1 Corinthians 15:55-57

At this climax P. breaks into a song of triumph over Death, in the strain of Hosea's rapturous anticipation of Israel's resurrection from national death. [Many interpreters, however, put the opp [2574] sense on Hosea 13:14, as though God were summoning Death and the Grave to ply all their forces for Israel's annihilation, and this accords with the prophet's context; but violent alterations of mood are characteristic of Hosea: see Nowack ad loc [2575] in Handkom. z. A.T., also Orelli's Minor Prophets, or Cheyne in C.B.S.] The passage has the Hebraistic lilt of Paul's more exalted passages; cf. 1 Corinthians 13:4 ff., and parls. there noted.

[2574] opposite, opposition.

[2575] ad locum, on this passage.

“Where, O Death, is thy victory?

Where, O Death, is thy sting?

Now the sting of Death is Sin, and the strength of Sin is the Law;

But to God be thanks, who gives to as the victory

Through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

P. freely adapts the words of Hosea, repeating θάνατε in the second line, where Hosea writes sh e 'ô! (LXX ᾅδη), since death is the enemy he pursues throughout (Ed [2576] notes that ᾅδης never occurs in Paul's Epp.); and he substitutes syn [2577] terms for each of the other nouns to suit his own vein, νῖκος being taken up from 1 Corinthians 15:54, and κέντρον preparing for the thought of 1 Corinthians 15:56. f1τὸ δὲ κέντρον κ. τ. λ. throws into an epigram the doctrine of Romans 4:8. and Galatians 3 respecting the inter-relations of Sin, Law, and Death: “Mors aculeum quo pungat non habet nisi peccatum; et huic aculeo Lex vim mortiferam addit” (Cv [2578]). Sin gives to death, as we mortals know it, its poignancy, its penal character and humiliating form, with the entire “bondage of corruption” that attaches to it: see esp. Romans 5:12; Romans 5:17; Romans 6:10; Romans 6:23; Romans 7:24; Romans 8:10; Romans 8:20 ff., Hebrews 2:14 f. Apart from sin, our present bodily existence must have terminated in the course of nature (1 Corinthians 15:44-46); but the change would have been effected in a far diff [2579] way, without the horror and anguish of dissolution as indeed it will be for the redeemed who have the happiness to be alive at the Second Advent (see 51 f., and parls.). For those who “fall asleep in Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:18; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:14), death, while it is still death and naturally feared (οὐ θέλομεν ἐκδύσασθαι, 2 Corinthians 5:4), is robbed of its “sting” (cf. 1 John 4:18, also John 5:24; John 8:51 f., 1 Corinthians 11:25 f., 2 Timothy 1:10; Revelation 20:6), viz., the sense of guilt and dread of judgment “tametsi adhuc nos pungit, non tamen letaliter, quia retusum est ejus acumen, ne in animæ vitalia penetret” (Cv [2580]). κέντρον is sting (as in Revelation 9:10), not goad (as in Acts 26:14); Death is personified as a venomous creature, inflicting poisoned and fatal wounds. Here Death reigns through Sin, as in Romans 5:17; Romans 5:21 pictures Sin reigning in Death: the effect through the cause, the cause in the effect. While Death gets from Sin its sting, Sin in turn receives from the Law its power. ἡ δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ νόμος condenses into six words Paul's teaching on the relation of Sin to Law (see Romans 4:15; Romans 5:20; Romans 6:14; Romans 6:7; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3; Galatians 4:21 to Galatians 5:4) the view, based on his experience as a Pharisee, that the law of God, imposing on sinful man impossible yet necessary tasks, promising salvation upon terms he can never fulfil and threatening death upon non-fulfilment, in effect exasperates his sin and involves him in hopeless guilt; ἡ ἁμαρτία … διὰ τ. ἐντολῆς … με ἀπέκτεινεν (Romans 7:11). The exclamation of relief, “Thanks be to God, etc.,” is precisely parl [2581] to Romans 7:25 a, 1 Corinthians 8:1 f. The believer's “victory” lies in deliverance through Christ's propitiatory death (Romans 3:23 f.; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:17 f., 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Corinthians 6:11 above) from the condemnation of the Law, and thereby from “the power of Sin,” and thereby from the bitterness of Death. Law, Sin, and Death were bound into a firm chain, only dissoluble by “the word of the cross God's power to the saved” (1 Corinthians 1:18; cf. Romans 1:16 f., 1 Corinthians 8:1 ff.). Thus the Ap. finally links his doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection and Transformation of Christians to his fundamental teaching as to Justification and the Forgiveness of Sins; ch. 15. is a part of the λόγος τ. σταυροῦ which alone P. proclaims at Cor [2582] (1 Corinthians 2:1 f.). God “ gives to us the victory,” won for us by “our Lord Jesus Christ,” which otherwise Sin, strengthened (instead of being broken) by the Law, had given to Death. The pr [2583] ptp [2584] τῷ διδόντι τὸ νῖκος asserts the experience of redemption (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2Co 5:21; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Romans 5:1 f., Ephesians 1:7); similarly ὑπερνικῶμεν, Romans 8:37, declares the continuous triumph of faith: for the sentiment, cf. Romans 5:2-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 ff., Philippians 4:4; 1 Peter 1:3-9.

[2576] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

[2577] synonym, synonymous.

[2578] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[2579] difference, different, differently.

[2580] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[2581] parallel.

[2582] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[2583] present tense.

[2584] participle