Our text this week is 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. It’s an element of Paul’s longer argument that, YES, there IS TOO a general resurrection of the dead, because if there weren’t, Jesus Christ couldn’t have been raised from the dead, and none of the good things the Corinthians believe that depend upon that would be true, either. But he was, and they are, thank Goodness. [Some questions for reflection and discussion are here.] Here are a few notes on our verses:
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: We’re continuing our reading in the first letter to the Corinthians from last week, so hopefully we’ll remember that the letter
- Is a long Pauline epistle
- Addressed to the mainly gentile (we think) church in
- The Greco-Roman city of Corinth, a prosperous transportation center with a reputation for being kind of “wild”
- Probably in the early 50s CE
- To address various theological and practical conflicts that beset that early church. [Making the church in Corinth much like some churches these days.]
We’ve skipped ahead from chapter 4, which closed on a discussion of Paul’s apostolic authority (at least, that’s how I read it), all the way to chapter 15, Paul’s summary of the gospel and his discussion of matters related to the resurrection of the body. In other words, we’ve skipped a lot of practical theology:
- How to deal with a congregant’s gross sexual immorality;
- How to handle tortious wrongs within the congregation;
- Whether or not Christians can stay, or get, married, and to whom, and under what circ*mstances;
- Whether Christians CAN, or CANNOT, eat meat offered to idols (served in some of the best restaurants, evidently) – which raises the more general point of what kind of reasoning the Corinthians ought to be using in thinking through matters like this, that pit personal liberty against the peace of their brothers and sisters in Christ;
- How to dress for church; and
- How to celebrate [properly] at the Lord’s table.
We’ve also skipped the high-flying discussion of the church as a body with many members, and the most important spiritual gift [“Love is patient, love is kind …”], and the comparative analysis of prophecy vs. speaking in tongues, and the contentious [nowadays] instructions about women speaking in church. [See Marg Mowczko’s comprehensive review of the contentions.]
So there has been a lot of plain-spoken instruction to these new believers, by the time we get to Paul’s review of
… the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2
They WILL have come to believe in vain, though, if Christ is not raised from the dead. So there is a lot at stake, practically, in the theological question of whether there is a resurrection from the dead, which seems to have become another Corinthian theological conflict.
The discussion in chapter 15 comes almost at the end of the letter. All that’s left are some instructions about “the collection for the saints,” final greetings, and the conclusion. Our verses are a small part of the larger resurrection discussion.
Most of our verses (19-26) are one of the lectionary readings for Easter in year C. Verses 27-28, however, are something we wouldn’t know was in the Bible if all we knew were the lectionary. And had been blessed never to have had occasion to read about the “eternal functional subordination of the Son,” for which those verses are used as a prooftext. Bible Content Examinees, among others, be warned.
[But if anyone did want to weep over theology, until driven to laugh hysterically to keep from weeping, they could read a helpful summary of the main arguments around subordinationism here, and an authoritative insider’s reading of 1 Corinthians 15:28 in that vein here, followed by lots and lots of comments. Those sources give a good idea of the flavor of the arguments for. A classical “first negative” response is here.]
CLOSER READING: v20 begins with the second part of what seems to be a deductive argument for the resurrection of the dead.
[I think it’s in the form of “modus tollens,” actually: If P, then Q; not Q; therefore, not P. “If P (no resurrection of the dead), then Q (no resurrection of Jesus Christ). Not Q (because yes, Jesus Christ has been raised.) Therefore, not P (i.e., not true that there’s no resurrection …). Admittedly, that’s a lot of double negatives. The “if P then Q” part of the argument is in vv 13-19.]
Given the subject matter, it’s probably no surprise that one or another form of “death” recurs several times in vv20-22. V22 reads like an overture to (we suppose, rather than a reprise of) Romans 5:12-21, with the emphasis on how in Adam all die, but in Christ all will be made alive, rather than the emphasis (as in Romans) on the sin / trespass / disobedience that leads to that death.
Vv20 and 23 use the word firstfruits, to describe Christ, the “firstfruits of the dead.” This is really an agricultural term, it seems, referring to the yield of something like grain. In ancient Israel, such “firstfruits” were incorporated into ritual observance. (See Leviticus 23:9-14, or Deuteronomy 26.)
It seems at least possibly significant that Paul uses the image of sowing and harvest again, later in the chapter, to respond to the foolish question of “what kind of body will there be in the resurrection, then??” (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). There’s to be a harvest. Christ is the firstfruits of it. And all of it will redound to the praise and glory of God.
In v24 and v26, the word translated destroyed has a wide range of meanings, sometimes as undramatic as “annulled” or “made inoperative.” Destroyed sounds good, though, when it comes to “death.”
In v25, “under his feet” seems to be a reference to Psalm 8:6. At least, that’s what everyone says. If so, Paul seems to be treating Psalm 8 as meaning Christ when it says “man,” or “humankind.” Or maybe more likely, Paul is treating Jesus – once again, in the role of the New Adam – as the one in whom “man” or “humankind” actually comes to have dominion over “all things.” Except the angels, if we are reading Psalm 8:5 that way.
That emphasis on Jesus’ representation of humanity may need to inform our reading of verses 27-28. Although what may matter more for how we understand those verses is how we understand “all in all” – that is, what might it possibly mean that God IS all IN all, the final consequence of the whole operation. That, and what other Scripture we know, that informs how we understand this ultimate relationship of “subjection” – like Philippians 2:5-11, or John 14:8-11, for example.
That is, must we understand this as a one-way top-down relationship? Or ought we to be envisioning a more two-way mutual-give-and-take relationship? Or even, ought we to be acknowledging that, although there are some words here, and we might think we understand them, because they are words we do understand fairly well when they refer to human experience, we still don’t really know what we’re talking about when it comes to the inner experiential life of God. Whom we are not.
Image: “Casa de Convalescència, arrambador ceràmic” Enfo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Subscribe to Matters of Interpretation
