The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Gospel truth

I think sometimes we rely more on our minds than on God revealing to our understanding and giving us understanding., big difference ! it took God giving me understanding and I thank him for it...We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

KISTEMAKER:

“I make known to you the gospel which I preached to you.” The translation of the main verb to have you know in this sentence does not imply that Paul is proclaiming a gospel that differs from that of the other apostles. With this verb he conveys that he teaches them once more the gospel which he proclaimed to them in earlier days. Nonetheless, Paul introduces a new element: detailed doctrinal teaching on the physical resurrection of Christ and believers. In his earlier teachings and writings, Paul had already acquainted the believers with the resurrection doctrine (e.g., Acts 13:30; Gal. 1:1). But here in chapter 15, he gives them a comprehensive exposition of this Scriptural doctrine. For this reason he is able to say: “I make known to you the gospel.”

Simon J. Kistemaker and William Hendriksen, vol. 18, New Testament Commentary : Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Accompanying biblical text is author's translation., New Testament Commentary, 526 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953-2001).

MACARTHUR:

Unlike most of 1 Corinthians, chapter 15 is devoted entirely to doctrine, and to a single doctrine at that. In these 58 verses Paul gives the most extensive treatment of the resurrection in all of Scripture. … As Paul reminded them in verses 1–11, the Corinthian Christians already believed in Christ’s resurrection, else they would not have been Christians. That affirmation of the reality of the resurrection formed the basis for his double–edged argument in chapter 15: Because Christ was raised, resurrection from the dead obviously is possible; and, on the other hand, unless men in general can be resurrected, Christ could not have been raised. The two resurrections stand or fall together; there could not be one without the other. Furthermore, if there is no resurrection, the gospel is meaningless and worthless.

John MacArthur, 1 Corinthians, Includes indexes., 395 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996, c1984).

HODGE:

Admitting the resurrection of Christ is inconsistent with denying the resurrection of the dead. What has happened may happen. The actual is surely possible. This way of arguing shows that the objections urged in Corinth bore equally against the resurrection of Christ and against the general doctrine of the resurrection. They must have been derived from the assumption that the restoration to life of a body once dead is either an impossibility or an absurdity. Most probably these objectors thought that to reunite the soul with the body was to shut it up in prison again, and that it was as much a degradation and a retrograde step as if a person should become an unborn infant again. “No,” these philosophers said, “the hope of the resurrection is the hope of swine. Once the soul has been emancipated from the defiling encumbrance of the body, it is never to be imprisoned again.”

The apostle’s argument does not imply that the objectors admitted the resurrection of Christ. He is not arguing with them, but against them. His aim is to show that their objections to the resurrection proved too much. If they proved anything, they proved what no Christian could admit—namely, that Christ did not rise from the dead. Denying the resurrection of the dead involves denying the resurrection of Christ. The question discussed throughout this chapter is not the continued existence of the soul after death, but the restoration of the body to life. This is the constant meaning of the expression “resurrection of the dead,” for which the more definite expression “resurrection of the body” is often substituted. Whether the false teachers in Corinth, who denied the doctrine of the resurrection, also denied the immortality of the soul is uncertain. The probability is that they did not. For how could anyone pretend to be a Christian and yet not believe in a hereafter? All that is certain is that they objected to the doctrine of the resurrection on grounds that logically involved denying the resurrection of Christ.


Charles Hodge, 1 Corinthians, The Crossway classic commentaries, 1 Co 15:12 (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1995).

CALVIN:

I make known to you. To make known here does not mean to teach what was previously unknown to them, but to recall to their recollection what they had heard previously. “Call to your recollection, along with me, that gospel which you had learned, before you were led aside from the right course.” He calls the doctrine of the resurrection the gospell, that they may not imagine that any one is at liberty to form any opinion that he chooses on this point, as on other questions, which bring with them no injury to salvation. … For I delivered to you first of all. He now confirms what he had previously stated, by explaining that the resurrection had been preached by him, and that too as a fundamental doctrine of the gospel. … But of Christ. He now begins to prove the resurrection of all of us from that of Christ. For a mutual and reciprocal inference holds good on the one side and on the other, both affirmatively and negatively — from Christ to us in this way’: If Christ is risen, then we will rise — If Christ is not risen, then we will not rise — from us to Christ on the other hand: If we rise, then Christ is risen — If we do not rise, then neither is Christ risen.

John Calvin, Calvin's Commentaries: 1 Corinthians, electronic ed., Logos Library System; Calvin's Commentaries, 1 Co 15:1 (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998).

LUTHER:

With these words St. Paul explains and repeats the essence of His Gospel, which he preached to them, the Gospel in which they stand and by which they must be saved. Thus he composes a whole sermon on the resurrection of Christ, which might well be read and discussed on the Day of Easter. For from this flow the basis and the reason of this article on the resurrection of the dead which he is elaborating. And his sermon substantiates this doctrine most forcefully, both by proof from Scripture and by the witness of many living people, etc. He wishes to say: “I gave you nothing but what I myself received, nor do I know anything else to proclaim as the basis of our salvation than the Lord Jesus Christ, as He most certainly both truly died and also rose again from the dead. That is the content and the sum and substance of my Gospel, on which you and I were baptized and in which we stand. Thus I did not steal anything, nor did I spin a yarn, nor did I dream this up; no, I received it from Christ Himself.”

There you can see first of all what pious little children these tender factious spirits were who reviled Paul and ventured to reproach him with his ordinary person and with his past life, as though they themselves were so spiritual and the most excellent saints. And still they presume to say this about themselves and to preach that there is nothing to the resurrection, despite the proclamation and testimony of all true apostles and its basis in Scripture and their experience. Is this not a disgrace and an abomination on the part of those who desire to be called Christians and who boast of great spirituality as the first pastors after the apostles, some of them even consecrated and inducted into office by Paul himself? And they proclaim this among his disciples, to whom he himself had preached and on whom he had impressed this article so long!

Paul stakes everything on the basic factor with which he began, namely, that Christ arose from the dead. This is the chief article of the Christian doctrine. No one who at all claims to be a Christian or a preacher of the Gospel may deny that. With this he wants to confront them and force them to the conclusion that their denial of the resurrection of the dead denies even more definitely that Christ rose from the dead; for if the former is not true, the latter must be fabricated also. And since every Christian must believe and confess that Christ has risen from the dead, it is easy to persuade him to accept also the resurrection of the dead; or he must deny in a lump the Gospel and everything that is proclaimed of Christ and of God. For all of this is linked together like a chain, and if one article of faith stands, they all stand. Therefore Paul also makes all things interdependent here, and he always deduces one thing from the other.

Martin Luther, vol. 28, Luther's Works, Vol. 28 : 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 28:75 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1973).

H. D. M. SPENCE-JONES

The doctrine of the resurrection. This chapter, and the thirteenth, on Christian love, stand out, even among the writings of St. Paul, as pre-eminently beautiful and important. No human words ever written have brought such comfort to millions of mourners as the words of this chapter, which form a part of the Burial Service of almost every Christian community. It is the more deeply imprinted on the memory of men because it comes to us in the most solemn hours of bereavement, when we have most need of a living faith. The chapter falls into six sections. 1. The evidence of Christ’s resurrection (vers. 1–11). 2. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our faith in the general resurrection (vers. 12–19). 3. Results to be deduced from Christ’s resurrection (vers. 20–28). 4. The life of believers an argument for the resurrection (vers. 29–34). 5. Analogies helpful for understanding the subject (vers. 35–49). 6. Conclusion and exhortation (vers. 50–58)…. The gospel. He here uses the word with special reference to the Resurrection, which is one of the most central and necessary doctrines of the “good tidings,” and which always occupied a prominent place in St. Paul’s preaching (Acts 17:18; 23:6), as well as in that of all the apostles (Acts 1:22; 4:2; 1 Pet. 3:21).

The Pulpit Commentary: 1 Corinthians, ed. H. D. M. Spence-Jones, 483 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004).