The final topic in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is the resurrection, which effectively frames his entire letter with the gospel of the Messiah. He began proclaiming “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23) and ends proclaiming what is of first and utmost importance: that Christ died for our sins and was “raised from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 12). The resurrection is the crown, the climax, and the capstone of the letter. It is “rock-bottom reality for the Christian.”1Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 204. and is inextricably tied to the cross of Christ. As Anthony Thiselton observes, “To be raised by the power of God in and through Christ is the final outworking of what has hitherto been appropriated by faith, namely, being placed in a right relation with God. Justification by grace and the resurrection of the dead are two sides of the same coin.”2Anthony C. Thiselton, First Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 254. Emphasis original. At ECC, we have helped our kids understand this by likening both acts to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; you cannot have that sandwich without both ingredients.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is responding to yet another problem in the Corinthian church: some were saying “there is no resurrection from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:12). Since the ancient pagan world believed in “life after death,” the issue is that the Corinthians, taking their cues from pagan culture, could not conceive of or believe in a bodily existence after death. So Paul writes to clarify that what God did for Jesus he will do for us and all his creation at the end of the age. In other words, the resurrection of Jesus is both the model and the means of our own resurrection.3N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 311-361. Paul will explain that the resurrection of the dead, contrary to Jewish belief, would be in two stages: first, with the Messiah, then for all those who are united to him at the end of the age. Paul explains the who, the when (12-28), and the what (35-49) of the resurrection. He covers arguments for its historicity, the consequences of denying it, its significance, and its centrality to the Christian faith.
What “Resurrection” Means
Before looking at the gospel of the Messiah according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, we need to understand what he meant by “resurrection.” For Paul and the early church, “resurrection from the dead” did not mean the common idea of “life after death,” but bodily resurrection, that people who had died would at some point be given new bodies. Resurrection means, as NT Wright brilliantly describes, “life after ‘life after death.'” This idea developed over time in Judaism, based on what Scripture said and hinted at (cf. 15:3-4), but was denied by the pagan world and even Jewish groups like the Sadducees.4See Part One of NT Wright’s magisterial work, The Resurrection of the Son of God. In fact, just read the whole book. It is outstanding.
This idea of resurrection as disembodied existence after death is still widespread today, and has unfortunately led to the belief that Christianity is all about “going to heaven when you die.” It has even made it into some of our favorite hymns: “When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home,” “His mercies ever shall endure, when this our world shall be no more,” “When we all get to heaven.” Yes, when we die we are at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8), but that is not the end of the story. The Christian’s blessed hope is not flying away with Jesus, escaping a destroyed earth for a disembodied afterlife called “heaven.” The Christian hope is God’s renewal of this world and our bodies. It’s heaven coming down to earth, a new creation, a new heavens and earth (Rev. 21:1-3). The hope of the believer is participating in this new creation now and experiencing bodily resurrection in God’s new world. Ciampa and Rosner are worth quoting in full:
The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, more fully expounded here than in any other part of Scripture, makes it clear that God’s purpose has never been simply that of “saving souls” for a disembodied existence in heaven, as though creation itself was of merely temporal usefulness and significance. Creation turns out to be not simply the context in which God is working out his redemptive work, but reflects instead the breadth of God’s redemptive concern and plan…Our life in this world matters, in part, because it turns out to be not merely a waiting room in which we pass our time until being invited into the rest of the building where we will really live. Our life in this world establishes the starting chapters for a story that will continue and flourish in radically new ways (and not merely begin for the first time) upon the resurrection of the dead.5 Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 738.
Christ Died for Our Sins and Was Buried
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 we have a beautiful summary of the gospel message Paul received and was passing on to the Corinthians. The subject of this gospel is Christ. This is explored in 20-28, but the fact that the events of the gospel happened to Jesus, Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, is key. “It is because Jesus is Messiah that his death represents the turning-point in which the present evil age is left behind and those who belong to Jesus are rescued from it.”6Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 320. There are four main verbs split into two pairs: died and buried, raised and appeared. The second in each pair seems to validate or reinforce the reality of the first. That Christ is the subject of all these verbs reminds us that the gospel is all about what he has done for us.
Paul begins by proclaiming that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). His death was to deal with and atone for our sins. This same phrase is used in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where Paul says Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal. 1:4). These two passages together provide the two senses of this prepositional phrase: substitution and advantage. Christ died for us, in our place and for our sins. This is a non-negotiable truth that is expressed in many ways throughout Scripture. In Galatians we read, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13).” In Romans, Paul says “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6), that “we have been justified by his blood (Rom 5:9), and that he was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). In other words, no cross, no gospel.
Second, Paul adds that Christ not only died but was also “buried” (1 Cor. 15:4). This emphasis on his burial verifies that he was truly dead, and it has implications for his resurrection being a bodily resurrection. Jesus experienced death just like us, so that he might make a way out of it for us.
Another important feature of Christ’s death is that it was in “accordance/conformity with the Scriptures.” This means that Christ’s death both follows the patterns and fulfills the promises of all Scripture. It is what Israel’s Scripture was all about. Yes, this would bring to mind the sacrificial system, the Passover, and Isaiah’s suffering servant, but Paul is not thinking of a few isolated proof-texts. This prepositional phrase means the entire biblical narrative has reached its climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. This is how Jesus himself understood his life and ministry (Luke 18:31-33; 24:44-47), how the early church understood Israel’s Scriptures, and how we should interpret the Scriptures as well.
Christ Was Raised on the Third Day and Appeared to Many
Not only was Christ’s death according to the Scriptures, but so was his resurrection on the third day (1 Cor. 15:4). The verb “was raised” emphasizes that Christ was raised by God the Father and that his resurrection is an ongoing, permanent resulting state of affairs. He has been raised and is risen. Resurrection is understood “not as a mere return to life as such but as a conquest of the deadliness of death—as a conquest of God-forsakenness.”7Thiselton, First Corinthians, 254. Christ’s resurrection vindicated his atoning work and secures our forgiveness (Rom. 4:24-25). If Christ is not raised, we would still be dead in our sins. No cross, no gospel. No resurrection, no gospel.
Paul says Christ was raised “on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” even though this is not a direct fulfillment of a specific prophecy because it is the fulfillment of a pattern found through the OT. The NT writers, reading backwards, saw a pattern of God revealing himself, delivering his people, and promising restoration for his sinful and exiled people “on the third day”. This also shows us that Paul is not talking about life after death. If by resurrection the church meant Jesus died and received a new state of non-bodily existence, why would that take three days? No, something dramatic happened three days after Jesus died, something that had never happened before in history.
Just as Jesus’ burial verified his death, so his appearances verified his bodily resurrection from the dead (1 Cor. 15:5-8). In these verses we have a chronological, though not comprehensive, list of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. Peter, the Twelve (Lk 24:34-36), then to more than five hundred at one time (Matt. 28:16-20), then to James, the brother of Jesus, and to all of those were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection who thus shared in “apostolic” status with the Twelve (cf. Acts 1:21-22). These resurrection appearances to so many people have what Schreiner describes as “a cumulative effect; so many different people at so many different times were not deceived.”8Thomas R. Schreiner, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018), 303 Paul emphasizes these details because without the death and resurrection of Jesus we have no hope. If Christ has not been raised, we are wasting our time as “Christians, we are still dead in our sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished (1 Cor. 15:17-19).
Conclusion
The resurrection of Jesus was not a random or abstract event detached from all that came before, as if God pressed “pause” on Israel’s story when he sent Jesus, has kept the story paused for two thousand years, and will one day press “play” again on Israel’s story. No, Jesus was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah and Israel’s “consolation” (Luke 2:25-33). The followers of Jesus, along with Jesus himself, proclaimed his death and resurrection as the conclusion to and the climax of Israel’s story, and it pointed to a future hope for all of God’s people. What God did for Jesus, he will do for us and the whole creation when he returns to usher in the new creation fully and finally.
The gospel we proclaim is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. Israel’s God, who took on flesh in the person of Jesus, has indeed been raised as the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), is now seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. This good news was of highest importance to Paul, and it must remain “as of first importance” for the church today. The gospel cannot and must not be forgotten, assumed, tampered with, or rejected.
Christianity is not just a way of life, a set of ideas, or a spiritual experience. Christianity is first and foremost good news about a historical event that forever changed the world. And those who believe this gospel will be forever changed as well.
