12 Εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς κηρύσσεται ὅτι ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγήγερται, πῶς λέγουσιν ἐν ὑμῖν τινες ὅτι ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν;
"But if Christ is proclaimed as having been raised from the dead, why do some among you say that there is no resurrection of dead men?"
Verse 12 links the resurrection that Paul is talking about to Christ's physical resurrection that he just addressed in vv. 1-11. Hence, the word "resurrection," as Paul is using it here refers to the physical resurrection of the body, since this is the "raising" to which Paul is referring according to the passage. The distinction between "from/out of the dead" and "of dead men" is simply from the use of the preposition in 12a versus the lack of the preposition in 12b. This is not an absolute way to take it, but it brings out the point Paul is making much more clearly, and may be the reason why he chooses to drop the preposition in the second clause.
13 εἰ δὲ ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται·
"But if there is no resurrection of dead men then neither has Christ been raised."
Paul now makes it clear that Christ's resurrection is the same kind of resurrection as that of the dead in general. It is seen as a subset of the larger whole. Hence, if not A, then there can be no part of A. In other words, if there is no resurrection of dead men, then Christ, who was a dead man, cannot have been resurrected either.
14 εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, κενὸν ἄρα [καὶ] τὸ κήρυγμα ἡμῶν, κενὴ καὶ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν·
"But if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is worthless, your faith is also worthless."
Again, it is important to follow Paul's logic. He is still talking about Christ's physical resurrection from the dead, which he started discussing in vv. 1-11. In those verses, it is clear that this is Christ's physical, bodily resurrection, where His mortal body is raised and appears to the apostles, including Paul later when he is on the road to Damascus. Paul argues that Christ has to be bodily raised from the dead, or the preaching of the apostles, and the Corinthians' faith in that preaching is worthless.
15 εὑρισκόμεθα δὲ καὶ ψευδομάρτυρες τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅτι ἐμαρτυρήσαμεν κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι ἤγειρεν τὸν Χριστόν, ὃν οὐκ ἤγειρεν εἴπερ ἄρα νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται.
"Indeed, we have been found as false witnesses against God because we testified about God, that He raised Christ, who He did not raise, since dead men are not raised."
Again, he links Christ's physical bodily resurrection to the general resurrection as a part of the whole. It is not merely that Christ, the spirit, is raised. It is not merely that Christ, the person, is raised, but that Christ is raised in the same body He had upon the earth. He thus provided evidence of this by showing himself to the apostles and the 500. To say that there is no bodily resurrection of dead men in their physically resurrected bodies, therefore, is to say that there is no bodily resurrection of Christ in His physical body as well. Paul is attempting to get the Corinthians to understand that one cannot say that there is no physical resurrection without rejecting Christ's physical resurrection, since it is a part of the whole.
16 εἰ γὰρ νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, οὐδὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται·
"For if dead men are not raised, neither has Christ been raised."
Verses 16-18 form the parallel pattern with vv. 13-15, which form the basis of Paul's argument.
A εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, κενὸν ἄρα [καὶ] τὸ κήρυγμα ἡμῶν, κενὴ καὶ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν·
B εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, κενὸν ἄρα [καὶ] τὸ κήρυγμα ἡμῶν, κενὴ καὶ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν·
A' εἰ γὰρ νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, οὐδὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται·
B' εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, ματαία ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν, ἔτι ἐστὲ ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν,
If not one, then not the other because the one is the same thing as, and part of, the other. That is the entire point. Christ's resurrection is not some different type of thing. It is the same thing. Hence, to say that this thing does not happen in general is to say that this thing does not happen specifically either. To deny that there is a general bodily resurrection of dead people is to deny that there is a specific bodily resurrection of Christ.
17 εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, ματαία ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν, ἔτι ἐστὲ ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν,
"But if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins."
Pauline soteriology (as well as NT soteriology in general) places the resurrection as the consummation of salvation. To be saved in the end is to partake in the physical restoration of the world and God's people. If Christ is not raised, therefore, then He has not obtained salvation. If He has not obtained salvation, the Corinthians are still in their sins, and are not forgiven.
18 ἄρα καὶ οἱ κοιμηθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ ἀπώλοντο.
"Therefore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. If, in this life, we have placed our hope solely in Christ, we should be pitied among all men."
Again, since the context is all about physical resurrection, then those who have "fallen asleep," i.e., had their bodies die, will not be physically resurrected. Hence, they have perished. Perished does not mean annihilated, as the Greeks believed in the afterlife for the spirit in the netherworld. But Paul's argument is that those who have died have perished from the earth. They will not return. There is no salvation in the Pauline sense of the word for them. They remain in the realm of all dead men, the realm of spirits, never again to return to the physical world, the realm of the living. In this sense, they have perished, i.e., their bodies have perished.
20 Νυνὶ δὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀπαρχὴ τῶν κεκοιμημένων.
"But now, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."
Again, Paul links Christ's bodily resurrection to the bodily resurrection of Christians who have died by calling His physical resurrection the "firstfruits of those who have died." The firstfruits idea is that the part of the crop represents the whole crop. It is not a corn crop that represents a wheat crop, or a fruit crop that represents a vegetable crop. A portion of the crop is taken to represent that same crop. In other words, the one is the same as the other. It is a portion of the same thing that represents the same larger thing. The resurrection of Christ in His own earthly body represents, for Paul, the firstfruits of the larger resurrection of believers in their own earthly bodies. Hence, he means to prove that there will be a physical resurrection of Christians in their own bodies by using the fact that Christ was raised in this way also, and that this was something the Corinthians professed that they believed already through apostolic preaching.
21 ἐπειδὴ γὰρ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου θάνατος, καὶ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν.
22 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται.
"For since through a man came death, also through a man came a resurrection of dead men. For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ all may be brought to life."
At this point, many run off to Genesis and try to prove that Adam's death isn't physical. However, Paul's point must be taken from this context. Paul does believe physical death came through Adam, since he is arguing in this context that physical life, i.e., the bodily resurrection, is brought about by Christ's bodily resurrection, the one bringing about the other. To argue otherwise is to argue out of context and against the context. (Incidentally, physical death was brought about by Adam in the Genesis narrative who can partake of life, but is instead physically cursed by partaking in the tree of knowledge of good and evil--"From dust you have been taken and to dust you will return" is part of his judgment.) My point is that, regardless of the Genesis narrative itself, Paul is clearly arguing for a physical resurrection of what was lost, i.e., the physical body of the believer that has died and a return to the land of the living, i.e., the physical world.
23 Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ,
24 εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν.
"But each one in its own order: Christ is firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at His coming, then the end, when He hands the kingdom over to God the Father, when He has done away with all [other] rule and every [other] authority and power. For He must reign until He has placed all enemies under His feet, the last enemy to be done away with is death. For He has 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 put all things in subjection to Him. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all."
So the link becomes clear. Christ is raised bodily first, then those who belong to Christ will be raised bodily at His coming. By bodily, I mean that Paul indicates that believers will be raised in the same way that Christ was raised when he appeared to the apostles. He was raised physically. His earthly body was glorified. It was His same body, not a different one. He is the firstfruits of the larger whole, so those who are unified with Him will also receive what He received. Hence, what happens to Christ will happen to them at His coming.
Then Christ will hand the kingdom of the spiritual realm over to the Father because He will returning to rule upon the physical throne of David, which is an earthly throne. Hence, the Father rules heaven and the Messiah rules the earth, as biblical and 2d Temple literature teaches, under Him forever.
Notice that Christ must reign on that heavenly throne, however, until all enemies are abolished. The last enemy, Paul says, is death. Again, death to Paul, in this context, is physical death, a banishment from the land of the living, which is the physical cosmos. Resurrection reverses this and does away with physical death because it restores the physical body of the believer in the same way that Christ's physical body was restored to Him. Only then is death abolished, and only at that time will Christ hand the throne in heaven over to the Father. Reversing the last element of the curse ("to dust you will return"), therefore, becomes the last enemy to be abolished.
Verse 28 makes it clear that the word "other" should be read here when talking about rule, authority and power.
It is also clear that the act of putting all things in subjection is either the means to abolish them, and the subjugation, but not abolishment, has already taken place, or it refers to an inaugurated subjection, if subjugation refers to the abolition of all other kingdoms, not a consummated one. This must be the case in everyone's eschatology, including even a Preterist eschatology, as otherwise, Paul would be arguing that the resurrection is not a future event to him and the other Corinthians, but has already occurred.
29 Ἐπεὶ τί ποιήσουσιν οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν; εἰ ὅλως νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν;
"Otherwise, why do those who are baptized on behalf of dead men do it? If dead men are not raised at all, why then be baptized on their behalf?
The importance of this strange verse has often been obscured by the debate concerning to group Paul refers; but the passage is simply meant to show the irony in the practice of some of these people to baptize their bodies on behalf of the bodies of dead men when they do not even believe that those dead men will be raised again in their bodies. Baptism is meant to show the cleansing of the believer and it is a promise and seal that the entire believer, mind, body, and spirit will be redeemed and restored to life. This is the hope of the believer. But to be baptized on behalf of the dead, then, and deny that believers will be restored in their bodies is simply contradictory in Paul's mind.
30 Τί καὶ ἡμεῖς κινδυνεύομεν πᾶσαν ὥραν;
31 καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἀποθνῄσκω, νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν καύχησιν, [ἀδελφοί], ἣν ἔχω ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν.
32 εἰ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον ἐθηριομάχησα ἐν Ἐφέσῳ, τί μοι τὸ ὄφελος; εἰ νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, φάγωμεν καὶ πίωμεν, αὔριον γὰρ ἀποθνῄσκομεν.
33 μὴ πλανᾶσθε· φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρηστὰ ὁμιλίαι κακαί.
34 ἐκνήψατε δικαίως καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε, ἀγνωσίαν γὰρ θεοῦ τινες ἔχουσιν, πρὸς ἐντροπὴν ὑμῖν λαλῶ.
"Why are we also in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by the clout I have among you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
If from human motives I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If dead men are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts good morals'. Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame."
Paul's concern now turns to the practical. If the body is not going to be raised, if dead men do not return to the world, then what is the point in doing what is moral with the body? This has been a continual concern for Paul throughout the letter. The Corinthians apparently do not understand that their bodies are to be redeemed as well, and are a part of Christ's very own body that is redeemed, and the firstfruits of that physical redemption, so they have joined their bodies to those of prostitutes. In Chapter 6, he uses the resurrection of the body as a means to dislodge this thinking:
13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”[b]17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.[c]
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
He again argues in 10:1-13. The misunderstanding that the body would be discarded, a misunderstanding the Greeks often had from neo-platonic influences, led them to argue that the body really did not matter, and what one did with it did not really matter, since it was to be discarded anyway. In this vein, partying, instead of physically suffering for Christ in one's body, would be more appropriate. But since dead men will be bodily raised, they are to purify their bodies in the hope of that day when they will be redeemed and permanently purified.
35 Ἀλλ᾽ ἐρεῖ τις· πῶς ἐγείρονται οἱ νεκροί; ποίῳ δὲ σώματι ἔρχονται;
"But some will say, "In what manner are the dead raised? And in what body do they come?"
The fact that Paul is talking about the physical resurrection of the earthly body is made more explicit here, and now he turns to argue that it is, in fact, the mortal body that will be raised. It is not merely a resurrection of a spirit in a body that replaces this one. In fact, his previous argument that it matters what one does in the body because it will be raised makes no sense if it is to be discarded and replaced by another body instead. Hence, he will now address what body is raised.
36 ἄφρων, σὺ ὃ σπείρεις, οὐ ζῳοποιεῖται ἐὰν μὴ ἀποθάνῃ· 37 καὶ ὃ σπείρεις, οὐ τὸ σῶμα τὸ γενησόμενον σπείρεις ἀλλὰ γυμνὸν κόκκον εἰ τύχοι σίτου ἤ τινος τῶν λοιπῶν· 38 ὁ δὲ θεὸς δίδωσιν αὐτῷ σῶμα καθὼς ἠθέλησεν, καὶ ἑκάστῳ τῶν σπερμάτων ἴδιον σῶμα.
"Foolish Men! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a form just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a form of its own."
Paul now turns to an agricultural metaphor to answer the question concerning in what body dead men will be raised. He uses the seed that must die and be brought to life in a new form as an analogy, not of the Christian in general or the spirit of the Christian, but of the body. Notice, that in the analogy, it is the thing that is dying that is being brought to life. As a seed is buried and comes up into a new form, the body is buried and comes up into a new form. Again, it is not the Christian who is coming up into a new form or a spirit, so that it cannot be said that the Christian is merely a soul who gets a completely different body. It is the body that is taking upon itself a new form/nature. The analogies made by some that the outer husk is the body that dies off and then the inner seed is like the soul misses Paul's point. It is the thing that dies that is being brought to life. If the inner seed that does not die is meant to represent what gets a new body then Paul's point that what dies is brought to life is false. The spirit doesn't die. The body does.
39 Οὐ πᾶσα σὰρξ ἡ αὐτὴ σὰρξ ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλη μὲν ἀνθρώπων, ἄλλη δὲ σὰρξ κτηνῶν, ἄλλη δὲ σὰρξ πτηνῶν, ἄλλη δὲ ἰχθύων.
40 καὶ σώματα ἐπουράνια, καὶ σώματα ἐπίγεια· ἀλλ᾽ ἑτέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων.
41 ἄλλη δόξα ἡλίου, καὶ ἄλλη δόξα σελήνης, καὶ ἄλλη δόξα ἀστέρων· ἀστὴρ γὰρ ἀστέρος διαφέρει ἐν δόξῃ.
"Everything physical is not the same physical thing. There are the physical characteristics of a man, and another physical form of animals, and another physical form of birds, and another of fish; and there are heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies. The beauty of the heavenly body is one thing, and the beauty of the earthly is another, [there is yet] another beauty of the sun, and another beauty of the moon, and another beauty of the stars; for [even] one star differs in form from another in terms of its beauty."
Paul now argues that there are different types of physicality based upon the fact that many physical things have different physical forms; and that each has a specific beauty to that form. He will now argue that the mortal body in relation to what it becomes in the resurrection is also a transition from one physicality to another.
42 Οὕτως καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν. σπείρεται ἐν φθορᾷ, ἐγείρεται ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ·
"The resurrection of the dead is just like this. It is sown in perishability. It is raised in imperishability. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a body with temporary life, it is raised a body with permanent life."
Paul now argues that the body dies and is raised, not with the same temporal and corruptible nature that it had before, but instead as an eternal and incorruptible body. It is no longer perishable, corruptible, weak, dishonorable body that has a temporary existence, but is an imperishable, incorruptible, powerful, honorable body that has eternal life given to it. This is the contrast, in context, between the state of the mortal body as a psychikon body versus a pneumatikon body. The distinction is in the idea that the psyche "soul" describes the animation given to the body during its temporary existence in the earthly life of a man. The pneuma is seen as the eternal quality given to the body. It takes upon the eternal life of the spirit rather than having a temporary life as before. Hence, what Paul is really saying is that when the body dies and is raised, it will be given eternal life in the same way the spirit of a believer has been given eternal life. It has transitioned from mortality to immortality, as Paul will say below.
45 οὕτως καὶ γέγραπται· ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν. 46 ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πρῶτον τὸ πνευματικὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ ψυχικόν, ἔπειτα τὸ πνευματικόν. 47 ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός, ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. 48 οἷος ὁ χοϊκός, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ χοϊκοί, καὶ οἷος ὁ ἐπουράνιος, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ ἐπουράνιοι· 49 καὶ καθὼς ἐφορέσαμεν τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ, φορέσομεν καὶ τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου.
"Likewise, it has been written, "The first man became a living soul, the last Adam a life-making spirit. But the first body is not the spiritual/eternal body, but the natural/temporary body, then the spiritual body. The first man is from the earth, temporary. The second man is from heaven. Like the one who is temporary so also are the ones who are temporary; and like the one who is eternal, so also are those who are eternal; and just as we have bore the image of the temporary man, we will also bear the image of the eternal.
This passage is a subject of some confusion if one does not read it in the Greek, and also understand the metaphors involved. First, it is important to point out that Paul is stating that the mortality of the body he described above is gained from Adam. It is first an earthly/temporary body because it dies. The immortality in which it will be raised, however, is gained from the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who Himself obtained a heavenly/eternal nature for His body. The imagery of earthly versus heavenly is not meant to display a location of the bodies, but rather the nature of the body in both its temporary mortality and in its eternal immortality. This is the point in contrasting heaven and earth among the Greeks. What was spirit and heavenly was thought to endure forever, but what was physical and of the earth was thought to be temporary. Paul uses this imagery now to discuss the nature of the physical body, and its transformation from one state of temporal mortality to another of eternal immortality.
50 Τοῦτο δέ φημι, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύναται οὐδὲ ἡ φθορὰ τὴν ἀφθαρσίαν κληρονομεῖ.
"Now, this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood is not capable of inheriting the kingdom of God, nor will corruption inherit the incorruptible."
This verse, of course, is widely misunderstood when taken out of the context we have been discussing. If Paul means that the physical body cannot inherit the kingdom of God then his entire argument is null and void. Christ wasn't physically raised in His own body either then; and his entire argument for the general resurrection of the body is sunk. However, he makes it very clear that "flesh and blood" does not mean what is physical, but what is mortal. It refers to what is corruptible, as he states. It is the body in its present state that cannot inherit the eternal kingdom because it, in its present state, is temporary and corrupt. Hence, it needs a change of nature, as he will argue for next.
51 ἰδοὺ μυστήριον ὑμῖν λέγω· πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα,
52 ἐν ἀτόμῳ, ἐν ῥιπῇ ὀφθαλμοῦ, ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ σάλπιγγι· σαλπίσει γὰρ καὶ οἱ νεκροὶ ἐγερθήσονται ἄφθαρτοι καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀλλαγησόμεθα.
53 Δεῖ γὰρ τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσασθαι ἀφθαρσίαν καὶ τὸ θνητὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσασθαι ἀθανασίαν.
"Behold, I speak a mystery to you. Everyone will not sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet; for when it sounds the dead people will be raised imperishable, and we will all be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality."
This is often misunderstood in English because it is not as precise as Greek. The Greek makes it clear that the antecedent of the adjectives in the phrase "this perishable" and "this mortal" is the body. As per basic Greek syntax, the adjectives are neuter singular to agree with the subject Paul has been discussing the whole time: the sōma "body." Hence, the Greek reader would read, "this perishable body," and "this mortal body." It is this body that is taking upon itself imperishability and immortality. Again, not the Christian as a whole or a spirit taking these upon him or itself, but this mortal body taking upon itself these qualities. This is important to note or the entirety of Paul's argument will be misunderstood, and one might end up thinking that he is describing a Christian getting immortality by getting a different body. Nothing could be further from what he is arguing.
54 ὅταν δὲ τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσηται ἀφθαρσίαν καὶ τὸ θνητὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσηται ἀθανασίαν, τότε γενήσεται ὁ λόγος ὁ γεγραμμένος· κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος.
55 ποῦ σου, θάνατε, τὸ νῖκος; ποῦ σου, θάνατε, τὸ κέντρον;
56 τὸ δὲ κέντρον τοῦ θανάτου ἡ ἁμαρτία, ἡ δὲ δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ νόμος·
"But when this perishable body puts on imperishability and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the word that has been written will come to pass: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." Where, for you, O Death, is the victory? Where, for you, O Death, is the sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law."
Paul thus bring us back to Christ abolishing death as the last enemy, and that this will not occur until the physical resurrection of the believer's body, which will be when the body takes upon the qualities of immortality and imperishability at His coming, as he stated before. Death has been overcome at the cross, but that victory has not been fully applied to the world yet. When it is, the already spiritually resurrected saints will receive their physical resurrection as well, so that they, whole and not in part, will be redeemed as a part of Christ's body.
57 τῷ δὲ θεῷ χάρις τῷ διδόντι ἡμῖν τὸ νῖκος διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
58 Ὥστε, ἀδελφοί μου ἀγαπητοί, ἑδραῖοι γίνεσθε, ἀμετακίνητοι, περισσεύοντες ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ τοῦ κυρίου πάντοτε, εἰδότες ὅτι ὁ κόπος ὑμῶν οὐκ ἔστιν κενὸς ἐν κυρίῳ.
"But thanks to God who gives to us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not worthless in the Lord."
Paul ends by giving thanks to God and concluding that the understanding that the mortal bodies of the Corinthians will also be redeemed should lead to their being diligent in doing what is good with their bodies and refraining from evil, since the purity they achieve in the body and for the body will not be lost when they die.
I was just reading 1 Cor 15 this morning. Two questions/comments:
ReplyDelete1) Is separating 'physical' and 'spiritual' so sharply as some do a category error? I mean that spirit must still be made of something, so it's no less 'material' than the things which we usually encounter in the world. So 'physical' could be just a description of quality rather than as against immateriality (whatever that means).
2)Maybe we won't have 'flesh and blood', but our resurrection bodies will exist and function in some other way that doesn't involve muscle or blood as we know it. That would undercut any suggestion that we won't be physical, if taken in the sense people usually mean.
Hi Ben,
ReplyDeleteI think the distinction is likely one between what has a visible substance versus an invisible form. It really addresses what exists in a universe with two realms: visible and invisible. The issue is really whether this mortal body will be resurrected. The neoplatonism/proto-gnostic tendencies of the Corinthians (and the modern world for that matter) looks to escape this body into either a spirit world or another body. Paul really wants to say the whole man is saved, including his body. That works by God giving his body immortality in the same way He gave his spirit immortality. So I think the two component view serves the NT already/not yet trajectory well, as long as the two are not separated out as contrary in eternity rather than compatible.
2. It's really difficult to say what this body will look like as a pneumatikon. Even John makes the statement that "it does not yet appear what we will be like, but we know when He appears we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is." That's probably the best we can do on guessing.