Many Futurists assume that the only view within Judaism for the resurrection of the dead was a physical resurrection. However, this is not true and there were Jewish views of a spiritual resurrection of dead before and in the times of Jesus and Paul. The question is does 1 Corinthians 15 teach a spiritual resurrection of the dead that was imminently fulfilled at Christ’s Parousia in AD 70? This article seeks to prove just that.
Paul expected some of his contemporaries to be alive and witness the coming of Christ and the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15
Space does not permit me to give an in-depth exegesis of every verse of 1 Corinthians 15, but I will address much of it. For a detailed exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15, see my co-authored book, House Divided Bridging the Gap in Reformed Eschatology and David Green’s exegesis.
Before beginning, I think we need to stick with just the basics on what we have learned so far and ask the following questions and make the following points:
1). No one disputes that the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 is the same resurrection as Daniel 12:2-13.
2). Having established this, we have learned from the immediate context of Daniel 12 that this resurrection would be at the same time as the tribulation and the “time of the end” – that is, “all these things” would be fulfilled together and during a 3 ½ years period of time “when the power of the holy people would be completely shattered” (Dan. 12:7). As we will see below, Paul expected the eschatological “end” and resurrection of Daniel 12 in 1 Corinthians 15 to take place within the lifetime of some of those he wrote to in Corinth.
3). Most agree that Jesus’ teaching on the “tribulation” and “end of the age” in
Matthew 24 is the same “tribulation” and “time of the end” found in Daniel 12:1-4. And yet Jesus indicates that the end of the old covenant age and tribulation would be fulfilled during the times of the Gentiles or the 3 ½ years period of AD 67 – AD 70 in His contemporary “this generation” (Mt. 24:3, 21f.; Lk. 21:20-24, 31-32).
So then if Matthew 24/Luke 21 is equivalent to the same time frame and events as Daniel 12:1-7, and Daniel 12 is the same resurrection as 1 Corinthians 15, lets break this down more and get a logical visual.
We have also learned up to this point in a previous article I wrote on the resurrection the following to be true:
4). A Christian orthodox position on the resurrection of Daniel 12 involves an “already not yet” progressive, spiritual, corporate and covenantal resurrection taking place between AD 27/30 – AD 70, whereby the new covenant body of Israel was being raised out from the death of the old covenant body of Israel by AD 70 (Partial Preterism - James Jordan and Gary DeMar). Can a progressive, corporate bodily resurrection be seen in 1 Corinthians 15?
5). As we have just seen, the Apostle Paul has elsewhere taught under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the resurrection of Daniel 12:2 was “about to be” fulfilled or was “at hand” (Acts 24:15YLT; Rom. 8:18-23YLT; Rom. 13:11-12). So the burden of proof would be to prove that Paul’s “ONE” resurrection hope which he had in Acts and Romans has now turned into two.
Therefore, as we approach the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15, we want to see if this critical chapter also involves what we have found thus far in Paul’s teaching on the resurrection. That is, does 1 Corinthians 15 teach a corporate body resurrection that was in the process of taking place in Paul’s day, which he taught under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit would be fulfilled within the lifetime of some of his contemporaries? We believe so.
There are several exegetical observations which demonstrate that Paul’s eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 is not a depiction of a biological casket-type resurrection for all men that will occur at the end of world history:
• The parallels and analogy of faith with Matthew 24 demonstrate a first century generation fulfillment of 1 Corinthians 15.
• Paul’s argumentation and use of logic (modus tollens) demonstrate that those who denied the resurrection of the dead at Corinth were not denying the resurrection of Christ or the doctrine of resurrection in general, but a resurrection for a particular group (the old covenant dead of Israel).
• Paul’s use of the present passive indicative,as already in the process of being fulfilled, demonstrates it is not an end of time biological resurrection.
• Paul’s use of familiar corporate body words and phrases within the Corinthian letters and within his other epistles demonstrates that an individual, biological corpse resurrection is wrong.
• Paul’s appeal to, and the contexts of, Hosea 13 and Isaiah 25 demonstrate that an end of the world biological resurrection is not in view.
• There would be no victory over “the death” until victory over the Mosaic Torah, “the law,” was reached. This does not fit within a futurist framework, but does within the Full Preterist framework, because “the law” (administration of death) was “soon” to vanish at the end of the old covenant age in AD 70 and thus was truly imminent in Paul’s day.
The Parallels – Analogy of Faith
Again, let’s look at those parallels which demonstrate that Paul’s eschatology here in 1 Corinthians 15 is that of Jesus’ in Matthew 24/Luke 21:
1. Christ to come (Greek parousia) – Matthew 24:27 = 1 Corinthians 15:23
2. His people to be gathered/changed – Matthew 24:31 = 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
3. Comes with the sound of a trumpet – Matthew 24:31 = 1 Corinthians 15:52
4. To be “the end” (Greek telos – the goal) – Matthew 24:3, 14 = 1 Corinthians 15:24
6. All prophecy fulfilled at this time – Luke 21:22 = 1 Corinthians 15:54-55
7. Victory over the law/temple – Matthew 24:1 = 1 Corinthians 15:55-56
8. Same contemporary “you” or “we” – Matthew 24:2ff. = 1 Corinthians 15:5152
The classic Amillennial and Historic Premillennial positions agree with us that the above parallels support the fact that Paul’s eschatological one hope, as expressed in 1 Corinthians 15, is the same teaching and resurrection developed by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse.
However, we also agree with Partial Preterists that Matthew 24 was fulfilled in AD 70.
Therefore, I can use the following historical “reformed and always reforming,” and Scriptural “the Scripture alone” / “analogy of faith” argument:
Major Premise: The “Parousia,” resurrection “gathering,” and “trumpet” call at “the end” of the age of Matthew 24 is the same eschatological “Parousia,” resurrection “change,” and “trumpet” call at “the end” of the age for Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul’s eschatology is the eschatology of Jesus (Classic Amillennialism and Historic Premilllenialism)!
Minor Premise:But the “Parousia”, “gathering,” and “trumpet” call at “the end” of the age of Matthew 24 was fulfilled spiritually in Jesus’ contemporary generation at the end of the old covenant age in AD 70 (Partial Preterism, mostly Postmillennial).
Conclusion: Therefore, the one and the same “Parousia,” resurrection “gathering/change,” and “trumpet” call at “the end” in 1 Corinthians 15 and Matthew 24 was fulfilled spiritually in Jesus’ generation and thus at the end of the old covenant age in AD 70 (Full Preterism).
1 Corinthians 15:1-15 - ONE Gospel Preached
Most futurist commentaries on 1 Corinthians 15 merely assume that the resurrection of the dead deniers at Corinth denied the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection in general. It is more than difficult to see how Paul could have still referred to them as “saints,” etc. if they believed such! Most who take this position believe Paul’s appeal to the 500 who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of his correction because the group rejected Jesus’ resurrection.
This view has many problems, which we will cover shortly, but in reality Paul lays forth the historical resurrection of Christ in the beginning of the resurrection conflict at Corinth NOT because the resurrection deniers at Corinth denied Jesus’ resurrection, but because the Gentile Christians were pridefully and ignorantly denying the resurrection of a Jewish sect (the OC dead ones who had died prior to Christ). This denial was similar to what some Gentile believers were saying about Israel and the Church at Rome (see Romans 11). One group or party was denying the resurrection of the other. The schisms of the various groups at Corinth (1 Cor. 1:10 – 3:23) reach their main conflict here in chapter 15, which Paul now desires to set straight. Paul, being the leader of the erring Gentile party who boasted of themselves and Paul as their leader, now humbles himself among the apostles (vss. 7-9) in order to correct this arrogant spirit. He ties his gospel message in as being ONE with the Jewish leaders (vss. 11-12). The resurrection of Jesus and the gospel message was united and agreed upon in the preaching of Christ’s resurrection by all the parties! Paul will use this agreement to make his case against them!
Perhaps some of their misunderstandings and arrogance began as early as Acts 18 when they heard Paul say, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” I believe that a misunderstanding of Paul here and perhaps some of his teaching that Gentiles were one body with the Jews, and that a true Jew was one who had been circumcised of the heart, led to a replacement theology and denial of an old covenant Jewish (the dead ones) eschaton / resurrection. After humbling himself and showing his solidarity with the Jewish leaders in preaching the same doctrine, Paul now begins to correct their error.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19 - Paul’s Modus Tollens form of Argumentation
To further prove that the deniers of the resurrection of the dead were not denying
Christ’s resurrection or the resurrection for all in general, we need to take a look at Paul’s form of argumentation. The Futurist view makes no contextual sense if you follow Paul’s argumentation and the logic he uses. Paul uses a familiar modus tollens or “if then” logical argument. That is, “If P, then Q, and therefore not P.” 1) “If P”
“If there is no resurrection of the dead ones…”
2) Then Q”
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then not even Christ has been raised.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then our preaching is useless…
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then and so is your faith [useless].
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then we are found to be false witnesses about God.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then your and my baptism (of suffering & martyrdom) on the part of the dead is meaningless.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then the Father is subject to Christ.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then some of you are ignorant of God.
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then why are some undergoing a baptism (of suffering & persecution) on behalf of the dead?
• If the dead are not rising (and will rise)…then there will be no resurrection for anyone and we all might as well eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
3) “Therefore, not P”
• Therefore, your (resurrection of the dead deniers) premise that the resurrection of the (OC) dead will not take place is false (or “therefore, not P”).
Paul’s argument is also known as reduction ad absurdum. This form of argument demonstrates that a statement (the dead will not rise) is false by showing that a false, untenable, undesirable or absurd result follows from its acceptance. Again, Paul is using things he has in common with them and things that they would affirm in order to overthrow and show how absurd their false premise actually was in saying that the dead ones would not rise.
The Resurrection of the Dead Error Identified
Since the Corinthians believed in Christ’s resurrection and a resurrection for those who had died “in Christ,” then who is left to deny a resurrection for? In short, the error at Corinth was an extreme view (or a hyper-dispensational or pre-mature replacement theology of sorts) that divided up the people of God in extreme ways. They could not reconcile how the dead prior to Christ’s arrival could be raised into or with the body of Christ of which they were now a part. In short, they were denying a key ingredient to “the better resurrection” that the writer to the Hebrews outlines:
“Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they [the OT or old covenant dead] might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they (“the [OT/OC] dead”) without us (the NT/NC saints “in Christ”) should not be made perfect” (Heb. 11:35-40).
The resurrection of the dead deniers at Corinth saw the “better things” for those who were “in Christ” (dead or alive – their side of the cross), but could not reconcile how the OT or old covenant dead (on the other side of the cross) could participate in a resurrection with those who had died in Christ or how they could be “made perfect” together in the body of Christ. They had the new covenant “better things,” and thus the OT or old covenant dead were left without participation in the better resurrection to come; this was their reasoning and error. They did not deny the doctrine of the resurrection in general, just the all-ness or oneness (with all of God’s of people) to the resurrection.
Extreme views of excluding even the righteous dead were not uncommon, even among the Jews. Some Jews believed that anyone who died outside of the Promised Land would not participate in the resurrection:
“The Talmud records speculations on the various matters connected with the process of Resurrection. There was a firm belief that the momentous event would take place in the Holy Land. Some Rabbi took the extreme view that only they who were interred there would share in the future life. ‘Those who die outside the land of Israel will not live again; as it is said, “I will set delight in the land of the living.” (Ezek. 26:20)—those who die in the land of My delight will live again, but they who do not die there will not’…” “Even a Cananite maidservant in the land of Israel is assured of inheriting the World to Come’…”[1]
So, in this extreme view, those righteous dead who died outside of being “in the land” would not participate in Israel’s corporate resurrection. Similarly, some at Corinth took Paul’s teaching – that all prophecy or all the promises of God were fulfilled spiritually “in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20) – too far in that they concluded the resurrection could only take place for those who believed “in Christ” (their side of the cross), and all others perished outside of being in Him.
Therefore, since the old covenant dead perished and were not present to place their faith in Christ, then they couldn’t be a part of the spiritual new covenant body that was in the process of being raised in their day. They lost sight of the great cloud of witnesses who saw Christ’s day and were glad and would thus share in the “better resurrection” with them.
According to both of these extreme Jewish or Christian views, men such as Moses had no resurrection hope but perished outside of being either “in the land” or outside of being “in Christ.”
We see a similar inability to reconcile the OT promises made to Israel and how they would be fulfilled in the NT body of Christ coming from modern day Dispensational Zionists who think there are opposing theologies between the OT and NT. There are two completely separate bodies of believers or peoples of God needing two separate comings of Christ, programs of salvation, etc. Of particular interest to our discussion here is the comparison of dividing the OT dead from those who died “in Christ.” Dispensationalists such as Charles Ryrie and Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer argue in the following ways:
“Those who died before Christ’s first advent” are not among “the dead in Christ” (Charles Ryrie).[2]
“The Old Testament saints were not part of the New Creation in Christ,” and “the nation of Israel sustains no relation to the resurrection of Christ” (Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer).[3]
And again, per Chafer, the dead OT saints were not “in the new federal headship of the resurrected Christ…”[4]
This sounds like elements of the resurrection of the dead deniers’ doctrine, and confusion was picked up from Dispensational teaching.
In 1937 William Everett Bell argued against Pretribulationalism, providing evidence that at Christ’s Second Coming (after the Tribulation period) all the righteous dead were to be raised. The ever-evolving pre-tribulational rapture theory countered with a two-resurrection view – one for those who died “in Christ” at the “rapture” “coming” and one for those who died outside of being “in Christ” (OT dead not “in Christ”) seven years later (after the Tribulation) at the Second Coming. The resurrection of the dead deniers also divided God’s people up in a way that was contrary to the teachings of Paul, except that for them the best way to avoid the problem (which they created for themselves) was to entirely deny resurrection for the OT dead and only accept a resurrection for those “in Christ.”
These examples (one within the Talmud and modern ones) should be sufficient to demonstrate how it could be possible for some to miss how the OT dead could or even would participate in the salvation of the ONE NT or new covenant body of Christ.
Romans 11 & 1 Corinthians 15
Perhaps the best parallel to what is taking place among the Gentile deniers of the resurrection of the dead at Corinth can be found in Romans 11. Paul has to explain that the Gentiles did not completely replace old covenant Israel and that there remained a future eschaton and expectation of fulfillment for her. And this future is explained in such a way that without God fulfilling those promises to old covenant Israel, there would be no forgiveness of sin or resurrection life for the Gentiles (cf. Rms. 11:13-27). In Romans the Gentile arrogance against the Jews was illustrated by an olive tree, branches, and the root to demonstrate the solidarity of the Gentiles with Israel’s resurrection and covenant promises. As we will see in our next point, Paul uses the illustration of the “first-fruits” harvest to connect the two.
1 Corinthians 15:20-28 – First fruits and Solidarity
Paul is going to now further his argument to connect Christ’s resurrection with that of Israel’s, by using the first-fruits analogy. How could the Gentiles deny Israel’s role in the resurrection when they themselves (along with the believing Jews) were a part of the first fruits awaiting the harvest at Christ’s return (James 1:18, Rom. 8, Rev. 14)? Paul’s resurrection hope was the “hope of Israel” and the harvest was Israel’s harvest of which they were blessed to be a part or grafted into. To deny “the dead” or Israel’s future role in the resurrection/harvest was akin to theologically denying Christ’s role and their role at the end of the old covenant age / harvest.
First-fruits, Imminence & Analogy of Faith
Whenever the first fruits were offered up as a pledge, this was a symbol that not only the harvest was guaranteed, but that it was already ripe and being cut. Paul uses this argument of Christ being the “first-fruits” resurrection to teach that He controls the destiny of Israel’s harvest (the dead), which Paul’s first century “we” audience would experience at “the end” of the old covenant age.
The imminence of this coming harvest judgment was first developed by John the Baptist. He warned of an “about to” come wrath and punishment (Mt. 3:7GNT). His ax and winnowing fork were already in His hand – indicating that the judgment and end-time harvest would take place in some of their lifetimes (Mt. 3:10-12).
Jesus also taught a spiritual sowing and coming judgment / resurrection harvest which would take place at “the end” of His Jewish audiences’ “this age” (which was the old covenant age) in Matthew 13:39-43.
The first fruits and harvest resurrection and judgment of Revelation 7 and 14 was to be fulfilled “shortly” at Christ’s “soon” and “at hand” AD 70 Second Coming (Rev. 1:1—22:6-7, 10-12, 20).
Paul’s inspired teaching on an imminent harvest resurrection to take place at “the end” (of the old covenant age) is in harmony with the teaching and eschatology of John the Baptist, John the apostle and Jesus.
Major Premise: The harvest judgment and resurrection of Matthew 3:7-12, Matthew 13:39-43, Revelation 7 & 14, and 1 Corinthians 15 is ONE and the same with the end of the age harvest resurrection event (Classic Amillennialism).
Minor Premise: But the harvest judgment and resurrection of Matthew 3:7-12,
Matthew 13:39-43, and Revelation 7 & 14 was “about to be” fulfilled spiritually and “short” at the end of the old covenant age in AD 70 (Partial Preterism - mostly Postmillennialist).
Conclusion: The ONE and the same harvest judgment and resurrection of Matthew 3:7-12, Matthew 13:39-43, Revelation 7 & 14, and 1 Corinthians 15 was fulfilled spiritually at the end of the old covenant age in AD 70 (Full Preterism).
First-fruits and the Nature of Jesus’ Resurrection Body
In Pauline theology, Christ is described as the “First” (first-fruit or first-born - Col. 1:18) from among the dead ones. Since clearly Jesus was not the first to be raised from biological death, many futurists reason that this must then mean He was the first to be raised with a glorified and immortal body the third day, which they assert was different because it could walk through walls and could never biologically die again. However, there is no exegetical evidence that Jesus’ biological body that was raised the third day was substantially different (glorified) than the one He had before He was crucified. Prior to His resurrection, He was able to walk on water, disappear in the midst of a crowd and transport / teleport Himself and a boat full of disciples instantly to the shore (defy physics). So just because Jesus could appear or disappear after His resurrection, this does not prove that His body was different and that somehow at the end of history we too will get a “body” like His (that can defy the laws of physics, etc.).
The truth, however, is that Jesus’ body wouldn’t be glorified until some 40 days later at His ascension/enthronement and just prior to the giving of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the resurrection body of Christ that came out of the tomb is not the “same” or “first” immortal and “glorified” body that we allegedly will get at the end of world history. If it was and ours will be just like it, then since Jesus still had His wounds, then will Christians be raised without limbs, deformities, etc.?
Yet Jesus was the “first” to overcome covenantal sin/death or spiritual separation that came from Adam the very day he sinned against God and was banished from His presence. Jesus “became sin for us” – that is, He took the full curse (of separation) for His posterity, was raised and 40 days later glorified and restored into the “glory” and presence of the Father He had before the world began. Exactly how Jesus “became sin” and was separated (“My God why have you forsaken Me”) on our account contains concepts that we will not be able to fully understand (such as the incarnation and trinity), but it is what Scripture teaches nonetheless. At Christ’s Parousia in AD 70, He restored God’s presence with the righteous dead (OC & NC) along with the living.
Therefore, the purpose of Jesus being raised from the dead on the third day was to be a sign (like all of His other miracles that pointed to a deeper spiritual truth) that validated He alone had conquered the curse (sin/death/separation) which came through Adam. Jesus never came to conquer biological death for Christians. Jesus repeatedly taught that those who believe on Him (alive or dead – Jn. 8:51; 11:25-26) would “never die.” In other words, “never die” is synonymous with “eternal life” (i.e. spiritual life and existence in God’s presence).
In Adam or in Christ
Through the corporate body of Adam, “all” come into this world spiritually dead and separated from God (15:21-22), while through Christ and His overcoming of that death “all” of His corporate body or covenant posterity will be restored to God’s presence and have their sin completely taken away at His Parousia. We will pick up Paul’s “in Adam” or “in Christ” doctrine and how he addresses these terms and concepts in verses 44-58 and Romans 5-8.
At His Parousia
Paul’s teaching on the Parousia (15:23) is not different than what Christ taught of His Parousia to take place in the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” (Mt. 24:27-34, 37). The NT knows of only ONE hope or eschatological Parousia of Christ to bring about ONE eschatological “the end” or “end of the age,” and that was His Parousia to close “the end” or “end of the [OC] age” in AD 70.
Then Comes the End & the Kingdom
“The end” (15:24) here is consistent with Jesus’ teaching on the end of the old covenant “this age” to be fulfilled in the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” (Mt. 13:39-43; Mt. 24). It is Daniel’s “time of the end” (not the end of time) when the resurrection would occur at Jerusalem’s destruction in the three and a half years between AD 67 - AD 70 – i.e. “when the power of the holy people would be completely shattered” (Dan. 12:1-7).
Before we approach 1 Corinthians 15, Paul has already informed us that “the end” of the world was “shortened” and the end of the age was to take place in the lifetime of the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor. 7:29, 31; 10:11). The miraculous sign and revelatory gifts would confirm the Church until “the end” or Day of the Lord (1 Cor. 1:4-8).
Paul taught that the new covenant Church age was an “age without end” (Eph. 3:2021), so why would he here be teaching that he expected its end to take place within the lifetime of the Corinthians? It is the old covenant age that is in view and indeed did pass away within the lifetime of Paul’s audience. The new covenant age was
“about to” fully come in, and therefore the old covenant age was about to end (Eph. 1:21 WUESTNT).
The “increase” (that is the everlasting gospel) of Jesus’ government (that is His kingdom and thus His rule in the new covenant Messianic age) is also described as having “no end” in the OT (Isa. 9:7).
Concerning the timing of the consummation of the kingdom, per Daniel chapter seven, the kingdom would arrive in its fulfilled inherited form just after a time of severe persecution (Dan. 7:21) and at Christ’s Second Coming (Dan. 7:13, 18, 22). Jesus informs us when Daniel’s prophecy would be fulfilled in Matthew 24. He instructs His disciples that just after a severe persecution takes place, the surrounding of Jerusalem with armies (the abomination that causes desolation), and just prior to His Parousia the Kingdom would be inherited in the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” (Lk. 21:1-32). How many consummations to the Messianic kingdom do Jesus and Paul teach?
Paul’s “end” here is connected to the end or fulfillment of the OT Mosaic “THE
Law” which was the strength of sin in 1 Corinthians 15:55-56. This is consistent with Jesus teaching that all that was written in the OT would be fulfilled in His generation (Lk. 21:22-32).
Christ’s Pre-Parousia Reign & His Enemies Placed Under His Feet
As David and Solomon’s reigns over Israel were 40 years, so too was Jesus’ preParousia reign (roughly from AD 30 – AD 70). Through the proclamation and power of the gospel, the power of the Holy Spirit given in the midst of imprisonment and persecutions, and the imprecatory prayers of the saints against their first century Jewish persecutors, Christ’s enemies were being placed under His feet and would perish at the end of the old covenant age. This is consistent with the teaching of the author to the Hebrews when He instructs us that the first century Jewish “enemies” to be “made his footstool” were “about to” experience a judgment of fire at Christ’s “in a very little while” AD 70 coming that could not be delayed (Heb. 10:13-37YLT).
Last Enemy “The Death” Was in the Process of Being Destroyed - The Present Passive Indicative – The Dead Were Rising
Note that death was in the process of BEING destroyed (present passive indicative):
“As a last enemy, [the] death is being abolished, for all things He put in subjection under His feet.”[5]
Gordon Fee in his work on 1 Corinthians puzzles over this:
“The grammar of this sentence is somewhat puzzling… The sentence literally reads, “’The last enemy is beingdestroyed.’”[6]
Others comment on the reality of the present tense here:
“It is difficult to do justice to the present passive καταργεῖται in trans-lation. As it stands, the Greek states, The last enemy is being annihilated, (namely) death (v. 26). It is arguable that Paul uses the present to denote the process of annihilation already set in motion by Christ’s (past) death and resurrection.”[7]
There is no confusion or difficulty over the last enemy of “the death” being destroyed during Paul’s day when we realize that this death was spiritual Adamic death, which was being magnified through Israel’s Torah – “the law” or “administration of death” (1 Cor. 15:56-57; 2 Cor. 3). When the definite article “the” is in front of death, it is the spiritual death which came through Adam the very day he sinned that is in view.
However, there is understandable confusion and difficulty for the present tense of the death being destroyed for Futurists who assume that biological death and resurrection is the last enemy to be destroyed throughout 1 Corinthians 15. How was biological death in the process of being destroyed in Paul’s day and up to ours for the last 2,000 years?!? Are arms sticking up out of the graveyards today, with biological corpses in the process of rising and overcoming death?!? Obviously, Paul has something else in view and Futurists do not understand him correctly.
Related to the problem for the Futurist of “the death” being in the process of “being destroyed” in Paul’s day is Paul’s use of the present passive indicative in other places in this chapter.
Although it is rare that a translation or commentator will point this issue out here in 15:26 (as I have cited above), they are all virtually silent when the present tense is being used in the following verses:
“But God is giving it a body” (v.32).
“…it is being...” (v. 38).
“…it is being raised in glory…” (43).
“…it is being raised in power…” (v. 43)
“…It is being sown a natural body, it is being raised a spiritual body…” (v. 43).
Since most think that the giving of a “body” and it being “sown” a natural body and then being raised in glory and power is allegedly addressing a biologically transformed individual body at Christ’s Parousia at the end world history, the present tense seems impossible. But when the corporate body of Christ (the old covenant dead who had the gospel preached to them by Christ, those dead “in Christ” and those alive that constitute that ONE body) is in view, Paul’s theology/eschatology begins to make more sense. Christ was still in the process of fulfilling OT Scripture and thus the new covenant corporate body was still being raised from and saved from the Adamic and Mosaic body of death.
Let’s not forget that Postmillennialists such as James Jordan and Kenneth Gentry believe the resurrection of Daniel 12:2-3 was a progressive spiritual resurrection between AD 30 – AD 70, with Jordan making it clear that this resulted in Daniel’s soul being raised out of the realm of the dead ones into God’s presence in AD 70. And on the other hand, we have the Reformed orthodox position telling us that the resurrection of Daniel 12:2-3 and 1 Corinthians 15 is ONE and the SAME resurrection event. Therefore, there is simply no reason to not see the progressive and spiritual resurrection that was taking place between AD 30 – AD 70 in both Daniel 12 and 1 Corinthians 15 as being the same “already and not yet” eschaton that resulted in souls being raised into God’s presence at Christ’s Parousia in AD 70.
According to Paul, the ONE resurrection hope of Israel had already broken in and there was an “already and not yet” reality to it (Rom. 11:7; Phil. 3).
That God May Be All in All
This is the eschatological goal of the NT – that “all” of God’s presence (the Father, Son and Spirit) would be in “all” of God’s people (the new covenant body of the Jew and Gentile). The Holy Spirit’s presence was with the early Church through the charismata and in forming Christ’s image (a spiritual transformation) in the Church. But it was only at the Second Coming of Jesus in AD 70 that the Father and the Son would then make their home within the Church (e.g. John 14:2-3, 23, 29; Lk. 17:2021ff.; Rom. 8:18YLT; Col. 1:27). At the “end” of Christ’s pre-Parousia reign, He would deliver the kingdom up to the Father and its process of being changed (2 Cor. 3) would be complete and consummated into its heavenly form.
The promise of God being “all in all” is the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles which we covered in Matthew 24:30-31 and Zechariah 12-14.
1 Corinthians 15:29-34 -Baptism on Behalf of the Dead
There has been much debate on the meaning of those being baptized on behalf of the dead (15:29). However, the context would seem to indicate that this is a baptism of suffering that is in view (vss. 30-32; see also Lk. 12:50/Mt. 20:20-23; Mt. 23:29-36; Heb. 11:39-40). Paul’s point and overall argument is that if the old covenant dead would not participate in the resurrection, then those Christians (such as himself) who were undergoing a baptism of suffering, persecution and death/martyrdom on their behalf (the ONE body of Christ that included the old covenant dead) were suffering and perishing in vain. If the dead would not rise with those who had fallen asleep “in Christ,” then one might as well adopt the fatalistic mindset of “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” for there would be no resurrection for anyone.
1 Corinthians 15:35-58 - The Body (Greek soma) & Consistency within Pauline Theological Terms & Motifs
Much has been said and debated in recent years in regard to Paul’s use of the “body” (Greek soma) in his various epistles. Many would insist that when Paul uses “body” in his letters to the various churches, he is mostly referring to an individualistic biological or fleshly body. However, theologians such as Tom Holland are developing a proper cultural context in which Paul is writing with a Hebraic mindset, or within a worldview that is rooted in the OT Scriptures, which sees the body more in a corporate sense and context. Holland does a great job developing this in Romans 5-7 and 1 Corinthians 1-12, but we find him inconsistent and dropping the ball in Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15.
Holland also has correctly observed that most of the time Paul uses particular theological phrases and terms in a consistent way in writing to the various churches, so that there is little confusion among them.[8] And while we agree with this, we believe Holland is inconsistent with Paul’s consistent use of “the law”, “the sin,” and “the death” in relationship to being “in Adam” or “in Christ” when addressed in Romans 5-8, and also how he understands these terms and themes in 1 Corinthians 15. In Romans, Paul does not use these terms and the “in Adam” / “in Christ” motif to be discussing biological death and resurrection, but rather corporate modes of existence. We argue that Paul uses these terms and motifs virtually the same way in 1 Corinthians 15, and thus he is not addressing a biological death and resurrection motif.
Paul’s Seed Analogy & Being Buried Alive
Since the resurrection of the dead deniers did not deny a corporate bodily resurrection for themselves and those who had died “in Christ” (their side of the cross), then what is Paul’s point in using the seed analogy? If Paul was correct in what he was saying thus far in his argumentation, then their objection would be something like, “How or what kind of body could the old covenant dead ones possibly be raised in since they died in the state of death found in Adam prior to Christ’s coming (thus they were susceptible to weakness, perishable and merely natural), unattached from us who are “in Christ” where resurrection new covenant eternal life is being realized (cf. 15:35)?”
Paul’s statement, “When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be…” summarizes their thinking and error. For them, they were the one spiritual body that was BOTH being sown spiritually and would be raised spiritually. In other words, they thought they sowed the same spiritual body that would be, which couldn’t be attached to the old covenant body which they believed perished outside of Christ. Paul uses the seed analogy to demonstrate that they (along with the old covenant dead ones) were not sown a spiritual body, but rather they had the same sowing/seed origins that the old covenant dead ones were in – i.e. still in a “perishable”, “dishonorable”, “weak”, “natural”, “Adamic” body of death. The corporate body of Christ did not originate their side of the cross out of thin air, but it originated in and came out from within the Adamic old covenant body (along with the old covenant dead ones). The resurrection of the dead deniers needed to see that they were still a part of the old covenant body/seed/world (with the old covenant dead) that had not passed away yet.
If Paul had a resurrection of biological corpses in view, then he didn’t know how to teach and use illustrations very well. Futurists believe the passage teaches that in biological death the body dies and then is buried or sown into the earth to be raised at the end of world history into a different form. But for Paul in verse 36, the seed/body was not only in the process of being sown (under the earth), it was still alive and concurrently dying only to be raised into a different form. Futurists are at odds with Paul’s teaching and illustration, which would amount to burying corpses while alive, only to undergo a process of dying and then to be raised.
In order to understand Paul’s buried alive and concurrently dying doctrine, or how the “body” here in 1 Corinthians 15 is not a fleshly individual body but a corporate body, we must allow Paul to interpret himself elsewhere. We will pick this subject up in Romans 5-8, when addressing the nature of the body in Adam or in Christ, when it surfaces again in verses 44-58.
I believe Don K. Preston’s thesis of Paul using Hosea 6 – 13 as an inclusio as a possible working outline in 1 Corinthians 15 is an excellent observation.
“Hosea: The Outline for Paul’s Resurrection Hope
Hosea
1 Corinthians 15
1). “He has torn but he will heal, and after two days He will raise us up.”
1). Christ rose on the 3rd day according to the Scriptures - Paul introduces Hosea at the very beginning of his discourse and he closes his discourse by quoting Hosea.
2). Israel the Seed (Jezreel–God sows): Israel sown in the earth (2.23).
2). Except a seed– “That which you sow is not quickened unless it die” (John 12).
3). Israel destroyed/died (1.5– I will cause to cease the house of Israel): continuity / discontinuity – Israel destroyed / Israel restored.
3). You do not sow that which shall be (v. 37). That which you reap is not what you sow; that which is spiritual is not first, but the natural.
4). Israel of old - carnal, sinful.
4). It is sown a natural body (v. 42f).
5). Israel sown in the earth (2.23).
5). As we have borne the image of the earthy.
6). Harvest appointed for Judah when I return My people (6.11).
6). Jesus the first fruits (Jesus of Judah), of those who slept - OT saints, i.e. Israel!!
(15.12f).
7). Time of the harvest = resurrection (13.14).
7). Resurrection when Hosea fulfilled (15:54-56).
8). Israel like the first fruit (9:10).
8). Christ the first fruit of Israel (15:20f).
9). They transgressed the covenant (6.7; they died (v. 5; 13.1-2, 10) – death for violating the covenant.
9). The strength of sin is “the law” (15.56) –death for violating the Law.
10). New covenant of peace (2:18; Cf. Ez. 37:12, 25f)—> covenant is covenant of marriage.
10). Sit at my right hand…Heb. 10:14– time of the new covenant (Rom. 11:26f.) – the marriage, thus the covenant —> Rev.
19:6.
11). Israel restored in the last days when “David” rules (3.4-5).
11). End of the ages has arrived (10.11); “then comes the end” (15.20f) - Christ on the throne (15.24f).
12). I will be your God. I will be your king! (Hos. 13:10).
12). 1 Corinthians 15:28 (God shall be all in all).
The resurrection of the dead deniers needed to be reminded that they were a part of old covenant Israel’s seed/body that was promised to be raised in the last days harvest to close her age. Without their union into that seed/body, there would be no resurrection for either group.
Israel had been sown in death and captivity, but she was in the process of being raised, united together, and transformed through the good news of the new covenant. Israel’s process of being transformed and being sown and rising from old covenant glory into new covenant glory in 1 Corinthians 15 & 2 Corinthians 3 should be viewed together, just as a spiritual seeing of God’s face in a glass or mirror found in 1 Corinthians 13 and 2 Corinthians 3-4 should be interpreted together. We must allow Paul to interpret himself, especially when writing to the same church. It’s just basic hermeneutics.
In Adam or in Christ & the Corporate Body Cont.
Let’s take a look at the Pauline view of being in the corporate bodies of Adam (as a type) and/or in Christ.
“But the death did reign from Adam till Moses, even upon those not having sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a type of him who is “about to” [Smith’s Literal Translation correctly translates mello here] come” (Rom. 5:14).
To further demonstrate that the resurrection for those in Christ is a spiritual resurrection is to notice that in Pauline “in Adam” or “in Christ” theology Adam is a “type” and Christ the anti-type. In the book of Hebrews, the first was the physical type and shadow with the second and better being the spiritual anti-type. The point is that the anti-type is always spiritual, and that is what we see here in 1 Corinthians 15 of the second being a “spiritual body” that the new covenant Israel/Church is raised up into.
As I pointed out earlier, there are many similarities between Romans 5-8 and 1 Corinthians 15. Therefore, let’s spend some time here in Romans to see how Paul develops these themes.
In Romans 5:14, the context is involving an eschatological future (“about to”) coming of Christ who is the anti-type of Adam. It will be when the future hope of glory in verses 1-5 is realized (which Rom. 8:18YLT says was “about to be revealed”) and when they would be saved from a coming wrath in verse 10.
Most Futurists, such as Postmillennialist Keith Mathison, believe that Romans 5:12 teaches that physical death for man and decay for the planet earth came through Adam’s sin and thus at Christ’s return He will reverse what Adam had brought upon the planet:
“As Paul explains, death entered the world because of Adam’s sin (Roms. 5:12). God’s entire work of redemption from the moment of the Fall onward has been aimed at reversing the effects of sin in man and in creation.”[10]However, the immediate context of verse 12 is dealing with spiritual salvation described as “reconciliation” being given to the believer in verse 11. The phrase “…death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” is discussing spiritual death, not physical death, or people would physically die when they “sin.” As I discussed before, in Genesis Adam died spiritually the very day he sinned. Through Adam came the reign of spiritual “death” and “condemnation” in verse 18. This spiritual death and condemnation that came through Adam is countered by Christ because through Him the “free gift” of the gospel is “grace” (v. 15), “justification” (v. 16), and a “reign of life” (v.17), which makes one “righteous” (v. 19). These are spiritual graces upon the heart of man undoing the reign of spiritual death and condemnation brought through Adam.
Verses 20-21 are important: “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When the Mosaic law entered the picture, it did not make death any worse, but it did increase and magnify the power and reign of spiritual death and sin in the heart of man. This is most eloquently described by Paul in his struggle of what the law produced when it was brought upon his conscience in chapter 7. Saul, the self-righteous Jew, thought they were “alive” under the law, but when they realized that the law could only magnify their sin and it could not completely take it away, they “died” (7:9). Obviously, Paul did not biologically die the day he realized this. The entire context of Romans is dealing with overcoming the spiritual death passed down through Adam, which was magnified through the giving of Torah. This spiritual death was found in the corporate body of the sin, the death, and the flesh which Paul brings out and develops more in chapter 6.
As previously mentioned, fortunately some Pauline reformed theologians are beginning to see what we have in these Pauline terms. Paul is not addressing an individual resurrection of a physical “fleshly” corpse in Romans 6:
“The concrete mode of existence of sinful man can sometimes be identified with sin as the ‘body of sin’ (Rom. 6:6), the ‘body of flesh’ (Col. 2:11), the ‘body of death’ (Rom.7:24). Accordingly, the life from Christ by the Holy Spirit can be typified as a ‘doing away with the body of sin’, ‘putting off of the body of the flesh, ‘putting to death the earthly members’, ‘deliverance from the body of this death’ Rom. 6:6; Col. 2:11; 3:5; Rom. 7:24) … All these expressions are obviously not intended of the body itself, but of the sinful mode of existence of man.”[11]
Quoting T.F. Torrance,
“In his death, the many who inhered in him died too, and indeed the whole body of sin, the whole company of sinners into which he incorporated himself to make their guilt and their judgment his own, that through his death he might destroy the body of sin, redeem them from the power of guilt and death, and through his resurrection raise them up as the new Israel”[12] This corporate view of the “body of sin” is also shared by F.F. Bruce:
“This ‘body of sin’ is more than an individual affair. It is rather that old solidarity of sin and death which all share ‘in Adam,” but which has been broken by the death of Christ with a view to the creation of the new solidarity of righteousness and life of which believers are made part ‘in Christ.’”[13]
Holland feels that T.W. Manson has come the closest to the truth:
“He questioned the traditional assumption that in the phrase ‘body of Sin’ the term ‘of Sin’ is a genitive of quality; he argued that it ‘does not yield a very good sense’. He took it to be a possessive genitive, and said, ‘It is perhapsbetter to regard “the body of sin” as the opposite of “the body of Christ”. It is the mass of unredeemed humanity in bondage to the evil power. Every conversion means that the body of sin loses a member and the body of Christ gains one’”[14]
And developing the corporate body motif, commenting on Romans 6:6:
“Also, in 6:6 Paul refers to ‘putting off the old man’. Once again this has traditionally been seen as a reference to the sinful self that dominated the life of the believer in the pre-converted state. However, the same terminology is used in Ephesians 2:15 where Paul says, ‘to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace’. He then goes on to say in 4:22-23, ‘put off your old self (anthropos – man), created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.’ The exhortation is parallel to that in Romans 6:6ff. Thus, the new man, which Paul exhorts the Romans to put on, is corporate, for ‘the new man’ in Ephesians is the church, and the two who have been united to form this new man are the believing Jews and the believing Gentiles. This corporate understanding is further supported by Colossians 3:9-15… The realm where distinctions are abolished (here there is no Greek or Jew, v. 11) is clearly corporate. This is indicated by two considerations. First, ‘here’ is clearly the realm where all distinctions are abolished, and this is the new man. Second, the meaning of the one body into which they were called (v. 15) is obviously corporate. These descriptions of corporateness are in the context of the description of the old and new self (vv. 9, 10). The rendering of anthropos as self by the NIV and sarx as fleshin the AV has inevitably promoted the individualistic understanding and confused the mind of the English reader. Furthermore, that Paul’s exhortation is corporate is shown in that he appeals to them, “as God’s chosen people clothe yourselves’ (v. 12). Thus, identifying the imagery of the old and new man as being corporate, and appreciating that it is part of the description of the ‘body of Sin’ in Romans 6:6, along with the other considerations we have presented, establishes a corporate meaning for the term the ‘body of Sin’.”[15]
What is the Soteriological and Eschatological Goal of Christ’s Substitutionary Work?
Before we leave the topic of being in Adam or in Christ, we should probably really define what Christ’s substitutionary redemption and mission is and what it isn’t.
If one defines Christ’s substitutionary work to be that Christ died physically so we don’t have to, then Christ’s redemption has been an epic failure for some 2,000 plus years and counting. But as we have seen, the WUESTNT correctly translates 1 Corinthians 15:26 as “the death” (that came through Adam – spiritual death and separation) which was already in the process of “beING destroyed” due to Christ’s work on the cross and what He would imminently do at His Parousia to bring an “end” to the old covenant age in AD 70. If physical death was “being destroyed” in Paul’s day and ours, we should expect physical corpses beginning to rise and walk about like the “Walking Dead” show. Or we should see men living to be 200 – 900 years old.
And if the “wages of sin is biological death,” and Christ’s substitutionary work on the cross was designed to reverse this process, then again why do we still sin and die physically? Jesus said that if one believed in Him and kept his commandments he would “never die.” Again, if this is physical death, then once again Christ’s work and your faith prove Christ and Christians are epic failures.
But if Christ’s substitutionary and redemptive work on the cross and at His Parousia in AD 70 was designed to overcome the spiritual death that came through Adam, now we can understand the following passages:
• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46).
And why Paul teaches:
• “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern/type of the one [Greek mello] about to come. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Rms. 5:12-21).
• “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
• “Truly, truly, truly, I tell you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death” (Jn. 8:51). “…and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this” (Jn. 10:26)?
Here is a chart that may help:
Adam’s ONE Trespass and Christ’s ONE Righteous Act
1). Sin entered the world
1). Righteousness entered the world
2). Spiritual death entered the world
2). Spiritual eternal life entered the world
3). Spiritual death and separation reigned from Adam to Moses w/ Torah magnifying how sinful sin is and how short we fall.
3). For those in Christ, spiritual eternal life and righteousness reigns and brings us into God’s presence.
4). Many died spiritually in their covenant head of Adam
5). Many are made alive in their covenant head of Christ
6). Spiritual judgment and condemnation came through Adam
6). Spiritual gift of grace brings justification through Christ
7). One act of disobedience made those in Adam sinners
7). One act of obedience made those in Christ righteous before God
8). Christ became sin for us so that…
8). …we might become the righteousness of God
It should be clear that spiritual death and life and positional truth is what is being communicated here by Jesus and Paul. If we are in Adam, we are subject to sin’s power which results in spiritual separation and death from God’s presence. But if we place our faith in Christ and we are granted the gift of His grace, then positionally and spiritually we “never die”, we “become the righteousness of God,” are “justified before Him,” and “righteousness reigns in us.”
Christ died to sin or became the curse of Adam’s sin/death which separated us from God’s presence. This “last enemy” and curse of spiritual death is what was in the process of “being destroyed” in Paul’s day. When Adam sinned, he died spiritually. Christ lived a perfect life and committed no sin, so He was a perfect sacrifice capable of satisfying God’s righteous and just wrath so that “we might become the righteousness of God.” Now through Christ’s redemptive work on the cross and Parousia, we live in the new covenant creation or the “world of righteousness” and are perfectly forgiven in His sight. And this gift of faith and of His unconditional grace causes us to be born of God whereby we “do not sin, because His seed/presence remains in us, and we cannot sin because we are born of God” (1 Jn. 3:9). That is, a true child of God cannot commit the specific sin “leading to death” (1 Jn. 5:16-18) which would once again bring us into the spiritual death and headship of Adam. Or as John would reinforce his meaning in Revelation 3:12, those of us who are in the righteousness of the New Jerusalem will never leave the gates and return to the spiritual death and darkness of being in Adam.
The Sovereign Grace Full Preterist has a substitutionary redemption that has been “accomplished and applied,” which has produced the 100% goal Christ came to accomplish between AD 30 – AD 70. We are “in Christ”, “we are His righteousness,” and we will “never die” and be found outside of His marvelous grace! We are made perfect before the Father and behold His face because of what Christ has accomplished on the cross and through His “soon” Second Coming (1 Cor. 13:1012/Rev. 22:4-7, 10, 20). Selah.
Paul’s Consistent Use of Terms
Not only do I agree with Holland in his development of Paul being a Hebrew and thinking in Jewish collective or corporate body terms, but I also agree with him that Paul has a “system of theology” that he draws on when he uses certain words, terms, and phrases throughout his various writings:
“Also, it seems quite inconceivable that a man of Paul’s intellectual caliber should be so haphazard as to be indifferent to these alleged inconsistencies.
At Paul’s instruction, his letters were being passed around the churches (Col. 4:16). Was he not concerned with consistency?”[16]
Paul’s themes of being in a corporate body, whether in “Adam” or “Christ,” in Romans and 1 Corinthians 15, and being raised in the likeness of Christ or experiencing deliverance from “law” (Adam in the garden) or “THE law” (Israel groaning under the Mosaic law), has nothing to do with a casket resurrection from biological death for believers. This is a soteriological resurrection from the spiritual death inherited from Adam. The order of being planted or buried first and then simultaneously dying only to be changed and resurrected into Christ’s image is also the same in Romans and 1 Corinthians 15. We will look at this shortly.
Corruption v Incorruption
Here is how Paul elsewhere uses “corruption”:
1). “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).
We should quote from John Lightfoot once again who not only saw the “redemption of the body” in Romans 8 to be the corporate body of the Church (which we are arguing is also the case here in 1 Cor. 15), but also identified “vanity” “corruption,” etc. to be internal spiritual vices within the heart of man:
“. . . [T]his vanity [or futility] is improperly applied to this vanishing, changeable, dying state of the [physical] creation. For vanity, doth not so much denote the vanishing condition of the outward state, as it doth the inward vanity and emptiness of the mind. The Romans to whom this apostle writes, knew well enough how many and how great predictions and promises it had pleased God to publish by his prophets, concerning gathering together and adopting sons to himself among the Gentiles: the manifestation and production of which sons, the whole Gentile world doth now wait for, as it were, with an out stretched neck.”[17] And again,
“The Gentile world shall in time be delivered from the bondage of their sinful corruption, that is, the bondage of their lusts and vile affections, (under which it hath lain for so long a time,) into a noble liberty, such as the sons of God enjoy. If it be inquired how the Gentile world groaned and travailed in pain, let them who expound this of the fabric of the material world tell us how that groaneth and travaileth. They must needs own it to be a borrowed and allusive phrase.”[18]
2). “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8).
Sowing to the flesh has to do with giving in to internal temptations of the mind and heart, and reaping “corruption” has to do with inheriting (in this world and the next) the consequences of sin. But if one sows to the Spirit, he reaps “eternal life” in this world and the next. “Corruption” does not have to do with biological flesh.
3). “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that are unto corruption in the using [or perish as they are used])—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:1822).
“Corruption” here is referring to the seducing Judaizers seeking to influence Jewish, and/or their proselyte Gentile, Christians into going back under the Mosaic Law to be justified before God. Seeking to be justified by the Mosaic Law as a means of salvation meant being under the “corruption” of these false teachers and this system which would soon perish with its teachers in the events of AD 70. Again, “corruption” is an internal reality of the heart and mind connected to sin and false teaching, not a biological change.
4). “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (2 Peter 1:3-9).
It was the knowledge and life of the gospel that delivered them from the inner “corruption” that was in the Jewish or heathen world of false religion. Peter is consistent with Pauline theology. Paul taught that through faith they were already being transformed into the image of Christ, which was obviously not a biological process that had already begun (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). And according to Paul in Colossians 3:9-10, Christians were “putting off the old self” and “putting on the new self” as a process of “being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator.” Being in the “image of the creator”, “being transformed into the image of Christ,” or “partaking in the divine nature,” for Peter and Paul these were non-biological events and had to do with a change of mind and heart which the gospel had produced and was producing within the hearts of Christians.
5). “For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first” (2 Peter 2:18-20).
Once again, we have a warning to not go back to false religion which enslaved men’s hearts and minds to the vices of sin and “corruption,” which the inner “knowledge of Christ” had delivered them from. As we have seen, this Greek word for “corruption,” as used elsewhere in the NT, does not entail a biological corruption of physical flesh needing a biological resurrection or change, nor is it being used this way by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
But what of Paul’s use of “Incorruption” or “immortality”?
If “corruption” had to do with internal sin, then “incorruption” would seem to be the opposite. The Adamic or Mosaic world and belief system could only produce, expose and magnify the “corruption” of sin in the heart. The new covenant world and body of the gospel imputed Christ’s righteousness, resulting in eternal life or
“incorruptibility.”
1). “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Rms. 2:7-8).
Here “immortality” or “incorruptibility” are equivalent to “eternal life.” Earlier, we looked at the “already and not yet” (AD 27-30—AD 70) “hour” (Dan. 12:1-4 OG) of the early church receiving eternal or resurrection life, and it had nothing to do with a biological change that was taking place.
2). “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible” (Eph. 6:24).
The new covenant gospel and love of Christ for His Church and her love for Him (and family members) cannot be corrupted or fail (1 Cor. 13:7-8).
3). “…who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (II Tim. 1:10).
To understand this passage better we need to go to chapter four:
“I do fully testify, then, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to judge living and dead at his manifestation and his reign—preach the word; be earnest in season, out of season, convict, rebuke, exhort, in all longsuffering and teaching, for there shall be a season when the sound teaching they will not suffer, but according to their own desires to themselves they shall heap up teachers—itching in the hearing, and indeed, from the truth the hearing they shall turn away, and to the fables they shall be turned aside. And thou—watch in all things; suffer evil; do the work of one proclaiming good news; of thy ministration make full assurance, for I am already being poured out, and the time of my release hath arrived; the good strife I have striven, the course I have finished, the faith I have kept, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of the righteousness that the Lord—the Righteous Judge—shall give to me in that day, and not only to me, but also to all those loving his manifestation” (2 Tim. 4:1-8 YLT, BLB, LSV).
Paul was entrusted with the gospel which brings immortality or eternal life to the soul of man. Paul knew severe persecutions were coming for him before the “about to” approaching “day” of the Lord. His confidence was in knowing that God was going to guard his God-given faith and soul as a precious deposit as that day was “about to” come and his life was going to be poured out (just prior to the events of AD 67 – AD 70).
There is nothing here about Paul having a hope that was connected to an “incorruptible” physical body that he would get at the end of world history. His deposit was his faith and assurance that his soul was about to receive the gift of eternal life or incorruptibility and immortality.
Peter defined this “ready to be revealed” “inheritance” as the “salvation of the soul” (1 Pet. 1:4-9).
After reading the above verses to see how Paul and the other New Testament writers use them elsewhere, it can be seen that the term “corruption” has reference to life under the Law of Moses and life “in Adam.” Notice that it was possible to be under a state of “corruption” without having to be dead physically. Instead, this term had reference to life under the dominion of sin.
Likewise, “incorruption” was used to describe those in the body of Christ. Those enjoying the “incorruption” or “immortality” were those who had been added to the body (Church) of Christ by responding positively to the gospel. Just as the Church had to progress towards perfection, the individual Christians within the Church had “incorruption” while at the same time waiting for it to come on the day when God’s wrath would be revealed (Romans 2:7). This idea is called by some as the “already but not yet” of eschatology. Because the “already” was not of a physical nature, it makes sense that the “not yet” would be of the same nature. If you saw the head of a dog coming around a corner, you would expect to see the tail of a dog – not of a cat – following shortly thereafter. The dog doesn’t change into something else just because it is fully revealed. In like manner, the nature of the incorruption (the spiritual salvation of the soul) remains the same from initiation to consummation.
Natural v Spiritual
1). “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:6-14).
In the next chapter Paul explains when the “things” were coming that the natural man could not understand:
“So then, let no one glory in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things about to be — all are yours,” (1 Cor. 3:22 YLT).
The rulers of Paul’s “this age” were the civil and religious rulers of the old covenant age that had crucified Christ and were “natural” men, unable to discern the spiritual blessings coming under the new covenant creation. They and their system of power and authority were going to “pass away.”
Many exegetes are correct to point out that Paul combines the “things” of Isaiah 64:4 with the coming inheritance of the new creation of Isaiah 65:17 in this OT echo. Paul in verses 10-14 teaches that the natural man could not accept these new covenant or new creation “things” that were being revealed by the Spirit because these were “spiritual truths.” The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit, the new birth or God’s people becoming a spiritual “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17/Isa. 65). The inheritance of the “things” of the new creation of Isaiah 65 were “about to be” received or inherited by the new covenant body of the Church while the rulers of the old covenant “this age” were going to pass away.
2). “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly/natural, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James. 3:15).
When was the harvest of judgment and righteousness coming?
“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door” (Jms. 5:7-9)
The rich professing Christians were causing division and persecuting the poor Christians in the Church. Some Christians were even getting caught up into natural/earthly thinking that was demonic and from below, not from new covenant living which was “from above.” It was important for true Christians to live out their new covenant faith and thus demonstrate that their faith was genuine and without hypocrisy, because the Judge was “at the door” and “at hand.” Those who were natural/earthy were like grass and a flower that would soon be burned up or pass away while others would inherit the crown of life (eternal life) at Christ’s imminent coming in AD 70 (James. 1:11-12/5:7-9; 1 Pet. 1:24/4:5-7, 17/2 Pet. 3).
3). “It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly/carnal/earthy people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (Jude 1:19-21).
Judaizers are here described as “carnal” false teachers seeking to place believers back under the Law. 1 Enoch and other Dead Sea Scroll documents predicted that the end of the age judgment of Satan, the Watchers and the wicked would take place in the first century and by AD 70 just as the teachings of Jesus and the NT developed. Very similar to what we just saw in the book of James, being “carnal” or “worldly” has nothing to do with the physical flesh of man, but being corrupted inwardly with sin and being “devoid of the Spirit.”
Earthy v Heavenly
The Greek word for “earthy” is only used by Paul here in 1 Corinthians 15:47, 48, 49. However, we can do a study of “heavenly” in the NT to understand what Paul is referring to.
1). “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water even the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above (or again).’ The wind5 blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So, it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things (Jn. 3:5-12)?”
Citizens of the old covenant kingdom were born by flesh and blood, sons of Abraham. But under the new covenant kingdom, one had to be “born from above” through the Spirit and faith in the Messiah/Jesus – “not of flesh and blood, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:11-13).
2). “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenlyplaces in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:4-10).
According to Paul, when would the coming age arrive or when would the full inheritance into this heavenly realm arrive?
“…not only in this age, but also in the one about to come” (Ephs. 1:21 WUESTNT).
For Paul, one could experience spiritual resurrection and be in “heavenly places” while being in a physical body. This spiritual existence would continue for the living in the new covenant “age about to” arrive in AD 70. So to be “heavenly” does not mean to undergo a biological change. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is teaching that the Church (comprised of the OT dead and the living) was in the process of being raised a “Spiritual Body.”
3). “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So, I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenlykingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim. 4:17-18).
Again, within the immediate context, when did Paul see full access into this “heavenly kingdom” to take place?
“I do fully testify, then, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to judge living and dead at his manifestation and his Kingdom/Reign…” (2 Tim. 4:1 YLT, BLB, LSV).
While Paul had been delivered by the lions of the Jewish persecution, as we have seen elsewhere in his writings and as time progressed, it was revealed to him that he would die and his life would be poured out (martyred). Even if Paul was alive, he understood that he was raised spiritually and currently in “heavenly places,” or if he were to die his soul was “about to” experience the inheritance of the “crown of life” (eternal life) and thus the “manifestation of His Kingdom” at Christ’s imminent coming. There’s no evidence here that to be raised in a spiritual body means to undergo a biological corpse resurrection.
4). “Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope” (Heb. 3:1-6).
“Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:23-28).
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:2224).
According to the writer of Hebrews, when would the “heavenly Jerusalem/City” arrive?
“For we have no permanent city here, but we are longing for the city which issoon to be ours” (Heb. 13:14 Weymouth New Testament, see also “one about to come” – Worrell NT; Worsley NT; Smith’s Literal Translation)
Through the “heavenly calling” of the gospel, biologically living Christians were already being raised and experiencing and tasting the heavenly realm and calling (having come to or among angels, Christ and the spirits of just men made perfect).
Moses was over a physical old covenant “house,” while Jesus was an administrator and trailblazer in perfecting the new covenant spiritual “house,” which is the body of Christ. In Hebrews 9-10 the spiritual new covenant body is depicted as the “second” (typified as the Most Holy Place house), and when Christ would come in “a very little while and would not delay” in AD 70, the “first” (the “present age” of the old covenant system, or typified as the Holy Place) would not be standing or have legal standing (Heb. 9:1—10:37). This is when the “heavenly Jerusalem/City” that was “soon” or “about to” come did come. Post AD 70, God has raised and filled His spiritual body or house / New Jerusalem / Most Holy Place with His presence (cf. Rev. 21:16—22:17). There was no biological fleshly change or resurrection for the saints to undergo to experience this “better resurrection” under the new covenant. Nor is Paul teaching that a biological resurrection of flesh is necessary to be raised a spiritual or heavenly body in 1 Corinthians 15.
The weakness of Flesh v. Power
1). “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 16:13-17).
The revelation of who Christ is, or entrance into Christ’s kingdom, is not something that the power of “flesh and blood” can achieve; it is only something God who is in heaven can grant.
2). “…who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
Again, under the old covenant kingdom, one was and could be born of the blood and flesh of Abraham, but under the new covenant kingdom one had to be “born of God”, “born from above,” and “born of the Spirit.” This was and is nothing the power of natural man (“flesh and blood”) can achieve.
3). “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh/anyone” (Gal. 1:11-16).
Neither “flesh” nor anyone can ultimately be said to bring one into the kingdom. It is solely the work of God and His grace. The power of any man/flesh cannot achieve or bring one into the kingdom ; it is a revelation and birth only God can grant.
Back to the Corporate Body Motif
David Green helps harmonize Paul’s corporate body motifs:
“To find Paul’s meaning, we need only find where in Scripture Paul elaborated on the doctrine of a human “body” that had to be sown/planted/entombed and concurrently put to death, in order that it could be made alive and changed in the resurrection of the dead. This takes us to Romans 6-8, Colossians 2, and Philippians 3.
In these Scriptures, especially in Romans 6, Paul teaches that believers had been bodily “planted,” through Spirit-baptism, into death / into the death of Christ, in order that the body that had been planted/buried (the “body of Sin,” the “mortal body,” the “body of Death,” the “body of the sins of the flesh,” the “vile body”) would be abolished / put to death, and then be made alive and changed/conformed to the image of the Son of God in the kingdom of heaven. Note the order: Burial then death.
This sequence in Romans 6 is exactly, step by step, what Paul teaches concerning the resurrection of the body in 1 Cor. 15:36-37 and its context. Romans 6-8 and 1 Corinthians 15 both speak of concurrent body-burial and body-death, followed by consummated body-death, body-resurrection, and body-change. Futurist assumptions notwithstanding, there is no doubt that 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 6-8 are speaking of the same burial, death, resurrection, and change—and therefore of the same body.
The Body
What then is “the body” that was being put to death in Romans 6-8 and 1 Corinthians 15? What is the meaning of the word “body” in these contexts?
Essentially, or basically, the “body” is the “self” or “person/ personality” or “individual,” whether that of a singular saint or of the singular church universal (the body of Christ).
According to definition 1b of the word σωμα (body) in Arndt and Gingrich’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word “body” in Paul’s writings is sometimes “almost synonymous with the whole personality . . . σώματα [bodies] =themselves.”
Note how that “body” and “yourselves” are used interchangeably in Romans 6:12-13:
Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members [of your mortal body] to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members [of your mortal body] as instruments of righteousness to God.
Compare also 1 Corinthians 6:15 and 12:27, where “you” and “your bodies” are synonymous:
. . . your bodies are members of Christ . . . . (1 Cor. 6:15)
. . . you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:27)
See also Ephesians 5:28, where a man’s body-union with his wife is equated with “himself”:
So, husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.
However, the word “body,” when it is used in reference to the eschatological resurrection, means more than merely the “self.” Paul is not using the word as a common reference to “the whole person.”
It does not refer to man’s anthropological wholeness (i.e. material body+soul+spirit=the body). Paul is using the word in a theological eschatological sense to describe God’s people as they are defined either by the wholeness/fullness (body) of Adamic Sin and Death or the wholeness/fullness (body) of Christ. The body is either the “person” united with Sin and Death, or the “person” united with Christ, whether individually or corporately.
We can begin to see this in Colossians 3:5 (KJV), where the body parts (members) of the Sin-body are not arms and legs or other physical limbs. The members of the “earthly body” were death-producing “deeds,” such as “fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness . . . ” (cf. Rom. 8:13). Thus, John Calvin wrote in his commentary on Romans 6:6:
“The body of sin . . . does not mean flesh and bones, but the corrupted mass . . . of sin.” Since a body is the sum of its parts, and since the parts of the Sinbody are sins/sinful deeds, it follows that “the body of Sin” is not the physical aspect of man.
Instead, the whole of the sins/deeds of the body equals the body of Sin. Or more accurately, the body of Sin was God’s people as they were identified with and defined by the Sin-reviving, Sin-increasing, Death-producing world of the Law.
When Paul said that believers were no longer walking according to “the flesh” (Rom. 8:1, 4, 9), he was saying that believers were putting to death the deeds of the “body” (Rom. 8:10-11, 13). The parts/members of the body equaled the deeds of “the body,” which equaled the walk of “the flesh.” “Flesh” and “body” in this context, therefore, describe man as he was defined by Sin, not man as he was defined by material body parts.
In Colossians 2:11, Paul said that God had buried believers with Christ, raised them up with Him, and had removed “the body of the flesh.” “The body of the flesh” was not the physical body. It was the Adamic man/self/person that had been dead in transgressions and in the spiritual uncircumcision of his “flesh” (Col. 2:13). That “body” (or as Ridderbos puts it, that “sinful mode of existence”) had been “removed” in Christ and was soon to be changed into the glorious, resurrected “body” of Christ.
As a comparison of Colossians 2:11 and Colossians 3:9 reveals, “the body” of Sin is virtually synonymous with “the old man”:
. . . the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh . . . . (Col. 2:11) . . . having put off the old man with his practices (Col. 3:9; cf. Eph. 4:22) Compare also 1 Corinthians 15:42 with Ephesians 4:22:
[The body] is sown in corruption . . . . (1 Cor. 15:42)
. . . the old man being corrupted . . . . (Eph. 4:22)
Compare also the references to “man” and “body” in Romans 7:24:
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of Death?
And in Romans 6:6,
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Rom. 6:6) And in 1 Corinthians 15:44, 45:
. . . There is a natural body [the old man], and there is a spiritual body [the new Man]. And so it is written, the first [old] man [the natural body] Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [the last Man, the spiritual body] a quickening spirit.
Since the natural body is nearly synonymous with the old man, we should expect that the spiritual body is nearly synonymous with “the new man,” the Lord Jesus Christ. Compare 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 with Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10 and Romans 13:14:
For this perishable [body] must put on the imperishable [body] . . . . (1 Cor. 15:53-54)
and put on the new man [the spiritual body], which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Eph. 4:24) and have put on the new man [the spiritual body] who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. (Col. 3:10)
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ [the new man, the spiritual body], and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. (Rom. 13:14)
As most futurists agree, “the old man” and “the new man” are not expressions that describe man in terms of physicality. “The old man” was man as he was in Adam, alienated from God and dead in Sin. He was “the body of Sin.” The new Man is man as he is reconciled to God in Christ, the lifegiving Spiritual Body.”[19]
The Eschatological Mystery
Elsewhere in Paul’s teaching on God’s “mystery,” he demonstrates how the OT predicted (and the NT revelatory gifts developed) the Jew / Gentile unity in the body of Christ. Here, Paul is demonstrating how the living will be changed and raised with “all” the dead (including the OT dead) together – into the ONE raised and glorified Body of Christ.
The Trumpet Change
While no one disputes that Paul’s trumpet change here is the same trumpet catching away in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Partial Preterists object that it is somehow different than Jesus’ trumpet gathering at His Parousia in Matthew 24:27-31. Of course, this is pure eisegesis on their part and a failure to harmonize Jesus’ eschatology with Paul’s, as previously demonstrated. While we agree that the coming of Christ in Matthew 24-25 was fulfilled spiritually in AD 70, we disagree with Partial Preterists such as Gary DeMar and Keith Mathison and their un-creedal and unorthodox position that Matthew 24-25 is not the “actual” Second Coming event, and we disagree with their error that Matthew 24-25 is not the same Parousia and resurrection event as described for us in 1 Corinthians 15!
Paul is in harmony with Jesus when he says that not everyone in his contemporary audience would die before experiencing Christ’s Second Coming trumpet change/gathering into the kingdom (Mt. 16:27-28; 24:30-34/Lk. 21:27-32).
The living would be “changed” not in their physical biologicalsubstance, but rather in their covenantal stance before God. The Adamic and old covenant body of death was natural, weak, mortal, and subject to being perishable. It needed to be clothed and changed by the heavenly man.
The trumpet call at Christ’s Parousia here is fulfilling multiple OT concepts. It is the trumpet blown at the wedding in Jewish culture that I have discussed in Matthew 24-25.
Jesus has already been described as the “first fruits,” so we also have the trumpet being blown to fulfill the first fruits of the harvest / resurrection motif or Succot (the feast of harvest).
The blowing the trumpet here also fulfills the typological ceremonial law or the feast of the new moon festival or the feast of trumpets.274 These last three feasts that were in the ceremonial law had already broken into Paul’s “already and not yet” eschaton in Colossians 2-3 and Hebrews 9-12, and they are present here in 1 Corinthians 15 as well. Again, if the trumpet call and resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 hasn’t been fulfilled and the OT Mosaic “the law” (v. 55-56) hasn’t been fulfilled, then the Church remains under “every jot and tittle” of the OT Mosaic Law today (Mt. 5:1719). One cannot posit the end and fulfillment of all of the ceremonial law to be fulfilled at the cross or Pentecost, because the ceremonial feast days composed the entire structure and function for Israel’s calendar year. There were three more to be fulfilled post-Pentecost. According to Paul in Colossians and the writer to the Hebrews, those ceremonial type-and-shadow ceremonial laws and feasts were “about to be” fulfilled at Christ’s “in a very little while and will not delay” Second Coming (Cols. 2-3; Heb. 9-10:37).
The Perishable to be Clothed with Imperishable – the Mortal with Immortality & 2 Cor. 3-6
Paul is not describing an individual’s biological body as being “perishable” and “mortal,” but rather the Adamic and Mosaic corporate body as “perishable” and “mortal” needing to be “clothed.” To better understand Paul here, again it is important to let him interpret himself.
In 2 Corinthians 3-6 Paul contrasts the glories of the old covenant and new covenant with two houses/temples. In 2 Corinthians 4 the resurrection is in view (vss. 13-14) and closes by expressing that this hope is not grounded on things which can be seen (that are physical and temporal), but on things that cannot be seen (that are spiritual and eternal) (v. 18). The “earthly tent/house/temple” in 5:1 that would be destroyed is the corporate old covenant temple/house/system, and the spiritual “heavenly dwelling/temple/house” is the corporate new covenant system. Their groaning for this house to be revealed from heaven to clothe them is realized in an AD 70 “soon” and “shortly” time frame in the form of the glorified New Jerusalem (which is the corporate body of the Church) coming down from heaven to earth in Revelation 2122. The NIV correctly captures the “already and not yet” of the New Jerusalem already being in the process of coming down (cf. Rev. 3:12). This already and not yet process is in harmony with the eschatological Pauline process of putting on Christ, being transformed into the image of Christ, dying and rising, looking at God’s face spiritually in a dim glass or mirror, a boy maturing into manhood, and here in 1 Corinthians 15 being sown and rising into a spiritual body.
For a good discussion on the present tense found in 1 Corinthians 15 as well as seeing how this chapter fulfills the last three feast days of Israel, see Don K. Preston, Paul on Trial, PAUL THE PHARISEES AND RESURRECTION (JanDon, 1405 4th Ave. N.W. #109, Ardmore, OK. 73401, 2020), 95f.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:16 further elaborates that the new covenant temple promised in Ezekiel 37:27 (and thus that of 40-47) is the corporate body of the Church. So the corporate and covenantal context between 2 Corinthians 3 extends to chapter 6:16.
The “groaning” to be further clothed in 2 Corinthians 5:2ff., which correlates to the clothing resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15, is the “groaning” and AD 70 imminent “about to be revealing” of God’s glory within the Church, which in context results in the full adoption of sons, the liberation of creation (of God’s people) and the “redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:18-23YLT).
As we have seen, Gary DeMar admits that the Greek word mello in Romans 8:18YLT should be translated as “about to be” and was fulfilled in AD 70. But to admit this is to admit that the events of 18-23 were also fulfilled in AD 70. Lightfoot correctly observed that the “redemption of the BODY” is the corporate body of Christ as in Ephesians 4:13. Of course we agree that there was a corporate bodily change that was “about to be” fulfilled according to Paul, and that was a transformation from groaning in, and being under, the Adamic/Mosaic body of death to be liberated and raised into the glorious and redeemed body of Christ at Christ’s coming in AD 70.
Paul’s OT Echo’s – Hosea 13 / Isaiah 25
As there is a movement within the Reformed and Evangelical community that seeks to develop Paul’s Hebraic corporate body origins, which is beginning to see what Full Preterists have seen for the last 30 years, there is also a movement led by Richard Hayes which emphasizes developing the OT context of an OT reference or echo mentioned in the NT. For example, Hayes writes,
“Thematic Coherence: How well does the alleged echo fit into the line of argument that Paul is developing? Does the proposed precursor text fit together with the point Paul is making? Can one see in Paul’s use of the material a coherent ‘reading’ of the source text? Is his use of the Isaiah texts consonant with his overall argument and/or use made of other texts?”[20]
And,
“Satisfaction: Does the proposed intertextual reading illuminate the surrounding discourse and make some larger sense of Paul’s argument as a whole? ‘…A proposed intertextual reading fulfills the test of satisfaction when we find ourselves saying, “Oh, so that is what Paul means here in passage x; and furthermore, if that’s right, then we can begin to understand what he means in passage y and why he uses these certain words in that place.”’”[21]
In other words, one is encouraged to find and develop as many similarities between that OT original context and the context and flow of the NT author in order to understand how he is using it. Therefore, it is important to examine what kind of bodily death and resurrection are taking place in Hosea 13 and in Isaiah’s little apocalypse (Isaiah 24-28), to help understand Paul’s use of them in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55. This will help us understand the kind of bodily resurrection Paul has in mind.
Isaiah 24-28 – Isaiah’s Little Apocalypse
Due to Israel breaking her old covenant Mosaic law (primarily for persecuting and putting to death their poor brethren – the sin of blood guilt), Israel’s covenantal world undergoes an apocalyptic de-creation and shaking process and she corporately and spiritually dies in the form of being ruled over by Gentile leaders. Through captivity and bondage, Babylon scattered her outside of her land. When Israel repents and is gathered back into the land, she undergoes a spiritual, corporate and covenantal resurrection as described in Ezekiel 37.
In other words, Israel is a corporate Adam, and just as when Adam broke Edenic covenantal law and died a spiritual covenantal death, resulting in him being scattered from God’s presence (the garden/temple), so too when Israel broke covenant she underwent a covenantal spiritual death that resulted in her being scattered from God’s presence away from her temple and land.
The time of the eschatological wedding is the time of the resurrection (Isa. 25:6-8) and Jesus identifies the time of the wedding as taking place when the Roman armies would judge and burn Jerusalem, or within the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” (Mt. 22:1-14; Mt. 24:27-34—25:1-13).
Paul’s other reference to Isaiah is his trumpet change which takes place at Christ’s Parousia, bringing about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:23, 52. This is the trumpet gathering of Isaiah 27:12-13. And, again, this is the OT echo and foundation to the trumpet gathering and trumpet catching away of Matthew 24:30-31 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 that would take place in the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation,” which Paul taught (under inspiration) and thus expected his first century “we” audience to experience.
Hosea
Hosea’s context is clear enough as well. Due to Israel’s spiritual adultery with Baal and breaking their old covenant law, God gave Israel a certificate of divorcement. The corporate body of Israel breaking the old covenant law resulted not only in a divorce, but it is also described as Israel dying a covenantal and spiritual death. This death is described as God sowing Israel as a seed into the Gentile lands throughout the Assyrian Empire. Once again, we see the same kind of corporate covenantal death that came through Adam and Israel when they broke covenant and became spiritually dead and scattered/separated from God’s presence.
But Israel would once again be betrothed and married to God in her “last days.” The “last days” are the last days of the old covenant age which ended in AD 70 and is consistent with the “this generation” coming of Christ that results in the eschatological wedding / marriage that takes place in the OT.
Simply put, there is no biological casket resurrection that takes place at the end of world history found in Hosea or Isaiah, which Paul uses as his source for the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. The parallels are a spiritual corporate and covenantal resurrection, not an individual biological resurrection. This is consistent with what we have seen earlier when harmonizing Paul with Paul in Romans 5-8 and 1 Corinthians 15.
Victory Over the Mosaic OC “the Law” = Victory Over “the Sin” and “the Death”
Some commentators not only puzzle over the present tense of “the death” in the process of “being destroyed” in Paul’s day, but they also puzzle over his reference to the old covenant Mosaic “the law” thrown in with the timing of victory over “the sin” and “the death.” These last two references seem to correlate well with the resurrection, but what does the Mosaic old covenant “the law” have to do with it, especially since most Futurists see the old covenant Mosaic law being done away with at the cross or possibly by AD 70?
However, there is no problem for the Full Preterist who correctly sees the resurrection as “about to” take place in Paul’s day, bringing an end to the old covenant’s “this age” at Christ’s “this generation” Parousia (Acts 24:15YLT; Mt. 13:39-43; Mt. 24:27-31, 34). When it came to Paul’s teaching on the resurrection before his accusers, he claimed he wasn’t teaching anything that couldn’t be found in the law and prophets – and Hosea 13 / Isaiah 25 / Daniel 12 are resurrection passages contained in the old covenant “the law” and prophets which Jesus said would be fulfilled in the AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” (cf. Lk. 21:22, 32). Jesus does not posit the old covenant “heaven and earth” of the law and prophets to be fulfilled at the cross, but rather in His generation (Mt. 5:17-18 / Mt. 24:34-35). This is when it was all fulfilled and when that heaven and earth system “soon vanished” (Heb. 8:13).
Death would be swallowed up, and victory over its sting would only be accomplished when victory over “the law” was attained. This was brought to fruition at Christ’s first century generation Parousia that closed and fulfilled the promises contained in the Mosaic old covenant age of “the law.”
Concluding 1 Corinthians 15
After a careful examination of Paul’s modus tollens logical form of argumenta-tion, it becomes evident that deniers of the resurrection of the dead were not denying Christ’s resurrection or those Christians who had died “in Christ” (the new covenant side of the cross). They could hardly be considered as Christians or saints for denying Christ’s resurrection. They were in effect denying resurrection to a specific group – the old covenant dead, whom they assumed they had replaced or were not a part of the new covenant body of Christ as they were.
As we have seen, the parallels between Matthew 24 and 1 Corinthians 15 demonstrate that an AD 30 – AD 70 “this generation” and contemporary first century “we” expectation of the Parousia and resurrection was realized and fulfilled in AD 70.
When we allowed Paul to interpret himself (using Romans 5-8), we came to a Scriptural understanding of “the [corporate] body” that was in the process of concurrently dying and rising (present tense) and was “about to be” redeemed. The corporate and covenantal context and transformation of the temple/body of 2 Corinthians 3-6 also helped us understand what kind of body the early church was “clothed” with (and continues to be clothed with) at Christ’s Parousia in AD 70 and beyond.
The examination of Paul’s OT texts (Isa. 25 & Hos. 13) to support His resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 were found to have nothing to do with a casket resurrection of individual biological corpses. Rather, the cohesiveness and harmony for using those OT texts for Paul was to develop a spiritual, corporate and covenantal resurrection to close the old covenant age in AD 70 at Christ’s ONE imminent Parousia.
When victory over the Mosaic old covenant “the law” came, then victory and resurrection over “the sin” and “the death” was realized. Victory over the old covenant “the law” was realized when all of its promises were fulfilled and/or its “heaven and earth” soon passed away in AD 70 (Lk. 21:22-32; Mt. 5:17-18; Heb. 8:13; 9:26-28; 10:37).
“Orthodox” Postmillennial Partial Preterism teaches that there was a progressive, spiritual, corporate, covenantal resurrection for Israel and the Church between AD 30 – AD 70 which resulted in souls being raised out from the realm of the dead into God’s presence at the Parousia of Christ in AD 70 (per Dan. 12:1-7,13 and other texts). As we have seen, THIS IS THE resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15! Selah.
Individual Body and Corporate Body
When we read 1 Corinthians 15 or 2 Corinthians 5, it sounds very much like Paul is describing a spiritual individual body as the ONE corporate body of Christ, the
Church. And to a degree, I think that is what he is doing. When one died prior to AD 70, we learn that his soul was gathered back to God who created it (Eccl. 12:7). Because Christ had not come, even righteous men were separated from God in Abraham’s bosom or Hades. In this state, they were not shadows or ghosts, but had individual, spiritual bodies that reflected the images they had here on earth. God allowed Samuel’s soul to be disturbed and come up to visit Saul in 1 Samuel 28:1120. Here we see that Samuel’s soul/spirit had a body that resembled the body and appearance he had while on earth.
We often speak of our aging relatives on their death beds with language such as, “Grandma is in ‘her last days’; get a flight out here quickly!” Or “come quickly and say your goodbyes, because ‘grandpa is fading away quickly’ or ‘passing away quickly.’” We realize that there is a transition and transformation that takes place at biological death where the temporal shell of our body goes back to the earth and our spirit or soul (our essence – personality, memories, volition, etc.) receives a different form and can continue in that form forever. In a similar way, the old covenant man/kingdom was never designed to live on this earth forever. He was temporal and would at some point enter into his “last days” and “soon vanish,” but at the same time would experience a change or transformation into another form, a spiritual one fit for eternity. God’s kingdom is now a kingdom of heaven “not of this world” and we are blessed to be in it. When we die on this side of Christ’s Second Coming in AD 70 and the end of the old covenant age, we are blessed to experience this eternal life separated from the distractions of life here on earth. We will have a spiritual body that is recognizable, and will forever live in His majestic presence.
Before leaving the subject of the resurrection, many Futurists have taken 2 Timothy 2:17-18 out of context in order to try and condemn Full Preterism as “heretical.” Therefore, before leaving this subject, we should address this crucial passage.
2 Timothy 2:17–18
“…and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:17-18).
Without 2 Timothy 2:17–18, the Futurist doesn’t have a biblical leg to stand on in his condemnation of Full Preterists.
Far from being an anti-preterist passage, 2 Timothy 2:17–18 is actually a condemnation of the implications of Futurism. Allow me to explain. First of all, Hymenaeus and Philetus were Judaizers. They were of a class of deceivers who taught Jewish “myths” and “genealogies” (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 1:4), and were selfappointed “teachers of the Law” (1 Tim. 1:7). They taught believers to abstain from foods (1 Tim. 4:3), no doubt using the Levitical dietary laws as a basis for their teaching.
It is because Hymenaeus and Philetus were Judaizers that Paul compared them to “Jannes and Jambres” (2 Tim. 3:8). According to ancient historians, Jannes and Jambres were Egyptian magicians who challenged Moses’ authority in Egypt. Like Jannes and Jambres, Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching the strange doctrines of “Egypt” (Rev. 11:8), and were challenging Paul’s gospel-authority, attempting to deceive Christians into believing that God’s new wine (the new covenant land of promise) could be contained within the old “Egyptian” wineskins of the old covenant world.
Likewise, in 2 Timothy 2:19, Paul connects Hymenaeus and Philetus to the rebellion of Korah in Numbers 16:5, 26.[22] Korah had led hundreds of the sons of Israel to challenge Moses’ authority. As God had destroyed Korah and his followers in the wilderness, so God was “about to judge” (2 Timothy 4:1) and destroy the Judaizers, Hymenaeus and Philetus, and others like them (cf. Heb. 3:16–19).
According to the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus, because Jerusalem and the temple still stood (in about AD 67) after the resurrection had allegedly already taken place, it irresistibly followed that “the sons according to the flesh” were now the heirs of the eternal kingdom and that Paul’s Jew-Gentile gospel of grace was a lie. The blasphemous error of Hymenaeus and Philetus was that the world of the Mosaic covenant would remain forever established after the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets had taken place and the new heavens and new earth (“the resurrection”) had arrived.
This “Hymenaean” heresy is the diametric opposite of Full Preterism. According to Preterism, the old covenant came to an eternal and irrevocable termination in “the resurrection,” when all things were fulfilled in AD 70. There is absolutely no theological connection between Preterism and Hymenaeus’ blasphemous lie of an everlasting “ministration of death.”
However, there is a clear connection between the heresy of Hymenaeus and the implications of Futurism: If “the Law and the Prophets” are not fulfilled today, and “heaven and earth” have not passed away, and the jots and tittles of the Law have not passed away, and all things are not yet fulfilled, as futurism says, then logically and scripturally the Law of Moses remains “imposed” to this day (Matt. 5:17–19; Heb. 8:13; 9:10). This implication of Futurism is exactly what the Judaizers, Hymenaeus and Philetus, taught when they said the resurrection was already past in AD 67.
It is also interesting how Paul’s apologetic against Hymenaeus and Philetus is similar to that of those in Thessalonica who were teaching that the Day of the Lord had “already” happened (2 Thess. 2:3). Notice Paul says nothing like our opponents try and reason against us, such as,
“How in the world could you believe anyone teaching that the Second Coming and resurrection have already been fulfilled in AD 70?!? Just look around. We are still here, so the rapture hasn’t taken place, has it? Corpses are still in the graveyards, aren’t they? The planet hasn’t been burned up and everything isn’t perfect yet, is it? So how in the world could you believe the Second Coming and resurrection has already been fulfilled or is a past event?”
Futurists constantly feel that these “just look around; there’s no physical manifestations of the kingdom” type “arguments” are their first and best appeals at refuting Full Preterism and yet Paul never used them. Why? Because Paul was a Full Preterist and understood that the Second Coming and resurrection were spiritual and unseen events and that they were “about to be” fulfilled in his future. Paul had no beef with those teaching that these were spiritual events. He just refuted the timing of their teaching (AD 70 and the destruction of the temple were still future to Paul and his audience) and their connections with the heresy of the Judaizers seeking to usurp his authority and the Torah-free gospel he preached.
[1] Rev. Dr. A. Cohen, Everyman’s TALMUD, (New York: E.P. DUTTON & CO., INC., 1949), 361-362
[2] quotes taken from: Curtis Crenshaw and Grove Gunn, Dispensationalism Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, 204
[5] Wuest, K. S. (1997). The New Testament: An expanded translation (1 Co 15:20–28). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
[6] Gordon D. Fee, THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans pub., 1987), 756
[7] Thiselton, A. C. (2000). The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A commentary on the Greek text (1234).
Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, emphasis MJS
[8] Holland, Ibid., see 90 – 107 for this discussion
[9] Don K. Preston, 2005, 2712 Mt. Washington Rd. Ardmore, Ok.
[10] Keith A. Mathison, co-authored book, WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE? A REFORMED
RESPONSE TO HYPER-PRETERISM, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 196
[11] Tom Holland, CONTOURS OF PAULINE THEOLOGY A RADICAL NEW SURVEY OF THE INFLUENCE ON PAUL’S BIBLICAL WRITINGS, (Mentor Imprint, Scotland, UK: 2004), 90, emphasis MJS.
[22] William Hendriksen; Simon J. Kistemaker: New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 268.
