Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Christ’s bodily resurrection is not a stand-alone miracle. Rather, it has concrete implications for Christians and the world. Christ’s resurrection as the first fruits exemplifies God’s transformative work that will culminate in believers’ resurrection, the defeat of death, and the redemption of the cosmos.

In the previous passage (1 Corinthians 15:1–11), Paul laid the groundwork for his complicated argument in 15:12–20 by showing that Christ’s resurrection is a core part of the gospel proclaimed by all apostles and that it was already received by the Corinthians. This is the basis for Paul’s question: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you [in Corinth] say there is no resurrection of the dead?” (verse 12).

Why did some Corinthians deny the resurrection of the dead? Several answers have been proposed. Some interpreters assume that the Corinthians were preoccupied by over-realized eschatology. This means the Corinthians believed they already lived in resurrection mode, which would make future resurrection unnecessary. Other scholars theorize that due to the influence of gnosticism, the Corinthians devalued bodily resurrection. Yet others propose that the Corinthians completely denied any afterlife whatsoever. None of these views are strongly supported by the ancient evidence or 1 Corinthians itself.¹

A close reading of 1 Corinthians 15:12–20 (and 15:1–11) reveals that the problem probably lies elsewhere. In other words, some Corinthians did not see clear correlations between Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection of the dead. Corinthian believers were mainly gentiles (12:2). In their pagan environment, Christ’s resurrection may have been easier to accept since it sounds comparable to the deification and ascension of famous heroes (and emperors). Yet, this deification did not mean the promise of resurrection (or ascension) for those who follow them.

Paul Brown notes, “It was only the heroes, the ones who were worshiped and sometimes immortalized bodily, who attained a special destiny and thus, the Corinthians could deny their own future resurrection while still embracing the resurrection and worship of Jesus, the Messiah, as one with hero status.”²

Paul is convinced that Christ’s resurrection is significant insofar as it relates to Christ-believers and the world. In today’s passage, Paul highlights what implications Christ’s resurrection has for them all. To address the problem posed in verse 12 (some people saying there is no resurrection of the dead), Paul presents a hypothetical scenario by employing a rhetoric of ad absurdum.

If there is no resurrection of the dead, an immediate consequence is that Christ’s resurrection is also impossible (verse 13). If so, the apostles’ proclamation and the Corinthians’ faith would be futile (verses 14–15). Paul restates this chain of negative consequences in verses 16–19. Resurrection of the dead is the foundation on which their current existence and their future hope stand.

After this theoretical demonstration that leads to the most unwanted consequence (“we are of all people most to be pitied,” verse 19), Paul suddenly reverses everything with a short phrase nyni de (“but now,” verse 20) that attracts the audience’s attention. The same Greek phrase is found in Romans 3:21 when Paul transitions from condemnations of humanity (“no human being will be justified in his sight,” 3:20) to the revelation of God’s righteousness through faith in Christ.

Similarly, with nyni de (1 Corinthians 15:20), Paul starts to expound the meaning of Christ’s resurrection. It is not an event exclusively related to Christ, but rather, Christ has become the first fruits of all who have died in him. In verses 21–29, at a breathtaking pace, Paul describes the eschatological scenario from Christ’s resurrection to believers’ future resurrection to the destruction of death, finally to God being all in all.

First Corinthians 15:12–20 is not trying to persuade the Corinthians to believe Christ was raised. Christ’s resurrection is something that Paul, the other apostles, and the Corinthians all agree on (see 15:1–11). Here Paul takes that belief to its theological and practical implications. If Christ was raised, what would this mean for believers? Paul explains what transformation Christ’s resurrection has initiated for all bodies.

The same is true for those in today’s churches. This passage addresses those who believe in Christ’s resurrection doctrinally, but not in the life-giving power of this resurrection. In other words, this is for those who do not see clearly how their bodies are connected to Jesus’ body: broken, yet risen.

Borrowing the words of my respected colleague Cindy Rigby, “We want to stay joined to the body of the one who joined himself to us by being born of Mary’s body, and dying as a body broken, and rising—embodied—to break bread with us again.”³ As she further notes, this deep entanglement between believers’ bodies and Christ’s body points to the greater truth about one’s connection to other bodies that are absent and invisible, but present and visible in love. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, Christians confess that they are “connected to the bone.”⁴

Notes

1. Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 105–6. See also Paul J. Brown, Bodily Resurrection and Ethics in 1 Cor 15: Connecting Faith and Morality in the Context of Greco-Roman Mythology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 66–79.
2. Brown, Bodily Resurrection and Ethics in 1 Cor 15, 94.
3. Cynthia L. Rigby, Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Nashville: Abingdon, 2018), 270.
4. Rigby, 271.