1 Corinthians 15 and the Clarity of Greek Syntax

When I finally sat down to learn German, I aced the grammar and vocabulary. My pronunciation was prestine. So, of course, when I went to take my Theological German exam, I had the utmost confidence that I would ace that as well . . . until I sat down to take it. Then I immediately realized that I had no idea what, I think was a text from Barth, was saying. That’s because learning a language is much more than learning grammar and vocabulary. I see this same error repeated with students of Greek who have a couple years of Greek but no advanced knowledge of it under their belt. What is worse is that many lesser seminaries and Bible colleges just teach people the Greek alphabet and then tell them to use the resources like dictionaries and interlinears. This is a recipe for destruction, and the common joke echoed throughout the faculty departments of Greek scholars everywhere is that a person now has enough knowledge of Greek to be dangerous. This is said, of course, because partial knowledge is usually a convincing ignorance that leads to the dogmatism of error.

Since I am writing a book on Preterism right now, I see tons of this in Preterist exegesis. 1 Corinthians 15 is a good example of this, and I’ll just mention a few of the many errors made by Preterists concerning this text. There are many more. 

In vv. 1-34, Paul argues against the idea that there is no resurrection by arguing that a denial of the resurrection means that Christ has not been raised, since to deny that X takes place is to deny that any part of X takes place, including the X of Christ. It is clear from this passage that Paul is arguing for the physical resurrection of Christ, as he mentions the gospel of Christ being raised after dying on the cross and being buried, as well as His appearing physically to the apostles and other disciples afterward. The Greeks would have taken issue with this idea simply because their religious anthropologies reject the notion that the physical body is to partake in what is spiritual and good in salvation. This is Part I of his argument and sets up his second argument in the rest of the chapter.

In vv. 35 and following, Paul begins to answer a second objection to the resurrection, which functions off of the idea that the body is crude and a temporary thing, and therefore, could not possibly be something that inherits eternal life. 

Because Preterists often read interlinears, they see that many of the articles or adjectives or verbs stand alone, and therefore, feel that they can plug in whatever referent, their own antecedents, to these, since none are explicitly named by the Greek.  

For instance, one might read in a translation or interlinear that, “It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (vv. 42–43). When he reads this, he concludes that the word “it” is not in the text. Hence, the subject becomes open. What is sown in dishonor and raised in dishonor? What is sown in weakness and raised in power? What is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body? He might conclude that it is the Christian person. In this case, the Christian person dies with his physical or earthly body and is raised as a spirit or with another body that is his spiritual body, a different body than the one he currently has. 

The problem with this interpretation is that the word “it” does not need to be a separate word from the verb supplied. It can be that the 3d masculine singular could be translated as “he,” but this then takes us to understand what the antecedent is. The text of v. 43 does not say that “he is raised with a spiritual body,” but rather that whatever the subject may be, it is to be identified both with the natural and spiritual body. In other words, the thing that is being sown is the same thing that is being raised. If the thing is a natural body sown, the thing is a spiritual body being raised. Since that is the case, the 3d masculine singulars should be understood, not as “he,” but as “it,” referencing the body.

This is also made clear in the preceding verses. The subject matter is the nature of the body in the resurrection, not the nature of the man who is raised. Hence, in vv. 35–41, Paul talks about the form that is given to the body of a seed that is planted, and then continues to talk about different bodies that have different natures, arguing from nature that physical bodies can be given different natures and are not confined to a singular one. It is from this argument that he proceeds to discuss the fact that when a physical body dies, its temporal, mortal nature dies and God gives to it a new nature that is immortal. There is no man mentioned that would be the antecedent of the verbs other than the sōma.

But the reading of interlinears gets worse than this when one approaches v. 46. Some Preterists have argued that the natural man (i.e., the sinful man in Adam) is first and the spiritual man (i.e., the man redeemed in Christ) comes afterward, and therefore, Paul would not be arguing that the physical man comes after the spiritual man again. First is the physical and then is the spiritual. There is simply nothing else after this. It is clear that this is talking about a person, and not the body, because Paul refers to Adam and Christ in the preceding verse.

The problem is that this is talking about the body still, not the Christian person as a whole. This is made clear by the grammar, which is neuter singular in agreement with sōma and not with anthrōpos in v. 45. The contrast between Adam and Christ, therefore, is not one between the fallen and redeemed natures, but between the mortal body given to Adam and the immortal body given to Christ. The body’s first nature is not immortal. It is mortal. The body’s immortal nature is given later (as Paul says, after it dies). The argument continues that those who are in Adam have received the mortal nature of Adam’s body, but those who are in Christ will also receive the immortal nature of Christ’s resurrected body.

Some of this is a simple misunderstanding of what Paul means by terms like “spiritual” and “heavenly” versus “earthly” or “natural.” Preterists often interpret these terms to mean “non-physical” versus “physical” based on their interpretation of v. 50; but it is clear that the term “flesh and blood” is defined immediately by Paul as “that which is perishable versus that which is imperishable.” Paul further clarifies this in vv. 53–54 as the mortal body being transformed by its being given the nature of immortality and imperishability. 

The misuse of the interlinear comes in again in these verses, as the Preterist will note that the word “body” is not in the text; but this, again, is a misunderstanding of Greek syntax. The article and adjective are neuter singulars and refer back to the antecedent sōma. It is a very common practice in Greek for the author to leave out the modified noun simply because it is seen as redundant. The author will either just write the article that is in agreement with the noun in gender and number, or as in this case, write both the article and modifying adjective that agrees in gender and number. What this means is that, even though the interlinear does not show it, Paul means the reader to read sōma after each adjective. Hence, the text of vv. 53–54 should read, “For this perishable body must put on an imperishable nature, and this mortal body must put on an immortal nature. Now when this perishable body puts on the imperishable nature, and this mortal body puts on an immortal nature . . .”

It is clear, then, from the Greek, that what is being raised is the actual body that Christians have gained from Adam, but this body is being raised with a new nature that mimics that of Christ’s redeemed body. The term enduō means to “clothe over,” and often refers to putting on an outer garment over existing clothes. Paul is not arguing, therefore, that the Christian becomes a spirit or is given a new body that is a completely different body than the one he has, but rather that his body will be redeemed and transformed into one that is fit for the immortal kingdom of God.

It should be noted for further meditation that Paul argues that Christ has not conquered death, what he refers to as the last enemy, until the body is transformed in this way. In other words, until the resurrection/transformation of the physical body from mortal to immortal occurs, Christ will remain on the Father’s throne until He puts all of His enemies under His feet. What this means is that “death” here refers to physical, not spiritual, death, which is another misunderstanding that Preterists often plug into this text. One can see that the understanding of Greek, rather than a cursory knowledge gained from interlinears and a nominal knowledge of Greek, can sharpen one’s understanding of what is being said, and even refute deeply held assumptions that often go into reading the English text.