On the Resurrection: An Exposition of 1 Corinthians 15
Happy Easter 2025!
Happy Easter! Seeing as this holy feast is the celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord, today I want to look at an entire chapter of the Bible devoted to the topic of Resurrection: 1st Corinthians 15.
1Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
He says “by this gospel you are saved.” We are accustomed to hearing that the Lord Himself is the Savior, but doesn’t this statement make out the Gospel to be Savior? Insofar as the Gospel is the preaching of the Word of God, and the word of God made flesh is Jesus, we are therefore at liberty to say that our Savior Jesus, since he is the Word of God, is Himself the Gospel (that is, “good news”) -- and so it is far from improper to say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ saves us.
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance a : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
The primary, or elementary, teaching of the Christian faith is the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.
First, to support “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” the most common appeal is to Isaiah: "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed... the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Is. 53:5-6).
But Isaiah was preceded by Moses and the Patriarchs. The Risen Lord himself said that, beginning with the books of Moses and all the Prophets, all the scriptures spoke of His glorious suffering (Lk. 24:25-26).
In the beginning, He walked in the garden; His indwelling therefore made it a temple. His breath was in Adam, who tended the holy garden as a priest with his wife Eve. In the garden were two trees, one for Adam and his wife, of Life; and one forbidden, of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
A shrewd serpent – some have supposed a seraph, a “fiery one”, in fact -- convinced them to eat the forbidden fruit, and so they were cast out of Paradise. Although Genesis does not say so, this has been called “the Fall” from Paradise. Perhaps it is called “the Fall” because the expulsion of Adam and Eve preceded and was perhaps echoed by the descent of the angels who desired to corrupt themselves with the daughters of Adam, teaching all sorts of illicit arts of lust and war, giving birth to the giants of ancient lore (Gen. 6, 1 Enoch 6-11).
But these angels are not solely to blame for man’s troubles, which preceded the descent of those fallen ones. The firstborn of Adam, Cain, slew his brother Abel, who sacrificed livestock to Our Lord. Though the Lord takes “no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats” (Is. 1:11), Abel’s faith was accounted to him as righteousness; by comparison, Cain’s lack of faith made him unwilling to part with anything but some crop-yield. His heart was not in it, and God “knows the hearts of all the sons of Adam.” (1 Kings 8:39). The elder was driven by jealousy to murder his own younger brother, for he saw that Abel’s faithfulness made him the greater and Cain the lesser. And so, since “the righteous shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4), faithless Cain also, like his parents, turned aside from the tree of life, and served instead the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, who with his son Enosh “began to call on the name of the Lord.” (Gen. 4:26). This was the beginning of the fulfillment of the Lord’s words to the serpent, for he had said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” And so, while there was no such enmity between the serpent and Cain, who served him, in calling upon the name of the Lord, Seth’s generations chose life, and enmity with the serpent.
Many generations later, the serpent would strike again. Moses had led the children of Jacob out of Egypt, and while he was on the mountain of God, they abandoned him and conspired with his brother Aaron to make a golden calf. But the apostate people were unworthy of the Divine Law given to Moses on the mountain, so he destroyed its tablets, and commanded those Levites loyal to him to slaughter those who had rejected him – perhaps to atone for the sin of their rebellion, if not to prove their loyalty – and the Lord sent a plague on the rest. Moses pleaded with the Lord not to destroy the people. And so the Lord gives Moses a second Law, the breaking of which is punishable by what he calls "the curses of the covenant” (Deut. 29:20): “the LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster..." (Deut. 29:2). Among these disasters were an attack of fiery serpents (Num. 21). These serpents, like the Law itself, stung the faithless people with death (1 Cor. 15:56). And so Moses made a bronze serpent and lifted it up, and “if anyone who was bitten looked at the bronze serpent, he would live.” (Num. 21:9).
Many generations later, Jesus taught: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:14-15). He spoke of His cross, which early Christians depicted with a serpent nailed to it -- not that Jesus, who was nailed to the cross, is somehow a serpent; but the serpent represents the Law which spoke of him, and which he nailed to the cross according to scripture (Col. 2:14). In so doing, he removed the curse of the law – the knowledge of good and evil, which, though itself good, could not make anyone good, and could only punish evil (Rom. 7:7-12).
So the scriptures foretold both in prophecy and in type that Christ would die not for himself (Dn. 9:26), but for the sins of the world.
4that he was buried,
His grave is with us even to this day in Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
Some say that the Resurrection is not taught in the Old Testament, much less that Christ would be raised on the third day. Christ himself taught that there are various evidences of the Resurrection to be found in the Old Testament in places where he identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- who by by human standards were dead by that time when he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. He said this to the Sadducees, who did not believe in a future resurrection of the dead, to show that their erroneous disbelief was rooted in a misunderstanding: the resurrection transcends history, and therefore its proof in scripture is to be found in those affirmations that “he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive unto him” (Lk. 20:38). Jesus similarly corrects Martha, who does believe in the resurrection, albeit as if it were a singular historic event on a distant last day. However, the resurrection is not an event in history, as humans understand history, but the divine person of Christ: “I am the Resurrection and the life.” (Jn. 11:25). As for the Last Day, that too is Christ: “I am the First and the Last.” (Rev. 1:17, 22:16).
That he would rise again on the third day is to be found in types throughout the Old Testament. The promise of Hosea 6:2 looks to the resurrection of Christ as he embodies the restored Kingdom of Israel in his divine royal person: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence." The Lord himself taught that the wicked generation to witness this longed-for restoration would only receive one sign, that of Jonah, who was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights; and so the Son of Man was three days and three nights in the wicked heart of the land (Mt. 12:40). When he arose, those blessed ones who, in fulfilment of Hosea 6:2, chose to “live in his presence” did so according to the commandments of the new covenant he cut at the Last Supper (Jn. 13:34, 14:23; Mt. 26:28).
The resurrection of the new lawgiver, the Lord himself, and his reunion with his people on the third day was foreshadowed in the days of Moses, when the Lord said “be prepared by the third day, for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people... Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.” (Ex. 9:11, 17). At that time they received the Law but fell away due to sin; but because the Lord in his new covenant made provision for sin, his “third day” appearance was all the more joyful. Rather than a day of punishment and death, this "third day" was a day of grace and life; and this was also prefigured by the “third day” of Genesis 1, in which God created life (Gen. 1:9-13).
5and that he appeared to Cephas, b and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom still remain, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
In all these appearances, Jesus demonstrated that he was not a ghost, but had flesh and bone (Lk. 24:39). It is notable that St. Paul lists his vision of the glorified, ascended Lord among those pre-Ascension post-Resurrection apparitions. The many visions of the heavenly Son of Man in his glorified form describe what Paul saw: a man of light (Ez. 1:26-28; Dn. 10:5-6; Rev. 1:12-16). That Paul lists a vision of the luminous, glorified, ascended Christ among his post-Resurrection appearances – where he is otherwise depicted as flesh and bone -- shows that the apostles understood there to be little or no perhaps no difference in the essence of our Lord, whether pre-incarnation, post-incarnation, post-resurrection, or post-ascension. Perhaps we ought to be very careful if we must resort to such temporal categories such as these, for the same reason that Christ cautioned the Sadducees and Martha for reading temporality into eternal matters.
9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Such is the grace of God that the covenant of forgiveness is offered even – no, especially – to one like Saul who hatefully spurned it, and even persecuted its people with violence. God did not count Saul’s sins against him, but renewed his mind through the revelation of truth, transforming him (Rom. 12:2) -- and, emboldened and “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” by the knowledge of “the love that surpasses all knowledge“ (Eph. 3:19), he was empowered by grace to do great works. He even claims to work harder than all the apostles, and yet he does not claim his gospel is somehow greater as a result, as some preachers claim of themselves; but he is content that they are all fellow laborers in a field that is not their own, planting the seed that belongs to the one who is greater than all.
12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.
This passage counters the claim that there is no such thing as the Resurrection, as the Sadducees believed, and many today believe as well. It also rebukes the claim that the Resurrection is yet to come, as some also believe today. He asks, rather, how some of them could claim that there was at that time yet no Resurrection of the dead, when even Christ had been raised. His line of reasoning goes: if Christ has not been resurrected from the dead, then the promise of resurrection to the baptized is false; therefore, since Christ has been resurrected from the dead, so baptism raises those who are dead into the heavenly places where Christ is, as other passages also attest: “Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." (Col. 2:12).
That the Resurrection was a present reality at the time of writing must not be interpreted to mean that it was a one-time event that is now therefore past, all these millennia later. Limiting, by temporalizing, the Resurrection was Martha’s error (Jn. 11:23-26). In fact, not a long time from writing his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul rebuked two false teachers, “Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have deviated from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already occurred, and they undermine the faith of some.” (2 Tim. 2:17-18). The proper teaching, rather, is tied to the mystery of baptism: “This is a trustworthy saying: if we died with Him, we will also live with Him.” (2 Tim. 2:11). Here, Paul uses a future-tense "will live" to indicate the raising follows the past-tense "died," but in context—Romans 6:4, and 1 Cor. 15:36, as we shall see—it implies an immediate, inherent consequence of death, not an indefinite future event, as the conditional structure ties the resurrection directly to the act of dying itself.
In other words: in order to live, we must die. This teaching is found throughout the New Testament, beginning with Jesus: “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (Jn. 12:24). “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” (Mk. 8:35, Lk. 9:24). Resurrection, the gift of God which Christ won for us, was conditional upon his death, therefore he gave us the mystery of baptism by which we may be joined to his death and his resurrection. To deny the resurrection as a present, participatory reality in Christ – whether the Sadducean error or the Marthaite error – is to deny all this, and Paul is emphatic that one must not fall into this error.
17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
To “fall asleep” has two meanings in scripture aside from simply “sleeping”: firstly, it means death (Gen. 47:30; Jn. 11:11-13; Acts 7:60); secondly, it means sin or even apostasy (Is. 29:10, 56:10; Mt. 13:24-30; Mk. 13:35-36; Eph. 5:14; 1 Thess. 5:6-7; Rom. 13:11; Rev. 2:2-3). Sin, being a type of sleep, is therefore a type of spiritual death. Throughout the Old Testament, the promise of Resurrection is most often to address this spiritual death of sin. Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones is a vision of the apostate house of Israel (Ez. 37:11).
The Gospel teaches us that those who have fallen into sin have hope. It is impossible that a Christian be without sin. The Lord has made provision for us in the “blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk. 26:28): “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:8-10). The Christian is therefore liberated from sin, not by his own efforts, which would be impossible (Mt. 19:26), but by God’s love.
But the forgiveness of sins means more than a hope for this life alone. Since the sting of death is sin, one who is liberated from sin is therefore liberated from death, and has hope of eternal life to come: a perpetual participation in God’s eternal love, beginning with one’s relationship with God today -- for in Him all are alive (Lk. 20:38).
20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Jesus taught, “when I am lifted up from the land, I will draw all men to myself” (Jn. 12:32). Having died for all men, all men die in Him; he also therefore rose for all men that they too might rise to new life in Him. The Gospel teaches that everyone is resurrected: “have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.” (Acts 24:15). Imagine how scandalous this was to the self-righteous. But this is the good news of grace!
23But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27For he “has put everything under his feet.” c Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
In referring to the destruction of the last enemy, death, Paul is not speaking of any unfinished work of God, since he has clearly indicated that the firstfruits of the resurrection has been raised -- namely Christ. What is resurrection from the dead if not the destruction of death? It is improper to say that the Risen Christ has not yet destroyed death. 2 Tim. 1:10 also states plainly that our Lord has accomplished this. Paul affirms, God has put all things under his feet, though God himself remains above – the Father cannot be usurped, as the fallen angels desired to do. But Christ, “who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phps. 2:6-11).
In accomplishing this, the Son has fulfilled his mission from God, making him perfectly subject to him.
29Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?
That is, those who are baptized are first spiritually dead, seeking to be raised. It is in their own interest that they desire to be baptized, hoping to be raised thereby to eternal life. “Baptism...now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Pt. 3:21).
30And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31I die every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” d
That is, Paul, though baptized, considers himself as good as dead. “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). “I no longer live.” (Gal. 2:20). It is not for the sake of the flesh that he labors, but at the behest of the spirit living in him. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20).
33Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” e 34Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
Their doubts about resurrection are due to outside influence. Their faithlessness is a sin which must stop.
35But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
Our bodies of flesh are not the body that will rise, but like a seed thereof.
38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” f ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
The mortal body is dust. “All come from dust, and to dust all return." (Ec. 3:20) But the immortal body is spiritual. How to attain the latter? It is not a matter of purchase or exchange, but spiritual transformation. One must be born anew of water and the spirit (Jn. 3:5). “That which is born of spirit is spirit.” (Jn. 3:6). “The spirit gives life” (Jn. 6:63). The water symbolizes the cleansing but destructive waters of the great Flood (1 Pt. 3:20-21) which bury the dead into the death of Christ. The spirit raises.
46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we g bear the image of the heavenly man.
He is not speaking of some distant future in which humanity is suddenly unveiled as heavenly, but of maturation, which progressively reveals "Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ." (Col. 1:27-28).
This idea is elsewhere dealt with as a matter of exhortation and instruction: "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph. 4:22-24)
In the Colossian church, they had already discarded the old man and put on the new: "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Col. 3:9-10).
Spiritual maturation is glorification: "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:18). Man, is, in fact, the image and glory of God (1 Cor. 11:7). Glorification is progressive conformity to this image and glory through faith: "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. " (Rom. 8:29-30).
This glorious path is one of humility, in imitation of Christ, the Son and Image of God: "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing... humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!" (Php. 2:6-8).
John speaks of Christ appearing in us when we are able to see him as he is. This vision purifies us, making us pure like him: “Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.” (1 Jn. 3:2-3).
50I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Once again, the mortal body is not the same as that which rises. You must be born again – for the Resurrection body is a spiritual body, and spirit can only be born of spirit. The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) and his Kingdom is spiritual.
51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” h
55“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?” i
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
In all this, he has interpreted the meaning of the “mystery”: that the removal of the law in Christ (Col. 2:14, Eph. 2:15) has destroyed the power of sin, and therefore death, its sting. He says “we will not all sleep” -- sleep being a Hebraicism for death and sin -- “but we will all be changed,” which is to say, the promise of Jesus is true: the one who lives and believes in him will never die (Jn. 11:26), but is translated into the Son’s eternal kingdom of forgiveness (Col. 1:13). Death is faithlessness – so a faithful Christian, walking in God’s love and grace, never dies, according to Christ’s word. We are therefore to be firmly founded in faith, and let nothing move us. Faithfulness unfolds throughout the believer’s life as a process of spiritual maturation, as we have seen, and this transformation is the “change” to which Paul is here referring (Rom. 8:11, 23; Php. 3:20-21) – particularly that transformation at that very moment when the mortal body is put off and the spiritual body continues in immortality (2 Cor. 5:1-4), as promised by Christ.
57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
He didn’t say “he will give us the victory” but that he gives. Our work is not in vain not only because of a future reward, but we have received the reward in mystery – particularly in baptism, the mystery of the resurrection of the dead.