1 Corinthians 15 Footnotes

Paul here wrote of himself as “one born at the wrong time,” an unusual expression that may mean “born later than expected.” Unlike the Twelve, Paul became an apostle without having had the gestation period of knowing Jesus on earth, ministering with him, listening to his teaching. Rather than being eased into apostleship, Paul was dramatically confronted on the Damascus road. All this, however, only reinforces the proposal that the earlier appearances to Peter and the others were concrete, bodily manifestations on earth. Paul was not in any way implying that he merely saw the Lord in his mind or as a subjective vision. Paul saw Christ objectively, outside of himself; he witnessed Christ raised from the dead and exalted at God’s right hand (see Ac 7:56).

15:12 The phrase “resurrection of the dead” (lit “the standing up of dead ones”) meant just that. The notion of a nonmaterial resurrection—an idea that appeals to many today—would have been incomprehensible to Jews then.

15:29 Paul’s question to the Corinthians about why they were “being baptized for the dead” is puzzling and most unusual, and no parallel reference in the NT exists to clarify it. The context gives some help: Paul spoke of “danger” to him (v. 30) and of being, metaphorically speaking, forced to fight wild animals (v. 32). Life was precarious for the apostle and, we infer, for the local church people also. It seems, then, that some believers in Corinth had lost their lives under persecution before an opportunity arose for baptism and that others had been baptized in their places (Gk hyper), by substitution. Presumably this was done for pastoral reasons—to assure surviving believers, including family members, that all that baptism signified was true for the deceased.

Note that Paul did not prescribe this practice but merely referenced it. Mormon baptism for the dead cannot be sustained by this obscure passage. The vicarious baptism for thousands of deceased persons (including tracking and storing genealogical records) grossly distorts Paul’s teaching. He simply said the practice of being baptized on behalf of deceased members was utterly irrational where the resurrection of the dead was being doubted, as it was by some within the Corinthian church.

15:44 Are the spiritual bodies believers will have at the coming resurrection nonmaterial bodies? If so, it would imply that Christ’s risen body was nonmaterial. This, however, was not what Paul meant. Rather, descendants of fallen Adam cannot enter God’s kingdom unchanged. The “spiritual body” is a true body—a material body—but a transformed one. The two bodies contrasted are not “physical” versus “spiritual” but rather “soul-oriented [psychikon]” versus “Spirit-oriented [pneumatikon].” (See 2:14-15, where Paul contrasted the psychikos person, or the natural/this-worldly-oriented person, with the pneumatikos, or the believer, who has God’s Spirit.) Also, Paul’s reference to the spiritual body was not to Christ’s risen body but to the risen bodies of the descendants of the first man, Adam, redeemed so as to be fit for the kingdom of God (15:42-50).