1 Corinthians 15 Study Notes

15:32 Wild beasts is almost certainly metaphorical for struggles Paul faced from human opponents of the gospel (Ac 19; 2Co 1:8-10).

15:33-34 “Bad company corrupts good morals” is a quote from the poet Menander. According to Paul “bad company” refers to those who deny the resurrection.

15:35-38 Paul compares human resurrection to the life-death-life cycle from agriculture. The seed body that dies gives rise to a totally different plant body, and yet there is retention of identity. So it is with our present bodies and our future resurrection bodies.

15:39-41 Paul elaborates here on the last part of v. 38.

15:42-44 Having reviewed differentiations within the created order (vv. 35-41), Paul turns to differentiations of the resurrected body. It was sown in corruption and will be raised in incorruption. The body changes from a perishable body (a natural body) to an imperishable body (a spiritual body), though one that has physical characteristics (e.g., Lk 24:39). It is sown in dishonor and weakness, and it will be raised a glorious, imperishable body.

15:45 The first man Adam received the breath of life, a life that would become corruptible and perishable. In contrast, the last Adam (Jesus) will impart life, granting believers an incorruptible, imperishable, eternal body.

15:46 Grammatically, the words the spiritual (Gk pneumatikon) and the natural (Gk psuchikon) are in the neuter gender. They refer to two kinds of bodies (cp. v. 44) and not to Adam or Christ. “Spiritual” (pneumatikon) here refers to a body brought to life by the last Adam, Christ.

15:47-49 Paul contrasts the first man Adam and those who have borne his image with the second man and those who will bear his image. The first man was made of earth (Gk choikos, “earthy”), an expression Paul coined in allusion to Gn 2:7. This language emphasizes the transitory nature of those who are related to the first Adam, with bodies that return to dust. The “second man” from heaven refers to Jesus in his glorified humanity, as God-man and Messiah, who is coming from heaven to impart imperishable eternal bodies to those who have borne the image of the man of dust.

15:50 Our earthly condition is such (flesh and blood and corruption, references to our perishable physical nature) that our Adamic bodies cannot inherit the kingdom, implying that they somehow must be changed.

15:51-53 Paul supports the above implication (v. 50) with an apostolic revelation that though not everyone will die (fall asleep; see note at v. 20) before Christ’s coming, those who are alive when he comes will all be changed. No one is transported to the eternal state unchanged.

15:52 In a moment (Gk atomos) signifies the smallest possible division of something, in this case time. Twinkling of an eye similarly implies rapidity. Such will be the swiftness of the transformation of the living when the last trumpet sounds at Christ’s return (1Th 4:16-17).

15:53 The body that bears the image of the man of dust (the first Adam) must inevitably be changed into the incorruptibility and immortality of the body that bears the image of the man from heaven (the second Adam); see vv. 47-49 and note there.

15:54-55 Paul conflates Is 25:8 and Hs 13:14 in this citation. The exchange of corruptible for incorruptibility comes only when death and corruption are swallowed up by Jesus Christ. This passage does not teach the doctrine of “soul sleep”—a suspended state for believers between physical death and the change into glorified bodies. Believers are with the Lord immediately after death (e.g., Lk 23:43; Ac 7:55-59; 2Co 5:1-8).

15:56 This verse represents a theological aside that Paul developed further in a letter he wrote some months after this present one (see Rm 7).

15:57 Christ brings not only victory over death in the resurrection but also victory over sin that leads to death.

15:58 Almost anything we do in this life is vanity (Ec 1:2-3), but labor in the Lord has eternal value.