(Continued) 👆🏾
Some years later addressing the community of Corinth, Paul further developed his teaching on the subject of the resurrection of the dead, especially in chapter 15 of his first epistle to the Corinthians that was going to act as a catalyst in determining the Christian faith. In it we find the well-known quote of the apostle: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless”(15:17). For Paul, the Resurrection of Christ was not an isolated past event, a wonderful intervention of God in the created world that lifted at once fear of death and its domination. It was rather the beginning of humanity’s salvation, which will be completed at the “eschaton.”
In this chapter of his epistle, the apostle invokes the sermon of the first church about the cross, the resurrection and the apparitions of the risen Christ, as this message was delivered by eye witnesses, men and women apostles of Christ, and was recorded in the early Christian sources (15:3ff). One of the basic reasons for the extensive development, in this epistle, of the Christian teachings on Resurrection, was the conviction of certain Christians in Corinth, that there was no resurrection of the dead (“some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead,” 15:12). This conviction maybe due to a misinterpretation of many traditions of early Christian, New Testament, but also extra biblical Christian sources (such as the Q source, the most ancient source of the Synoptic Gospel tradition, the Epistle of James, St. Thomas Apocryphal Gospel etc.), that put at the heart of their teachings not the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, but the eschatological, moral and prophetic teachings of the Historical Christ.
The apostle makes it clear that the resurrection of Christ ensures the resurrection of the dead. To illustrate his point, he uses two theological motifs. First of all, the Adam–Christ, first man-second man: “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (15:21-22). The second motif he uses is the psychic–pneumatic body that is the natural, earthy body of this life and the heavenly body after death. He describes how the new body will replace the old one, at the resurrection of the dead: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (15:42-44).
Finally, he describes the future resurrection of the dead, using, as he did in 1 Thessalonians, the widely known apocalyptic themes of the Old Testament and of the intertestmental sources, the last trumpet that will sound. This is the real “mystery” of immortality in Christ: “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;
for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (15:51-53). And he concludes, triumphantly exclaiming, in the way that the orthodox celebrate Christ’s Resurrection: “O Death, where is your victory? O Death where is your sting?” (15:55).
(Continues) 👇🏾