'But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the
first-fruits of them that slept. 21. For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead.... 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption. 51. Behold, I shew
you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall
all be changed, 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trump, (for the trumpet shall
sound;) and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed. 53. For this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality. 54. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have
put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory. 55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory? 56. The sting of death is sin;
and the strength of sin is the law. 57. But thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord
Jesus Christ. 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your
labour is not in vain in the Lord.'--1 COR. xv. 20, 21; 50-58.
This passage begins with the triumphant ringing out of the great fact
which changes all the darkness of an earthly life without a heavenly
hope into a blaze of light. All the dreariness for humanity, and all
the vanity for Christian faith and preaching, vanish, like ghosts at
cock-crow, when the Resurrection of Jesus rises sun-like on the
world's night. It is a historical fact, established by the evidence
proper for such,--namely, the credible testimony of eye-witnesses.
They could attest His rising, but the knowledge of the worldwide
significance of it comes, not from testimony, but from revelation.
Those who saw Him risen join to declare: 'Now is Christ risen from
the dead,' but it is a higher Voice that goes on to say, 'and become
the first-fruits of them that slept.'
That one Man risen from the grave was like the solitary sheaf of
paschal first-fruits, prophesying of many more, a gathered harvest
that will fill the great Husbandman's barns. The Resurrection of
Jesus is not only a prophecy, showing, as it and it alone does, that
death is not the end of man, but that life persists through death and
emerges from it, like a buried river coming again flashing into the
light of day, but it is the source or cause of the Christian's
resurrection. The oneness of the race necessitated the diffusion
through all its members of sin and of its consequence--physical
death. If the fountain is poisoned, all the stream will be tainted.
If men are to be redeemed from the power of the grave, there must be
a new personal centre of life; and union with Him, which can only be
effected by faith, is the condition of receiving life from Him, which
gradually conquers the death of sin now, and will triumph over bodily
death in the final resurrection. It is the resurrection of Christians
that Paul is dealing with. Others are to be raised, but on a
different principle, and to sadly different issues. Since Christ's
Resurrection assures us of the future waking, it changes death into
'sleep,' and that sleep does not mean unconsciousness any more than
natural sleep does, but only rest from toil, and cessation of
intercourse with the external world.
In the part of the passage, verses 50 to 58, the Apostle becomes, not
the witness or the reasoner, as in the earlier parts of the chapter,
but the revealer of a 'mystery.' That word, so tragically
misunderstood, has here its uniform scriptural sense of truth,
otherwise unknown, made known by revelation. But before he unveils
the mystery, Paul states with the utmost force a difficulty which
might seem to crush all hope,--namely, that corporeity, as we know
it, is clearly incapable of living in such a world as that future one
must be. To use modern terms, organism and environment must be
adapted to each other. A fish must have the water, the creatures that
flourish at the poles would not survive at the equator. A man with
his gross earthly body, so thoroughly adapted to his earthly abode,
would be all out of harmony with his surroundings in that higher
world, and its rarified air would be too thin and pure for his lungs.
Can there be any possibility of making him fit to live in a spiritual
world? Apart from revelation, the dreary answer must be 'No.' But the
'mystery' answers with 'Yes.' The change from physical to spiritual
is clearly necessary, if there is to be a blessed life hereafter.
That necessary change is assured to all Christians, whether they die
or 'remain till the coming of the Lord.' Paul varies in his
anticipations as to whether he and his contemporaries will belong to
the one class or the other; but he is quite sure that in either case
the indwelling Spirit of Jesus will effect on living and dead the
needful change. The grand description in verse 52, like the parallel
in 1 Thessalonians iv. 16, is modelled on the account of the
theophany on Sinai. The trumpet was the signal of the Divine
Presence. That last manifestation will be sudden, and its startling
breaking in on daily commonplace is intensified by the reduplication:
'In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.' With sudden crash that
awful blare of 'loud, uplifted angel trumpet' will silence all
other sounds, and hush the world. The stages of what follows are
distinctly marked. First, the rising of the dead changed in passing
through death, so as to rise in incorruptible bodies, and then the
change of the bodies of the living into like incorruption. The former
will not be found naked, but will be clothed with their white
garments; the latter will, as it were, put on the glorious robes
above the 'muddy vesture of decay,' or, more truly, will see the
miracle of these being transfigured till they shine 'so as no fuller
on earth could white them.' The living will witness the resurrection
of the dead; the risen dead will witness the transformation of the
living. Then both hosts will be united, and, through all eternity,
'live together,' and that 'with Him.' Paul evidently expects that he
and the Corinthians will be in the latter class, as appears by the
'we' in verse 52. He, as it were, points to his own body when he
says, recurring to his former thought of the necessity of harmony
between organism and environment, '_this_ corruptible must put on
incorruption.' Here 'corruption' is used in its physical application,
though the ethical meaning may be in the background.
The Apostle closes his long argument and revelation with a burst,
almost a shout, of triumph. Glowing words of old prophets rush into
his mind, and he breathes a new, grander meaning into them. Isaiah
had sung of a time when the veil over all nations should be destroyed
'in this mountain,' and when death should be swallowed up for ever;
and Paul grasps the words and says that the prophet's loftiest
anticipations will be fulfilled when that monster, whose insatiable
maw swallows down youth, beauty, strength, wisdom, will himself be
swallowed up. Hosea had prophesied of Israel's restoration under
figure of a resurrection, and Paul grasps _his_ words and fills them
with a larger meaning. He modifies them, in a manner on which we need
not enlarge, to express the great Christian thought that death has
conquered man but that man in Christ will conquer the conqueror. With
swift change of metaphor he represents death as a serpent, armed with
a poisoned sting, and that suggests to him the thought, never far
away in his view of man, that death's power to slay is derived
from--or, so to say, concentrated in--sin; and that at once raises
the other equally characteristic and familiar thought that law
stimulates sin, since to know a thing to be forbidden creates in
perverse humanity an itching to do it, and law reveals sin by setting
up the ideal from which sin is the departure. But just as the tracks
in Paul's mind were well worn, by which the thought of death brought
in that of sin, and that of sin drew after it that of law, so with
equal closeness of established association, that of law condemnatory
and slaying, brought up that of Christ the all-sufficient refuge from
that gloomy triad--Death Sin, Law. Through union with Him each of us
may possess His immortal risen life, in which Death, the engulfer, is
himself engulfed; Death, the conqueror, is conquered utterly and for
ever; Death, the serpent, has his sting drawn, and is harmless. That
participation in Christ's life is begun even here, and God 'giveth us
the victory' now, even while we live outward lives that must end in
death, and will give it perfectly in the resurrection, when 'they
cannot die any more,' and death itself is dead.
The loftiest Christian hopes have close relation to the lowliest
Christian duties, and Paul's triumphant song ends with plain,
practical, prose exhortations to steadfastness, unmovable tenacity,
and abundant fruitfulness, the motive and power of which will be
found in the assurance that, since there is a life beyond, all labour
here, however it may fail in the eyes of men, will not be in vain,
but will tell on character and therefore on condition through
eternity. If our peace does not rest where we would fain see it
settle, it will not be wasted, but will return to us again, like the
dove to the ark, and we shall 'self-enfold the large results of'
labour that seemed to have been thrown away.