Part 1.2 (12-19) Denial
12. Now if Christ be proclaimed that he is risen from among the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
There were at Corinth those who believed the resurrection of Jesus, but denied all future resurrection.
Against these the apostle argues. Observe ! he is not proving the immortality of the soul. That was a philosophic doctrine; but God’s witness is, that the whole man shall be restored. As death severs the parts of man, so shall there be a time when the body and soul thus forcibly sundered shall be united again never more to be severed. Apostles do not testify to the appearance of a ghost or human spirit, as in the case of Samuel ; but to the reunion of the parts of Christ which at death were divided. After death His body was laid in the sepulchre: His soul went among the souls of the dead into the place appropriated to them. But He came forth out of the tomb once more a living man. He was recognized by His friends; they saw His face, heard His familiar voice, felt His body. The marks of His identity purposely presented to them perfectly satisfied them. Thus furnished, they went forth as witnesses of the resurrection. They tell us, that on first beholding Jesus after His death they supposed Him to be an apparition, a naked spirit whose body abode in corruption. But Jesus refuses such an idea as unbelief (Luke 24:36-48). Spiritism affirms, and gives evidence in proof of, the appearing of spirits. Such appearances we deny not. But in denying the future resurrection of the dead, or the reunion of soul and body, they deny the faith of
Christ. The apostle’s argument, then, is clear and decisive, (1.) If you admit the past resurrection of Christ, the future resurrection of others is possible. How, then, do you deny the possibility of resurrection? (2.) If you deny the past resurrection of Jesus, you are no Christian. This is the chief point of God’s testimony, which to deny is to be an unbeliever.
If Jesus has risen, all will rise. Apostles speak of " the resurrection of the dead" not, as we generally do, of "the resurrection of the body." For that might give room for the thought, that the body alone would rise. Not so, the dead are to rise. In sleep we lie down; at death, if sudden, we fall down unable to rise. That, then, which fell down through the departure of the spirit is to rise up through the spirit’s return to its tenement. Of the Two Prophets who shall one day appear, we read, that the False Christ shall "kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city." " They shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into graves." "After three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet" (Rev. xi.). Christ is "the first fruits," "the first-begotten from among the dead." That is, others are to rise as He rose. The undoing of the parts of which man is composed is a humiliation which is the result of sin. The re- knitting together of the parts is the result of the righteousness of Christ, and will be effected by His power. Christ is really risen. This supposes the reality of His body against the unbelief of the errorists of old, who affirmed Him to be a phantom only. But how does Christ’s resurrection entail the resurrection of all men? (1.) Because He is in Himself "
Resurrection and Life ; " He has the power to raise all as he raised Lazarus. (2.) Because He has testified that He has the intention of raising all that are in their graves. On the fact of Christ’s resurrection, taught by the apostles as the chief point and accepted by them- selves, Paul rears the proof of the general resurrection.
They admitted, it seems, Christ’s resurrection, but denied the future one of men. Paul does not till the close take up the subject of the resurrection of the just. On this point of Christ’s resurrection, established by proof, Paul sets the further one.
He proves Christ’s resurrection first ; lest opponents should go backward further still in unbelief, and deny that. They could not deny universally the resurrection of men as impossible, and yet own that in the case of one man it had already occurred.
Here is contradiction manifest, if one should say - ’
It is impossible that stones should fall from the heavens/ while yet he owned one case established by overwhelming proof of many witnesses.* If you
* Not all the believing Corinthians denied this, but some only. On ’exclusive principles,’ Paul should have required the putting-out of all such, and that as the condition of his holding fellowship with them. He should have said, ’ Evil unjudged is in you; you are all defiled.’ Paul does not impute to all the error of a few. Nor does Christ, in his seven epistles. As touching the subject of Communion, this observation does not suppose that faith in fundamental doctrines is not necessary in the reception of any to communion.
None is a Christian who does not own the resurrection of Christ. He is not accepted of God, or to bereceived by Christians as one (Rom. x. ). But these admittedChrist’s resurrection, though they denied the necessary consequence of it. I. As regards the position of the doubters, it is of the utmost consequence. The deniers were not persons outside, waiting to be received as Christians. Then this denial would be a just reason for pausing, and questioning whether they had really received the truth. 2. But it refers to those already owned as Christians. And these (while they ought to be put out for an open transgression of act) are not to be excluded for false doctrines afterwards received. This same epistle is the witness to us on both points (I Cor. v.).
grant that the sun has risen, how can you deny that it is day ? The one case of our Lord’s resurrection was a special and peculiar instance which, once established, carries all the rest. For the Risen One here is He who, by His own prediction, is to awake all the others - a power which He shewed Himself to possess before He rose Himself.
He is described all through the first part of the argument by one title, "Christ" - not "Jesus," nor "Jesus Christ" - till verse 31. Why? Because of the Devil’s deceit, even then beginning : - the dividing of Jesus Christ into two persons.
Hence Paul says, "the Christ was killed, buried, rose," because these deceivers would say that Jesus died, but would not admit it of the Christ, whom they supposed to be a Spirit - Emanation from
God.
Christ rose "from among the dead:" not merely " from death." This expression of God’s is far more definite than the other. Jesus at death went among the dead. His body (Himself being divided) was put in the tomb among the tombs. His " soul " went to Hadees, or the place of the dead, and was there among the spirits of the departed, and there preached to the spirits of the angels who fell in Noah’s day, through choosing to live among men
(Psalms 88:5).
It is remarkable that two different words are employed in the same sentence by the apostle, the one to mark Christ’s resurrection (Gk:egeiro), the other to express the resurrection of men (Gk:anastasis), or the standing up of that which fell down, and was laid in the tomb. But the latter word is also used of Christ in the Acts. "
There is no resurrection of the dead." Of this phrase there are two possible and closely related senses, (1.) ’Resurrection of any of the dead is impossible.’ That is, I suppose, the sense here.
(2.) Or the futurity of it is denied : ’ There is to beno resurrection of the dead.’ Hence the present tense.
13. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ risen. ’
If the general resurrection is not to be, neither has this instance occurred.’ This seems most forcibly put, if we suppose that impossibility is denied.
14. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. The Gospel is then come to an end. It was an idle story ; based on no reality, on the part of those who proclaimed it, and of those who received it God’s character as God, is bound up with His treatment of Christ. Is He the Just and Terrible to sinners, yet gracious in Christ ? All turns on whether Christ is raised or not.
15. Yea, and we arc found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ : whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
False witness against man, our neighbour, is bad - how much worse against God, if apostles were misleading men on the chief question of all ! Here is the solemnity of false doctrine. To misrepresent God’s character, and that as if they were persons specially accredited and sent by God to do so, was awful work indeed. God’s threats against the false prophets in the Old Testament were then to be fulfilled on them. ’We have been saying of God that He raised from the dead His Anointed One, who is to raise and judge all men.’ But this is not true, if none of the dead are to rise (Ps. xvi.). You make us guilty of a great crime in law. Much more if in God’s cause - falsehood is used.’ The false witness was to be severely dealt with by Moses’ law.
1 6. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.
How is death known ? By the state of the body ; as truly as life is. How is resurrection to be known ?
Only by the body’s becoming alive again. How does that take place ? By the soul’s re-entry into the body.
17. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
If Christ is not risen, your faith has no result. His death was for sins, his resurrection took place because of sin put away. And you rejoiced in it, as bringing you forgiveness of sins. That is the Gospel! Forgiveness is only true if Christ has come up from the dead. Else He still lies under our sins ; or He is not the Christ foretold at all. Our sins are still on us, if the Christ have not borne them away.
He has not borne them away, if His body is still in the tomb and His soul in Hadees. There is no for-giveness, if Christ’s death made no atonement.
There is no atonement, if He is not risen. A sailor plunges into the sea to rescue a poor man overboard. But if he come not back, both are lost.
18. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
There are two classes of the dead, (1.) Those in Adam. (2.) Those in Christ. One portion is under sin, suffering the penalty of Adam’s trespass and of their own ; the others are asleep in Christ, to be waked to joy by Christ, as forgiven; and to be brought out from under the results of their sins into resurrection.
If there be no resurrection, the man has perished. A part of him may have survived the shipwreck, but the man, that twofold being, is gone. "
Perished" then means not ’annihilated.’ It was not so affirmed, even by those who denied resurrection. The heathen admitted the existence of the shades of the dead (" manes"). But a part of the man has come to ruin, has been undone, is never more to be used. These believers were expecting the rising of their body. It is something never to be. They are gone into the spirit-state, and it is the spirit-state of sinners under God’s wrath. That is to perish. Death is the result of sin, and the separation of the two parts of man is the result of Adam’s fall and of God’s sentence.
Only the undoing of this in resurrection, or the man’s coming forth out of the dust, can be to us the proof of God’s being at peace with us. The rising of Christ is the only proof of the fulfilled coming of the Woman’s Seed to undo the power of our great enemy. This doctrine of the laying aside for ever of the body - the Spiritist’s doctrine - is to Paul a "perishing." To Paul so much rests on the resurrection that he almosts overlooks - what yet he admits - the spirit-state. Existence as a spirit among spirits were the perishing of a part of the man. The dead slept.
There is, you say, no awakening. They exist, but are never, as they hoped and as we told them, to live. For existence thus divided, and one part of it lost, is not life : it is not awaking. Sleep is good ; but is it to be the perpetual attitude of the saved ? Nay ; they await Christ’s awaking them. If the Head has risen, they the members shall arise. But if He have never risen, they will never rise. Death is to the believer - sleep. Of the Christ Paul says, that He " died" for on Him lay the full penalty of sin. But that put away, death is to us only a " sleep " - to be followed by Christ’s awaking of us.
See, then, the opposition of the Spiritists’ doctrine to Christianity. To them ’ death is resurrection] and the departure of the soul from the body is awaking to life. The dead are to them the really awake, the truly alive. To Paul resurrection is something to come ; the departed are asleep - not active, not alive. To the Spiritists this present course of things is not the result of Adam’s sin. As it was from the first, so it is always to be - death, and then the body laid aside for ever. Death is not the penalty of sin, neither has Christ introduced any alteration into the matter. Nor is there to be any raising up of dead bodies at His coming, or any judgment to follow thereon. To them God is the God of goodness alone. They deny His wrath. Thus the whole of Christianity is knit together ; and thus this new system is the connected and entire denial of it.
Here, then, God tests men. Will you trust God’s witness? Reason can here only judge of the proofs God gives. The Spirit begins His work by convincing of sin, by taking down the man from his high place of being God’s critic and judge, to see himself one lost before God, and to behold Jesus the Son of God as the only Saviour. When we see what a Saviour-God has given, how can we startle at the wondrous results ? Infidels would have argued, had there been no such startling doctrines, that Christianity could not have come from God. ’ Such tame commonplace proves itself the word of men.’ Jesus must die. But if God has saved us by Christ, Jesus must be raised up. How can I tell that God is at peace with me, has made peace ? By Christ’s resurrection and ascent to Him.
19. If in this life only we have had hope in Christ, we are more to be pitied then any men.
These believers (like ourselves) cherished hope in Christ all their life, that hope being the resurrection. But this, you say, is a foolish hope. So it is, if destitute of its one basis. You cut away, then, hope in Christ from the living too. And we are greatly to be pitied. Through the hope of resurrection, as declared in the Gospel of the Christ, we have given up the things of time, the hopes of nature ; and now you cut away the hopes of grace. We have surrendered, then, all that man boasts of, and get nothing in return. Our equivalent and the righting of the balance was to have been a first and blest resurrection, to be introduced by the Christ, at His return from on high. But if we are not to rise, neither has He risen.
Here is one who, on the faith of a hundred per cent. to be returned to him by a company mining for gold and diamonds in Africa, has gathered all that he has, and has reduced himself to utter poverty, expecting in ten years to be rich indeed. But it is found out that he has fallen into the hands of swindlers. There is no such name of a city in the South Coast of Natal as he gave, and the chief agent is a rogue who is spending the money of the shareholders in France in idleness and debauchery, laughing at his dupes. The poor man is greatly to be pitied who has so fallen into ruin. Our hopes lie beyond the grave. But if none has ever got beyond that, not even the Wondrous One of the Gospels, we have given up earth and have lost heaven 1 The wretchedness of disappointment is felt in proportion to the greatness of the hopes held out. Jesus sets His people against the world’s current both in principles and conduct, and foretells to them trouble as the issue, resting the reasonableness of their obedience to Him on His requital beyond the tomb. But if there be no beyond, His whole system is folly, and the observers of it are cheated dupes. Secularists get at least the pleasures and profits of time, and may enjoy a good repute. The Christian was to his neighbour a fool and an impious man, a mark for robbery and persecution. But if there be a resurrection and a life beyond the grave, how unhappy are they who live for time alone, and despise God’s witness of sin and of judgment ! Faith in Christ leads to hope in Christ, to a hope of His future work for us and in us. But if He have succumbed to death, it is certain we shall never get clear of it. " Have perished." Notice the contrast of this spiritually, and as to the destiny of man physically, with the doctrine of Spiritism. Spiritism denies God’s wrath against sin, and that death is the result of the breach of His law in the Garden. ’ Death has been, they say, all along God’s scheme, and man is - as to his final state - never to wear the body again.’ Their scheme has nothing to do with Christ’s work and His resurrection. It is a clog upon their system where it is admitted, as it is by Sweden- borg. For men are, in their final state, to be unlike Christ. Christ arose after death and burial. They are never to take up any body after its death and burial.
Spiritists suppose death to be resurrection; they do not own the resurrection of the dead, but only of the dying. The spirit’s coming forth out of the body is the only resurrection. Now Christ’s and Lazarus’s resurrection took place after burial. Such is the Christian’s to be, at some distant unknown time. On their views, resurrection is going on every day, and that by units, as each one dies.
According to Scripture teaching, resurrection is a miraculous act; not now going on, but at some future day to affect millions at once. On their views resurrection affects, in the same way and at the same time, the good and bad alike. Scripture doctrine is, thai the holy are to rise a thousand years before the others. "
Those in their graves are to come out" The rising saints are not to come out of their bodies, but into them ; as did Lazarus. On our doctrine it is the coming of Christ in mighty power down from heaven, that can alone produce this change of the dead. On their ideas, Christ cannot come again in flesh : He has put it off. So they are antichrists (2 John 1:7). With them, death is life and activity. With us, death is sleep, and corruption begun. Spiritism denies also the millennial kingdom, the result of Christ’s second coming.