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.
But if there is not a resurrection of [those that are] dead, neither is Christ raised
Some people in Corinth were saying there is no resurrection of the dead. Paul answers by tying the whole gospel to that one point: deny it, and Christ Himself stays in the grave.
The Corinthians were not questioning life after death. They were questioning whether the body comes out of the grave. One writer explains why the word can mean nothing else:
Some among them denied the resurrection — not a separate state of the soul, but the body rising again. In fact the resurrection must be of the body. What dies is what is raised. The soul does not die, so the word "resurrection" would be quite out of place for it. For the body it is needed, both for God's glory and for man.
The error looked narrow. Another writer traces how much rested on it:
Satan is crafty in the way he works. On the surface only the body seemed to be in question. Yet the whole gospel was at stake. If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, the sins of believers have not been put away, and the gospel is not true.
The force of the "if" in this verse rests on one plain fact: Jesus really died. He is one of "the dead," so a rule that shuts them out shuts Him out too.
Christ was as really dead as anyone. In that supreme hour at Calvary He gave up His spirit into the hands of His Father. They took His body down and laid it in Joseph's tomb. No one questioned His death... If people question the resurrection of the dead, the foundation is swept away at once.
Greek philosophy and Eastern thinking both left no room for God raising a dead body:
Stoics and Epicureans mock the resurrection and dodge it. It displays the power of God at the very point where man is nothing and rots away. They may boast about the soul. It is man's soul, and its capacity and intellect may be as great in a wicked man as in a righteous one. But God alone can raise the dead. Man does not even have the idea... Then Eastern thought, which always treats matter as evil in itself, and so makes escape from the body the highest blessing, pushes those who take such ideas seriously in the same direction.
Paul does not stop at "Christ has not been raised." He follows the denial down to its end.
It would also mean that the apostles were not true men but false witnesses, and that the Corinthians themselves, despite their faith in that witness, were still in their sins. It would mean that those believers — some of them Corinthians — who had already died had not entered into joy but had perished... Every bright hope of an eternity of glory put out in the night of death, and no waking from it. All that Christ can give us shrinks to a kind example.
Because conclusions like these are unbearable, the starting point must be false:
Conclusions this shocking — about believers who have died, and about their own souls — follow fairly from the principle. That is strong evidence the principle is false. If the conclusions could not be accepted, who could accept the starting points that make them not only fair but unavoidable?
The same letter that corrects this teaching also corrects serious immorality. One writer links the two:
They were being deceived, and every evil teaching has an effect on behaviour. If we think wrong we cannot act right... Because they questioned the resurrection of the body, they had fallen all the more easily into sins that abuse the body.
Few people today argue Paul's point out loud. The risk has shifted:
Christians today are hardly in danger of denying resurrection. But there is great danger of making little of its results for God. There is danger of forgetting or ignoring the vital place it holds before Him, as the new ground on which everything now goes forward for God... So the danger is denying resurrection in practice, in what it means for the believer now, even while accepting it as doctrine.
- Body. What was denied was the raising of the body, not survival of the soul — the soul does not die, so only the body can be raised.
- Class. Christ died and was buried like anyone else. A rule that shuts the dead in the grave shuts Him in too. There is no exception for Him.
- Foundation. Pull that one thread and preaching, apostolic witness, forgiveness, and the dead in Christ all go with it. Christ shrinks to a kind example.
- Reversal. The conclusions are unthinkable, so the starting idea must be false. Paul argues backwards from the wreckage to the error.
- Life. Wrong thinking about the body led to wrong use of the body at Corinth. Today's danger is accepting resurrection as doctrine while ignoring it in practice.