CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AND OURS

Roy D. Merritt

             In a former article we stressed two words that belong together in Paul's teaching concerning the conquest of death.  The words are "power" and "resurrection."  Paul linked the words as he bared his heart to the young church at Philippi, writing, "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10-11).

            In I Corinthians 15, Paul summarized the Spirit-inspired Gospel which he preached, proclaiming that this Gospel or "good news" is the basis for salvation (1 Cor. 15:2).  This Gospel contains three eternal truths: (1) The death of Christ Jesus on the cross;  (2) His burial and (3) the marvelous, miraculous resurrection of Christ on the third day after His burial.

            Paul gives an impressive list of eye-witnesses to this glorious event, noting that some of them were still alive some 20 years later when he wrote to the Corinthians about the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:6), and then proceeds to emphasize the validity of his own apostleship, based on his personal, miraculous encounter with the risen Savior (1 Cor. 15:3-9). 

 AN ARGUMENT REFUTED 

             Evidently some in the Corinthian church were rationalists, and, like their modern counterparts, said that, "Dead men do not rise."  Paul goes to the heart of the matter in refuting this basic error. The disputants were not denying Christ's resurrection, but were opposed to the idea of a general resurrection of corpses in bodily form.  It is noted by some commentators that they perhaps believed in souls being raised, but not bodies (Grosheide, p. 356).

            If there is no resurrection, Paul states emphatically, then the Christians' whole faith collapses like a punctured balloon. If there is no resurrection, he writes, then not even Christ was raised.  If Christ has not been raised, then the preaching of Paul and others was just so much false conjecture and their faith was baseless.  Then, too, if there is no resurrection, the apostles have given false witness about the power of God.  If Christ has not been raised, their sins have not been forgiven; they would carry them to the grave.  This would have an extended result as well - their brethren who had already died would also be lost.

CHRIST, THE FIRSTFRUITS 

             Paul presented a vigorous defense of a bodily resurrection as he pointed to the accepted fact of the resurrected Christ.  He used the Old Testament requirement of the first of any increase being devoted to God.  By Paul's time, the Greek word "aparche", which translates as "firstfruits", seems to designate the first of many (Arndt and Gingrich).  As he used the term in 1 Corinthians 15:20, 23, the apostle viewed Christ as the first of a great harvest of resurrected brethren. He also used the word twice of the Holy Spirit "as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come" (2 Cor. 1:22; Romans 8:23). 

             The resurrected Christ is now reigning and will reign until God has put all His enemies under His feet.  "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor.15:26). 

             In the latter part of Chapter 15, Paul deals with questions which appear to have been asked in the Corinthian church: "How are the dead raised?  With what kind of body will they come?" (1 Cor. 15:15).  Paul rebukes such a questioner as being a fool.  His questions display a lack of faith in God's power to provide a suitable body for those who are resurrected on the last day.  It will not be the perishable body of flesh and blood, he explains, but a new kind of body, glorious beyond description. 

 VICTORY IN CHRIST 

             The end paragraphs of this chapter have been read as a part of the funeral service for millions of believers. Here Paul offers to tell his readers a mystery.  He is able to unlock only part of it.  The part that he does reveal is a beautiful reassurance for faithful Christians: "For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, the the saying that is written will come true, 'Death has been swallowed up in victory' " (1 Cor. 15:52ff). 

            Because of what Christ has done for us, we can echo the confident prayer of the Apostle Paul: "But thanks be to God!  He has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

References:

 New Testament, New International Version
  Greek New Testament, 3rd edition, Aland, Black, Martini, Metzger and Wikgren 
 F. W.Grosheide: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
 W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich: The Greek-Englsh Lexicon of the New Testament