1 Corinthians 15:1,2

“Moreover, brethren, I make known unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein also ye stand; 2. by which, also, ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”

There is something surprising in the term γνωρίζω, I make known to you, for in the immediately following words Paul declares that the gospel he is about to expound to them, he preached to them, and they themselves received and held it. This, however, is not a sufficient reason for abandoning the natural meaning of the verb, and making it signify, as some do: “I remind you...,” or with others: “I call your attention to...” Some (Bengel, Ewald, Heinrici, etc.) think that we have a construction similar to that of 1 Corinthians 3:20, or Galatians 1:11: “I make known to you the gospel..., in what way I preached it to you (τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην..., 1 Corinthians 15:2),” meaning: “I make known to you in what way I preached to you the gospel.” But the contradiction between making known and having preached remains all the same, though the first term should apply to the form and not to the substance. If the Corinthians had heard Paul, and believed through his ministry, they must have known both the substance and form of his preaching. Hofmann seeks the solution in the special sense he gives to τίνι λόγῳ : “In what thought, that is to say, with what aim, I preached to you.” The apostle's intention in preaching to them was, according to this critic, to show them by the resurrection of Christ that salvation is for us, as for him, a principle of glorification. But how is it possible to read all this in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 Paul would easily have succeeded in expressing this thought more clearly if it had really been his. It seems to me, as to Holsten, that the word: I declare to you, is chosen with the intention of humiliating the readers. Paul wishes to bring out by the intentional contradiction between this term and those which follow: “I preached, you received, you stand fast,” the corruption which has been introduced among them of the conception of salvation, to the extent of transforming the meaning of the message he had brought them, so as to make it a wholly different thing, though outwardly speaking they remained faithful to it. Thus is explained the somewhat strange form of the τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισαμην, 1 Corinthians 15:2. Meyer and Holsten seem to me to hold, as to this proposition, the only possible construction, by making it depend, not on σώζεσθε, ye are saved, but on κατέχετε, keep in memory: “If you firmly keep in mind how I preached it to you (the gospel).” There is an inversion, as so often in Paul (1 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 7:17; 1 Corinthians 14:12, etc.), and that with the view of bringing out clearly the whole dependent proposition which is the object of κατέχετε : “If, in the sense in which I preached it to you (the gospel), you hold it firmly.” They run no risk of denying Christianity, but of abandoning the true sense in which they received it from Paul, and in which it can preserve its saving power. And this is why Paul is obliged to make, as it were, a new communication of it to them. There is between the verb γνωρίζειν, to make known, and εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, to preach, this difference: that the second indicates the simple statement of the historical fact, and the first embraces the explanation of its full meaning and its relation to salvation as a whole.

The two καί, also, which follow one another, clearly indicate a gradation. To preaching succeeded the acceptance of faith; to this, perseverance in profession.

Vv. 2. But this acceptance and profession are not yet salvation itself. There is needed the κατέχειν, the act of keeping in mind and keeping well. This is why Paul adds: “whereby also you are put in possession of salvation, if you hold it as I have taught it to you.” The word λόγος here denotes the exact meaning Paul had given to the facts here related. Faith should grasp not only the fact, but also the Divine thought realized in the fact.

The pronoun of direct interrogation, τίνι, is designedly used instead of the relative pronoun ᾧ : “If you keep in mind in what way...,” instead of: “If you keep in mind the manner in which...” The first form is more suited to express a qualification. Paul alludes in this τίνι to a variety of conceptions as to the facts of salvation.

But why to this first restriction: if you keep in mind, does he add a second: at least unless you believed in vain? The former bears on the subjective perseverance of the Corinthians to keep the true meaning of the facts of salvation; the latter bears on the objective reality of the facts themselves. Salvation by faith in Christ crucified and risen is impossible except as this Christ crucified and risen is a reality. Now there is a supposition on which constant faith in Him, as Paul preached Him, would not save, viz. that Christ did not exist. This supposition, revolting as it is to the Christian conscience, Paul nevertheless expresses, and seems to take in earnest in the following demonstration; and in the minds of many certainty as to the Divine facts, and of the resurrection in particular, must evidently have been shaken.

As to the form ἐκτὸς εἰ μή, see on 1 Corinthians 14:5. The word εἰκῆ, in vain, may signify: without foundation, without sufficient reason, as in Matthew 5:22 and Colossians 2:18. But ordinarily it signifies without result, without effect, as in the classical expression εἰκῆ βάλλειν, to throw an arrow which does not hit; comp. Romans 13:4; Galatians 3:4; Galatians 4:11. In the former sense: “unless you believed in a pure fable” (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). In the latter: “unless your faith remains without effect (because its object is nothing real).” Substantially the two meanings come to the same.

The apostle had (1 Corinthians 11:2) praised the Corinthians for maintaining the ecclesiastical institutions which he had given them; he is evidently careful not to say as much here in regard to their keeping of his doctrinal traditions. And now he sets himself to expound to them the whole doctrine of the resurrection which he had declared to them, and he begins by reminding them, 1 Corinthians 15:3-11, of that whole series of irrefutable testimonies on which faith in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus rests, the fact which forms the foundation of that which he wishes to develop.