Change as You are Being Changed-1 Cor 15:50-58

Correct theology must always lead to commensurate behavior. Paul’s framework is the same throughout: Eschatology is both already and not yet. Through Christ the End has begun (1 Cor 15:24), but they are not there yet (1 Cor 3:1), as many of them think. So they must live in hope, NOT in a false triumphalism (1 Cor 4:8, 10) that leads to aberrant behavior. Therefore…

You MUST be CHANGED (1 Cor 15:51-52). Yes, one MUST DIE in order to be raised (1 Cor 15:36). But a Christian must also be transformed [changed]–whether dead or alive–to enter heavenly existence (1 Cor 15:50, 51, 52): “The corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility” (1 Cor 15:53).

Life in this present world. “Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” “All the animal life in us [our physical body], all schemes of happiness centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration.” C.S. Lewis.

1 Cor 15 read without comment has its own power. It’s confidence and triumph is why it’s read regularly at Christian funerals, and it’s also a word for all seasons. The Word has its own regenerative power because it expresses the truth of Christ himself. Our present lives in Christ, and our present labors, are not in vain (1 Cor 15:58). Christ’s own triumph over death guarantees that we shall likewise conquer. Victory in the present begins when one can, with Paul, sing the taunt of death even now (1 Cor 15:55), in light of Christ’s resurrection, knowing that death’s doom is “already/not yet” (1 Cor 15:26). Because “death could not hold its prey, Jesus our Savior,” neither will it be able to hold its further prey when the final exchatological trumpet is blown that summons the Christian dead unto the resurrection and immortality (1 Cor 15:52). What a glorious hope this is! No wonder Paul concludes on a note of exhortation that we may confidently continue on our way in the Lord.

“Pneumatikos” [“people of the Spirit“] is the key issue. They convinced themselves that, by the gift of the Spirit–especially tongues (1 Cor 13:1)–they’d already entered into the spiritual “heavenly” existence that is to be. The body will be rid of at death and they attain ultimate spirituality. Thus, they tend to deny the body in the present, and have no use for it in the future (1 Cor 6:13). Not so. As with Christ, so with us. The corruptible MUST put on incorruption (1 Cor 15:53-54); only then does the End come (1 Cor 15:24).

The doctrine of creation is at stake. What does creation have to do with the resurrection? God created the [material] world and pronounced it good (Gen 1:31). But in the fall it came under the curse. Therefore, the material world must also experience the effects of redemption in Christ (Rom 8:21-22). This involves our physical body as well, which in its present state is under the curse (Gen 3:17-19). Therefore, our current bodies must be transformed/changed (1 Cor 15:51-52), which happens at the Eschaton, so that the beginning and the end meet in Christ Jesus.

1. Why can’t flesh and blood inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50)?
2. What is the mystery announced by the final eschatological trumpet (1 Cor 15:51-53, 54; Isa 25:8)?  How will all Christians be changed and when? (1 Cor 15:52)?
3. Do you fear dying? Losing loved ones?  What happens after the dead in Christ are resurrected (1 Cor 15:53-54)?
4. Do you dare to boldly taunt and mock death–like Paul–without any fear and without flinching (1 Cor 15:55; Hos 13:14)? How could he and why (1 Cor 15:22, 26, 49; Heb 2:14-15; Phil 1:21; Jn 11:9)?
5. What is the poisonous relationship between sin, death and the law (1 Cor 15:56; Rom 5:13; 7:7, 11, 13, 24)?
6. Do you experience God’s victory over the power of sin, death and the law (1 Cor 15:57)? What is the only way out of sin, death and the law (1 Cor 15:57, 3-4; Rom 7:25a)?
7. The concluding imperative (1 Cor 15:58; 16:13-14).
8. To the anti-Paul group who sit in judgment of him (1 Cor 4:3; 9:3), how does Paul regard them (1 Cor 15:58a, 50, 1)?
9. How does the hope of your own bodily transformation affect your priorities?
10. What area of your Christian life has it been a struggle to stand firm (1 Cor 15:58b, 1-2; Col 1:23)?
11. In what specific/practical ways are you committed to the work of the Lord (1 Cor 15:58c, 10b)?
12. How encouraged are you to know that your labor in Christ is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58d)?
13. Why is 1 Cor 15:58 the apt concluding strong word of exhortation (1 Cor 15:1-2)?

Final triumphant response to the question raised in 1 Cor 15:35. The answer: A transformed body, where the perishable and mortal are clothed with imperishability and immortality (1 Cor 15:42-44). Paul argues for how reasonable a resurrection body is [through analogies (1 Cor 15:36-44)] and how certain it is [on the basis of Christ’s heavenly body (15:45-49). Now Paul emphasizes:

1. The absolute necessity of transformation in order to enter the heavenly mode of existence (1 Cor 15:50, 53).
2. Both the living and the dead must be so transformed (1 Cor 15:51-52).
3. The resurrection/transformation, at the Parousia (1 Cor 15:52), will signal the final defeat of death (1 Cor 15:54-55).
4. Christ’s present victory over sin and the law as well (1 Cor 15:56-57).
5. “Labor” for Christ in the context of hope (1 Cor 15:58) as his concluding exhortation.

Both the dead and the living will be transformed (15:50–57). 15:45–49 is a bit thick, so Paul breaks off and starts again by summarizing his argument so far: “What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor 15:50). Paul simply reiterates that the resurrection body must be imperishable–the same word (1 Cor 15:42; 52–54); therefore different in kind from our present bodies. If so, what about those who are left alive in their present bodies at the time of Christ’s parousia? Are they stranded in deficient mortal bodies? This is not a scholastic problem, for Paul expects Christ to come very soon and he expects to be among those left alive to see this event come to pass (1 Cor 15:52; 1 Th 4:17).Paul’s solution is presented as a “mystery”—a piece of hidden knowledge about God’s preordained purposes now disclosed through revelation (Rom 11:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; Rom 16:25–26; 1 Cor 4:1; 13:2; Eph 3:3–4, 9; Col 1:26–27). The mystery is that even the living will undergo transformation into a new form, receiving their resurrection bodies without having to pass through death. Paul puts it poetically: “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Cor 15:51–52). The trumpet as a sign of “the day of the Lord” is a standard symbol of Jewish prophetic-apocalyptic literature (Isa 27:13; Joel 2:1; Zeph 1:14–16; 2 Esdras 6:23; Mt 24:31; Rev 9:14). On the final day when God’s power is manifest, there’ll be a general transformation: “we will all be changed,” dead and living alike. Never underestimate the power of God to bring salvation by transfiguring everything in a flash. Paul’s earlier argument stressed continuity between the present life and the resurrected body. Now he stresses the other side of the dialectic: transformation. This is a final reply to the question, “what kind of body?” The resurrection body will be radically transformed in a way that is utterly mysterious.Our present existence won’t be annihilated. Putting on new and glorious clothes suggests that our mortal bodies will not be abolished but encompassed, somehow taken up into the eschatological life of the resurrection: “For the perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:53; 2 Cor 5:2–5). This is part of God’s mysterious plan to redeem creation, not to reject it.When the transformation occurs our flawed bodies are clothed in immortality at the resurrection. This is the fulfillment of God’s long-promised triumph over the powers of sin and death. Paul brings his lengthy discussion of resurrection to a resonant climax by citing a pair of scriptural texts (1 Cor 15:54–55) that portend God’s ultimate victory.“Death has been swallowed up in victory” (Isa 25:8) shows Paul reading the prophetic text with careful attention to its original context. He follows the Hebrew textual tradition here rather than the LXX: “Death, being strong, has swallowed people up.” The salvation oracle of Isa 25:6–10a does envision God’s ultimate destruction of the power of death, and the reader who follows the allusion to its source will find a richly evocative portrayal of God’s universal salvation for “all peoples,” a picture that Paul, as apostle to the Gentiles, surely must have cherished: “On this mountain [Mount Zion] the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines… . And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken” (Isa 25:6–8). The culminating vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” in Revelation also alludes to this same passage: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).

Isaiah’s eschatological vision concludes Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 15 by tying God’s triumph over death to the resurrection of the body and shows that resurrection is the necessary outcome of God’s intent to redeem his people.Taunting death. Paul quoting Hos 13:14 (1 Cor 15:55b) seems to be out of context. In the Hebrew text, they’re part of a judgment oracle, summoning Death and Sheol to work their punishments on an unfaithful Israel. Yet Paul transforms the words into a taunt of Death personified, now rendered powerless by Christ’s resurrection. To understand Paul it’s that this time he’s following the Septuagint loosely: “I will deliver them from the hand of Hades, and I will redeem them from Death. Death, where is your penalty [dik]? Hades, where is your sting?”  (Hos 13:14 in the Septuagint)

Mocking death. Paul changes dik (penalty) to nikos (victory), thus creating a word-link with the Isaiah quotation, and he addresses both of the mocking questions to Death itself. Is Paul merely “writing freely, in scriptural language, of the ultimate victory over death” (Barrett)? If alludimg to Hosea, it’s not just the immediate context of Hos 13:14 but of the book’s larger message of God’s ultimate mercy (Hos 11:8–9; 14:4–8). In any case, 1 Cor 15:55 provocatively challenges the “last enemy,” Death. The subjugation of Death, which won’t be complete until the end of all things (1 Cor 15:23–26) is already assured by the resurrection of Christ. Therefore, the vision of the resurrection at the last day (1 Cor 15:51–54) sings a triumph song over the fallen enemy. Death’s victory will be snatched away when God raises those who belong to Christ, now imperishable, and Death’s sting—its power to evoke fear and inflict suffering (Heb 2:14–15)—is therefore already plucked out, like the stinger of a malevolent insect, by Christ’s resurrection from the grave.

Not a non sequitur, but shows how closely linked the powers of death, sin, and law are (1 Cor 15:56; Rom 5:12–14; 7:7–13). Paul cannot recount the story of Christ’s victory over one of these powers without also mentioning the others, for the full story includes the good news that all three have been subdued by Jesus Christ. The connection between sin and death goes all the way back to Adam’s fall (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12), but Christ will make alive those who died in Adam. Therefore, those who bear the image of the man from heaven in their resurrected bodies (1 Cor 15:49) will be set free not only from death, but from sin as well. Sin is in Paul‘s mind throughout this argument about the resurrection, for there’s a connection between their misbehavior and their confusion about resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:32b-34).

End with a note of joyous celebration: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57; Rom 7:25). “Gives us the victory” contains the message of 1 Cor 15 in a nutshell: When God raised Jesus the benefit was not for him alone; rather, all of us in the church, the body of Christ, share in the victory in such a way that we too can expect to be raised from the dead.

A final strong word of exhortation: Therefore, our labor is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58). This epilogue seems anticlimactic after the rhetorically exalted conclusion of 1 Cor 15:50–57, but it actually ties together and illuminates the concerns of chapter 15 (Fee). Throughout ch. 15, Paul repeatedly asserts that if there’s no resurrection, all the faith and labor of Christians is futile (1 Cor 15:2, 10, 12–19, 29–32a). Now after confidently declaring victory over death through Christ (1 Cor 15:54-57), Paul affirms with equal confidence that “in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58). The resurrection of the dead validates not only Christian preaching but also “the work of the Lord.”  Everything we do stands under the sign of Christ’s resurrection, and all our actions are thereby given worth and meaning. The resurrection is the necessary foundation for faithful action in the world. Therefore, they’re urged to remain “steadfast, immovable” in holding the faith and putting it into action. Though words used are different here, Paul comes full circle back to 1 Cor 15:1–2: he wants Christians to stand fast and hold firmly to the gospel. Those who affirm the truth of Christ’s resurrection will be confident to live in a way that shows that their hope is not in vain.

1. “Let nothing move you” [negatively] combines “steadfast” and “immovable” (Gk), which urges that they not “move from the hope held out in the gospel…that you heard” (Col 1:23). This urgency is in direct response to the denial of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:12), what is what was affirmed at the beginning (1 Cor 15:1-2).
2. “Always give yourselves fully [positively] to the work of the Lord.” It’s not certain what kind of activity Paul had in mind with “the work of the Lord.” Broadly it may be whatever one does as a believer–both toward outsiders and fellow believers.  But Paul frequently uses “work” to refer to the actual ministry of the gospel. To Paul believers are to engage in activities that are specifically Christian, or specifically in the interest of the gospel.
3. “Your labor…is not in vain” is a final marvelous stroke of genius. Paul concludes on the same note with which he began this whole “reminder” (1 Cor 15:1-2). Now, after presenting strong evidence for the resurrection throughout, he concludes with such faith as the ground for their continued labor: “because you know that your (own) labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Thus with this language the entire chapter is tied together. The implication is that if they continue their present route, they have good grounds for lacking any confidence that what they do as believers has any meaning (1 Cor 15:14-19). But Christ has been raised from the dead, and they too shall be raised to share his likeness (1 Cor 15:49). Therefore they may not only abound in his service, but know assuredly that what they do is not in vain.

Confidence and triumph. Paul’s own moment of hesitation at the beginning (1 Cor 15:1-2) is answered by his own arguments and so he concludes triumphantly and confidently, which is why it’s read regularly at Christian funerals. Reading without comment has its own power. The Word has its own regenrative power because it expresses the truth of Christ himself as a word for all seasons. My present existence in Christ and my present labors are not in vain! The sure word of Christ’s own triumph over death guarantees that we shall likewise conquer. Victory in the present begins when one can sing the taunt of death even now (1 Cor 15:55), in light of Christ’s resurrection, knowing that death’s doom is “already/not yet.” Because “death could not hold its prey, Jesus our Savior” neither will it be able to hold its further prey when the final eschatological trumpet is blown that summons the Christian dead unto the resurrection and immortality (1 Cor 15:51-52). With such a glorious hope, Paul concludes with a strong exhortation that we may confidently continue on our way in the Lord.

REFLECTIONS. Paul saw that underneath all their dismaying problems lay one massive theological fallacy: they deny the resurrection of the dead. Thus, they deny the importance of the world God created, and that these flawed bodies of ours are loved by God and will be redeemed. And therefore—whether they meant to or not—they deny that what we do with our bodies is of ultimate significance in God’s eyes. So they lapsed into both moral and theological confusion.The church denies the resurrection in one way or another–by versions of Christianity in which Jesus is not the crucified and risen one but only a great moral teacher. The resurrection, if it is preached at all, is understood only as a symbol for human potential or enlightened self-understanding. Pietism often dreams warmly of “going to heaven” but ignores the resurrection of the body and the challenge of the gospel in the world we live. Justin Martyr decried such heresy as a “godless, impious” betrayal of the faith. Various moral failings follow from each of these errors.Paul’s treatment of the resurrection of the dead presents the church with a compelling word that needs to be heard again and again. His teachings on the cross (1:18–2:16) and resurrection (15:1–58) stand like bookends—or sentinels—at the beginning and end of his letter. These are the fundamental themes of the gospel story. All our theology and practice must find its place within the world framed by these truths. How shall we respond to Paul’s exposition of the resurrection of the dead?

1. A bodily resurrection holds creation and redemption together. If there’s no resurrection of the dead, God has abandoned the bodies he’s given us. The promise of resurrection of the body makes Christian hope concrete and confirms God’s love for the created order. God, the creator of the world, has not abandoned the creation. The psychosomatic unity of the human person is contrary to the ideas of Hellenistic antiquity: we’re not souls imprisoned in bodies, but our identity is bound up inextricably with our bodily existence. If we’re to be saved, we must be saved as embodied persons. Karl Barth says in a ponderous theologically exact phrase that the Christian doctrine of resurrection entails “the repredication of our corporeality.” Paul says that we who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan along with an unredeemed creation while we await “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23)—not redemption from them. To affirm the resurrection of the dead is to confess that the God who made us will finally make us whole—spirit, soul, and body (1 Th 5:23).
2.  Soul going to heaven?? The teaching of the resurrection comes as a blast of fresh air in a culture that evades telling the truth about death. If asked, “What do we hope for after death?” many Christians would answer with sentimental notions of their souls going to heaven. Such ideas have virtually no basis in the Bible, and those who exercise the teaching office in the church should seek to impress upon their congregations that the predominant future hope of the NT writers is the same as the hope in 1 Cor 15: resurrection of the body at the time of Christ’s parousia and final judgment.
3. A young woman’s 18-y/o sister had been killed in a car accident. Her family said things like “Lisa is so much happier now in heaven; she was always such an unhappy child here” or “God must have wanted her to be with him” or “I just know that Lisa is watching us now and telling us not to be sad.” She was infuriated by such sweet, pious talk, for it seemed to deny both the reality of her death and its tragedy. Yet she felt guilty, because as a Christian she thought she ought to believe the pious things her family said. Thus, it was liberating for her to learn that Paul speaks of death as a destructive “enemy” that will be conquered only at the end of this age. 1 Cor 15 enabled her to acknowledge soberly that Lisa was now really dead and buried in the ground, while at the same time realizing that she could hope to hold Lisa in her arms again, in the resurrection. Obviously, such matters must be handled with the greatest sensitivity, but we need to communicate these matters clearly in the church. The resurrection of the dead is, after all, the classical teaching of the NT and the Christian tradition; we might find that such teaching would go a long way to promote healthier attitudes towards death and life in our congregations.
4. The doctrine of resurrection of the dead affirms the moral significance of life in the body. The Corinthians deprecated the body and thereby cut the nerve of moral action. But if the climactic conclusion is the triumphant fulfillment/transformation of our mortal bodies, we’ll use these bodies in ways appropriate to their telos (goal/end), which is to be conformed to Christ. Thus, Paul writes “The body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will raise us by his power” (1 Cor 6:13b-14). This gives both confidence and courage to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to God’s work, even in the face of danger and opposition, for we know that what we do is finally valid and valued by God.
5. The moral action called for may put us at odds with the established powers in our society, just as Jesus and Paul found themselves in trouble with the authorities. Why? Because Christ has not yet destroyed every rule and every authority and power (1 Cor 15:24), and the logic of resurrection—like the logic of the cross—is profoundly subversive of the status quo. This is true in America today no less than in 1st-century Corinth.
6. The resurrection binds us to Israel. This binding occurs because the resurrection of Jesus happened “in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:4). It’s a matter of “first importance” that the resurrection story must always situate the kerygma (proclamation) in relation to God’s promises to Israel and the history of God’s dealing with them, as disclosed in Scripture. The one whom God raised from the dead was not chosen at random in a worldwide lottery: rather, his mission was in obedience to Israel’s God, and his resurrection confirms God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises. Paul doesn’t explain how the resurrection accords with the Scriptures. So we should delve into those Scriptures to ponder its meaning. One important clue is 1 Cor 15:54–Paul’s allusion to Isa 25: the resurrection of Jesus as a sign of God’s intention to gather the nations to a great feast on Mount Zion and to destroy “the shroud that is cast over all peoples” by embracing Gentiles as well as Jews at the time when death is swallowed up in victory.
7. All Christian proclamations must be grounded in the resurrection. The faith stands or falls with this, as Paul insists throughout ch. 15. This has several crucial implications.
   1. 1st, it means above all else that the gospel is a word of radical grace, for resurrection is one thing that we can neither produce nor control nor manipulate: our hope is exclusively in God’s hands.
   2. 2nd, it means that the faith is based on a particular event in human history, to which a definite circle of people gave testimony; the resurrection is not a symbol for flowers coming up every spring or for hope that springs eternal in the heart. Christian faith is grounded in the rising from the grave of Christ, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.
   3. 3rd, eschatology is at the heart of the gospel; it’s the foundational character of the resurrection. Because Christ is the 1st fruits, his resurrection points to the resurrection of all those who belong to him–a future event. Thus, the effect of the resurrection of Christ is to turn our eyes to God’s coming future.
   4. 4th, if we deny the resurrection, we’ll turn inward and focus on our own religious experience as the matter of central interest, as some were doing. It’s been the besetting temptation of Protestant theology since Schleiermacher. This inward turn can take the form of pietistic religion interested only in soul–saving, or it can take the form of “New Age” religion interested only in personal “spirituality.” The gospel of the resurrection of the dead, by contrast, forces us to take seriously that God is committed to the creation and that God has acted and will act in ways beyond our experience and external to our subjectivity.
8. The resurrection calls for conversion of the imagination–particularly clear in 15:35–57, in which Paul calls us to expand our categories and to conceive “bodies” unlike anything we now know. The promise of God’s final justice and transformative power is beyond the power of ordinary comprehension. We shouldn’t seek to defend propositions so much as to evoke the imaginative leaps that will enable us to grasp the gospel through metaphor and song.

1 Cor 15 in the Revised Common Lectionary.

• 15:1–11 and 15:19–26 for Easter Sun in years B and C. Their fundamental narration of the earliest kerygmatic tradition and of Christ’s eschatological triumph over the last enemy, Death explores the substance of the gospel on this most joyous of feast days.
• A continuous reading of the whole chapter for 4 Sun of Epiphany in Year C, omitting 15:27–34 and 39–41. Some of the thematic linkages with other readings for these Sundays are suggestive.
• On the 5th Sun, 15:1–11 are connected with Isaiah’s vision of God in the Temple (Isa 6:1–8) and with the call of Simon, James and John in Lk 5:1–11. Develop the themes of encountering God/Christ and the subsequent call to mission.
• On the 6th Sun, 15:12–20 is linked with Lk 6:17–26–Jesus’ pronouncement of beatitudes and woes. Thematic connections here are not obvious, but explore the relationship between the resurrection and the great reversal proclaimed by Jesus. Both texts have to do with God’s unexpected raising of the lowly. The resurrection deniers at Corinth were probably the affluent members of the community and this would be provocative. Do the wealthy resist the idea of resurrection of the dead because they have already received their consolation (Lk 6:24)? For whom is the promise of resurrection and judgment good news, and for whom should it be a terrifying prospect?
• On the 7th Sun, 15:35–38, 42–50 is paired with Gen 45:3–11, 15–the story of Joseph’s meeting with his brothers in Egypt, which has historically been read as a typological prefiguration of the resurrection story.
• On the 8th Sun, 15:51–58 is linked with Isa 55:10–13. Pursue the connection between resurrection and Isaiah’s prophecy on the sovereign fruitfulness of God’s word. Just as the word that goes forth from God’s mouth shall not return empty, so also God’s “sowing” of the body is not in vain, and the labors of the faithful are not in vain. All will bear fruit—even miraculous fruit—as God has willed. Isaiah’s celebratory vision of “an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isa 55:12–13) could be interwoven with Paul’s thanksgiving to God that the perishable body will put on imperishability (1 Cor 15:53–54). The interaction of these two visionary poetic texts could be powerfully generative.

Don’t get caught up in complicated demonstrations of relationships between the various lectionary readings. When studying 1 Cor 15 make sure that Paul’s message about the resurrection of the dead is heard distinctly, for this is the matter “of first importance.”

Reference:

1. Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians. Interpretation. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. 1997.
2. Gordon D. Fee. First Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the NT. 1987, 2014.
3. Richard B. Hays. The Moral Vision of the N.T. A Contemporary Introduction to N.T. Ethics. 1996.