him how far he has travelled, and how widely he has diverged from the love of the law of God and of the ethics of the Gospel of Christ. To the Christian man, who of necessity must spend much of his time with the people of the world, the text comes as a warning lest his spirit catch the infection of their spirit, lest with a fatal plasticity his conscience take their impress and mould. He must keep the resilience, the resistant power, the rigidity, which comes of indwelling grace. “ ‘Be not deceived’; do not be ‘liberal,’ ‘broad,’ till you become a true worldling in temper and spirit and habit and judgment. ‘Evil communications’—not least the daily talk (ὁμιλίαι); which goes on around you, in the office, in the street, in the house—‘corrupt good manners!’ ” (See Appended Note from Robertson.)
III. Mind what books yon read, and what literature.—
1. In a word, mind the mental companionships you form, or allow to yourself. Openly vicious literature will scarcely come in the way of the bulk of decent, ordinary English people. If it did, the first dose would probably create nausea and moral revulsion—though, unhappily, even this may pass away with use. Here again the peril is rather from the literature which the Christian instinct does not so much condemn for what is present as for what is missing. The literature of the world, at its best, “says in its heart, No God.”
2. The Puritan code and the practice of the men and women of all the Churches which felt, and still feel, the impress of the Evangelical revival of the eighteenth century, were strict, “narrow”—for themselves and for those whose opinions and habits they could control—in the range of literature they permitted for ordinary reading. They found that to “glorify their God below and find their way to heaven” [by no means forgetting that, whilst the living stream is making its pure, bright way to the Ocean, it needs to be, and cannot help being, a joy and a blessing to all the dwellers along its banks and course] needed all their best energies and all the help they could obtain. At their best, the novel, the play, most of the poetry, of their day demanded the time and gave no help. Their intensely serious view of life was the basis of adjustment for all their standard of permission and perusal. The very newspaper was often looked at askance. The reaction is upon us, in our time, and is carrying Christian people quite far enough in the direction of freedom. All the fields of literature are not full of food-bearing, health-producing growth; yet the tendency is to throw them open to the free range of even the youngest, most inexperienced readers. And without keeping up the old strictness of prohibition, the Christian readers of to-day need to hear, “Be not deceived, evil communications,” etc.
3. In fiction, for example, the social code, the valuation of men and character, is seldom that of the New Testament; in some, widely read and favourably reviewed, it is hardly Ten Commandment morality. The masters of fiction, or the great playwrights, are not found working on distinctively Christian lines; they never have done. The relations between man and woman in (say) a masterpiece of art like Middlemarch are not according to Christ’s law. Vanity Fair is drawn by one who is himself a stall-holder in the Fair—so far as its code for character shows. The Christian of strong, “spiritual” instincts, in whom is answered the prayer of Php_1:9-11, is not at home in his mental company, as he reads. He is in continual mental and heart protest against what they say and do, and still more against their principles of action and judgment. And the danger is analogous to that of actually living in such an atmosphere and such company; the danger of adjustment little by little, of assimilation by almost imperceptible degrees—only recognisable in their total result—to the standards and practice and heart of those around him. [“Some (poets) will tune their harps to sensual pleasures, and by the enchantment of their genius will well-nigh commend their unholy themes to the imagination of saints” (Edward Irving, Div. Oracles, Oration I.).]
4. Most of the reviewing press, most of the influential literary judgment, is at its best non-Christian in its motives and its standards of appeal. The younger, the unstable, the ill-instructed Christian reader needs be on his guard, lest he “be deceived”; lest he be swept away by the strong set of the prevalent current into habits of judgment and esteem which would not be those of “life in Christ.” Beauty, masterly workmanship, in art or poetry must not excuse or glorify moral evil. To a Christian instinct art cannot be non-moral; as a fact, it is not. The master-workman of the modern world, Goethe, is a great heathen. Shakespeare, colossal in his power, embodies, like his mistress Elizabeth [see Green, History of the English People, ii. 499, “a brilliant, fanciful, unscrupulous child of earth and of the Renaissance”], the spirit and code, not of the Reformation, but of the Renaissance, in his attitude towards the moralities; it needs a strong, clear, healthy, spiritual tone to read him without some moral soil, and even some of the insensible mental adjustment which is the great peril. The young heart needs to read with Paul’s caution even in the ears, “Evil communications,” etc. Breadth, liberality, which cultivates “toleration,” indifference to all such aspects of literature, and appreciates and approves all equally if only power be there,—these belong to a life which lives and moves in another world than that which is circumscribed by the sacred limit: “in Christ.” The “man in Christ” needs in even his mental companionships to be on his strictest guard when he passes into the “world” beyond. It is apt to be “corrupt” and “corrupting.” [Similarly the evolutionary exposition of the facts of the natural world has so got possession of the press, emphemeral and more permanent alike; has so got current in the speech and thought of the leaders of the mind of the world to-day; has so boldly been carried through as a working explanation of the facts dealt with in mental and moral science; that it is difficult not to escape the infection of what, in its extremest interpreters, is a materialism without a God; difficult to come back to, and keep, one’s position at the Great Teacher’s feet, making His words, “My Father worketh hitherto,” the key to one’s interpretation and system of Nature. Facts are welcome, whoever discovers, reports, systematises them. The interpretation of the facts needs watching lest it “corrupt” the habitual, instinctive thought of the heart, which like Christ sees a world whose “laws” are simply God’s rules for His own ordinary, orderly action and government; whose “Force” is ultimately will force—that of His will; a world full of a personal God.]
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 19. “If in this life only we have hope…
19. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable.” This follows as a legitimate sequence from the terrible persecutions which at that time everywhere set against them, and in which, not many years after this writing, Paul lost his head at Nero’s block. Since their leader had been cruelly murdered by the authorities of Church and State, they had no right to expect anything else but a similar fate. Hence, living amid the contempt and maltreatment of a wicked world, in a fallen church, in daily anticipation of martyrdom, they were certainly the most miserable people of the world if their hope was lost.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 50 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians
THE DEATH OF DEATH
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THE CERTAINTY AND JOY OF THE RESURRECTION
1Co 15:20.
The Apostle has been contemplating the long train of dismal consequences which he sees would arise if we only had a dead Christ. He thinks that he, the Apostle, would have nothing to preach, and we, nothing to believe. He thinks that all hope of deliverance from sin would fade away. He thinks that the one fact which gives assurance of immortality having vanished, the dead who had nurtured the assurance have perished. And he thinks that if things were so, then Christian men, who had believed a false gospel, and nourished an empty faith, and died clinging to a baseless hope, were far more to be pitied than men who had had less splendid dreams and less utter illusions.
Then, with a swift revulsion of feeling, he turns away from that dreary picture, and with a change of key, which the dullest ear can appreciate, from the wailing minors of the preceding verses, he breaks into this burst of triumph. ‘Now’-things being as they are, for it is the logical ‘now,’ and not the temporal one-things being as they are, ‘Christ is risen from the dead, and that as the first fruits of them that slept.’
Part of the ceremonial of the Passover was the presentation in the Temple of a barley sheaf, the first of the harvest, waved before the Lord in dedication to Him, and in sign of thankful confidence that all the fields would be reaped and their blessing gathered. There may be some allusion to that ceremony, which coincided in time with the Resurrection of our Lord, in the words here, which regard that one solitary Resurrection as the early ripe and early reaped sheaf, the pledge and the prophecy of the whole ingathering.
Now there seem to me, in these words, to ring out mainly two things-an expression of absolute certainty in the fact, and an expression of unbounded triumph in the certainty of the fact.
And if we look at these two things, I think we shall get the main thoughts that the Apostle would impress upon our minds.
I. The certainty of Christ’s Resurrection.
‘Now is Christ risen,’ says he, defying, as it were, doubt and negation, and basing himself upon the firm assurance which he possesses of that historical fact. ‘Ah!’ you say, ‘seeing is believing; and he had evidence such as we can never have.’ Well! let us see. Is it possible for us, nineteen centuries nearly after that day, to catch some echo of this assured confidence, and in the face of modern doubts and disbeliefs, to reiterate with as unfaltering assurance as that with which they came from his glowing lips, the great words of my text? Can we, logically and reasonably, as men who are guided by evidence and not by feeling, stand up before the world, and take for ours the ancient confession: ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day He rose again from the dead’ ? I think we can.
The way to prove a fact is by the evidence of witnesses. You cannot argue that it would be very convenient, if such and such a thing should be true; that great moral effects would follow if we believed it was true, and so on. The way to do is to put people who have seen it into the witness-box, and to make sure that their evidence is worth accepting.
And at the beginning of my remarks I wish to protest, in a sentence, against confusing the issues about this question of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in that fashion which is popular nowadays, when we are told that miracle is impossible, and therefore there has been no Resurrection, or that death is the end of human existence, and that therefore there has been no Resurrection. That is not the way to go about ascertaining the truth as to asserted facts. Let us hear the evidence. The men who brush aside the testimony of the New Testament writers, in obedience to a theory, either about the impossibility of the supernatural, or about the fatal and final issues of human death, are victims of prejudice, in the strictest meaning of the word; and are no more logical than the well-known and proverbial reasoner who, when told that facts were against him, with sublime confidence in his own infallibility, is reported to have said, ‘So much the worse for the facts.’ Let us deal with evidence, and not with theory, when we are talking about alleged facts of history.
So then, let me remind you that, in this chapter from which my text is taken, we have a record of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, older than, and altogether independent of, the records contained in the gospels, which are all subsequent in date to it; that this Epistle to the Corinthians is one of the four undisputed Epistles of the Apostle, which not the most advanced school of modern criticism has a word to say against; that, therefore, this chapter, written, at the latest, some seven and twenty years after the date of the Crucifixion, carries us up very close to that event; that it shows that the Resurrection was universally believed all over the Church, and therefore must have then been long believed; that it enables us to trace the same belief as universal, and in undisputed possession of the field among the churches, at the time of Paul’s conversion, which cannot be put down at much more than five or six years after the Crucifixion, and that so we are standing in the presence of absolutely contemporaneous testimony. This is not a case in which a belief slowly and gradually grew up. Whether we accept the evidence or not, we are bound to admit that it is strictly contemporaneous testimony to the fact of Christ’s Resurrection.
And the witnesses are reliable and competent, as well as contemporaneous. The old belief that their testimony was imposture is dead long ago; as, indeed, how could it live? It would be an anomaly, far greater than the Resurrection, to believe that these people, Mary, Peter, John, Paul, and all the rest of them, were conspirators in a lie, and that the fairest system of morality and the noblest consecration that the world has ever seen, grew up out of a fraud, like flowers upon a dunghill. That theory will not hold water; and even those who will not accept the testimony have long since confessed that it will not. But the Apostle, in my context, seems to think that that is the only tenable alternative to the other theory that the witnesses were veracious, and I am disposed to believe that he is right. He says, ‘If Christ be not risen, then, are we’ the utterly impossible thing of ‘false witnesses to God,’ devout perjurers, as the phrase might be paraphrased: men who are lying to please God. If Christ be not risen, they have sworn to a thing that they know to be untrue, in order to advance His cause and His kingdom. If that theory be not accepted, there is no other about these men and their message that will hold water for a minute, except the admission of its truth.
The fashionable modern one, that it was hallucination, is preposterous. Hallucinations that five hundred people at once shared! Hallucinations that lasted all through long talks, spread at intervals over more than a month! Hallucinations that included eating and drinking, speech and answer; the clasp of the hand and the feeling of the breath! Hallucinations that brought instruction! Hallucinations that culminated in the fancy that a gathered multitude of them saw Him going up into heaven! The hallucination is on the other side, I think. They have got the saddle on the wrong horse when they talk about the Apostolic witnesses being the victims of hallucination. It is the people who believe it possible that they should be who are so. The old argument against miracles used to say that it is more consonant with experience that testimony should be false, than that a miracle should be true. I venture to say it is a much greater strain on a man’s credulity, to believe that such evidence is false than that such a miracle, so attested, is true. And I, for my part, venture to think that the reasonable men are the men who listen to these eye-witnesses when they say, ‘We saw Him rise’; and echo back in answer the triumphant certitude, ‘Christ is risen indeed!’
There is another consideration that I might put briefly. A very valuable way of establishing facts is to point to the existence of other facts, which indispensably require the previous ones for their explanation. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, amongst other reasons, because I do not understand how it was possible for the Church to exist for a week after the Crucifixion, unless Jesus Christ rose again. Why was it that they did not all scatter? Why was it that the spirit of despondency and the tendency to separation, which were beginning to creep over them when they were saying: ‘Ah! it is all up! We trusted that this had been He,’ did not go on to their natural issue? How came it that these people, with their Master taken away from the midst of them, and the bond of union between them removed, and all their hopes crushed did not say: ‘We have made a mistake, let us go back to Gennesareth and take to our fishing again, and try and forget our bright illusions’ ? That is what John the Baptist’s followers did when he died. Why did not Christ’s do the same? Because Christ rose again and re-knit them together. When the Shepherd was smitten, the flock would have been scattered, and never drawn together any more, unless there had been just such a thing as the Resurrection asserts there was, to reunite the dispersed and to encourage the depressed. And so I say, Christianity with a dead Christ, and a Church gathered round a grave from which the stone has not been rolled away, is more unbelievable than the miracle, for it is an absurdity.
Then there is another thing that I would say in a word. Let me put an illustration to explain what I mean. Suppose, after the execution of King Charles I., in some corner of the country a Pretender had sprung up and said, ‘I am the King!’ the way to end that would have been for the Puritan leaders to have taken people to St. George’s Chapel, and said, ‘Look! there is the coffin, there is the body, is that the king, or is it not?’ Jesus Christ was said to have risen again, within a week of the time of His death. The rulers of the nation had the grave, the watch, the stone, the seal. They could have put an end to the pestilent nonsense in two minutes, if it had been nonsense, by the simple process of saying, ‘Go and look at the tomb, and you will see Him there.’ But this question has never been answered, and never will be-What became of that sacred corpse if Jesus Christ did not rise again from the dead? The clumsy lie that the rulers told, that the disciples had stolen away the body, was only their acknowledgment that the grave was empty. If the grave were empty, either His servants were impostors, which we have seen it is incredible that they were, or the Christ was risen again.
And so, dear brethren, for many other reasons besides this handful that I have ventured to gather and put before you, and in spite of the prejudices of modern theories, I lift up here once more, with unfaltering certitude, the glad message which I beseech you to accept: ‘Christ is risen, the first fruits of them that slept.’
II. So much, then, for the first point in this passage. A word or two about the second-the triumph in the certitude of that Resurrection.
As I remarked at a previous point of this discourse, the Apostle has been speaking about the consequences which would follow from the fact that Christ was not raised. If we take all these consequences and reverse them, we get the glad issues of His Resurrection, and understand why it was that this great burst of triumph comes from the Apostle’s lips. And though I must necessarily treat this part of my subject very inadequately, let me try to gather together the various points on which, as I think, our Easter gladness ought to be built.
First, then, I say, the risen Christ gives us a complete Gospel. A dead Christ annihilates the Gospel. ‘If Christ be not risen,’ says the Apostle, ‘our preaching,’ by which he means not the act but the substance of his preaching, ‘is vain.’ Or, as the word might be more accurately rendered, ‘empty.’ There is nothing in it; no contents. It is a blown bladder; nothing in it but wind.
What was Paul’s ‘preaching’ ? It all turned upon these points-that Jesus Christ was the Son of God; that He was Incarnate in the flesh for us men; that He died on the Cross for our offences; that He was raised again, and had ascended into Heaven, ruling the world and breathing His presence into believing hearts; and that He would come again to be our Judge. These were the elements of what Paul called ‘his Gospel.’ He faces the supposition of a dead Christ, and he says, ‘It is all gone! It is all vanished into thin air. I have nothing to preach if I have not a Cross to preach which is man’s deliverance from sin, because on it the Son of God hath died, and I only know that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is accepted and sufficient, because I have it attested to me in His rising again from the dead.’
Dear brethren, on the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is suspended everything which makes the Gospel a gospel. Strike that out, and what have you left? Some beautiful bits of moral teaching, a lovely life, marred by tremendous mistakes about Himself and His own importance and His relation to men and to God; but you have got nothing left that is worth calling a gospel. You have the cross rising there, gaunt, black, solitary; but, unless on the other side of the river you have the Resurrection, no bridge will ever be thrown across the black gulf, and the Cross remains ‘dead, being alone.’ You must have a Resurrection to explain the Cross, and then the Life and the Death tower up into the manifestation of God in the flesh and the propitiation for our sins. Without it we have nothing to preach which is worth calling a gospel.
Again, a living Christ gives faith something to lay hold of. The Apostle here in the context twice says, according to the Authorised Version, that a dead Christ makes our faith ‘vain.’ But he really uses two different words, the former of which is applied to ‘preaching,’ and means literally ‘empty,’ while the latter means ‘of none effect’ or ‘powerless.’ So there are two ideas suggested here which I can only touch with the lightest hand.
The risen Christ puts some contents, so to speak, into my faith; He gives me something for it to lay hold of.
Who can trust a dead Christ, or who can trust a human Christ? That would be as much a blasphemy as trusting any other man. It is only when we recognise Him as declared to be the Son of God, and that by the Resurrection from the dead, that our faith has anything round which it can twine, and to which it can cleave. That living Saviour will stretch out His hand to us if we look to Him, and if I put my poor, trembling little hand up towards Him, He will bend to me and clasp it. You cannot exercise faith unless you have a risen Saviour, and unless you exercise faith in Him your lives are marred and sad.
Again, if Christ be dead, our faith, if it could exist, would be as devoid of effect as it would be empty of substance. For such a faith would be like an infant seeking nourishment at a dead mother’s breast, or men trying to kindle their torches at an extinguished lamp. And chiefly would it fail to bring the first blessing which the believing soul receives through and from a risen Christ, namely, deliverance from sin. If He whom we believed to be our sacrifice by His death and our sanctification by His life has not risen, then, as we have seen, all which makes His death other than a martyr’s vanishes, and with it vanish forgiveness and purifying. Only when we recognise that in His Cross explained by His Resurrection, we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, and by the communication of the risen life from the risen Lord possess that new nature which sets us free from the dominion of our evil, is faith operative in setting us free from our sins.
So, dear friends, the risen Christ gives us something for faith to lay hold of, and will make it the hand by which we grasp His strong hand, which lifts us ‘out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and sets our feet upon a rock.’ But if He lie dead in the grave your faith is vain, because it grasps nothing but a shadow; and it is vain as being purposeless; you are yet in your sins.
The last thought is that the risen Christ gives us the certitude of our Resurrection. I do not for a moment mean to say that, apart from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the thought, be it a wish or a dread, of immortality, has not been found in men, but there is all the difference in the world between forebodings, aspirations, wishes it were so, fears that it might be so, and the calm certitude that it is so. Many men talked about a western continent, but Columbus went there and came back again, and that ended doubt. Many men before, and apart from Jesus, have cherished thoughts of an immortal life beyond the grave, but He has been there and returned. And that, and, as I believe, that only puts the doctrine of immortality upon an irrefragable foundation; and we can say, ‘Now, I know that there is that land beyond.’ They tell us that death ends everything. Modern materialism, in all its forms, asserts that it is the extinction of the personality. Jesus Christ died, and went through it, and came out of it the same, and I will trust Him. Brethren, the set of opinion amongst the educated and cultured classes in England, and all over Europe, at this moment, proves to anybody who has eyes to see, that for this generation, rejection of immortality will follow certainly on the rejection of Jesus Christ. And for England to-day, as for Greece when Paul sent his letter to Corinth, the one light of certitude in the great darkness is the fact that Jesus Christ hath died, and is risen again.
If you will let Him, He will make you partakers of His own immortal life. ‘The first fruits of them that slept’ is the pledge and the prophecy of all the waving abundance of golden grain that shall be gathered into the great husbandman’s barns. The Apostle goes on to represent the resurrection of ‘them that are Christ’s’ as a consequence of their union to Jesus. He has conquered for us all. He has entered the prison-house and come forth bearing its iron gates on His shoulders, and henceforth it is not possible that we should be holden of it. There are two resurrections-one, that of Christ’s servants, one that of others. They are not the same in principle-and, alas, they are awfully different in issue. ‘Some shall wake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.’
Let me beseech you to make Jesus Christ the life of your dead souls, by humble, penitent trust in Him. And then, in due time, He will be the life of your transformed bodies, changing these into the likeness of the body of His glory, ‘according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv19–54 If we have only hoped in Christ in this…
If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable . [ 2Co_1:5-9 ; 1Co_11:23-32 ; 2Ti_3:12 . If, as the rationalists affirmed, there was no such thing as a resurrection, then Christ was not raised from the dead, and if he was not raised, the apostles and others who witnessed as to his resurrection had borne false testimony as to God, accusing him of doing what he had never done. They were also false witnesses as to the Corinthians, having given them a vain faith as to forgiveness and eternal life, when in reality they were yet in their sins, and doomed to receive the wages of sin which is death. They were also false witnesses as to the dead, for, instead of falling asleep in Jesus, the dead had perished. Moreover, they and other witnesses who had done all this, were wholly without excuse; for they had made others miserable without any profit whatever to themselves. If there was no resurrection and future reward for these witnesses, they must have testified falsely, hoping for some gain in this present life; but instead of such gain, these witnesses had drawn upon themselves from every quarter such storms of persecution as made their lives most pitiable--miserable enough to induce them to abandon so profitless a falsehood. The absolute self-sacrifice of such a life as Paul's can be explained only by admitting that he believed his own testimony, and truly hoped for a resurrection and blessings in the future state. At this point he ceases to be the persuasive logician, and speaks as the authoritative, inspired prophet. Against the vain and erroneous reasonings of men he places the infallible and unfailing revelations of the Spirit]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 29, 34, 45, 51, 52 Adam was a contrasting type of Christ, 1Co 15:45-47;…
Adam
Adam was a contrasting type of Christ, 1Co 15:45-47; Rom 5:14-19.
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(1) "The first man Adam was made a living soul" Gen 2:7, i.e. he derived life from another, that is, God. "The last Adam was a life-giving spirit." So far from deriving life, He was Himself the fountain of life, and He gave that life to others; Joh 1:4; Joh 5:21; Joh 10:10; Joh 12:24; 1Jn 5:12.
(2) In origin the first man was of the earth, earthy; the Second Man is the Lord from heaven.
(3) Each is the head of a creation, and these also are in contrast: in Adam all die; in Christ all will be made alive; the Adamic creation is "flesh"; the new creation, "spirit." Joh 3:6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv20, 29, 35, 42, 50 A victorious line of argument:
A victorious line of argument:
v. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the First-fruits of them that slept.
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v. 21. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
v. 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
v. 23. But every man in his own order: Christ the First-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.
v. 24. Then cometh 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.
v. 25. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.
v. 26. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
v. 27. For He hath put all things under His feet. But when He saith, All things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under Him.
v. 28. 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.
In contrast with the deplorable results which would follow from the supposition as held by the ignorant deniers of the resurrection of the body, Paul now triumphantly sets before his readers the fact of the resurrection and its glorious consequences. If Christ had not risen, all the disastrous events must have followed as a matter of course. But as matters now stand, if we look at the situation as it really exists: Christ has been raised from the dead as a First-fruit of them that sleep. The fact of His resurrection is beyond doubt and dispute, is, in fact, not called into question even by those Corinthian Christians that hold a wrong view with regard to this doctrine. And thereby Christ is set forth before us as the First-fruits, the first offering, of the new harvest, Lev 23:10, a sign and token that the entire harvest is sanctified to the Lord. He was the first dead person to lay aside all mortality and to assume a spiritual body which would not be subject to death in all eternity. And so they that fell asleep in Christ in the hope of eternal life will also arise from the dead; the first harvest-sheaf will be followed by all the other sheaves; the bodies of all the believers will lay aside mortality; consecrated to God as they are, they will become partakers of that same spirituality, Col 1:18; Rev 1:5.
The apostle explains how this result has been brought about: For since through a man is death, also through a man is resurrection of the dead. A man, Adam, was the means, the instrument, by which death entered into the world. He ate of the forbidden fruit and thus caused the curse of God to take effect; he subjected mankind to physical death. On the other hand, through man also is the resurrection of the dead; Jesus, true man, by His resurrection has broken the ban of death, has become the first one of a new mankind over which death has no more power, Rom 6:9. For just as in the Adam, in that one man representing the entire world of men, all men die, so also in the Christ, in the promised Messiah, all will be made alive. As death in all cases is grounded in Adam, so life in all cases is grounded in Christ. As in Adam all die that pertain to Adam, that are sinful human beings, so in Christ all will be made alive that are Christ’s by faith in Him.
The nature of the resurrection will be the same, but there will be a distinction of order or rank: But each in his own rank, in his proper order—Christ the First-fruits, then those that belong to Christ, at His coming. This statement is intended to remove an objection which men might make by pointing to the fact that the believers in Christ are lying in their graves by the side of those that were subject to death on account of the curse which came upon the world in Adam. Paul simply says that the Lord is observing a due order according to His plan. Christ, as the First-fruits, has entered into the fullness of life, has in His human nature assumed immortality, an incorruptible body. And those that belong to Christ by faith will enter into that same glorious state when He returns on the last great day.
When Christ thus comes, then is the end; His return for the final judgment means the conclusion of the world’s history, when He delivers up the kingdom to His God and Father, when He has put down and abolished every rule and every authority and every power. Christ is now the King in the Kingdom of Power and in the Kingdom of Grace. And He is performing the duties of this office continually; He is adding further souls to His Kingdom of Grace, He is making intercession for those that have been admitted under His rule by faith. This work of mercy continues to the last day, when the history of this present world will come to an end, when the last elect will be added to the number fixed by the Lord. By that time also He will abolish all the forces of evil that oppose His work of grace, no matter how firmly fixed their rule, no matter how extensive their authority, no matter how great their power seems to be at the present time. And then Christ will lay at His Father’s feet the kingdom; that will be the end of the Kingdom of Grace, since the Church Militant on that day will be changed to the Church Triumphant, and the Kingdom of Glory will have its beginning. This is no ceasing of Christ’s rule, but the inauguration of God’s eternal kingdom; as the victorious Prince of Life He lays the spoils, the power and reign of all His enemies, at the feet of the Father, and then proceeds with the Father, in perfect unity of essence, to reign to all eternity. So far as the present world, the present period of time, is concerned, Christ must needs reign until He has placed all His enemies underneath His feet, Psa 110:1. Satan, the arch-enemy of Christ, and all the powers allied with him in opposition to God, must be brought to the most perfect subjection, to the deepest humiliation. The last enemy that shall be rendered absolutely powerless, whose rule shall be taken from him, is death: death is the last enemy to meet his doom. When the resurrection is complete on the last day, the power of death will be forever annulled, there will no longer be such a thing as dying or as being dead; Satan’s last bulwark will be destroyed after he has given up his arms. It is a shout of victory which the apostle here utters as he reaches the climax of this passage.
The unlimited dominion which will belong to Christ by the removal of all His enemies is finally pictured: For "all things He put underneath His feet. " But when He says, "All things are subjected,"—obviously with the exception of Him that put all things in subjection to Him,—when all things will have been made subject to Him, then also the Son Himself will subject Himself to Him (the Father) that has subjected all things to Him (the Son), that God may be all in all. The apostle here applies the words of Psa 8:6 to Jesus, the Man above all men. See Eph 1:22. God gave to Christ, according to His human nature, power and dominion over all things, subjected everything to His will. So absolute and all-encompassing is this "all" that only the Father Himself is excepted, since His is the unlimited supremacy. And incidentally the Son will then subject Himself to the Father, not as subordinated to Him in essence, but in the free submission of love. In all the works of His office as Redeemer, He was loyal to His Father in perfect obedience, and now the Son, in His Sonship, subjects Himself to His Father, as Father, that God may be all, the one object of praise, glory, and adoration, in all, the believers giving Him the joyful reverence of their blessedness, and the unbelievers and all other creatures bowing before Him as the supreme Lord. Mark: These words in no way teach the inferiority of the Son to the Father in essence: on the contrary, the absolute unity in the distinction of persons stands out all the more clearly and conspicuously. Whatsoever glory the Son has gained is devoted to the glory and power of the Father, who, in turn, glorifies the Son. See 1Co 3:22; 1Co 11:3.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv20, 22, 24, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 40, 42, 45, 47, 50, 52, 54 now Christ
now Christ
"as it is, Christ" or "this is the truth: Christ"
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who is the firstfruits
Here "firstfruits" is a metaphor, comparing Christ to the first of the harvest, which would be followed by the rest of the harvest. Christ was the first to be raised from the dead. AT: "who is like the first part of the harvest" (See: Metaphor)
Christ, who is the firstfruits of those who died, has been raised
"Raised" here is an idiom for "caused to live again." This can be stated in active form. AT: "God has raised Christ, who is the firstfruits of those who died" (See: Active or Passive and Idiom)
death came by a man
The abstract noun "death" can be expressed with the verb "die." AT: "people die because of one man" (See: Abstract Nouns)
by a man also came the resurrection of the dead
The abstract noun "resurrection" can be expressed with the verb "raise." AT: "people are raised from the dead because of another man" (See: Abstract Nouns)
translationWords
Christ
firstfruits
raise
die
resurrection
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54 15:19 Without eternal life, faithful believers are more to…
15:19 Without eternal life, faithful believers are more to be pitied than anyone in the world because they suffer persecution and deprivation. But they find their joy in anticipating what lies beyond this life, as did both Jesus (see Heb 12:2) and Paul (see 2 Cor 4:16-18; Phil 1:21-23; 3:7-11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.