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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
15:12-34 Christ's Resurrection and the Resurrection of Believers. Paul next argues that there is a seamless connection between the resurrection of Christ in the recent past and the future resurrection of believers on the final day.
15:12 raised from the dead. Some of the Corinthians were denying not that Jesus rose from the dead (they "believed" this, v. 11) but that his followers generally would be raised. Paul emphasizes four times in vv. 12-19 that those who deny the physical and bodily resurrection of believers also deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, even if they claim the latter is true.
15:17 still in your sins. The proof that Christ's death was an effective substitutionary sacrifice for sins (v. 3; 11:24-25) lies in Jesus' resurrection from the dead. (See also Rom. 4:25.) If in fact Christ has not been raised, then his death did not pay for sin, and there is no hope for life with God in heaven (see 1 Cor. 15:18-19).
15:18-19 Although Paul believed that those who died went to be with the Lord immediately after their death and prior to their resurrection (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:21, 23), he also conceived of the believer's eternal existence as an embodied existence. If there is no such existence, then there is no eternal life.
15:20 Christ's resurrection, grounded in the truth of eyewitness testimony (vv. 4-8), changes everything. If God raised Christ from the dead, then Christ truly was the firstfruits (Ex. 23:19; Lev. 23:10; Deut. 18:4; Neh. 10:35) or the first of many others who would also be raised from the dead. (See also Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:23; Col. 1:18.) The term "firstfruits" (Gk. aparchē) refers to a first sample of an agricultural crop that indicates the nature and quality of the rest of the crop; therefore, Christ's resurrection body gives a foretaste of what those of believers will be like.
15:22 in Adam all die. See Rom. 5:12, 14-15, 17; Eph. 2:1, 5. in Christ shall all be made alive. See Rom. 5:17, 21; 6:4; Eph. 2:5-6. By divine appointment, Adam represented the whole human race that would follow him, and his sin therefore affected all human beings. Similarly, Christ represented all who would belong to him, and his obedience therefore affected all believers (see note on 1 Cor. 15:23).
15:23 at his coming. When Christ returns, all his people from all time will receive resurrection bodies, never again subject to weakness, illness, aging, or death. Until that time, those who have died exist in heaven as spirits without bodies (see 2 Cor. 5:8; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9). Those who belong to Christ demonstrates that the "all" in relation to Christ in 1 Cor. 15:22 does not imply universalism.
15:24-27 On the reign of Christ and the subjection of all things under his feet, see Ps. 8:6; 110:1; Eph. 1:20-21; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:5-9; 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:18-22. death. When believers are finally resurrected from the dead, the destruction of death will be complete. (See 1 Cor. 15:54-55; Heb. 2:14-15; Rev. 20:13-14; 21:4.)
15:28 the Son . . . will also be subjected. Jesus is one with God the Father and equal to the Father in deity (8:6; John 10:30; 14:9; Heb. 1:8) yet functionally subordinate to him (Mark 14:36; John 5:19, 26-27, 30; 17:4), and this verse shows that his subjection to the Father will continue for all eternity. God will be all in all, not in the sense that God will be everything and everything will be God, as some Eastern religions imagine, but in the sense that God's supreme authority over everything will be eternally established, never to be threatened again.
15:29 baptized on behalf of the dead. Some interpreters through the centuries have thought this referred to vicarious baptism on behalf of deceased people, probably those who had believed in Christ but had not been baptized before they died (cf. Luke 23:43). But the interpretation is uncertain, and whatever the practice is, Paul reports it without necessarily approving it, and is clearly not commanding it. Baptism for the dead is an important part of Mormonism, but the Bible gives no support to the idea that anyone can be saved apart from personal faith in Christ (see notes on John 3:18; 14:6). Other interpreters argue that by "the dead" Paul means the bodies of living Christians, which are subject to death and decay: they are baptized "on behalf of their dying bodies," showing hope that their bodies will rise again (see Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:42-44, 47-49, 53-54). On this view, Paul argues here that the baptism of perishing bodies is useless if the dead are not raised.
