Why do *we* also endanger ourselves every hour?
Paul turns from teaching to his own life and asks why he and his fellow workers live in constant danger. The question is an argument. If the dead are not raised, the way these men live makes no sense.
Verses 20-28 form a long aside. Verse 30 picks up the thread dropped at verse 19. One writer sets out the links and the picture behind the wording:
Read verses 20-28 as a long aside. Then verse 18 explains verse 29, and verse 19 explains verses 30-32. So, if there is no resurrection, those "who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." Otherwise, "what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?" Why step into their place in the ranks, and be in danger every hour, if the dead are not raised? What advantage was it for Paul to have fought with beasts at Ephesus if the dead are not raised? The "danger every hour" and the "fighting" both point to men at risk, like soldiers in a war.
The danger Paul names was not a debating phrase. One writer points to the events behind it:
Verse 30 confirms this reading of verse 29. Why should the Apostle and his fellow workers put themselves in the enemy's way, if there were no resurrection? He was not using a mere figure of speech when he asked it. It was a hard fact, and a daily fact for him. Not long before, he had lived through the violent riot in the theatre at Ephesus, recorded in Acts 19. Men fought against him like wild beasts, and every day his life was in danger.
Take away resurrection and such risk-taking becomes foolish. Paul names the motto he would live by instead:
He carries on the argument of verse 19. If there is no resurrection, we believers are of all people most to be pitied. So he asks why we are in danger every hour. What folly to run the risk of death if there is no resurrection… What sense was there in enduring all this suffering, and risking his life, if the dead are not raised? If there is no resurrection, would he not have been wiser to live by the rule of those who say, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die"?
Paul does not answer his question by pointing to a soul that survives death. The hope he lives for is bodily:
Their own profession refutes this error. The apostles' patience and devotion shame it as well. They were in danger every hour, willingly counting themselves as sheep for the slaughter, for the name of Jesus. But why this unconcern about personal risk, if their hope in Christ was only for this mortal life? Philosophy might look for a cure for life's natural ills by claiming that the nobler part of man never dies… But the apostle knows nothing of a man without a body. Death carries the believer to his better portion, yet it is only a prelude. It leads on to the day when he is found in Christ, clothed in a body like the Lord's.
Read the other way round, the verse becomes an encouragement. If the dead rise, joining these ranks is the only wise choice:
To stand in danger every hour, to die daily, to go through the conflict the apostle had with his enemies at Ephesus — all this was madness "if the dead are not raised." But suppose the dead are to rise and reign. Suppose all outside their ranks are only enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, pleasures that will give way to sure and stern eternal judgment. Then the only wisdom was to join those ranks, whatever came to cut them down or harass them in this life… Resurrection, as God reveals it, puts everything in its true place and light. That includes the suffering place of the Christian, from its start to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.
- Placement — Verse 30 picks up the thought of verse 19 after the long aside of verses 20-28. The question belongs to one running argument.
- Ranks — The picture is military. New believers step into the places of those who have died. The apostles stand in danger every hour, like soldiers in a war.
- Fact — Paul's danger was real and recent. At Ephesus men fought him like wild beasts.
- Folly — Without resurrection, such a life is madness. The honest answer would be to eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
- Key — Resurrection is the key, the encouragement, and the reward of Christian suffering. The hope is a raised body like the Lord's, not just a soul that survives.
Daily I die, by your boasting which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul has argued that without resurrection the Christian life is folly, so now he points to his own life as the proof. But what does it mean to swear by his pride in the Corinthians, and how can a living man die every day?
Paul appeals not to his own record but to the converts themselves, faults and all.
The Corinthian believers were his boast and joy, whatever their faults — and no one had more reason to feel those faults than the apostle. But he had that joy in Christ Jesus, which gave it force and permanence. So he swears by it that he dies day by day.
Some readers worry that a solemn appeal like this breaks Jesus' command not to swear. Commentators answer that this kind of appeal is not what He forbade:
Neither our Lord nor His servant forbade appeals to God like those in Romans 1:9, 1 Corinthians 15:31, 2 Corinthians 1:23, Galatians 1:20, and similar places.
Paul is not describing an inward process of killing off his sin. He means his daily working conditions. He could not count on surviving to the next morning.
"I die every day" means dying in an outward sense every day. As people would say, Paul's life was not worth a penny.
Commentators differ on whether that is the whole sense. Others find a second layer beneath the danger — the reason the danger never broke him:
These words carry two meanings. First, they back up his earlier question. They show how ready he always was to risk death for the sake of the gospel, and in that sense his words carry a rebuke to the people he is writing to. Second, they tell us the true secret of his steadiness, and the spring that kept the martyr spirit alive in him. He points them to death as a daily experience of his soul.
Strip out the resurrection and Paul's life becomes not heroic but insane. That is the point he presses on people who had begun to doubt the resurrection.
To be in danger every hour, to die daily, to go through the kind of fight the apostle had with his enemies in Ephesus — all of it was madness, "if the dead are not raised." ... Resurrection, as it is revealed of Him, puts everything in its true place and light. That includes the suffering place of the Christian, from its start to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.
Paul's service and his boasting both rest on the resurrection. His faith is not blind:
So he served the Lord, and boasted in His saints — how absurd, if there is no resurrection! ... Faith is not fanatical. It reasons as soundly as it feels loyally and works by love.
The verse rebukes as well as testifies. The Corinthians had taken the privileges of Christ without the cost.
They had drifted in heart from sharing His rejection. In fact they had hardly known it yet. They had received Christ for eternal life and redemption, but they still knew nothing of dying daily.
Most readers will never face what Paul faced. Commentators still apply the verse to every believer.
We are not called to go through the intense persecutions Paul faced. But like him, we can bring the death of Christ to bear on every circumstance of life. Then we too can show the life of Jesus, and know the sweetness of the joys of that holy life while we wait for Him.
- Boast — Paul swears by his joy in the Corinthians. That joy holds firm because he has it in Christ Jesus.
- Die — the daily dying is outward first. Paul was always exposed to a violent end, and his life was not worth a penny in human terms. Others also hear in it death as a daily experience of the soul.
- Madness — without resurrection, facing danger every hour is not courage but madness. Faith is not fanatical; it reasons soundly.
- Key — resurrection puts the Christian's suffering in its true place. It is the key, the encouragement, and the reward of the whole path.
- Cost — the Corinthians took Christ for life and redemption, but drifted from sharing His rejection. We can bring that same death to bear on ordinary circumstances, so that the life of Jesus shows.
If, [to speak] after the manner of man, I have fought with beasts in Ephesus, what is the profit to me if [those that are] dead do not rise? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.
Paul has been arguing that if the dead are not raised, the Christian life makes no sense. Here he points to his own danger at Ephesus, and then quotes the world's answer to death. Two questions follow: what happened to him in that city, and why losing resurrection leaves nothing but appetite.
The danger behind the verse was recent, physical and repeated. One writer ties it to the uproar recorded in Acts 19 and draws out where the logic lands.
It was a hard fact, and a daily fact for him. Not long before, he had gone through the terrible riot in the theatre at Ephesus, recorded in Acts 19. Men fought against him like wild beasts, and his life was in danger every day. What an absurd man he was to live like this! If there is no resurrection, you may as well take the motto of the godless world: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." So once again we reach the logical end of throwing out the truth of resurrection. It leaves us the most miserable of all men. It leaves us nothing better than feeding our animal appetites.
The commentators here take the beasts to be men. One reads the words "humanly speaking" as Paul's own sign that he is speaking in a picture.
Here again it was resurrection that cheered him in the fierce conflict, which, speaking as men do, he calls a fight with beasts. The picture is a common one. Like some older and some more recent writers, I think the words "speaking as men do" are meant to qualify what follows, so that it should not be taken literally.
Another writer says what made these opponents beast-like. They lived by what they believed.
He is clearly speaking of men with the character of beasts — men who believe in no life after death, and who therefore live like animals. There were many opponents in Ephesus, and opposition later grew, as Acts 19:23-41 shows. Why should he fight such enemies of the truth, if they are right after all in their purely material ideas, and the dead do not rise?
Commentators differ on how much detail we can recover. A. Pridham grants that the Corinthians knew what Paul meant, while we do not: "of its real nature we have no certain information."
Paul is not complaining. He is testing his own conduct by a hard commercial question — what return did that risk earn? The answer exposes what the gospel would be if death ended everything.
Was he seeking the praise of men when he took such risks? Or did he have his eye on the reward God repays? It was all empty, if there is nothing after death. Was the gospel a matter of opinion, or the truth of God? ... In the end, if the dead do not rise, then the reckless life of the atheist is the soundest wisdom.
The second half of the verse is not Paul's advice. It is a saying he repeats in order to reject it — and that distinction matters for how we read the Bible.
The Bible contains words such as "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (1 Cor. 15:32). Such verses do not express the mind or truth of God. Yet they are true and inspired: they tell us that there are people who think and speak like this.
The same cry is still heard today.
"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" is the reckless cry of men who know there is danger ahead, but who mean to take their pleasure before it arrives... With no fear of God before their eyes, millions mean to get all the pleasure they can out of life, hoping that death ends everything. Our spirit should be the exact opposite of this. We are to be always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Believing the soul survives death is not enough to change how anyone lives. Only the hope that the body itself will rise makes self-denial reasonable.
To give up resurrection is to hand ourselves over to ease, pleasure and indulgence. It is not the immortality of the soul, but faith in resurrection, that keeps man from sinking to the level of an animal, and below it. Men may talk up the soul with no thought of God, and only to exalt themselves. But resurrection brings in the reality of God stepping in with men, either in salvation or in judgment. These human thoughts looked sensible and even spiritual, and they had deceived some of the believers at Corinth. Is it not more purifying to think of the soul apart from the body, in heavenly glory? No. It is the hope of the body rising that moves us to deny self, and to put our bodily desires to death here below.
- Beasts. Humanly speaking, Paul fought beasts at Ephesus. The writers take these to be men who believed in nothing after death and lived like animals.
- Profit. He asks what that risk earned him. If nothing follows death, it was all empty, and reckless living is the soundest wisdom.
- Motto. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" is quoted, not taught. Scripture records it as the way people without hope think.
- Appetite. Drop resurrection, and nothing remains but animal appetite: a life given over to ease, pleasure and indulgence.
- Abound. Two ways of life stand open: the world's motto, or always abounding in the work of the Lord. Resurrection is what stands between them.