Whether, therefore, I or they, thus we preach, and thus ye have believed.
Paul has just named the witnesses who saw the risen Christ, and he ends the list by pointing away from himself. Whoever the messenger was, the Corinthians heard one message — and everything after this turns on that.
The messengers were not alike. So what did they all say?
Returning now to his main subject, he confirms that all true apostolic preaching agrees on the things that make up saving faith. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord of glory are the prime essentials of God's gospel. His witnesses might differ in their gifts and in the way God called them, but their testimony is the same.
Some at Corinth set one preacher against another. But the men they compared preached the same foundation. So where did the new opinion come from?
Those labours were so abundant and fruitful. But what truth was their foundation, and what drove them? The resurrection of Christ with Paul, as with the apostles whom some set against him. "Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed." There was no change in the preaching: how then such a departure in some of the Corinthians? It was not so when they believed. Could it be of God?
Another writer puts a name to "they": the twelve apostles.
Whether the twelve or himself, they had all preached the Gospel of the risen Christ. The Corinthians had heard no other Gospel from their lips than this. Upon the risen Christ they had believed.
The word "so" points back to Paul's summary of the gospel. One fact in it holds up all the rest.
So, whether Paul preached it or the great company who had seen the risen Christ, the gospel these Corinthians believed had its keystone in the resurrection of Christ.
The second half of the verse turns the argument on the readers. They had already believed this preaching. What happens if they now change their minds?
If any at Corinth were in danger of letting slip what they had once received, God's apostles judged them with one voice. They were also witnesses against themselves, since their new opinions would contradict their former faith.
The stakes were not small. If Christ did not rise, the preacher and the believer both lose everything.
In 1 Corinthians 15 he gives an account of the gospel he preached to them. It is the same as ever: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." Others besides himself had also seen Him after His resurrection: "So we preach and so you believed." If Christ was not risen, then he was a false witness, and they had believed in vain, and were still in their sins.
Verse 11 closes the evidence and opens the argument. Everything that follows rests on the agreement Paul has just shown.
The testimony of every divine witness was the same. Everything declared that Christ was risen; everything depended on the fact that He was so. This was his starting-point.
That agreement did not happen by chance.
God had provided witnesses to the resurrection of Christ with immense care. The apostles preached it, and all Christians believed it. Having shown this, he now reasons from it to the resurrection of the dead. He also reasons from their denial of the resurrection to its effect on Christ and the gospel.
- One message. Witnesses differ in gifts and calling. The testimony does not: Christ's death, burial and resurrection are the essentials of God's gospel.
- One foundation. Paul and the apostles some set against him preached the same risen Christ. The new opinion at Corinth had no apostolic backing.
- One keystone. Whoever preached it, the gospel the Corinthians believed stood on the resurrection of Christ.
- One faith. "So you believed" makes them witnesses against themselves. To deny the resurrection now would contradict their former faith.
- One starting point. God provided the witnesses with care. Everything Paul argues next stands on the one fact they all declared.
Now if Christ is preached that he is raised from among [the] dead, how say some among you that there is not a resurrection of [those that are] dead?
Paul has just set out the gospel he preached and the witnesses who saw the risen Christ. Now he turns and questions the church itself. Some in Corinth were saying the dead do not rise. Paul's question shows they were pulling down the message they claimed to believe.
The dispute was not about whether the soul survives death. It was about the body that goes into the grave.
Some among them denied the resurrection — not a separate state of the soul, but the raising again of the body. In fact the resurrection must be of the body. What dies is what God raises. Since the soul does not die, the word "resurrection" would be quite out of place for it. For the body it is necessary, for God's glory and for man's.
The rest of the chapter keeps that focus.
The whole chapter is about the resurrection of the body. It is not a question of the spirit: elsewhere we are taught that the believer, on leaving the body, is present with the Lord as to his spirit… The chapter deals with the body, and with its resurrection in particular: with what is buried. Not with what has gone to be with Christ, but with what is laid in the grave as Christ was, and what will be raised again as Christ was.
Paul's sharpest words are "some of you." These were not outsiders. They professed the faith they were undermining.
He turns now to confront those who denied bodily resurrection as a general idea. Whether they knew it or not, they were attacking the gospel at its central truth… The resurrection of Christ is the main article of Christian faith. Without it we have no living Saviour to adore and trust, and no living Lord to serve. So how could anyone who believed in Jesus become so blind as to let a question about the resurrection of the dead into his mind? It was a practical self-contradiction.
Paul does not debate the general idea on its own. He brings Christ in. You cannot say that no dead man rises without saying it about Him.
You cannot read the book of Acts without seeing that the resurrection of Christ was almost always the testimony brought to people, Jews or Gentiles: not only that He died for our sins, but that God has raised Him from the dead. To say that there is no resurrection of dead men clearly sets that aside… Denying the resurrection denies more than the future hope of the saints. It denies the standing fact of Christ, the mainspring of God's good news.
Greek thinkers could accept a soul that lives on. Dust raised again was another matter.
Socrates and other philosophers believed, in their own way, in the immortality of the soul. But when these men, so eager for knowledge, heard of the resurrection of the dead, they mocked. An unbeliever can talk about immortality; but if he hears about the resurrection of the dead, he turns it into a joke. And why? Because the immortality of the soul lets him exalt himself and build up his own importance… But to think of dust raised again — of a living and glorious being made out of it — this is a glory which belongs to God alone.
The error goes deeper than a wrong opinion about the future. It reveals what these people thought of God.
To deny the resurrection is to show ignorance of God… That was no surprise in someone who did not know Him; but what a disgrace to the saints that some among them should be so ignorant! So much for their boasted knowledge. The Corinthians must begin again. Starting from a dead and risen Christ, they must use the truth of God to judge the thoughts of men. He loves to be known as the God who raises the dead.
Does a wrong idea about the future really matter?
Perhaps you think it is not so very important after all. Their belief or unbelief would not change the resurrection. It would come just the same, and then they would find out their mistake. But God never makes light of the slightest departure from His truth, no matter how small it may seem. You never know where it will lead you… A dead man cannot raise himself; everybody knows that. And everybody knows that the greatest and cleverest living person cannot raise one dead man. Neither can an angel from heaven. God alone can raise the dead.
- Body. The question is about what is buried — the body — not about the soul, which does not die and needs no raising.
- Inside. The denial came from "some of you" — believers contradicting the faith they professed.
- Christ. Paul brings Christ in as the test. Say no dead man rises, and you have said it about Him too.
- God. The root of the error is ignorance of God, who loves to be known as the One who raises the dead — something no man or angel can do.
- Everything. Pull this thread and the gospel unravels: the hope of the saints and the good news itself hang on the raised Christ.