1 Corinthians 15:21,22

1 Corinthians 15:21-22 explain the identification of the risen Christ with those sleeping in death, which was assumed by the word ἀπαρχή. It rests on the fact that Christ is the antitype of Adam, the medium of life to the race as Adam was of death. This parl [2338] is resumed in 1 Corinthians 15:46 ff., where it is applied to the nature of the resurrection body, as here to the universallty of the resurrection. These two passages form the complement of Romans 5:12-21; the antithesis of Adam and Christ who represent flesh, trespass, death and spirit, righteousness, life respectively is thus extended over the entire career of the race viewed as a history of sin and redemption. “For since through man (there is) death, through man also (there is) a resurrection of the dead”: διʼ ἀνθρώπου, “through a man (qua man)” through human means or mediation. For ἐπειδὴ, quandoquidem (Cv [2339]), see 1 Corinthians 1:21 f.; the first fact necessitated and shaped the second: man was the channel conveying death to his kind (Romans 5:12), through the same channel the counter current must flow (Romans 5:15, etc.). This goes deeper than ἀπαρχή; Christ is the ἀρχή, the principle and root of resurrection life (Colossians 1:18). “ Through man” implies that Death is not, as philosophy supposed, a law of finite being or a necessity of fate; it is an event of history, a calamity brought by man upon himself and capable of removal by the like means. ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ κ. τ. λ.: “For just as in the Adam all die, so also in the Christ all will be made alive”. The foregoing double διʼ ἀνθρώπου opens out into “the (representative) Adam and Christ” the natural and spiritual, earthly and heavenly counterparts (1 Corinthians 15:45 ff.), the two types and founders of humanity, paralleled by ὥσπερ … καὶ οὕτως (cf. Romans 5:12 ff.). The stress of the comparison does not lie on πάντες, as though the Ap. meant to say that “ all (men)” will rise in Christ as certainly as they die in Adam (so, with variations, Or [2340], Cm [2341], Cv [2342], Mr [2343], Gd [2344], Sm [2345], El [2346], referring to John 5:28 f., Acts 24:15): says Bt [2347] says, the absence of ἄνθρωποι tells against such ref [2348] to the race (contrast Romans 5:12; Romans 5:18), also the use of ζωοποιέω (see below). The point is that as death in all cases is grounded in Adam, so life in all cases is grounded in Christ (cf. John 6:53; John 11:25) no death without the one, no life without the other (Aug [2349], Bg [2350], Hf [2351], Ed [2352], Hn [2353], Bt [2354]). πάντες = οἱ πολλοί (Romans 5:18 f.), as set in contrast with ὁ εἷς ἄνθρωπος. Ζωοποίεω is narrower in extension than ἐγείρω (1 Corinthians 15:20), since the latter applies to every one raised from the grave (1 Corinthians 15:15 f., 1 Corinthians 15:35); wider in intension, as it imports not the mere raising of the body, but restoration to “life” in the full sense of the term (Hf [2355]; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45; Romans 6:8; Romans 8:11; John 5:21; John 6:63), an ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς (John 5:29). A firm and broad basis is now shown to exist for the solidarity between Christ and the holy dead (οἱ κεκοιμημένοι) affirmed in 1 Corinthians 15:20.

[2338] parallel.

[2339] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[2340] Origen.

[2341] John Chrysostom's Homiliœ († 407).

[2342] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[2343] Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[2344] F. Godet's Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[2345] P. Schmiedel, in Handcommentar zum N.T. (1893).

[2346] C. J. Ellicott's St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.

[2347] J. A. Beet's St. Paul's Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).

[2348] reference.

[2349] Augustine.

[2350] Bengel's Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

[2351] J. C. K. von Hofmann's Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht, ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).

[2352] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

[2353] C. F. G. Heinrici's Erklärung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer's krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).

[2354] J. A. Beet's St. Paul's Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).

[2355] J. C. K. von Hofmann's Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht, ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).