1 Corinthians 15:1-11--The Resurrection of Christ

1 Corinthians 15:1-11
English Standard Version

The Resurrection of Christ
15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

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Many of you may already be familiar with 1st Corinthians 15 as it is a passage that receives a lot of attention around Easter.  Paul says something interesting here that the gospel that he preaches and which they received is the one and only gospel--we've heard that kind of message before from Paul.  There is not one gospel that the Eleven received to preach to the Jews and a different gospel that Paul received to preach to the Gentiles.  There is but one gospel by which we have all been saved (justification) are being saved (sanctification) and will one day be saved (glorification)--we'll see that later in this chapter.

Paul also says that this gospel is consistent with the Scripture--at this point, that would be the Old Testament, though we'll see later in the New Testament that New Testament authors cite each other's letters as Scripture and refer to each other's letters as Scripture (See 2nd Peter 3:15-16 for one example of this).  Paul will argue here that Jesus died, was buried and was raise on the third day "according to the Scriptures" exactly as it was prophesied to happen--and, yes, even these Greek-speaking Gentiles had access to the Scriptures because of the Septuagint.

Paul then goes into one of the best defenses of the resurrection we see, as there were even some people at that time that tried to deny the reality of the resurrection for various reasons--some were Jews who had been influenced by the lies told by the Sanhedrin that should have been seen as lies but God allowed the people to believe these strong delusions because their hearts were hardened (see Romans 1), and others who were Gentiles who wanted to either indulge their flesh because they believed that only the spirit would live on or people that believed that there was no afterlife and that whatever you did with this body was meaningless.  Paul will deal with the issue of our resurrection bodies and their nature in another passage that is coming up next, but first Paul will establish that Jesus' resurrection was a physical, bodily resurrection that was witnessed by hundreds of people that were still alive at the time that he wrote this.  You can't get better than eyewitness testimony that is recent to the time of the events, and Paul is going to make the argument that if anyone had any question as to the veracity of what he was saying, that they could go ask Peter or any of the other Eleven, or any of the 500 that were gathered together (probably in the Upper Room) or to James the brother of Jesus, and even Paul himself is an eyewitness as he saw the resurrected Christ during his Damascus Road experience.

Paul then says that his conversion from being a persecutor of Christians to now being what he calls "the least of the apostles" (many today would argue that Paul was probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest apostle, but Paul is being humble here and genuine felt this way because of his past).  Such a change does not happen naturally, but is evidence of the supernatural power of the gospel and the resurrection of Jesus--God has made those who were dead in their trespasses and sins alive in Christ, so why is it any surprise that God can take those who were physically dead and make them alive in Christ as well?  We know that Jesus, just the week before His own death, raised Lazarus from the dead to make one of His greatest "I AM" statements:


John 11:21-27
English Standard Version21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
It is this idea of us experiencing eternal life and Jesus being the firstfruits of many brethren from among the dead and a similar physical, bodily resurrection of the saints that we will talk about next time.  What are the implications of that?  Will our body be the same or different?  Will we be able to recognize one another?  Will we be able to do the same kinds of things that we do now?  What will be the purpose of these new bodies?  I'm sure Paul was asked all of these kinds of questions and more by the Corinthians, but he chose to only answer certain ones here--we do see some answers to some of the others as we look to other passages of Scripture too, which is why it's important to read all of Scripture as we get more complete answers to these kinds of questions--however, there are some questions that we just simply don't need to know the answers to at this time.  I think it's clear that we'll be able to recognize each other ins some sense because the disciples recognized Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, even though they had never met them in real life.  I don't know how that happened, but clearly there will be some ability for us to know one another--even those we've never met.  We were told by Jesus that we will no longer be married or given in marriage, probably because our design of our new bodies is no longer for procreation, but for service to God "like the angels."  We'll have bodies that are fully equipped for the work that has been prepared for us to do and that are made in the likeness of Christ instead of in the likeness of Adam.  If we want to know the kinds of things that our resurrection bodies can do, it's probably best to look at Jesus after His resurrection.  He could eat and walk and talk, but He could also do all the supernatural things that He could do before then.  Will we too be able to disappear from one place and appear somewhere else or walk through walls and locked doors?  I'm not sure, because Jesus was able to walk on water before His resurrection and disappeared from the midst of the crowd that was trying to stone Him in Nazareth and lot of other supernatural things that you and I can't do now.  Honestly, I'm not that concerned about that part though because the purpose of the resurrection and my resurrection body is not me and what I can do with it for myself.  It is about God fulfilling everything He has promised to do as part of the Old Covenant and New Covenant and making a people for Himself in the very likeness of His Son so that we might have complete and total communion with Christ (and I believe with the other members of the Trinity) in the same kind of way that they experience communion with each other.  We will exist "to the praise of His glory" and I know that we will be able to sing songs of praise and bow down in worship before Him.  That is more than enough for me.  I'm not sure that I will want to do much of anything else besides that as just getting to be in very presence of God will be so captivating, that I can't imagine wanted to be anywhere else or doing anything else and if I were away doing something else, I can't imagine wanting anything else other than to return to that intimacy as quickly as possible.