Monthly Archive for January, 2003

We now turn to the next section in chapter 15 – the certainty of the believer’s resurrection rests on the certainty of the resurrection of Christ (15:12-34).

There are nine negative consequences for rejecting bodily resurrection (15:12-19). Paul appeals to logic to show the implications of not believing in bodily resurrection.

¹² Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

The “if” assumes something true in the Greek, so the assumptions here are hypothetical assumptions of fact. Paul uses “if” seven times in verses 12-19. If there is no resurrection, then that belief drives us irresistibly to seven awful conclusions for there is no escape from these consequences. Paul takes the viewpoint of the Corinthians who did not believe in bodily resurrection from the dead. Pagan philosophy of that day believed the body was evil and would not go to heaven. The spirit would go through a series of situations to make it to the “fullness.” Evidently, some believers in the church at Corinth also believed that the body could not go to heaven but the spirit could.

Ac 17:³² And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”

¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.

The first negative consequence of not believing in bodily resurrection is Christ did not rise from the dead. He is still dead to this day. If this is so, then there is no genuine Christianity. Jesus would be like other religious leaders such as Buddha or Muhammad – dead in the ground. Christianity would be a cruel hoax foisted on the public. If Christ did not rise, then no one will rise from the dead.

¹⁴ And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

The second negative conclusion is that the Corinthian faith rested on a lie of the gospel. Preaching is so much puff and wind.

The third consequence is the believer’s faith then would be “empty” and without worth or significance because he put his trust in a dead man. We subvert the whole gospel by denying the resurrection. Our faith would be void of truth and reality.

¹⁵ Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise.

A fourth consequence is that not only do the apostles err but also they are “false witnesses” about God. Why believe anything about Christianity if preachers of the gospel are liars? They would be guilty of intentional lie.

¹⁶ For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.

The fifth consequence is that Christ did not rise from the dead (repeat of verse 13). If the dead do not rise, then believers will not meet Him in heaven. His body would still lie in the Middle East.

¹⁷ And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile;

The sixth consequence is a futile faith. The word “futile” means void of useful aim or content. If Christ did not rise, then our faith in Him is to no purpose. If we do not believe in the resurrection, then our faith is useless – it will not do anything. It will not comfort those who sorrow. It would be an imitation or synthetic faith. It would not stand up under the stress and strain of life.

you are still in your sins!

In addition, the seventh consequence would be that there can be no forgiveness of sins and no anticipation of eternal life. Christians would embrace a shadow of reality, not reality itself. If so, we ought to junk Christianity. The cross of Calvary would be nothing more than a tragic ending – no salvation, no eternal life.

Jn 8:²⁴ Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Re 14:¹³ Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” (This is the right way to die!)

¹⁸ Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

The eighth consequence is that Christians already dead remain dead. “Perished” is the opposite of salvation (Jn 3:16; 1 Co 1:18); it means to be lost forever.

The spirit or the soul does not sleep; only the body sleeps in death. God separates the soul and spirit from the body at death, but the body will be restored to the immaterial part of man at the resurrection.

Da 12:² And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt.

1 Th 5:²³ Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁹ If in this life only we have hope in Christ,

The ninth and last consequence of no resurrection is that Christianity would be a very pitiable belief system. If there is no life beyond this life, then those who believe in heaven believe a lie. Most everyone lives for this world, not the next, for it is the only world most people see. Christians have a hope beyond the grave. They do not believe that death will end in the bleak, barren terminus of the grave. Jesus “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Ti 1:10).

Ti 1:² in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,

1 Pe 1:³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

we are of all men the most pitiable.

Pity poor Christians if there is no resurrection, for they are deluded idiots. What a pity that martyrs gave their lives for Christ! No, when Christians stand by a freshly made grave, they have a faith that sustains them because they will see their loved ones again. There is as much difference between a Christian funeral and a pagan funeral as there is between night and day.

Paul now sets forth proof that Jesus’ resurrection was not spiritual but corporeal (15:5-9). Paul lists the first witnesses in verse 5: Peter and the twelve. Now we have 500 witnesses at one occurrence, James, all the apostles, then Paul himself.

⁶ After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once,

Jesus appeared bodily to “over five hundred brethren at once.” This is the only record of this event in the New Testament and may have occurred on the day of Pentecost.

of whom the greater part remain to the present,

The resurrection occurred about 23 years before Paul wrote First Corinthians, so the majority of these eyewitnesses witnesses were still alive at the point of writing.

but some have fallen asleep.

Some of the 500 had died within those 23 years.

⁷ After that He was seen by James,

James was the half-brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church. James had the same mother as Jesus but a different father. Remember James did not believe Jesus was the Messiah initially (Jn 7:5), but he believed when Jesus rose from the dead. Later, James wrote the book of James and referred to Jesus as the “Lord Jesus Christ” and the “Lord of Glory.” Paul regarded James as an apostle (Ga 1:18-21; 2:9). The Jerusalem church regarded James, Peter, and John as the three “pillars” of the church (Ac 15:13-21). James may have died in AD 62, so he was still alive at the writing of First Corinthians.

We must distinguish the James of this verse from James of the twelve (the son of Zebedee) martyred around AD 44.

then by all the apostles.

Jesus appeared to all the apostles in Acts chapter one. The word “all” in “all the apostles” refers to other apostles in addition to the twelve. Outside the city of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, Jesus spoke to the twelve and other apostles, then finally ascended to heaven before them all.

Ac 1:² until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, ³ to whom (the apostles) He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. …¹¹ who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

⁸ Then last of all He was seen by me also,

The Lord appeared to Paul on the Damascus road in His resurrected form, informing him that he persecuted the church of God and Jesus Himself. This was about two years after the ascension of Christ. That appearance of Jesus revolutionized Paul’s life. He turned from persecutor to preacher. This precipitous birth-conversion took some time to nurture, so God sent him to a desert experience for three years (Galatians 2) to put him on track spiritually. Ten years later Barnabas found Paul in Tarsus and the two of them began a ministry to the civilized world.

Ac 9:⁴ Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” ⁵ And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

1 Co 9:¹ Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

as by one born out of due time.

The phrase “born out of due time” refers to the metaphor of abortion, premature birth, or miscarriage. This was a term of derision. While other apostles formed the church, Paul persecuted the church, so his apostleship came after the twelve. We are to view him as an aborted fetus, a protagonist of Christ who came to Christ. His was an untimely, sudden spiritual birth too late to be identified with the twelve and the “gestation” of being with Christ in His earthly ministry.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles,

Paul’s apostleship was not inferior to that of the other apostles, but his apostleship was “born out of due time.” Paul wrote First Corinthians in the middle of the first century. He was already the greatest missionary of the first century by this time.

who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Paul was not “worthy to be called an apostle” because he murdered and persecuted the church in its early days (Ac 22:4, 19; 26:9; Ga 1:13, 23; Ph 3:6; 1 Ti 1:13). As he says in the next verse, his ministry came by unadulterated grace, not by his personal worth.

⁴and that He was buried,

Burial confirms death and shows its finality. The disciples placed a corpse in the tomb and sealed it shut, authenticating the reality of His death. They buried Him in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. This is proof of His death.

Notice the passages that deal with Jesus’ funeral (Mt 27; Mk 15; Lu 23; Jn 19). Note who did not attend and who did attend the funeral. Joseph of Arimathea attended the funeral and he was a member of the Sanhedrin (major leader in Israel). He begged Pilate to bury the body of Jesus, and that was not a popular thing to do among his associates in the Sanhedrin. Neither Peter, James, nor John did that. You would have thought it would have been they who buried Him, since they were with Jesus for three years. Instead, it was an unsung, unknown member of the body of Christ by the name of Joseph of Arimathea.

Nicodemus also attended the funeral. He initially came to Jesus “by night” (Jn 3) and was a member of the Sanhedrin as well, for he, too, was a secret disciple. It took the death of Christ to bring these two men out into the open. Some people crack under pressure but these two became strong under pressure. They buried Jesus in Joseph’s tomb, but Joseph did not know that he only lent that tomb to Jesus. The synoptic gospels tell us that Mary Magdalene, Salome (mother of James and John), and Mary the mother of James and Joseph (sister of Jesus’ mother) were there, as well as some other unnamed women. Where were the apostles? They were not present. They did not show, for it was dangerous. There was no church service; it was a very crude affair, no committal, no casket.

and that He rose again the third day

The Father raised Jesus from the dead; Jesus did not raise Himself from the dead. Jesus predicted that He would rise on the third day (Mt 12:40; Lu 24:6). The death of Christ without the resurrection of Christ would be like making a payment and not getting a receipt. There would be no way of knowing whether God had accepted the price Christ paid on the cross. If Jesus had stayed dead and buried, we could never have ascertained whether God was pleased with His sacrifice for sin – but Jesus came forth from the grave, triumphing over sin and death.

according to the Scriptures,

The Old Testament prophesied the resurrection of Christ. Jesus’ resurrection happened just as the Scriptures said. Jesus rose from the dead just as Psalm 16 declared He would.

With chapter 15 we begin a new subject – the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers. Some people in Corinth did not believe in the resurrection of the body but simply in the resurrection of spirit, for they evidently believed that only their spirit would go to heaven (15:12). Corinth was in Greece. Greek culture believed that the body was a prison for the soul. Death of the body freed the soul from its bodily prison. Bodily resurrection was repugnant to the Greek mind. Hence, we have the most extensive treatment of the resurrection in the entire Bible. Chapter 15 is the longest chapter of an epistle, and the book of Corinthians is the longest epistle in the New Testament.

¹Moreover,

“Moreover” indicates a change of topic from gifts to the resurrection.

brethren,

This is another appeal to the family of God.

I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you,

The gospel is the good news that Jesus died to forgive us our sins and give us eternal life. The word “gospel” comes from two Greek words: good and message. The good news is that God Himself did something about our sin and our eternal relationship with Him. God made peace between Himself and sinful man by putting Jesus Christ to death for our sins and raising Him from the dead. The good news is everlasting life. The gospel is not the life of Christ but the death of Christ. Paul used the word “declare,” which means state, set forth. Paul is going to declare plainly what the issues of the resurrection are all about.

which also you received

The Corinthian church believed the gospel at some point in the past, before the writing of First Corinthians.

and in which you stand,

Christians stand on the gospel as their authority for eternal life, physical eternal life. At the point of their salvation, they received the ongoing results of the status quo of salvation. The gospel is the foundation for eternal life and the eternal life lived in time.

²by which also you are saved,

The words “are saved” is “are being saved” (present tense) in the Greek. Salvation is an ongoing process. There are three phases to salvation: past, present, and future. Having received the gospel at a point in the past, God begins to work on us so that we become more like Him. Ultimately, we will be just like Him.

2 Co 3: ¹⁸But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

Denial of the resurrection may indicate that some in Corinth were not believers in the first place. “In vain” means without basis. There was no basis to their belief. It is possible to believe in vain. It is possible to go with the flow of Christian culture rather than personally receiving the death of Christ to forgive sins. It is possible to exercise a non-saving faith. This passage says nothing about losing salvation.

Paul formerly permitted women to give testimony in worship services (11:4-16). First Corinthians 11:5 refers to general praying and prophesying. This passage qualifies what he said in chapter 11.

1 Co 11:⁵ But every woman who prays or prophesies (context indicates that this is in the church service) with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved (hair is the symbol of submission). ⁶ For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered (long hair indicates submission to husband).

³⁴ Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak;

Paul indicated in chapter 11 that a woman prophesying in church was an acceptable practice. He just made the point in verse 29 that he expected men to review messages presented publicly by the prophets, so the issue here is women critiquing the prophetic message.

but they are to be submissive, as the law also says.

The reference to the law probably refers to the woman’s acceptance of her husband authority (Ge 3:16) in critiquing the prophetic message. The rational is the principle of deference of a woman to her husband. The issue is femininity. Today, many rationalizations attempt to change the bald-faced teaching of this passage, but none of them holds up to scrutiny of faithful Bible interpretation. There is no cultural escape hatch here. The issue is the principle of order in role between male and female established from an appeal to the book of Genesis and general Old Testament truth.

Ge 3:¹⁶ To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

1 Co 11:³ But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God (this passage clearly shows that role does not demean the person in subjection because Christ is subject to the Father).

Paul was no chauvinist hung up with hatred of women. His teachings in the face of a culture that degraded women elevated women to a high position. He partnered with many women in his ministry. Euodias and Syntyche were “co-laborers” with him in ministry (Ph 4). He mentioned women in long lists of appreciation (Ro 16). He spoke of these women with warmth. He defended the right of women to pray and prophesy in church services (1 Co 11).

³⁵ And if they want to learn something,

The word “learn” corresponds to desire to learn mentioned in verse 31. The desire to question was what tempted women to speak, making an issue out of desire for authority.

let them ask their own husbands at home;

A woman was not to challenge the content of a message publicly, but to ask her husband about the issue when they got home.

for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

It is a disgrace for a woman to speak in a church service, for the right to question is the right of authority. Paul does not dodge the problem of women’s ministry in the church.

The “silence” in this verse is not absolute silence but a particular kind of silence, the silence where submission requires it. The Holy Spirit permits any speaking by women in public worship where there is no exercise of authority over men. Women can pray or prophesy because these are not authoritative activities.