Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 Corinthians 15:29

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 29. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead — This is certainly the most difficult verse in the New Testament; for, notwithstanding the greatest and wisest men have laboured to explain it, there are to this day nearly as many different interpretations of it as there are interpreters. I shall not employ my time, nor that of my reader, with a vast number of discordant and conflicting opinions; I shall make a few remarks:

1. The doctrine of the resurrection of our Lord was a grand doctrine among the apostles; they considered and preached this as the demonstration of the truth of the Gospel.

2. The multitudes who embraced Christianity became converts on the evidence of this resurrection.

3. This resurrection was considered the pledge and proof of the resurrection of all believers in Christ to the possession of the same glory into which he had entered.

4. The baptism which they received they considered as an emblem of their natural death and resurrection. This doctrine St. Paul most pointedly preaches, Romans 6:3-5: Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life: for, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in his resurrection.

5. It is evident from this that all who died in the faith of Christ died in the faith of the resurrection; and therefore cheerfully gave up their lives to death, as they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance, Hebrews 10:34.

6. As is the body, so are the members; those who were properly instructed, and embraced Christianity, believed that as all who had died in the faith of Christ should rise again, so they were baptized in the same faith.

7. As so many of the primitive followers of Christ sealed the truth with their blood, and Satan and his followers continued unchanged, every man who took on him the profession of Christianity, which was done by receiving baptism, considered himself as exposing his life to the most imminent hazard, and offering his life with those who had already offered and laid down theirs.

8. He was therefore baptized in reference to this martyrdom; and, having a regard to those dead, he cheerfully received baptism, that, whether he were taken off by a natural or violent death, he might be raised in the likeness of Jesus Christ's resurrection, and that of his illustrious martyrs.

9. As martyrdom and baptism were thus so closely and intimately connected, βαπτιζεσθαι, to be baptized, was used to express being put to a violent death by the hands of persecutors. So Matthew 20:22, Matthew 20:23 : "But Jesus answered and said, Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? c." (Can ye go through my sufferings?) "They say unto him, We are able. He saith unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of my cup," (ye shall bear your part of the afflictions of the Gospel,) "and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with (that is, ye shall suffer martyrdom.) See also Mark 10:38. So Luke 12:50 "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" That is, I must die a violent death for the salvation of men.

10. The sum of the apostle's meaning appears to be this: If there be no resurrection of the dead, those who, in becoming Christians, expose themselves to all manner of privations, crosses, severe sufferings, and a violent death, can have no compensation, nor any motive sufficient to induce them to expose themselves to such miseries. But as they receive baptism as an emblem of death in voluntarily going under the water, so they receive it as an emblem of the resurrection unto eternal life, in coming up out of the water; thus they are baptized for the dead, in perfect faith of the resurrection. The three following verses seem to confirm this sense.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

A source of encouragement (15:29-34)

It seems that another strange practice the church in Corinth had introduced was that of baptizing people on behalf of those who had died unbaptized. Paul does not stop to discuss whether this was a desirable practice; he simply asks what meaning can it have if there is no future resurrection? If people do not believe in the resurrection but practise baptism for the dead, they are demonstrating something they do not believe in (29).
There are no doubts about the resurrection in Paul’s mind. On the contrary his assurance of the resurrection and the victory it will bring encourages him amid daily trials. In Ephesus (the place from which he writes) he is daily in danger of being killed because of his faithfulness in preaching the gospel. If, however, there is no hope of a future and better life, he suffers for nothing. He would do better to forget about preaching the gospel and have a good time while he still has the opportunity (30-32).
Paul warns the Corinthians not to deceive themselves. If they mix with people who deny the resurrection, they will soon have wrong ideas about God, and this in turn will lead to wrong behaviour (33-34).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

Else what shall they do that are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?

This is branded by many as a very difficult verse; but the proper regard of the third person plural pronouns in this verse makes it easy. Paul here used an "argumentum ad hominem", that is, an argument based upon what people were doing, indicating clearly enough that some persons known to the Corinthians were practicing a baptism for the benefit of the dead; but the one thing that makes it impossible to suppose that Paul approved of such a thing is the use of the third person pronouns. There are no examples in the New Testament of the practice of Christians being designated as what "they" do. Concerning Christian baptism, for example, it is always "we" or "you" who were baptized and addressed in the first or second persons, never in the third person. It is still "they" not "we" who baptize for the dead!

With reference to the practice itself, nothing is known of Christians ever doing such a thing until far later in the Christian era; and, even then, it is most likely that a misinterpretation of Paul’s words here was a contributing factor. Hodge flatly declared that nothing was ever known of Christians doing such a thing "before the second century." Charles Hodge, op. cit., p. 337. Invariably throughout history, the Christian community has condemned this practice as heretical, there not being a word in the whole New Testament that countenances such a thing. Only the revival of the practice by the Mormons in our own times has appeared as an exception. The whole concept of proxy baptism is contradictory to Biblical teaching.

The objection that Paul would not have referred to such a practice without indicating his disapproval is not well founded. In this same epistle (1 Corinthians 8:10), Paul mentioned "sitting at an idol’s temple" without condemning it. Besides that, the use of any practice (for argument’s sake) may be, even today, referred to without the speaker’s approval of it. This writer once heard a pioneer preacher discoursing on the resurrection, and he said, "The Indians bury a dog and a spear with the fallen warrior; and why should they do that, if there is no resurrection?" That was exactly the "argumentum ad hominem" that Paul used here. Furthermore, Paul had already promised that he would correct certain unspecified disorders at Corinth when he returned personally to visit them (1 Corinthians 11:34); and it may be taken as certain that baptism for the dead was one of them. There are all kinds of fanciful "explanations" of the baptism mentioned here; but with reference to any of them which denies that somebody at Corinth was doing it, the plain meaning of the apostle’s language here (as attested by dozens of scholars) refutes them.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Else what shall they do ... - The apostle here resumes the argument for the resurrection which was interrupted at 1 Corinthians 15:19. He goes on to state further consequences which must follow from the denial of this doctrine, and thence infers that the doctrine must be true. There is, perhaps, no passage of the New Testament in respect to which there has been a greater variety of interpretation than this; and the views of expositors now by no means harmonize in regard to its meaning. It is possible that Paul may here refer to some practice or custom which existed in his time respecting baptism, the knowledge of which is now lost. The various opinions which have been entertained in regard to this passage, together with an examination of them, may be seen in Pool’s Synopsis, Rosenmuller, and Bloomfield. It may be not useless just to refer to some of them, that the perplexity of commentators may be seen:

(1) It has been held by some that by “the dead” here is meant the Messiah who was put to death, the plural being used for the singular, meaning “the dead one.”

(2) By others, that the word “baptized” here is taken in the sense of washing, cleansing, purifying, as in Matthew 8:4; Hebrews 9:10; and that the sense is, that the dead were carefully washed and purified when buried, with the hope of the resurrection, and, as it were, preparatory to that.

(3) By others, that to be “baptized for the dead” means to be baptized as dead, being baptized into Christ, and buried with him in baptism, and that by their immersion they were regarded as dead.

(4) By others, that the apostle refers to a custom of vicarious baptism, or being baptized for those who were dead, referring to the practice of having some person baptized in the place of one who had died without baptism. This was the opinion of Grotius, Michaelis, Tertullian, and Ambrose. Such was the estimate which was formed, it is supposed, of the importance of baptism, that when one had died without being baptized, some other person was baptized over his dead body in his place. That this custom prevailed in the church after the time of Paul, has been abundantly proved by Grotius, and is generally admitted. But the objections to this interpretation are obvious:

1. There is no evidence that such a custom prevailed in the time of Paul.
2. It cannot be believed that Paul would give countenance to a custom so senseless and so contrary to the Scripture, or that he would make it the foundation of a solemn argument.
3. It does not accord with the strain and purpose of his argument. If this custom had been referred to, his design would have led him to say, “What will become of them for whom others have been baptized? Are we to believe that they have perished?”
4. It is far more probable that the custom referred to in this opinion arose from an erroneous interpretation of this passage of Scripture, than that it existed in the time of Paul.

(5) There remain two other opinions, both of which are plausible, and one of which is probably the true one. One is, that the word baptized is used here as it is in Matthew 20:22-23; Mark 10:39; Luke 12:50, in the sense of being overwhelmed with calamities, trials, and sufferings; and as meaning that the apostles and others were subjected to great trials on account of the dead, that is, in the hope of the resurrection; or with the expectation that the dead would rise. This is the opinion of Lightfoot, Rosenmuller, Pearce, Homberg, Krause, and of Prof. Robinson (see the Lexicon article Βαπτίζω Baptizō), and has much that is plausible. That the word is thus used to denote a deep sinking into calamities, there can be no doubt. And that the apostles and early Christians subjected themselves, or were subjected to great and overwhelming calamities on account of the hope of the resurrection, is equally clear. This interpretation, also, agrees with the general tenor of the argument; and is an argument for the resurrection. And it implies that this was the full and constant belief of all who endured these trials, that there would be a resurrection of the dead. The argument would be, that they should be slow to adopt an opinion which would imply that all their sufferings were endured for nothing, and that God had supported them in this in vain; that God had plunged them into all these sorrows, and had sustained them in them only to disappoint them. That this view is plausible, and that it suits the strain of remark in the following verses, is evident. But there are objections to it:

1. It is not the usual and natural meaning of the word “baptize.”
2. A metaphorical use of a word should not be resorted to unless necessary.
3. The literal meaning of the word here will as well meet the design of the apostle as the metaphorical.
4. This interpretation does not relieve us from any of the difficulties in regard to the phrase “for the dead;” and,
5. It is altogether more natural to suppose that the apostle would derive his argument from the baptism of all who were Christians, than from the figurative baptism of a few who went into the perils of martyrdom - The other opinion, therefore, is, that the apostle here refers to baptism as administered to all believers.

This is the most correct opinion; is the most simple, and best meets the design of the argument. According to this, it means that they had been baptized with the hope and expectation of a resurrection of the dead. They had received this as one of the leading doctrines of the gospel when they were baptized. It was a part of their full and firm belief that the dead would rise. The argument according to this interpretation is, that this was an essential article of the faith of a Christian; that it was embraced by all; that it constituted a part of their very profession; and that for anyone to deny it was to deny that which entered into the very foundation of the Christian faith.

If they embraced a different doctrine, if they denied the doctrine of the resurrection, they struck a blow at the very nature of Christianity, and dashed all the hopes which had been cherished and expressed at their baptism. And what could they do? What would become of them! What would be the destiny of all who were thus baptized? Was it to be believed that all their hopes at baptism were vain and that they would all perish? As such a belief could not be entertained, the apostle infers that, if they held to Christianity at all, they must hold to this doctrine as a part of their very profession. According to this view, the phrase “for the dead” means, with reference to the dead; with direct allusion to the condition of the dead, and their hopes; with a belief that the dead will rise. It is evident that the passage is elliptical, and this seems to be as probable as any interpretation which has been suggested. Mr. Locke says, frankly, “What this baptizing for the dead was, I know not; but it seems, by the following verses, to be something wherein they exposed themselves to the danger of death.” Tyndal translates it, “over the dead.” Doddridge renders it, “in the room of the dead, who are just fallen in the cause of Christ, but are yet supported by a succession of new converts, who immediately offer themselves to fill up their places, as ranks of soldiers that advance to the combat in the room of their companions who have just been slain in their sight.”

Living By Faith: Commentary on Romans & 1st Corinthians

15:29: Else what shall they do that are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?

At least 40 explanations have been given for this verse. The Bible Knowledge Commentary (p. 544) claims there have been up to 200 explanations, but most of the ideas put forth by commentators fall into one of four categories. (1) The baptism described in this verse may be a metonymy (it represents something else); (2) baptism for the dead was a dipping in water, but its purpose was not the forgiveness of sins; (3) Paul described vicarious baptism; (4) this verse refers to water baptism for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38).

The Mormon Church uses this passage to teach vicarious baptism (i.e. people may be baptized for the dead). Charles W. Penrose (“What the ‘Mormons’ Believe,” p. 8), said “The living may be baptized for the dead. One who has received the ordinances of the Gospel can stand proxy for departed ancestors who will receive benefit of the earthly ordinances on obedience to the Gospel in spirit. As the Spirit of Christ preached to the spirits in prison while His body was in the sepulcher, so His servants, bearing His authority, preach to ‘the dead’ after finishing their work on earth. Ordinances for and in behalf of the dead are administered in temples built after a pattern revealed from heaven. Thus the living become saviors to the dead under Jesus Christ the ‘Captain of their salvation.’” Mormons keep excellent genealogical records so they can be baptized on behalf of their dead relatives.

A vicarious view of this passage is flawed for several reasons, one of which is the fact that the Bible says a person’s eternal state cannot be changed after death (Proverbs 11:7; John 8:21; John 8:24; Luke 16:26; Hebrews 9:27). Moreover, God says we will be judged on our own works and lives instead of what others have done or tried to do for us (2 Corinthians 5:10). We must “work out our own salvation” (Philippians 2:12). The Bible says each one will give an “account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).

Authors such as Penrose have pointed to 1 Peter 3:19-20 and Jesus “preaching to spirits in prison” to prove that people can be saved after death, but Peter did not mean Jesus preached to people after He died. Jesus preached to these “imprisoned spirits” while Noah was building the ark. Woods (First Peter, p. 101) said it “should be noted that Peter does not declare that these who were the objects of this preaching were in a disembodied state and in prison when the preaching was done; such was their condition when he wrote. The period in which such lived in the flesh, and the time when this preaching was done is clearly stated in the verse which follows.”

Jesus’ “preaching to spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19) is illustrated by Ephesians 2:17, a passage that says Jesus preached peace to the Gentiles. How and when did Jesus preach peace to the Gentiles? It was not while He was in the grave; neither was it during His earthly ministry (Jesus specifically said His earthly ministry was to the Jews, Matthew 15:24). Jesus preached to the Gentiles about ten years after His death on the cross (Acts 10:1-48; Acts 11:1-30). Jesus preached through men like Peter, James, and Paul, just as He preached to people through Noah (2 Peter 2:5). Stated another way, those who died in the flood heard preaching while they were alive instead of after they died. In fact, if there is a second chance at salvation, or the dead can be saved by people still living on the earth, why try to convert people before they die? It would be much easier to “evangelize the dead” if the unsaved were allowed to suffer for a while (compare Luke 16:23-24).

It may surprise some readers as well as some Mormons, but the Book of Mormon says the unsaved have no hope after death. Alma 34:32-35 says: “For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors. 33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. 34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. 35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.”

Since Paul did not have in mind vicarious baptism, should we understand verse 29 figuratively? Might the word baptism in this verse mean something other than baptism? This is how some interpret Paul’s point and commentators have offered several non-literal interpretations, some of which are these:

Ø Penance for the dead. According to this explanation, people pay money or do good works for (on behalf of) the dead. This view is part of Catholic theology and it has no basis in Scripture.

Ø Sadness for the dead. People are certainly sad when they lose a loved one (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but there is no evidence that this is what Paul had in mind here.

Ø Persecution. Some think a certain number of persecutions must occur before Jesus can or will return, so the baptism in 1 Corinthians 15:29 refers to Christians who face persecution. The greater the persecution, the sooner Jesus will return. These ideas are also interesting but they have no Biblical support.

Ø Dying a martyr’s death. This explanation says Christians were willing to be persecuted to the point of death because of their belief in a future resurrection (compare verse 30).

While some have adopted a figurative explanation of verse 29, others believe Paul had in mind a literal baptism. Some of the literal explanations for verse 29 are these:

Ø Washing the dead. Because Christians believed in a coming resurrection, they washed dead bodies to ensure the deceased would be ready for the future resurrection.

Ø Baptism on behalf of the dead. There was a ceremonial washing similar to what the Jews used.

Ø Purify deceased Jews who had died in an unclean state. According to this explanation, baptism was used to remove any uncleanness from deceased Jews.

The last mainstream approach to understanding 1 Corinthians 15:29 is found in one or more of the following categories:

Ø An ancient Corinthian custom. Some believe baptism for the dead was an ancient custom that Paul knew about but did not endorse. Unlike most of the preceding explanations, this is a very good possibility.

Ø New Testament baptism (Mark 16:16). This interpretation says people were being baptized for the forgiveness of their own sins (Acts 2:38), but this view cannot be right. The baptism in 1 Corinthians 15:29 was done for the benefit of others (the dead).

Ø Those who were close to death. Some think the Corinthians were baptizing those who were seriously ill (they immersed people like the terminally ill). As with the preceding view, this explanation does not agree with the text. Paul spoke of baptizing “for the dead” instead of “baptizing the sick.”

Ø Took the place of deceased saints. According to this idea, people were baptized so they could “fill someone else’s spot” (i.e. a newly baptized person replaced a Christian who had died). If the Corinthians did not believe in a future resurrection, why did they try to keep “filing the ranks”? This is another fascinating idea, but it has no Biblical support.

Ø Christians were baptized in ancient burial tombs. This interpretation says Christians used the privacy of tombs to avoid persecution when they wanted to worship or baptize people. There is some evidence for some Christians worshipping in tombs because of persecution, but there are no indications known to this author of the Corinthians having to resort to such desperate measures.

Ø Baptism for the dead one (Jesus). This explanation cannot be right because the word “dead” is plural.

Ø A plague. Some believe a plague had broken out and many of the Corinthians were dying. Because of the plague’s effect (“the dead”), people decided to be immersed.

Paul’s point is very difficult, but in the mind of this author, it seems one of the following four explanations offers the best understanding of this verse.

Ø The Greek text of the New Testament does not have punctuation so some think Paul’s point should be punctuated in this way: “Otherwise what shall they do who are baptized? For the dead? That is, are they baptized to belong to and be numbered among the dead who will never be raised?”

Ø If the thought is expressed in this way, Paul meant: “If the dead will never be raised, why are people baptized?” Baptism “would lose its meaning if Christ had not been raised from the dead in the past or if the dead will not be raised in the future” (Gromacki, p. 190). One argument in favor of this view is that Paul often used this teaching style in this letter (notice his rhetorical questions in 3:37-31; 4:10; 6:15; 7:7; 8:31-35; 9:14, 19-22; 10:6-8, 14-19).

Ø Allen (p. 191) proposed another good explanation. When Jesus was accused of casting out demons by Satan’s power (Matthew 12:27), He said the “sons” of the Pharisees were also casting out demons. Jesus knew these men were not literally casting out demons, but He made this statement to form an argument. Paul may have done a similar thing; he may have used an unscriptural practice to further illustrate the need for these Christians to believe in a future resurrection.

Ø Some think people were baptized because of dead people. Just as Abel died but “continued to speak” (Hebrews 11:4), so some were baptized because they were greatly influenced by wonderful Christians who had died.

Ø The pronouns may suggest that false teachers were baptizing people on behalf of the dead. In 1 Corinthians 15:1 Paul described himself and the Corinthians (“I” and “you”). Verse 19 refers to Paul and the Corinthians (“we”). Verse 25 refers to Christ (“He”). In verse 29 there is a definite switch in the pronouns (“they”). This change in pronouns indicates people (presumably false teachers) were involved with a baptism that God did not institute or authorize.

If some were teaching baptism for (on behalf of) the dead, Paul did not endorse this activity anymore than he endorsed eating in an idol temple (1 Corinthians 8:10). Sometimes Bible authors used evil practices to make a positive point (compare Luke 16:1-7). Here it seems that Paul used an unscriptural baptism to build on what he had previously said. In the previous verses Paul showed how preaching and faith are vain (verse 14), the apostles were false witnesses (verse 15), all the dead will be condemned (verse 18), and Christians are of all men most pitiable (verse 19) if Jesus has not been raised from the dead. Verse 29 is another argument for the resurrection and it helps introduce the information in verses 30-34.

The CBL (First Corinthians, p. 469) said the “fact that Paul only parenthetically referred to this practice suggests that it held no importance for him at all. He was merely using it as an example to show that the Corinthians were being inconsistent in their view of the afterlife.” We might compare verse 29 to a point made by an old pioneer preacher who said: “The Indians bury a dog and a spear with the fallen warrior. Why should they do that, if there is no resurrection?” Paul apparently used this same type of argument with the Corinthians. If the dead will be not raised, why would anyone teach baptism, submit to baptism, or baptize people on behalf of the dead? If there is no resurrection each person should eat, drink, and live life to the fullest (verse 32).

There is information about New Testament baptism in the commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:13, the commentary on 15:3-4, and “An overview of New Testament Christianity” located at the end of this commentary, but here we may briefly summarize this topic. Baptism is for those who are old enough to believe (Mark 16:16). It is also for people who have “repented” of (turned from) sin, Acts 2:38. Before being baptized a person must confess Christ (Romans 10:9-10). Proper baptism requires a “burial” (immersion), Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12. In fact, a person must go “into” (Acts 8:38) and then “come up out of” water (Acts 8:39). Sinners must experience a “new birth” (John 3:3) and part of this new birth includes baptism (“water,” John 3:5). There is only “one baptism” that now has God’s approval (Ephesians 4:5) and this baptism places a person “into Christ” (Galatians 3:27) and entitles him to every “spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3), one of which is “salvation” (2 Timothy 2:10).

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

29.Else what shall they do He resumes his enumeration of the absurdities, which follow from the error under which the Corinthians labored. He had set himself in the outset to do this, but he introduced instruction and consolation, by means of which he interrupted in some degree the thread of his discourse. To this he now returns. In the first place he brings forward this objection — that the baptism which those received who are already regarded as dead, will be of no avail if there is no resurrection. Before expounding this passage, it is of importance to set aside the common exposition, which rests upon the authority of the ancients, and is received with almost universal consent. Chrysostom, therefore, and Ambrose, who are followed by others, are of opinion ⁽⁶³⁾ that the Corinthians were accustomed, when any one had been deprived of baptism by sudden death, to substitute some living person in the place of the deceased — to be baptized at his grave. They at the same time do not deny that this custom was corrupt, and full of superstition, but they say that Paul, for the purpose of confuting the Corinthians, was contented with this single fact, ⁽⁶⁴⁾ that while they denied that there was a resurrection, they in the mean time declared in this way that they believed in it. For my part, however, I cannot by any means be persuaded to believe this, ⁽⁶⁵⁾ for it is not to be credited, that those who denied that there was a resurrection had, along with others, made use of a custom of this sort. Paul then would have had immediately this reply made to him: “Why do you trouble us with that old wives’ superstition, which you do not yourself approve of?” Farther, if they had made use of it, they might very readily have replied: “If this has been hitherto practiced by us through mistake, rather let the mistake be corrected, than that it should have weight attached to it for proving a point of such importance.”

Granting, however, that the argument was conclusive, can we suppose that, if such a corruption as this had prevailed among the Corinthians, the Apostle, after reproving almost all their faults, would have been silent as to this one? He has censured above some practices that are not of so great moment. He has not scrupled to give directions as to women’s having the head covered, and other things of that nature. Their corrupt administration of the Supper he has not merely reproved, but has inveighed against it with the greatest keenness. Would he in the meantime have uttered not a single word in reference to such a base profanation of baptism, which was a much more grievous fault? He has inveighed with great vehemence against those who, by frequenting the banquets of the Gentiles, silently countenanced their superstitions. Would he have suffered this horrible superstition of the Gentiles to be openly carried on in the Church itself under the name of sacred baptism? But granting that he might have been silent, what shall we say when he expressly makes mention of it? Is it, I pray you, a likely thing that the Apostle would bring forward in the shape of an argument a sacrilege ⁽⁶⁶⁾ by which baptism was polluted, and converted into a mere magical abuse, and yet not say even one word in condemnation of the fault? When he is treating of matters that are not of the highest importance, he introduces nevertheless this parenthesis, that he speaks as a man. (Romans 3:5; Romans 6:19; Galatians 3:15.) Would not this have been a more befitting and suitable place for such a parenthesis? Now from his making mention of such a thing without any word of reproof, who would not understand it to be a thing that was allowed? For my part, I assuredly understand him to speak here of the right use of baptism, and not of an abuse of it of that nature.

Let us now inquire as to the meaning. At one time I was of opinion, that Paul here pointed out the universal design of baptism, for the advantage of baptism is not confined to this life; but on considering the words afterwards with greater care, I perceived that Paul here points out something peculiar. For he does not speak of all when he says, What shall they do, who are baptized ? etc. Besides, I am not fond of interpretations, that are more ingenious than solid. What then? I say, that those are baptized for dead, who are looked upon as already dead, and who have altogether despaired of life; and in this way the particle ὑπέρ will have the force of the Latin pro , as when we say, habere pro derelicto ; — to reckon as abandoned ⁽⁶⁷⁾ This signification is not a forced one. Or if you would prefer another signification, to be baptized for the dead will mean — to be baptized so as to profit the dead — not the living, ⁽⁶⁸⁾ Now it is well known, that from the very commencement of the Church, those who had, while yet catechumens, ⁽⁶⁹⁾ fallen into disease, ⁽⁷⁰⁾ if their life was manifestly in danger, were accustomed to ask baptism, that they might not leave this world before they had made a profession of Christianity; and this, in order that they might carry with them the seal of their salvation.

It appears from the writings of the Fathers, that as to this matter, also, there crept in afterwards a superstition, for they inveigh against those who delayed baptism till the time of their death, that, being once for all purged from all their sins, they might in this state meet the judgment of God. ⁽⁷¹⁾ A gross error truly, which proceeded partly from great ignorance, and partly from hypocrisy! Paul, however, here simply mentions a custom that was sacred, and in accordance with the Divine institution — that if a catechumen, who had already in his heart embraced the Christian faith, ⁽⁷²⁾ saw that death was impending over him, he asked baptism, partly for his own consolation, and partly with a view to the edification of his brethren. For it is no small consolation to carry the token of his salvation sealed in his body. There is also an edification, not to be lost sight of — that of making a confession of his faith. They were, then, baptized for the dead, inasmuch as it could not be of any service to them in this world, and the very occasion of their asking baptism was that they despaired of life. We now see that it is not without good reason that Paul asks, what they would do if there remained no hope after death? ⁽⁷³⁾ This passage shows us, too, that those impostors who had disturbed the faith of the Corinthians, had contrived a figurative resurrection, making the farthest goal of believers to be in this world, His repeating it a second time, Why are they also baptized for the dead? gives it greater emphasis: “Not only are those baptized who think that they are to live longer, but those too who have death before their eyes; and that, in order that they may in death reap the fruit of their baptism.”

(63) “This,” it is stated by Barnes, “was the opinion of Grotius, Michaelis, Tertullian, and Ambrose.” — Ed.

(64) “De ce seul argument;” — “With this single argument.”

(65) “Mats ie ne voy rien qui me puisse amener a suyure ceste coniecture;” — “But I see nothing that could induce me to follow that conjecture.”

(66) “Ce sacrilege horrible;” — “ This horrible sacrilege.”

(67) The form of expression referred to is made use of by Cicero. (Art. 8.1.) — Ed.

(68) “Proufite apres la mort, et non pas la vie durant;” — “Profits after death, and not during life.”

(69) “Estans encore sur la premiere instruction de la doctrine Chrestienne;” — “Being as yet in the first rudiments of Christian doctrine.”

(70) “Quelque maladie dangereuse;” — “Some dangerous malady.”

(71) Cornelius a Lapide, in his Commentary on the Canonical Epistles, (Paris, 1631,) adverts in the following terms to the custom referred to by Calvin^: “Inter conversos olim multi erant qui Baptismum diu differebant, etiam usque ad mortem, adeoque aegri in lecto baptizabantur, ut per Baptismum expiati ab omni culpa et poena illico puri evolarent in coelum :” — “Among the converted there were anciently many who deferred baptism for a long time, even up to the time of their death, and were accordingly baptized when sick in bed, that cleared by baptism from all fault and punishment, they might fly up to heaven pure.” Milner, in his Church History, (volume 2,) when treating of Gregory Nazianzen, says, “In another discourse, he protests against the too common practice of delaying baptism, which, from the example of Constantine, had grown very fashionable, for reasons equally corrupt and superstitious. Men lived in sin as long as they thought they could safely, and deferred baptism till their near approach to death, under a groundless hope of washing away all their guilt at once.” See also Turretine’s Theology, (Geneva, 1690,) volume 3 — Ed.

(72) “Si celuy qui n’ estoit pas encore parfaitement instruit en la doctrine Chrestienne, et toutesfois auoit desia de vraye affection embrasse la foy;” — “If one, that had not as yet been fully instructed in Christian doctrine, but yet had already embraced the faith with true affection.”

(73) “Baptism,” says Dr. Dick, in his Lectures on Theology, (volume 4) “imports our interest in the resurrection of Christ and its consequences. It was called by the ancients ‘the earnest of good things to come,’ and ‘the type of the future resurrection.’ May not this be the meaning of that passage in the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, concerning which there has been such a diversity of opinion? ‘Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not? why are they then baptized for the dead?’ (1 Corinthians 15:29.) Some of the Fathers understood the expression, ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, to mean to be baptized into the hope of the resurrection of the dead; or, what amounts to the same thing, to submit to baptism that they might fill up the places of those who had died, thus declaring their belief that they had not perished, but were alive in a better world, and their hope that, through Jesus Christ, to whom they dedicated themselves in baptism, they also should be raised again to enjoy the same glorious recompense. According to this view of the passage, a resurrection to life is one of the blessings signified and sealed by this institution. It assures us of a triumph over death and the grave, through the redeeming blood of Christ, with which we are sprinkled; and of admission into heaven, for which we are qualified by the washing of regeneration.” — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Let's turn to I Corinthians, chapter 15.

The Corinthian church was a real mess. A lot of carnality that led to divisions, a lot of party spirit, a real misunderstanding of the spiritual gifts, a lot of weird concepts. There were some in Corinth who declared that there was no resurrection from the dead, sort of a Sadducean background, perhaps. Paul, having corrected the other problems that they wrote to him about, now finally tackles the final problem of those people who were declaring there is no resurrection of the dead.

So Paul, first of all, declares that this is the heart of the gospel.

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also ye are saved, if you'll keep in memory what I've preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 ):

So the first proof that Paul gives of the resurrection is the gospel that was preached and of the changed lives that were wrought through the gospel. He said, "By which you are saved if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain."

Now, in a little while Paul is going to tell us that if there is no resurrection from the dead, your faith is vain. You really have nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for if there is no resurrection from the dead.

The gospel that Paul preached, he preached the gospel that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. The scriptures that he would have to be referring to would be the Old Testament scriptures, because the New Testament was not yet written. So where in the Old Testament does it speak of the death of Jesus Christ? Many places. Psalm 22 , a description of death by crucifixion. Isaiah 52 , beginning with verse 1 Corinthians 15:12 and chapter 53. That He was buried and rose again according to the scriptures on the third day...now this presents a little more difficult problem. Where in the scriptures does it speak about Jesus rising again the third day?

When they asked Jesus for a sign, He said, "a wicked and an adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale so shall the Son on Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" ( Matthew 12:39-40 ). And so the third day and rising again, Jonah, perhaps, as sort of an example and yet it's really hard to tie that in a very definite way.

But if we go back to the book of Genesis, we hear God saying to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice on the mount that I will show you" ( Genesis 22:2 ). Now, when God said to Abraham "take now thy son thine only son," we have an equivalent to that in John 3:16 ,"For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son." And you remember that Abraham gathered his servants and Isaac, and they began to journey from the area of Hebron towards Jerusalem. And they had journeyed for three days when they came into view of the mount that the Lord showed unto Abraham. Mount Moriah, which is in Jerusalem. During that three-day journey . . . and Isaac is an interesting type of Christ in the Old Testament. During that three-day journey in the mind of Abraham, Isaac was as dead.

We read in Hebrews, chapter 11 that by faith Abraham offered Isaac believing or knowing that God, if necessary, would raise him from the dead. For God had said, "Through Isaac shall thy seed be called," and Isaac at this point did not have any children. And so Abraham had such confidence in the promise of God that through Isaac shall thy seed be called that he was willing to obey the Lord, if necessary, to offer him as a sacrifice, knowing that God would raise him from the dead. So it was Abraham's faith in the resurrection that caused him to be willing to obey this command of God.

As they left the servants and journeyed together, father and son, toward Mount Moriah, Isaac said, "Dad, we're missing something. We've got the fire and the wood for the sacrifice, but we don't have any sacrifice. Where's the sacrifice, Dad?" And Abraham said, "Son, the Lord will provide Himself a sacrifice." What an interesting phraseology. He didn't say, "The Lord will provide a sacrifice for Himself," but, "The Lord will provide Himself a sacrifice. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." And so they journeyed together, and Abraham built the altar and he placed Isaac thereon. And as he raised the knife, the Lord said, "Okay, Abraham, far enough. Now I know that you will not withhold from Me. Behold there is a ram caught in the thicket. Go ahead and offer the ram as a sacrifice."

Now the interesting thing is Abraham left the servants. He said to the servants, "You wait here, and I and the lad will go and will sacrifice and will come again." Abraham told the servants, "We're coming back. I and the lad are going we're going to sacrifice and we're going to come again." Faith in the promise of God, "through Isaac shall thy seed be called." He knew that somehow, someway, if necessary, God would even raise him from the dead. And thus, the belief in the resurrection after three days, dead in his mind, in that he had to sacrifice him according to the commandment of the Lord.

And Abraham offered the ram as the sacrifice and he declared, "Jehovah-Jireh." He called the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh, for the Lord will provide. And then again he prophesied, "For in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." Interesting! Not, "It was seen, I saw it, I've seen it," but future, "It shall be seen." Very interesting that 2,000 years later on the top of Mount Moriah, the very same mount where Abraham offered Isaac, God provided Himself a sacrifice. And God's only begotten Son was crucified on Mount Moriah in the spot where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. And so Abraham was only in a play act drama, play acting what God would do in the future and prophesied of that day in the future when God would provide Himself the sacrifice. "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," and it was.

So according to the scriptures, the gospel I preached: Christ died, He was buried, He rose again the third day. After His resurrection,

He was seen first of all by Cephas [or Peter], then he was seen by the twelve: and after that, he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part are still alive at the present time, some although have already fallen asleep. Now after that, he was seen of James; then of all of the apostles. And last of all he was seen by me, as one that was born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, and I'm not really worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am ( 1 Corinthians 15:5-10 ):

Can't we all say that tonight? Hey, I'm not worthy of what God has done for me. I'm not worthy what God has called me to do. I heard Tony Campola talking to a group and he said, "If you knew what a sinner I was you wouldn't be sitting here listening to me." And he said, "And if I knew what a sinner you were, I wouldn't be talking to you." By the grace of God I am what I am. Oh, thank God for His grace tonight.

And so Jesus' appearances after His death and resurrection, showing Himself alive, the scripture said, by many infallible proofs being seen by Peter; then by the disciples; then by five hundred at one time; then by all of the apostles; then by James, probably His brother rather than the fact that he is mentioned separately. James the brother of Jesus, rather than the brother of John. James his brother, Jude, Simon, they did not really believe in Him. In fact, Mark's gospel chapter 3 tells us that they came to rescue Him at one time. They figured He was crazy. He's beside Himself. But after His resurrection and His appearance unto James, he became one of the pillars of the first church. "Finally," Paul said, "me. Like I was born out of due season. I'm the least of the apostles." It's really, "I'm not worthy to be called one because of my persecution of the church."

Paul bore in his heart, really, that grief of having been a persecutor of those who believed in Jesus Christ. He stood, when Stephen was stoned, consenting. He voted for his death, then he held the coats of the fellows who were stoning him. The Bible says he wrecked havoc with the church in Jerusalem and then went down to Damascus to imprison those who called upon the Lord. As he was breathing out murders and threatenings against them. And as Paul probably was guilty of trying to dissuade many from their faith in Christ even by force. Now it troubled him later on when he became a believer in Jesus Christ the fact that he had persecuted the church. "I'm not really worthy to be an apostle, but I am what I am by the grace of God." Love it, love it!

and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe. ( 1 Corinthians 15:10-12 )

Now, notice the place of grace in Paul's life, but also the place of works. Now there are those who talk of the grace of God, totally excluding works. There are those who even look on works as almost something wrong. It is wrong to look upon works if you are looking to your works for a righteous standing before God. Because your works cannot bring you to a righteous standing before God. But having received the grace of God, then my response to that grace is my desire to do for God whatever I can. To work tirelessly for Him. Not to earn my salvation, not to even earn righteousness, but just to show my love and appreciation to God for that grace that I have received.

Works have their place within the believer's life, a vital, important place in the believer's life. They can do nothing towards your salvation or righteousness, but they do much to show your love and appreciation for the grace that you have received from God. Our problem is that we reverse things so often. We seek by our works, many times, to get God to respond to us. If I fast, then surely God will respond to me. If I fast and pray, the Lord will respond to me. If I give to God, He'll respond to me. If I praise God, He'll respond to me. And we are doing these, oftentimes, to get God to respond to us. To obligate God to us. But this is the wrong order. God is the initiator; man is the responder. The works that I do are not to get God to respond to me. "Lord, now, I'll do this and this and this for You if You'll do this for me." And it isn't to obligate God to have to respond to me. The works that I do are in response to what God has done for me. Paul, having been the recipient of this grace, responding to that grace, labored more abundantly than all of the rest of the apostles. As Jesus said, "He who is forgiven much loves much."

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how is it that some of you are saying there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen ( 1 Corinthians 15:12-13 ):

And the disastrous consequences of such a thing would be that,

If Christ is not risen, our preaching is vain, your faith is vain. We're found to be false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: who he did not raise up, if the dead do not rise. For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ is not risen, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Our loved ones who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable ( 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 ).

Our hope is in that eternal life that is ours in Jesus Christ. And if Christ is not risen, then that whole thing is down the tubes; faith is vain, preaching is vain, hope is vain. Paul then affirms,

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who died. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; and afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. And then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all of the rule, and the authority and the power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet ( 1 Corinthians 15:20-25 ).

So Paul here talks about Adam introducing death to the human family by his sin.

In Romans, chapter 5, "For by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin, so that death is passed unto all men, for all sin." Adam brought death to the human family, but Jesus has brought life. Even as one man brought death, so by one man are many made righteous and have that eternal life and that hope of life through Him. Christ is the firstfruits of those that rise from the dead. The word firstfruit, firstborn, often indicates not just the first necessarily in a sequential order, but the most important. But here, of course, it is a reference to the sequential order. Christ the firstfruit, the first one to rise from the dead.

Now, prior to this, those saints of the Old Testament when they died were in sort of a holding tank in Hades. In the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Luke Jesus tells us that there was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously everyday, and there was a poor man that was daily brought to his gates hoping for crumbs that might fall from the rich man's table. This poor man was covered with sores, and the dogs would lick his sores. And so Jesus painted a very pitiful sight. And the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. Moreover, the rich man also died, and in Hades he lifted up his eyes being in torment and seeing Abraham afar off and Lazarus being comforted there by Abraham, he said, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus unto me that he might take and dip his finger in water and touch my tongue for I am tormented in this heat." Abraham said unto him, "Son, remember that within your lifetime you had the good things and Lazarus the evil. Now he is comforted while you are tormented. Moreover, between us there is a fixed gulf and it's impossible for Lazarus to go over there or for you to come over here." He said, "Then I pray that you'll send Lazarus back that he might warn my brothers lest they also come to this horrible place." Abraham said, "They have the law and the prophets. If they will not believe the law and the prophets, neither would they believe if one should come back from the dead."

Now, the teaching of Jesus is showing us that prior to His death Hades was divided into the two compartments: those who were waiting for the promise of God to be fulfilled, those who were waiting for the final day of judgement when in Revelation chapter 20, death and Hades will give up the dead which are in them. Now, those who were waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled, those faithful patriarchs of the Old Testament, Hebrew's chapter 11 tells us concerning them that they all died in faith not having received the promise, but seeing it from afar off, they embraced it. They claimed that they were only strangers and pilgrims here. "Hey man, I'm looking for a city which has foundations whose maker is God. This world is not my home. I'm just passin' through. I'm looking for the city of God, the kingdom of God."

And so they died in faith not having received the promise. God having reserved a better thing for us that they apart from us couldn't come into the perfected state. They could not come into the perfected state until the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could actually put away a man's sin. All they could do was cover the sin and look forward by faith to the better sacrifice that would be offered when Jesus, as God's only begotten Son and as the Lamb of God, died for the sins of the world and put away our sins.

Now Peter tells us in Acts, chapter 2 that He descended into Hades when He died. But it was not possible that He could be held in Hades. Because God had given to Him the promise, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither will you allow the Holy One to see corruption" ( Acts 2:27 ,Psalms 16:10 ). So Peter affirmed to those in chapter 2 of the book of Acts, "This same Jesus hath God raised from the dead." Now Paul tells us in Ephesians, chapter 4, that when Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth, and you remember He hath said to the Pharisees seeking for a sign, "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." As He was the three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, according to Ephesians 4 , He was preaching to those souls that were there in prison. And when He ascended He led those captives, Abraham and Lazarus and all of those who were waiting there for God's promise to be fulfilled. He led the captives from their captivity.

Now if you go back to the prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah, chapter 61, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor, to open the prison doors to those that are bound." He's talking about the prison doors of death. Christ the firstfruits of the those who rise from the dead. Matthew's gospel chapter 27 tells us, "and the graves of many of the saints were opened and they were seen walking through the streets of Jerusalem after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead." He led the captives from their captivity. He opened the prison doors to those that were bound. So Christ. The Old Testament saints at His resurrection, the firstfruits of those who rise from the dead.

This company will be completed when the Day of the Lord comes and Jesus is ready to return to the earth with His saints to establish the kingdom of God. Right now, the first resurrection is a process over a period of time. It began with Jesus Christ. He is the firstfruits. And it continues as each child of God, living and believing in Jesus Christ, as they fall asleep in Christ, the first resurrection continues. It will be completed when all of the martyred saints from the tribulation period have been fulfilled and entered the heavenly realm. That will complete the first resurrection.

The second resurrection of the unrighteous dead will not take place until the end of the thousand year millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The great white throne judgement of God, Revelation, chapter 20, as John saw the throne of God, the books were opened, death and hell gave up the dead which were in them. They all stood before God and they were judged according to the things written in the books. This is the second resurrection.

So Paul gives the order here, every man in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, and afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming. That is, the full compliment will be completed at the time that Jesus comes again. And then will come the end when He delivers the kingdom up to the Father, when He will have put down all rule and authority and powers. Now, this will not take place until He has reigned on the earth for a thousand years. When Jesus begins His thousand year millennial reign upon the earth, Satan will be bound and placed in the abusso. But towards the end of the thousand year reign of Christ, Satan will be released out of the abusso and will gather together the nations to war against Jesus, and at that point, Michael the archangel will stand up. Satan will be defeated and will be cast into Gehenna, the judgment of God, the unrighteous cast into Gehenna. And now all creation in obedience unto the authority of Jesus Christ. He has now vanquished every rebel against God.

You see, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, there was only one government in the universe, the government of God, a government of life and light. And all of the created beings in the universe were subject to that government. But one day a brilliant, beautiful creature of God with a name, "son of the morning," Lucifer, who was perfect in beauty and perfect in wisdom and perfect in all of his ways, until iniquity was found in him, said in his heart, "I'm going to exalt my throne above the stars of God. I'm going to ascend into the mount, into the congregation, the sides of the north. I'm going to be like the Most High." And Satan, Lucifer, rebelled against the authority of God and formed in the universe a second kingdom. A kingdom that was opposed to the first kingdom, in rebellion against the first kingdom. A kingdom of death and darkness. One day Jesus Christ will put an end to Satan's rebellion completely. And when every anti-God foe is brought into judgement and disposed, then Jesus will present this perfect kingdom to the Father. So, then will come the end when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even to the Father. When He will have put down all of the rule and all of the authorities and the powers that had rebelled against the authority of God.

And so in the beginning God, one government, and in the end, God and the one government of God again throughout the whole universe. All of the creatures of the universe once again in obedience and harmony to the one government of God. Ages without end. And then God, through the endless ages to come, will be revealing unto you what is the exceeding richness of His love and grace towards you through Jesus Christ our Lord. A beautiful future, providing the dead rise. If the dead rise not then you can say that we are miserable. All we've got is this rotten world. For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.

And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death ( 1 Corinthians 15:26 ).

And death and hell will be cast into Gehenna. He will have destroyed it.

For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he said, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him ( 1 Corinthians 15:27 ).

Now this is the work of the Father. You remember God said to Jesus in Psalm 110 , "Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." "Wherefore God has given Him a name that is above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father" ( Philippians 2:9-11 ). God will put all things in subjection unto Him, but, of course, we understand all things except God, who has put the things under the authority of Jesus. God is excepted in here in that He is the one that has put things under the authority of Jesus. He Himself does not come under the authority of Jesus. And so it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under Him.

And when all things shall be subdued under him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all and in all ( 1 Corinthians 15:28 ).

One government, the government of God, the government of life and light, and all things now in subjection to Him.

Now Jesus put Himself in subjection to the Father when He took upon Himself the form of a human being. The Bible tells us that He was with God. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. And yet, He humbled Himself and took on the form of a man and came as a servant and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And that is why God highly exalted Him and gave Him this name that is above all names. So Jesus, while He was here on the earth declared, "I came not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent Me." And He said, "I do always those things that please the Father." And in the garden He said, "If it is possible let this cup pass from Me, but nevertheless not my will, thy will be done." And so He submitted Himself to the Father, becoming a little lower than the angels that He might suffer death for all men.

And now God has highly exalted Him. He said, "Father, glorify Me with the glory that I had with You before the worlds ever existed." And the Father responded, "I have glorified thee and I shall." And now He sits there at the right hand of the Father in glory waiting until His enemies be made His footstool, until the Father puts all things into subjection unto Him. But finally, when the final rebellion is put down at the end of His reign, then He will bring to the Father and present to Him that world that has been perfected through the grace and the love and the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Making it possible that we should be a part of God's eternal kingdom. And at that point, according to Paul's teaching here, He Himself will also once more subject Himself to the Father that God might be all in all.

Now,

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? ( 1 Corinthians 15:29 )

This is the only place in scripture where baptism for the dead is mentioned. It is mentioned in an argument against the argument that there is no resurrection from the dead. Now, the people in Corinth, as I said, were a mess. They had all kinds of problems: carnality and divisions. They had all kinds of mixed up beliefs and doctrines, and this epistle is known as a corrective epistle in that he was correcting all of the problems that existed in Corinth.

Evidently, in Corinth there were those in the church who were being baptized for the dead. There is no condemnation of the practice here, nor is there any commendation for the practice. It's only brought up that they were doing it, but Paul was pointing out that it is totally inconsistent. "Can't you see, you dummies, if there is no resurrection from the dead, then this practice you have of baptizing for the dead . . . why do you do that if the they dead don't rise? If there is no resurrection from the dead." And he is just showing to them that their inconsistent practices were inconsistent with their beliefs.

Now, to take this and to make it a ritual within the church would be totally wrong. In the law of scriptural interpretation, or in the laws that have been set out for scriptural interpretation called theologically, the laws of hermeneutics, what do we accept for common church practice today? The law of hermeneutics declares that if it was taught by Jesus Christ, if it was practiced in the book of Acts, and taught in the epistles, then we accept it for general church practice today. For instance, the Lord's Supper was taught by Jesus Christ. The Lord's Supper was practiced in the book of Acts, as they would gather together breaking bread from house to house. And there is teaching on the Lord's Supper here in the eleventh chapter of I Corinthians. Thus, taught by Christ, practiced by the early church in the book of Acts, taught in the epistles, we accept it for general church practice today. And so we gather at the Lord's table and partake together of the Lord's Supper.

Water Baptism: taught by Jesus Christ, practiced in the book of Acts, and taught in Romans, chapter 6. Thus, we accept water baptism as a legitimate ritual within the church today. Foot washing: taught by Jesus Christ, we do not find any practice in the book of Acts of the church gathering and washing each other's feet, except that Dorcas was commended because she washed the disciples' feet. But there is no teaching of it in a doctrinal way in the epistles. Foot washing is practiced by some groups today, but from the general church practice it has been dropped, because it doesn't pass the full criteria. There are groups here and there who have foot-washing services. Now I suppose that if you're out in the woods in Oregon or something, it might be very appropriate to have foot-washing services. We almost had them here at Calvary during the hippie period. Only for a different reason--we were trying to protect our carpets. We actually did consider foot-washing services during the hippie period when everybody was going barefooted. It would have been appropriate at that time. But now that we've all become formal again, no need for it.

So, following this same criteria, here is a mention of it; it isn't taught as a doctrine. It isn't commended. It isn't taught as something that should be done. It is just an off-handed argument here showing that their practice was not consistent with their belief. And yet, the Mormons have made a very big thing over baptizing for the dead, and that is why they have the archives of the genealogies that you can go and find out all of your relatives that have died. And you can go in and be baptized for them, and of course, if you are baptized for your dead relatives, then you can save them out of hell and they can be saved if you'll be baptized for them. And thus, it's very important that you baptize for your dead relatives, to save them from the destruction. I could blow your mind, but I won't.

There are many Mormons who actually seek to contact, then, their relatives to ask them for permission to be baptized for them. And so they do get into spiritism, in seeking to contact the dead. This is not common knowledge. It isn't done by all of the Mormons, but it is done by many of the Mormons. And this practice of baptizing for the dead, the next step is the getting their permission to be baptized for them. But it's sort of far out, and so I didn't want to mention it, but . . .

And why do we put our life in jeopardy everyday if there is no resurrection? Sort of dumb that I've gone through all of the persecution and everything that I've gone through. Why would I do that if there is no resurrection?

Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, because I'm facing death everyday. If after the manner of men I fought with the beast at Ephesus, but what advantage is it to me, if the dead do not rise? ( 1 Corinthians 15:30-32 )

Then let us follow the Epicurean philosophy, the humanist concept.

let's eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. Don't be deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Therefore awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: and I speak this to your shame ( 1 Corinthians 15:32-34 ).

So some of you really don't have this knowledge, and I'm speaking to your shame.

Now some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? ( 1 Corinthians 15:35 )

Now, the Bible does teach that when Jesus comes for His church those that are asleep in Christ will He bring with Him at His coming. So when the Lord comes to get His church, those, our loved ones who have already gone before will be coming with the Lord to meet us. The Lord will bring with Him with His coming. So what body will they have when He comes? When the Lord comes for us, and those our loved ones who have died, what kind of a body will they have? Will we recognize them? Will we know them? And Paul said, and he said this because they were saying it in sort of a mocking way, you know, "Oh, how are the dead raised and what kind of a body will they have will they have when they come?" And Paul said, "Fools, don't you realize that that which you plant doesn't come to life until it first of all dies? I mean, you want to make fun of the idea of the resurrection from the dead? You want to mock at the idea?" He's addressing these people who were saying that there was no resurrection of the dead. Those who were affirming that it doesn't happen. And now he's saying,

You fools ( 1 Corinthians 15:36 ),

Nature teaches you the resurrection from the dead.

That which you plant in the ground does not come forth into new life until it first of all dies. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body that is going to be, but all you sow is bare grain, and it may be by chance be wheat, or some other grain. But God gives it a body as pleases him, and to every seed its own body ( 1 Corinthians 15:36-38 ).

You say you can't believe in the resurrection of the dead? Foolish. Nature demonstrates it. Plant life. You take a seed, you put it in the ground, it germinates, it dies. You don't plant the body that it's going to be, all you plant is just a bare seed. And now God gives it a body that pleases Him. I might hold before you an old, ugly looking bulb and I ask you, "What in the world is that ugly, scaly looking thing?" And you say, "Well, Chuck, that's a gladiolus." "That's a gladiolus? You've got to be kidding." "No, it's a gladiolus." "Are you sure?" "Ya."

So I take that old ugly scaly bulb, I put it in the ground, I cover it with earth, and what happens to it? It dies, germinates. But as it dies, it splits in two, and from that cleft there comes a little white shoot. Roots go down, the little white shoot comes up. As soon as it hits the air, it turns green. It grows up into a stalk, buds come out on it, and then they begin to open into the most beautiful colored blossoms. Purple, white, variegated red-white, red, pink. I say to you, "What is that beautiful white flower with the beautiful variegated red in it?" And you say, "'Chuck, that's a gladiolus." "Come on. What do you take me for? What do you mean that's a gladiolus? You told me that ugly, scaly old thing was a gladiolus. Now you're trying to tell me this beautiful flower is a gladiolus? You've got to be kidding." You see, you plant the bare seed, God gives it a body that pleases Him. You didn't plant the beautiful blossom. You didn't take the beautiful flower blossom and put it in the ground and cover it with earth. All you planted was a bare bulb that died but has now come forth in a new body given to it by God, a body that pleases God. So you didn't plant the body that was going to be, all you planted was a bare grain. God has now given it a new body that pleases Him, and Paul said, "So is the resurrection from the dead." So one day when you see that gorgeous creature with a lot of curly hair and someone asks you, "Who's that?" Some will say, "Ah, that's Chuck." "Ah, come on. You're putting me on." Hey, just blossomed out, man.

Now, all flesh is not the same flesh: there is a flesh of men, flesh of beast, another of fish, and another of birds ( 1 Corinthians 15:39 ).

We all have different kind of meat.

There are also celestial bodies [or heavenly bodies], and there are terrestrial [or earthly bodies]: and the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, you see the stars: and the planets are different ( 1 Corinthians 15:40-41 ).

The one has its own energy and life-giving force going forth from it. The other is just a planet depending on the energy that's coming. But different bodies, different forms in the heavens, different celestial bodies. And one star differs from another star in glory.

Now so also is the resurrection of the dead ( 1 Corinthians 15:42 ).

The seed, or we are planted, actually. This old body he's talking about now,

is sown in corruption; but it's going to be raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it will be raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. And there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body ( 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 ).

I am living now in a natural body. The real me is not this body. The real me is spirit. But the body is an instrument that God has given to me by which I might express me. So what I am, what I feel, what I think, I can relate to you because of my body and you in turn can relate to me what you are and what you feel through the medium of your body. And so, through the medium of our bodies we come into relationships with each other. I get to know you. I get to understand you. I come to appreciate you. I come to admire you. I come to love you. That's what God intended, that we come into meaningful loving relationships by the medium of our body. But the body isn't me, just the medium by which I express myself. And one day this old corruptible body is going to be planted in the ground. This weak body is going to be planted in the ground. This dishonorable body is going to be planted in the ground. But I'm going to be raised in glory, in incorruption, and in honor. For there is a natural body; it will be planted in the ground. But there is also a spiritual body, and I have a new body waiting for me.

Now, in a couple of weeks we will be getting to II Corinthians, chapter 5. Paul goes on with this very same lesson. And he said, "We know that when this earthly tent, the body in which we presently live is dissolved, that we then have a building of God that is not made with hands, that is eternal in the heavens." He's talking about the new body that I have. God has prepared a new body for me, a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. "So then we who are in this body do grown earnestly desiring to move out of them. Not that I would be an unembodied spirit, but I want to move into that new building, that new body. I want to be clothed upon with that new body which is from heaven. For I know that as long as I am living in this body," as long as Chuck is living in this old body, "I am absent from the Lord, but I would choose rather to be absent from this body and to be present with the Lord," in that new body. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions, I'm going to prepare one for you." He's talking about that new body that He's gone to prepare for you. Glorious new mansion, my spirit's going to move in.

Now, I am always interested in the capacities of this body. I've sought to find the limits of the capacities of this body. And it's always interesting to find out just how high this body can jump, how fast it can run, and things of that nature, as you test your body to its limits. It'll be very interesting to discover the limits of our new bodies, which I'm sure are vastly superior to these.

Now, there's the natural body, there's the spiritual body.

And so it is written, [verse 1 Corinthians 15:45 ,] The first man Adam was made a living soul; but the last Adam [Jesus Christ] was made a quickening spirit ( 1 Corinthians 15:45 ).

And the Greek there is hard to translate. Is made a "making alive spirit," a spirit that makes alive.

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual ( 1 Corinthians 15:46 ),

The first was Adam, the fleshly.

and then afterwards that which is spiritual. So the first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man [Jesus] is the Lord from heaven ( 1 Corinthians 15:46-47 ).

So I received a body from Adam. One of these days I'm going to receive a new body from Jesus. Fashioned into His image, into His likeness. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, it doesn't yet appear what we're going to be, but we know that when He appears we are going to be like Him" ( 1 John 3:2 ). The second is from the Lord, the spiritual, the heavenly.

And as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly ( 1 Corinthians 15:48-49 ).

But flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of heaven, so I've got to have a new body. A new body that will be fashioned like to the body of Jesus Christ, His spiritual heavenly body. That's what my new body will be like.

Now, when God made the body in which you presently live, He made it out of the earth. "Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return," was spoken of the body of man. It came out of the earth. And the same seventeen elements that make up the dirt outside are the same seventeen elements that make up your body.

One little kid, when his mom told him that we were made out of dust, came running into the kitchen all excited a few days later, and he said, "Momma, come quick. I just looked under the bed and someone's coming or going." But that was spoken of the body, not of you. Not of the spirit.

This body was not only made out of the earth, but it was made for the earth, of the earth, earthy. So God designed your body to exist in the environmental conditions of the planet Earth. Your body is designed to withstand fourteen pounds of pressure per square inch. Your body is designed to take the oxygen out of the 1Co 78:29 nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere in which we live. One per cent neon, freon, and some other gases. Designed for the earth. The body wasn't designed for space; it wasn't designed for the stratosphere. It wasn't designed for the moon or Mars or Venus or Jupiter. It was designed only for the earth. Now, to take your body out of the earth, you've got to take artificial environment with you or you can't survive. Those men who went to the moon had to take artificial environment with them. You saw the pressure suits, the space suits to maintain the fourteen pounds of pressure per square inch. You saw the tanks of nitrogen and oxygen on their backs so that they could have that same balance of atmosphere. They had to take all of the artificial environment to recreate the earth's environment in order to survive on the moon, because the body wasn't made for the moon. Your body wasn't made for heaven.

flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of heaven ( 1 Corinthians 15:50 );

Your body was made for the earth, so God wants to bring you into His glorious presence in the heavens. In order to do that, rather than outfit you with a space suit and give you nitrogen and oxygen tanks, heavy shoes to clomp around in, He's just made a new body for you that is designed for the environmental conditions of heaven. So, for the child of God, death is called sleep, because all you do is move out of the old body, the tent, into the new house that God's prepared for you. Just that simple.

Notice again, the body that comes out of the ground is not the body that you planted. All you planted was a bare grain. God gives it a body that pleases Him.

I will have a new body. I don't know that it will look anything at all like this body, and I really don't care. It's going to please God, and I know it'll please me. I expect improvements.

neither doth corruption inherit incorruption ( 1 Corinthians 15:50 ).

That is, this corruptible body cannot inherit the incorruption.

Now behold, I show you a mystery; We're not going to all sleep, [we're not all going to die,] but we're all going to be changed, in a moment, in a 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. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality ( 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 ).

So Paul here is now bringing them a new revelation, a mystery. Something that hasn't been revealed by the Lord up until this point, and this, that there's going to be one day a glorious transformation of the children of God. We're not going to all sleep, or die, but we're all going to be changed, in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. This is the event called the rapture, when all of us will be changed and this corruption will put on incorruption; this mortal will put on immortality.

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. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? For the sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ( 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 ).

We will be changed; we will receive a new body adapted for the heavenly environment.

One more illustration, and then we must move on. A caterpillar has an interesting little body that is designed to crawl on the earth. And that little caterpillar crawls through the fields. And I've watched them as they've crossed the highways on hot summer days. And I've walked across the road on hot summer days and that black asphalt can get awfully hot. And I can imagine that little caterpillar with all of those feet walking across the highway, having crossed through the fields, could probably be saying, "Oh, I'm so tired of hot dirty feet. I wish I could fly." And that little caterpillar might try to fly. It might climb up a tree and out on a twig and jump and wiggle as fast as it can, but the body is not designed aerodynamically. It is designed only to crawl on the ground or up the side of the wall. And so the body falls. But one day that little caterpillar crawls up the wall of your house and exudes a little glue and sticks itself under your windowsill and spins a chrysalis around itself. And after a period of time, you watch that chrysalis hanging there, you'll see it begin to jerk, convulsive kinds of jerks. If you continue to watch it, soon you will see it burst open and beautiful gold and black wings will unfurl. And it will perch there for a moment on the chrysalis, and then that tiger swallow tailed butterfly will begin flying around the yard. Over the fence and away. What's happened? A metamorphosis, a change of body that has allowed it to exist in a totally new environment. No more hot, dirty feet. It can now fly. As I look around this world in which we live and I see the mess, I sometimes say, "God, I'm so tired of hot, dirty feet. I wish I could fly."

"I show you a mystery. We're not gonna all sleep. But we're all gonna be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. And this corruption will put on incorruption. And this mortal will put on immortality." And I'm gonna soar through the skies, to forever be with my Lord. When He comes back to reign on the earth, I'll come back, but I'll have my new body then. The new capacities. And who knows what it is gonna be.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord ( 1 Corinthians 15:58 ).

One glorious thing about what you do for the Lord, it's never in vain. You know, I've put time and energy and all into projects, and worked hard, only to see them just . . . when you think, "Wow, you've got it made," and then just watch the whole thing crumble. All of that energy, all of that time, down the tubes. And you think, "Wow, what a waste of time and energy!" You can never say that about anything you do for the Lord. Your labor for the Lord is never in vain. Never in vain. You say, "But, they didn't believe, or they didn't receive." That's all right. God doesn't pay commissions, only salaries. He pays you for that labor that you did, not for the results of the labor. Just for the fact that you labored for Him. Therefore, abound in the work of the Lord, because it's never in vain.

Now Paul writes to them. He wants to go to Jerusalem and he wants to take money with him from the Gentile churches as a gesture of goodwill, because the saints in Jerusalem have gone through some real heavy times. And there's a real financial need in the church in Jerusalem and they have sort of a standoffish thing with the Gentiles. So Paul is hoping that this will break down that attitude when he can come with a very generous offering from the Gentile churches to show the Jews there that, "Hey, they are brothers. They love you. Because we are all part of the body of Christ."

"

Contending for the Faith

Arguments for the Reality of the Resurrection

1.    Baptized for the Dead

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?: This verse is possibly the most puzzling verse to be found in the scriptures. According to Robertson, there are more than thirty interpretations given concerning being baptized for the dead (see below for a few of them) (Vol. IV 192). This is the only place in the scriptures that indicates anything about such a practice; therefore, Vincent is no doubt correct when he says, "...it is best to admit frankly that we lack the facts for a decisive interpretation" (Vol. III 276).

The word "Else" (epei), meaning "since" (Strong #1893) or "for then" (Thayer 229-2-1893), shows a continuation of Paul’s main argument, which was interrupted at verse 23, about every man’s being resurrected in his own order. Paul poses the question, "What shall they do...?" Alford poses this question as "What will become of...?" or "What account can they give of their practice..." of being "baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?" (Vol. II 611).

why are they then baptized for the dead?: This second question of Paul’s, as difficult as it may be, must be kept within the context of his subject matter. Regardless of what is meant, let us not forget that Paul is using the practice of baptizing for the dead that the Corinthians were acquainted with to prove the bodily resurrection. Whatever view is taken, it must give support to the resurrection. Furthermore, it should be noted that Paul is not saying that he approves of the practice; instead, he is simply using their own practice to prove the bodily resurrection. Paul is asking, if there is, in fact, no bodily resurrection, what is their purpose for being baptized for the dead--what good will it do, if they rise not?

It appears that some of the Corinthians were permitting themselves to be baptized for friends or loved ones who had died before they were baptized. Some writers say the practice was to be baptized for deceased loved ones who died without hearing the gospel preached but believed they would have been baptized if they had heard the gospel before their death; therefore, those living were baptized in their behalf.

This practice of being baptized for the dead was not a general practice of all the Corinthians. "That it was not common at Corinth is perhaps implied by the use of the third person (they). Many attempts have been made to evade this conclusion, but all at the cost of violence to the language" (Cambridge Greek Testament 229).

It should be noted also that the word "dead" (nekros) is in the plural and means being baptized for "dead ones."

Paul here used...an argument based upon what men were doing, indicating clearly enough that some persons known to the Corinthians were practicing a baptism for the benefit of the dead; but the one thing that makes it impossible to suppose that Paul approved of such a thing is the use of the third person pronouns. There are no examples in the NT of the practice of Christians being designated as what ’they’ do. Concerning Christian baptism, for example, it is always ’we’ or ’you’ who were baptized and addressed in the first or second person, never in the third person. It is still ’they’ not ’we’ who baptized for the dead (Coffman 260).

The only legitimate reference is, to a practice, not otherwise known to us, not mentioned here with any approval by the Apostles, not generally prevalent, but in use by some, of survivors allowing themselves to be baptized on behalf of (believing?) friends who had died without baptism....All we clearly see from the text, is that it unquestionably did exist (Alford, Vol. II 611).

The word ’baptized’ is an imperfect participle, and denotes an act being continually performed. Paul’s question, then, is this: If the resurrection is not part of God’s plan--if affairs are otherwise, and there is really no resurrection--then what are converts to do, who, under the mistaken notion that there is a resurrection, are now constantly presenting themselves to be buried in baptism on account of the dead? If the dead are not raised, why then are these converts buried in baptism on their account, or with a view to them (McGarvey 152-153).

The practice of being baptized for the dead is contrary to scriptural teaching. There is certainly no evidence of Christians practicing any form of proxy baptism in the early days of the church. Historians tell us that in the second century the Cerinthians and Marcionites, two heretical sects, did engage in it. However, it was universally denounced by the church of that time. Baptism is an individual matter, and we cannot be baptized for someone else. Jesus says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). We are not capable of knowing if the dead believe or not; therefore, we cannot be baptized for them.

That Paul would make an argument based upon a practice that he did not totally agree with is common in his writings. For example, Paul says, "For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols" (8:10). Here, he mentions "sitting in an idol’s temple," which he disapproves of, without condemning the practice at that time. Another example is found where Paul says, "But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven" (11:5). Paul here refers to women who "prophesieth" (teaching) without condemning the practice, at that time, within the church (he deals with the error of this practice in 14:34).

Possibly, it is things such as being baptized for the dead that Paul had in mind when he states in 1 Corinthians 11:34: "...And the rest will I set in order when I come."

Differing Interpretations about
Being Baptized for the Dead

1.    Baptized in view of their coming death

The purpose, scope, and connection will admit of but one meaning--If the dead rise not, what shall they do who are baptized in the hope of the resurrection? Men are ’baptized into Christ,’ that they may live in him, die in him, and finally be justified and saved in him....In view of their dying they are baptized in order to their well-being after death. If they are not to be raised from the dead, why are they baptized to fit them for the resurrection? (Lipscomb 234).

2.    Symbolic baptism

The dead are a class of whom Christ is the head and firstfruits unto resurrection. By baptism we symbolically unite ourselves with that class, and so with Christ, and we do this because of the hope that we shall be raised with that class through the power of Christ (Romans 6:5). But if the dead are not raised at all, then why should converts be united with them by a symbolic burial? why should they be baptized on their account, or with reference to them? (McGarvey 153).

3.    Proxy Baptism--"on Behalf"

The language suggests that people were being baptized on behalf of people who had already died without being baptized. Whether those dead people were unbaptized believers or unbaptized unbelievers is impossible to determine from the text. This kind of proxy baptism, so to speak, apparently was thought to guarantee that the dead for whom living believers were being baptized would themselves be raised from death at the end of the age (Bratcher 150).

4.    Vicarious baptism

The plain and necessary sense of the words implies the existence of a practice of vicarious baptism at Corinth, presumably on behalf of believers who died before they were baptized. That such a practice existed later among some heretics is certain (Cambridge Greek Testament 228).

5.    Wrong punctuation

Bearing in mind that the original was written without punctuation marks, let the first question mark in the verse be placed after the word ’baptized’, and the verse gives a meaning at once consistent with the doctrine of Scripture. The reading will thus be: ’Else what shall they do which are baptized? It is for (i.e., in the interests of) the dead, if the dead are not raised at all. Why then are they baptized for them?’ The first question, ’What shall they do...?’ is a way of asking what is the use or value of being baptized (Vine 214).

6.    Dying loved one’s appeal--"meet me in heaven"

Paul is referring rather to a much commoner, indeed a normal experience, that the death of Christians leads to the conversion of survivors, who in the first instance ’for the sake of the dead’ (their beloved dead), and in the hope of reunion, turn to Christ--for example, when a dying mother wins her son by the appeal, ’Meet me in heaven!’ (Expositor’s Greek Testament, Vol. II 931).

7.    Figurative--baptism of trial and suffering

There remains an interpretation suggested by some commentators and supported by the context, which would refer it to the baptism of trial and suffering through which the disciples of Christ were called upon to go, which would be utterly useless and absurd if it had been, and continued to be, undergone for the dying and for the dead (verses 6, 18). The use of the present tense in the verb baptized, the close connection of the second member of the sentence with the first, and the use of the word baptized in this sense in St. Matthew 3:11; Matthew 20:22, are the grounds on which this interpretation may be maintained (The Cambridge Bible 151).

...the explanation which refers baptism to martyrdom--the baptism of blood....In the absence of anything more satisfactory I adopt the explanation given above (Vincent, Vol. III 276).

8.    Part of profession of faith when baptized

Chrysostom believes the apostle to refer to the profession of faith in baptism, part of which was, ’I believe in the resurrection of the dead.’ The meaning, then, would be, ’If there is no resurrection of the dead, why, then, art thou baptized for the dead, that is, the body?’ (Chrysostom--Quoted by Unger’s Bible Dictionary 124).

9.    Baptized over the dead

Baptized over the graves of the dead. ’Huper,’ translated as for or on behalf of, is understood as over and it is suggested that some had been baptized over the graves of the dead (Allen 190-192).

10.    Baptized out of respect for the dead

Some saints, then dead, while living had pleaded with others to be baptized. Hence, there were those who had been baptized to fulfill the entreaties of departed disciples (Allen 190-192).

11.    Baptized to take the place of departed Christians

Baptized to fill up the vacant places left in the church by those who had died. This is a military concept of one soldier taking the place of another who has fallen in battle (Allen 190-192).

12.    Baptized for those who were about to die

The argument was ’why should baptism be administered to those on the brink of death?’ (Allen 190-192).

13.    Baptized for those who are dead to sin by repentance

Baptized on behalf of one who is already dead to the love of sin by repentance. This would make it an allusion to anyone scripturally baptized (Allen 190-192).

14.    Baptism on behalf of the dead Christ

Baptism on behalf of the dead Christ. If this is correct, the plural (dead ones) is used for the singular (dead one) (Allen 190-192).

15.    Baptizing a dead body

Baptism in the sense of dipping a saint’s dead body in water to thoroughly cleanse it prior to burial and in hope of the resurrection (Allen 190-192).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The certainty of resurrection 15:12-34

In the preceding paragraph Paul firmly established that the gospel the Corinthians had believed contained the fact that God had raised Jesus Christ bodily, along with other equally crucial facts. Next he proceeded to show the consequences of rejecting belief in the resurrection of the body.

"Paul uses reductio ad absurdum: if there is no resurrection (i.e., of believers in the future), then Jesus did not rise (1 Corinthians 15:12-13), a point on which he dwells at length (1 Corinthians 15:12-19, where Paul provides rhetorical emphasis through a series of seven if-then statements)." [Note: Keener, 1-2 Corinthians, p. 126.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

This verse probably refers to proxy baptism, the custom of undergoing baptism for someone who died before he or she could experience baptism. Morris wrote that there have been 30 to 40 interpretations of this verse. [Note: Morris, p. 219. See the commentaries for other views and John D. Reaume, "Another Look at 1 Corinthians 15:29, ’Baptized for the Dead’," Bibliotheca Sacra 152:608 (October-December 1995):457-75.] Baptism for the dead was a custom in at least one of the mystery religions, one based close to Corinth in the neighboring town of Eleusis: the Eleusian mystery religion. [Note: Lowery, "1 Corinthians," p. 544.] Perhaps the Corinthians were practicing baptism for the dead for people who became Christians on their deathbeds or under other conditions that made it difficult or impossible for them to undergo baptism in water. However, Paul did not say they were doing this, only that some people did this. Paul’s mention of the custom is not necessarily an endorsement of it, but, on the other hand, he did not specifically condemn it either.

Whether he approved of it or not, the Corinthian believers were evidently influenced by it. It appears again that the spirit of the city of Corinth had invaded the church. Paul used this practice to argue for the reality of resurrection. His point was that if there is no physical resurrection it is foolish to undergo baptism for someone who had died because in that case they are dead and gone forever. [Note: See Barrett, pp. 362-63; and Robertson and Plummer, p. 360.] Suppose, on the other hand, there is a resurrection. When God will raise those baptized by proxy, they would not suffer shame for failure to undergo baptism while they were alive. Those who had not benefited from proxy baptism would suffer embarrassment.

The Corinthians may have carried proxy baptism over into the church from pagan religions. That is a distinct possibility since we have seen that they had done this with other pagan practices. There is nothing in Scripture that encourages this practice, though some have interpreted this verse as an encouragement. Some Christian groups that believe water baptism contributes to a person’s salvation advocate it. Today Mormons do. However the mention of a practice in Scripture does not always constitute endorsement of it. We have seen this in chapters 8-11 especially.

One writer believed the first reference to "the dead" in this verse refers to the apostles who had died metaphorically (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:31). [Note: Joel R. White, "Baptized on Account of the Dead": The Meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:29 in its Context," Journal of Biblical Literature 116:3 (1997):487-99.] This seems unlikely to me in view of the prevalence of this custom in and around Corinth.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Other arguments for resurrection 15:29-34

Paul turned from Christ’s career to the Christian’s experience to argue ad hominem for the resurrection. An ad hominem argument is one that appeals to self-interest rather than to logic. The Corinthians’ actions, and his, bordered on absurdity if the dead will not rise. This paragraph is something of a digression, and the main argument resumes in 1 Corinthians 15:35.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 15

JESUS' RESURRECTION AND OURS ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 )

1 Corinthians 15:1-58 is both one of the greatest and one of the most difficult chapters in the New Testament. Not only is it in itself difficult, but it has also given to the creed a phrase which many people have grave difficulty in affirming, for it is from this chapter that we mainly derive the idea of the resurrection of the body. The chapter will be far less difficult if we study it against its background, and even that troublesome phrase will become quite clear and acceptable when we realize what Paul really meant by it. So then, before we study the chapter, there are certain things we would do well to have in mind.

(i) It is of great importance to remember that the Corinthians were denying not the Resurrection of Jesus Christ but the resurrection of the body; and what Paul was insistent upon was that if a man denied the resurrection of the body he thereby denied the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and therefore emptied the Christian message of its truth and the Christian life of its reality.

(ii) In any early Christian church there must have been two backgrounds, for in all churches there were Jews and Greeks.

First, there was the Jewish background. To the end of the day the Sadducees denied that there was any life after death at all. There was therefore one line of Jewish thought which completely denied both the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body ( Acts 23:8). In the Old Testament there is very little hope of anything that can be called life after death. According to the general Old Testament belief all men, without distinction, went to Sheol after death. Sheol, often wrongly translated Hell, was a gray land beneath the world, where the dead lived a shadowy existence, without strength, without light, cut off alike from men and from God. The Old Testament is full of this bleak, grim pessimism regarding what is to happen after death.

For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in Sheol

who can give thee praise? ( Psalms 6:5).

What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise thee? Will it tell of thy faithfulness?

( Psalms 30:9).

Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise

up to praise thee? Is thy steadfast love declared in the

grave? Or thy faithfulness in Abaddon? Are thy wonders

known in the darkness, or thy saving help in the land of

forgetfulness? ( Psalms 88:10-12).

The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down

into silence. ( Psalms 115:17).

For Sheol cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee;

those who go down to the pit cannot hope for thy

faithfulness. ( Isaiah 38:18).

Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before

I depart and be no more. ( Psalms 39:13).

But he who is joined with all the living has hope; for a living

dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that

they will die; but the dead know nothing.... Whatever

your hand finds to do do it with your might; for there

is no work, or thought, or knowledge, or wisdom, in

Sheol to which you are going. ( Ecclesiastes 9:4-5; Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Who shall give praise to the Most High in the grave?

(Ecc 17:27).

The dead that are in the grave, whose breath is taken from

their bodies, will give unto the Lord neither glory nor

righteousness. ( Bar_2:17 ).

J. E. McFadyen, a great Old Testament scholar, says that this lack of a belief in immortality in the Old Testament is due "to the power with which those men apprehended God in this world." He goes on to say, "There are few more wonderful things than this in the long story of religion, that for centuries men lived the noblest lives, doing their duties and bearing their sorrows, without hope of future reward; and they did this because in all their going out and coming in they were very sure of God."

It is true that in the Old Testament there are some few, some very few, glimpses of a real life to come. There were times when a man felt that, if God be God at all, there must be something which would reverse the incomprehensible verdicts of this world. So Job cries out,

Still, I know One to champion me at last,

to stand up for me upon earth.

This body may break up, but even then

my life shall have a sight of God.

( Job 19:25-27. Moffatt).

The real feeling of the saint was that even in this life a man might enter into a relationship with God so close and so precious that not even death could break it.

My body also dwells secure. For thou dost not give me up

to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost

show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness

of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

( Psalms 16:9-11).

Thou dost hold my right hand. Thou dost guide me with thy

counsel, and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory.

( Psalms 73:24).

It is also true that in Israel the immortal hope developed. Two things helped that development. (a) Israel was the chosen people, and yet her history was one continued tale of disaster. Men began to feel that it required another world to redress the balance. (b) For many centuries it is true to say that the individual hardly existed. God was the God of the nation and the individual was an unimportant unit. But as the centuries went on religion became more and more personal. God became not the God of the nation but the friend of every individual; and so men began dimly and instinctively to feel that once a man knows God and is known by him, a relationship has been created which not even death can break.

(iii) When we turn to the Greek world, we must firmly grasp one thing, which is at the back of the whole chapter. The Greeks had an instinctive fear of death. Euripides wrote, "Yet mortals, burdened with countless ills, still love life. They long for each coming day, glad to bear the thing they know, rather than face death the unknown." (Fragment 813). But on the whole the Greeks, and that part of the world influenced by Greek thought, did believe in the immortality of the soul. But for them the immortality of the soul involved the complete dissolution of the body.

They had a proverb, "The body is a tomb." "I am a poor soul," said one of them, "shackled to a corpse." "It pleased me," said Seneca, "to enquire into the eternity of the soul--nay! to believe in it. I surrendered myself to that great hope." But he also says, "When the day shall come which shall part this mixture of divine and human, here, where I found it, I will leave my body, myself I will give back to the gods." Epictetus writes, "When God does not supply what is necessary, he is sounding the signal for retreat--he has opened the door and says to you 'Come!' But whither? To nothing terrible, but to whence you came, to the things which are dear and kin to you, to the elements. What in you was fire shall go to fire, earth to earth, water to water." Seneca talks about things at death "being resolved into their ancient elements." For Plato "the body is the antithesis of the soul, as the source of all weaknesses as opposed to what alone is capable of independence and goodness." We can see this best in the Stoic belief. To the Stoic God was fiery spirit, purer than anything on earth. What gave men life was that a spark of this divine fire came and dwelt in a man's body. When a man died, his body simply dissolved into the elements of which it was made, but the divine spark returned to God and was absorbed in the divinity of which it was a part.

For the Greek immortality lay precisely in getting rid of the body. For him the resurrection of the body was unthinkable. Personal immortality did not really exist because that which gave men life was absorbed again in God the source of all life.

(iv) Paul's view was quite different. If we begin with one immense fact, the rest will become clear. The Christian belief is that after death individuality will survive, that you will still be you and I will still be I. Beside that we have to set another immense fact. To the Greek the body could not be consecrated. It was matter, the source of all evil, the prison-house of the soul. But to the Christian the body is not evil. Jesus, the Son of God, has taken this human body upon him and therefore it is not contemptible because it has been inhabited by God. To the Christian, therefore the life to come involves the total man, body and soul.

Now it is easy to misinterpret and to caricature the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Celsus, who lived about A.D. 220, a bitter opponent of Christianity, did this very thing long ago. How can those who have died rise with their identical bodies? he demands. "Really it is the hope of worms! For what soul of a man would any longer wish for a body that had rotted?" It is easy to cite the case of a person smashed up in an accident or dying of cancer.

But Paul never said that we would rise with the body with which we died. He insisted that we would have a spiritual body. What he really meant was that a man's personality would survive. It is almost impossible to conceive of personality without a body, because it is through the body that the personality expresses itself. What Paul is contending for is that after death the individual remains. He did not inherit the Greek contempt of the body but believed in the resurrection of the whole man. He will still be himself; he will survive as a person. That is what Paul means by the resurrection of the body. Everything of the body and of the soul that is necessary to make a man a person will survive, but, at the same time, all things will be new, and body and spirit will alike be very different from earthly things, for they will alike be divine.

The Risen Lord ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-11)

15:1-11 Brothers, I want to make clear to you the nature of the good news that I preached to you, that gospel which you also received, and in which you stand, and through which you are saved. I want to make clear to you what account I gave you of the good news, an account which can save you if you hold fast to it, unless your belief is a random and haphazard thing. In the very forefront of it I handed on to you what I myself received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was laid in the tomb, and that he was raised up on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas and then by The Twelve, and that then he was seen by more than five hundred brothers all at the one time, of whom the majority are still alive, although some have fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, and then by all the apostles, and last of all, as if by the abortion of the apostolic family, he was seen by me too. For I am the least of the apostles; in fact I am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. It is by the grace of God that I am what I am, and his grace to me has not proved ineffective, but I have toiled more exceedingly than all of them; but it was not I who achieved anything but God's grace working with me. So then, whether I be the preacher or they, this is what we preach and this is what we have believed.

Paul is recapitulating the good news which he first brought to the Corinthians. It was not news which he had invented but news which had first been delivered to him, and it was news of a Risen Lord.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 Paul says an extremely interesting series of things about the good news.

(i) It was something which the Corinthians had received. No man ever invented the gospel for himself; in a sense no man ever discovers it for himself. It is something which he receives. Therein indeed is the very function of the Church. The Church is the repository and the transmitter of the good news. As one of the old fathers had it, "No man can have God for his Father, unless he has the Church for his mother." The good news is something that is received within a fellowship.

(ii) It was something in which the Corinthians stood. The very first function of the good news was to give a man stability. In a slippery world it kept him on his feet. In a tempting world it gave him resistance power. In a hurting world it enabled him to endure a broken heart or an agonized body and not to give in. Moffatt finely translates Job 4:4, "Your words have kept men on their feet." That is precisely what the gospel does.

(iii) It was something in which they were being saved. It is interesting to note that in the Greek this is a present tense, and not past. It would be strictly correct to translate it not, "in which you have been saved," but, "in which you are being saved." Salvation goes from glory to glory. It is not something which is ever completed in this world. There are many things in this life which we can exhaust, but the meaning of salvation is something which a man can never exhaust.

(iv) It was something to which a man had to hold tenaciously. Life makes many an attempt to take away our faith. Things happen to us and to others which baffle our understanding; life has its problems to which there seems no solution and its questions to which there seems no answer; life has its dark places where there seems to be nothing to do but hold on. Faith is always a victory, the victory of the soul which tenaciously maintains its clutch on God.

(v) It was something which must not be held haphazardly and at random. The faith which collapses is the faith which has not thought things out and thought them through. For so many of us faith is a superficial thing. We tend to accept things because we are told them and to possess them merely at secondhand. If we undergo the agony of thought there may be much that we must discard, but what is left is really ours in such a way that nothing can ever take it from us.

In Paul's list of appearances of the Risen Lord two are specially interesting.

(i) There is the appearance to Peter. In the earliest account of the Resurrection story, the word of the messenger in the empty tomb is, "Go, tell his disciples and Peter." ( Mark 16:7). In Luke 24:34 the disciples say, "The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon." It is an amazing thing that one of the first appearances of the Risen Lord was to the disciple who had denied him. There is all the wonder of the love and grace of Jesus Christ here. Others might have hated Peter forever, but the one desire of Jesus was to set this erratic disciple of his upon his feet. Peter had wronged Jesus and then had wept his heart out; and the one desire of this amazing Jesus was to comfort him in the pain of his disloyalty. Love can go no further than to think more of the heartbreak of the man who wronged it than of the hurt that it itself has received.

(ii) There is the appearance to James. Without doubt this James is the brother of our Lord. It is quite clear from the gospel narrative that Jesus' own family did not understand him and were even actively hostile to him. Mark 3:21 tells us that they actually sought to restrain him because they believed him to be mad. John 7:5 tells us that his brothers did not believe in him. One of the earliest of those gospels which did not succeed in getting into the New Testament is the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Only fragments of it remain. One fragment, preserved by Jerome, reads, "Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth unto the servant of the priest, went unto James and appeared unto him (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour wherein he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him risen again from among them that sleep)." So, the story runs, "Jesus went to James and said, 'Bring ye a table and bread.' And he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it unto James the Just and said unto him, 'My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep.'" We can only conjecture what lies behind this. It may well be that the last days turned James' contempt into wondering admiration so that when the end came, he was so torn with remorse for the way in which he had treated his brother that he swore that he would starve unless he came back to forgive him. Here once again we have the amazing grace and love of Christ. He came to bring peace to the troubled soul of the man who had called him mad and who had been his opponent.

It is one of the most heart-moving things in all the story of Jesus that two of his first appearances, after he rose from the tomb, were to men who had hurt him and were sorry for it. Jesus meets the penitent heart far more than halfway.

Finally, in this passage we have a vivid light thrown on the character of Paul himself. To him it was the most precious thing in the world that Jesus had appeared also to him. That was at one and the same time the turning point and the dynamic moment of his life. But 1 Corinthians 15:9-11 tell us much about him.

(i) They tell us of his utter humility. He is the least of the apostles; he has been glorified with an office for which he is not worthy. Paul would never have claimed to be a self-made man. It was by the grace of God that he was what he was. He is perhaps even accepting a taunt made against him. It would seem that he was a little and an unhandsome man ( 2 Corinthians 10:10). It may be that the Jewish Christians who wished to impose the law upon Christian converts and who hated his doctrine of free grace, declared that, so far from being born again, Paul was an abortion. He, for his part, was so conscious of his own unworthiness that he felt no one could say anything too bad about him. Charles Gore once said, "On a general review of life we can seldom feel that we are suffering unmerited wrong." Paul felt like that. His was not the pride which resented the criticisms and the taunts of men, but the humility which felt that it deserved them.

(ii) They tell us at the same time of the consciousness of his own worth. He was well aware that he had laboured beyond them all. His was not a false modesty. But even at that, he spoke always, not of what he had done, but of what God had enabled him to do.

(iii) They tell of his sense of fellowship. He did not regard himself as an isolated phenomenon with a message that was unique. He and the other apostles preached the same gospel. His was the greatness which bound him closer to the Christian fellowship; there is always something lacking in the greatness which divides a man from his fellows.

If Christ Be Not Raised ( 1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

15:12-19 If it is continually proclaimed that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some among you say that the resurrection of the dead does not exist? If the resurrection from among the dead does not exist, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then the proclamation of the faith is emptied of its meaning, and your faith has been emptied of its meaning too. If that is so we are shown to have home false witness about God, because we witnessed about God, that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if indeed the dead are not raised up. If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins; and, if that is so, those who died trusting in Christ have perished. If it is only in this life that we have hope in Christ, then we are more to be pitied than all men.

Paul attacks the central position of his opponents at Corinth. They said flatly, "Dead men do not rise again." Paul's answer is, "If you take up that position it means that Jesus Christ has not risen again; and if that be so, the whole Christian faith is wrecked."

Why did Paul regard a belief in the Resurrection of Jesus as so essential? What great values and great truths does j, conserve? It proves four great facts, which can make all the difference to a man's view of life here and hereafter.

(i) The Resurrection proves that truth is stronger than falsehood. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus said to his enemies, "Now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth." ( John 8:40). Jesus came with the true idea of God and of goodness; his enemies procured his death because they did not want their own false view destroyed. If they had succeeded in finally obliterating him, falsehood would have been stronger than truth. On one occasion the Earl of Morton, regent of Scotland, sent for Andrew Melville, the great Reformation leader. "There will never be quyetnes in this countrey," said Morton, "till halff a dissone of you be hangit or banished the countrey." "Tushe! sir," said Melville, "threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground.... Yet God be glorified, it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll his treuthe!" The Resurrection is the final guarantee of the indestructibility of the truth.

(ii) The Resurrection proves that good is stronger than evil. Again to quote the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is represented as saying to his enemies, "You are of your father, the devil." ( John 8:44). The forces of evil crucified Jesus and if there had been no Resurrection these forces would have been triumphant. J. A. Froude, the great historian, wrote, "One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations, that in the long run it is well with the good, and in the long run it is ill with the wicked." But if the Resurrection had not taken place, that very principle would have been imperilled, and we could never again be certain that goodness is stronger than evil.

(iii) The Resurrection proves that love is stronger than hatred. Jesus was the love of God incarnate.

"Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine."

On the other hand, the attitude of those who procured his crucifixion was an almost virulent hatred, so bitter that in the end it was capable of ascribing the loveliness and graciousness of his life to the power of the devil. If there had been no Resurrection, it would have meant that the hatred of man in the end conquered the love of God. The Resurrection is the triumph of love over all that hatred could do. This very beautiful poem sums up the whole matter.

"I heard two soldiers talking

As they came down the hill,

The sombre hill of Calvary,

Bleak and black and still.

And one said, 'The night is late,

These thieves take long to die.'

And one said, 'I am sore afraid,

And yet I know not why.'

I heard two women weeping

As down the hill they came,

And one was like a broken rose,

And one was like a flame.

One said, 'Men shall rue

This deed their hands have done.'

And one said only through her tears,

'My son! my son! my son!'

I heard two angels singing

Ere yet the dawn was bright,

And they were clad in shining robes,

Robes and crowns of light.

And one sang, 'Death is vanquished,'

And one in golden voice

Sang, 'Love hath conquered, conquered all,

O heaven and earth rejoice!'"

The Resurrection is the final proof that love is stronger than hate.

(iv) The Resurrection proves that life is stronger than death. If Jesus had died never to rise again, it would have proved that death could take the loveliest and best life that ever lived and finally break it. During the second world war a certain city church in London was all set out for harvest thanksgiving. In the centre of the gifts was a sheaf of corn. The service was never held, for, on the Saturday night, a savage air raid laid the church in ruins. The months passed and the spring came, and someone noticed that, on the bomb site where the church had stood, there were shoots of green. The summer came and the shoots flourished and in the autumn there was a flourishing patch of corn growing amidst the rubble. Not even the bombs and the destruction could kill the life of the corn and its seeds. The Resurrection is the final proof that life is stronger than death.

Paul insisted that if the Resurrection of Jesus was not a fact the whole Christian message was based on a lie, that many thousands had died trusting in a delusion, that without it the greatest values in life have no guarantee. "Take away the Resurrection," he said, "and you destroy both the foundation and the fabric of the Christian faith."

The First-fruits Of Those That Sleep ( 1 Corinthians 15:20-28)

15:20-28 Now then Christ has been raised from among the dead, the first-fruits of those who sleep. For, since it was through one man that death came, it was also through one man that the resurrection of the dead came. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. Each comes in his own rank. Christ is the first-fruits, and then those who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes. After that comes the final end, when he will hand over the Kingdom to God, his father, when he has reduced to helplessness every other rule, and every other authority and power. For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet. Death will be the last enemy to be reduced to helplessness. For God has subjected all things to him. (When we say that all things have been subjected to him, that of course does not include him who subjected them to him). But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.

This again is a very difficult passage because it deals with ideas which are strange to us.

It speaks of Christ as "the first-fruits of them that sleep." Paul is thinking in terms of a picture which every Jew would recognize. The Feast of the Passover had more than one significance. It commemorated the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. But it was also a great harvest festival. It fell just at the time when the barley harvest was due to be ingathered. The law laid it down, "You shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest to the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." ( Leviticus 23:10-11). Some sheaves of barley must be reaped from a common field. They must not be taken from a garden or an orchard or from specially prepared soil. They must come from a typical field. When the barley was cut, it was brought to the Temple. There it was threshed with soft canes so as not to bruise it. It was then parched over the fire in a perforated pan so that every grain was touched by the fire. It was then exposed to the wind so that the chaff was blown away. It was then ground in a barley mill and its flour was offered to God. That was the first-fruits.

It is significant to note that not until after that was done could the new barley be bought and sold in the shops and bread be made from the new flour. The first-fruits were a sign of the harvest to come; and the Resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come. Just as the new barley could not be used until the first-fruits had been duly offered, so the new harvest of life could not come until Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Paul goes on to use another Jewish idea. According to the old story in Genesis 3:1-19 it was through Adam's sin that death came into the world as its direct consequence and penalty. The Jews believed that all men literally sinned in Adam; we see that his sin might transmit to his descendants the tendency to sin. As Aeschylus said, "The impious deed leaves after it a larger progeny, all in the likeness of the parent stock." As George Eliot wrote, "Our deeds are like children that are born to us, they live and act apart from our will; nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never. They have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness."

Nobody would be likely to deny that a child can inherit a tendency to sin and that the father's sins are literally visited upon the children. No one would deny that a child can inherit the consequences of a father's sin, for we know all too well how physical conditions which are the consequence of an immoral life can be transmitted to the child. But the Jew meant more than that. He had a tremendous sense of solidarity. He was sure that no man could ever do anything that could affect only himself. And he held that all men sinned in Adam. The whole world of men was, as it were, in him; and when he sinned all sinned.

That may seem a strange idea to us and unfair. But that was the Jewish belief. All had sinned in Adam, therefore all were under the penalty of death. With the coming of Christ that chain was broken. Christ was sinless and conquered death. Just as all men sinned in Adam, so all men escape from sin in Christ; and just as all men died in Adam, so all men conquered death in Christ. Our unity with Christ is just as real as our unity with Adam and this destroys the evil effect of the old.

So we get two contrasting sets of facts. First, there is Adam--sin--death. Second, there is Christ--goodness--life. And just as we were all involved in the sin of him who was first created, we are all involved in the victory of him who re-created mankind. However we may estimate that way of thinking today, it was convincing to those who heard it for the first time; and, whatever else is doubtful, it remains true that with Jesus Christ a new power came into the world to liberate men from sin and death.

1 Corinthians 15:24-28 read very strangely to us. We are used to thinking of the Father and the Son on terms of equality. But here Paul clearly and deliberately subordinates the Son to the Father. What he is thinking of is this. We can use only human terms and analogies. God gave to Jesus a task to do, to defeat sin and death and to liberate man. The day will come when that task will be fully and finally accomplished, and then, to put it in pictorial terms, the Son will return to the Father like a victor coming home and the triumph of God will be complete. It is not a case of the Son being subject to the Father as a slave or even a servant is to a master. It is a case of one who, having accomplished the work that was given him to do, returns with the glory of complete obedience as his crown. As God sent forth his Son to redeem the world, so in the end he will receive back a world redeemed; and then there will be nothing in heaven or in earth outside his love and power.

If There Is No Resurrection ( 1 Corinthians 15:29-34)

15:29-34 If there is no resurrection, what will those who are baptized for the dead do? If the dead are not raised at all, why do people get themselves baptized for them? Every day I take my life in my hands, I swear it by the pride which I have in you in Christ Jesus our Lord. What good is it to me--looking at it from the human point of view--if at Ephesus I had to fight with beasts in the arena? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Don't deceive yourselves--evil friendships destroy good characters. Turn to sober living, as it is only right that you should, and don't go on sinning. Some of you boast about your knowledge, but you have not a vestige of knowledge about God. It is to shame you that I speak.

Once again this passage begins with a very difficult section. People have always been puzzled about what being baptized for the dead means, and even yet the problem is not definitely settled. The preposition for in the phrase for the dead is the Greek huper ( G5228) . In general this word can have two main meanings. When used of place, it can mean above or over. Far more commonly it is used of persons or things and means instead of or on behalf of. Remembering these two meanings, let us look at some of the ways this phrase has been understood.

(i) Beginning from the meaning of over or above, some scholars have suggested that it refers to those who get themselves baptized over the graves of the martyrs. The idea is that there would be something specially moving in being baptized on sacred ground with the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses all around. It is an attractive and rather lovely idea, but at the time Paul was writing to the Corinthians persecution had not yet broken out in anything like a big way. Christians might suffer ostracism and social persecution, but the time of the martyrs had not yet come.

(ii) It is in any event much more natural to take huper in the sense of instead of or on behalf of. If we take it that way there are three possibilities. It is suggested that the phrase refers to those who get themselves baptized in order to fill up the vacant places in the Church which the dead have left. The idea is that the new believer, the young Christian, comes into the Church like a new recruit to take the place of the veterans who have served their campaign and earned their release. There is a great thought there. The Church ever needs its replacements and the new member is like the volunteer who fills up the depleted ranks.

(iii) It is suggested that the phrase means those who get themselves baptized out of respect for and affection for the dead. Again there is a precious truth here. Many of us came into the Church because we knew and remembered that some loved one had died praying and hoping for us. Many have in the end given their lives to Christ because of the unseen influence of one who has passed over to the other side.

(iv) All these are lovely thoughts, but in the end we think that this phrase can refer to only one custom, which has quite correctly passed out of Church practice altogether. In the early Church there was vicarious baptism. If a person died who had intended to become a member of the Church and was actually under instruction, sometimes someone else underwent baptism for him. The custom sprang from a superstitious view of baptism, that, without it, a person was necessarily excluded from the bliss of heaven. It was to safeguard against this exclusion that sometimes people volunteered to be baptized literally on behalf of those who had died. Here Paul neither approves nor disapproves that practice. He merely asks if there can be any point in it if there is no resurrection and the dead never rise again.

From that he passes on to one of the great motives of the Christian life. In effect he asks, "Why should a Christian accept the perils of the Christian life if it is all to go for nothing?" He quotes his own experience. Every day he is in jeopardy of his life. Something terrible of which the New Testament has no record happened to Paul at Ephesus. He refers to it again in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10: he says that in Asia, that is in Ephesus, he was in such dire peril that he despaired of life and had the sentence of death passed upon him. To this day in Ephesus there is a building known as Paul's prison. Here he calls his peril fighting with beasts. The word he uses is that used of a gladiator in the arena. The later legends tell us that he actually did so fight and that he was wondrously preserved because the beasts would not attack him. But Paul was a Roman citizen and no Roman citizen could be compelled to fight in the arena. Much more likely he used the phrase as a vivid picture of being threatened by men who were as savage for his life as a wild beast might have been. In any event he demands, "To what end is all the peril and the suffering if there is no life beyond?"

The man who thinks that this life is all, and that there is nothing to follow it, may well say, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." The Bible itself quotes those who speak like that. "Come," they say, "let us get wine, let us fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure." ( Isaiah 56:12). The preacher, who held that death was extinction, wrote, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment from his toil." ( Ecclesiastes 2:24, compare Ecclesiastes 3:12; Ecclesiastes 5:18; Ecclesiastes 8:15; Ecclesiastes 9:7). Jesus himself told about the rich fool who forgot eternity and took as his motto, "Eat, drink and be merry." ( Luke 12:19).

Classical literature is full of this spirit. Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells of a custom of the Egyptians. "In social meetings among the rich, when the banquet is ended, a servant carries round to the several guests a coffin, in which there is a wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant says, 'Gaze here, and drink and be merry, for when you die, such will you be."' Euripides writes in the Alcestis (781-789, A. S. Way's translation):

"From all mankind the debt of death is due,

For of all mortals is there one that knows

If through the coming morrow he shall live?

For trackless is the way of fortune's feet,

Not to be taught nor won by art of man.

This hearing then, and learning it of me,

Make merry, drink; the life from day to day

Account thine own, all else in fortune's power."

Thucydides (2: 53) tells how, when the mortal plague came to Athens, people committed every shameful crime and eagerly snatched at every lustful pleasure because they believed that life was short and they would never have to pay the penalty. Horace (Odes 2: 13; 13) gives as his philosophy, "Tell them to bring wines and perfumes and the too-short-lived blossoms of the lovely rose while circumstances and age and the black threads of the three sisters (the Fates) still allow us to do so." In one of the most famous poems in the world the Latin poet Catullus wrote, "Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single halfpenny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep."

Take away the thought of a life to come and this life loses its values. Take away the idea that this life is a preparation for a greater life to follow and the bonds of honour and morality are loosened. It is useless to argue that this should not be so and that men should not be good and honourable simply for the sake of some reward. The fact remains that the man who believes that this is the only world tends to live as if the things of this world are all that matter.

So Paul insists that the Corinthians must not associate with those who say that there is no resurrection; for this would be to risk an infection which can pollute life. To say that there is no resurrection is not a sign of superior knowledge; it is a sign of utter ignorance of God. Paul is unleashing the lash that very shame may bring these wanderers back into the right way.

The Physical And The Spiritual ( 1 Corinthians 15:35-49)

15:35-49 But perhaps someone says, "In what form are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" That is a foolish question. When you sow a seed, it cannot be made alive, unless it first dies. It is not the body which is going to come into existence that is sown, but a seed which is not clothed in a body at all, it may be of corn, or of some other of the crops. But God gives it a body as he wills, and to each of the seeds he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, and another of beasts, and another of birds, and another of fishes. There are heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. The splendour of the heavenly bodies is one thing, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one splendour and the moon another splendour and the stars another splendour. I say stars, not star, for star differs from star in splendour. There is the same difference between this body and the body we shall have in the resurrection of the dead. Our body is like the seed. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. For if a physical body exists, so does a spiritual one. For it stands written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and after that the spiritual. The first man is of the earth and was made of earth--the second man is from heaven. Such as are made of earth are like earth; such as are heavenly, are like the heavenly one; and, as we have borne the image of that which is of earth, so we shall also bear the image of him who is of heaven.

Before we begin to try to interpret this section we would do well to remember one thing--all through it Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is talking not about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. Trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, he is doing the best he can with the human ideas and human words that are all that he has to work with. If we remember that, it will save us from a crudely literalistic interpretation and make us fasten our thoughts on the underlying principles in Paul's mind. In this section he is dealing with people who say, "Granted that there is a resurrection of the body, with what kind of body do people rise again?" His answer has three basic principles in it.

(i) He takes the analogy of a seed. The seed is put in the ground and dies, but in due time it rises again; and does so with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity. The seed is dissolved; when it rises again, there is a vast difference in its body; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and the difference, it is the same seed. So our earthly bodies will dissolve; they will rise again in very different form; but it is the same person who rises. Dissolved by death, changed by resurrection, it is still we who exist.

(ii) In the world, even as we know it, there is not one kind of body; each separate part of creation has its own. God gives to each created thing a body suitable for its part in creation. If that be so, it is only reasonable to expect that he will give us a body fitted for the resurrection life.

(iii) In life there is a development. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth ( Genesis 2:7). But Jesus is far more than a man made from the dust of the earth. He is the incarnation of the very Spirit of God. Now, under the old way of life, we were one with Adam, sharing his sin, inheriting his death and having his body; but, under the new way of life, we are one with Christ and we shall therefore share his life and his being. It is true that we have a physical body to begin with, but it is also true that one day we shall have a spiritual body.

All through this section Paul has maintained a reverent and wise reticence as to what that body will be like; it will be spiritual, it will be such as God knows that we need and we will be like Christ. But in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 he draws four contrasts which shed light on our future state.

(i) The present body is corruptible; the future body will be incorruptible. In this world everything is subject to change and decay. "Youth's beauty fades, and manhood's glory fades," as Sophocles had it. But in the life to come there will be a permanence in which beauty will never lose its sheen.

(ii) The present body is in dishonour; the future body will be in glory. It may be that Paul means that in this life it is through our bodily feelings and passions that dishonour can so easily come; but in the life to come our bodies will no longer be the servants of passion and of impulse but the instruments of the pure service of God, than which there can be no greater honour.

(iii) The present body is in weakness; the future body will be in power. It is nowadays fashionable to talk of man's power, but the really remarkable thing is his weakness. A draught of air or a drop of water can kill him. We are limited in this life so often simply because of the necessary limitations of the body. Time and time again our physical constitution says to our visions and our plans, "Thus far and no farther." We are so often frustrated because we are what we are. But in the life to. come the limitations will be gone. Here we are compassed about with weakness; there we will be clad with power.

"All we have hoped or willed or dreamed of good

shall exist;

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth

too hard."

On earth we have the "broken arcs"; in the life to come "the perfect round."

(iv) The present body is a natural body; the future body will be a spiritual body. By that, it may be, Paul meant that here we are but imperfect vessels and imperfect instruments for the Spirit; but in the life to come we will be such that the Spirit can truly fill us, as can never happen here, and the Spirit can truly use us, as is never possible now. Then we will be able to render the perfect worship, the perfect service, the perfect love that now can only be a vision and a dream.

The Conquest Of Death ( 1 Corinthians 15:50-58)

15:50-58 Brothers, I say this, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. Look now--I tell you something which only the initiated can understand. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed, in a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised up incorruptible and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, then the word which stands written will happen, "Death has been swallowed up in victory." O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, beloved brothers, show yourselves steady, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your toil does not go for nothing.

Once again we must remember that Paul is dealing with things which defy language and baffle expression. We must read this as we would read great poetry, rather than as we would dissect a scientific treatise. The argument follows a series of steps until it reaches its climax.

(i) Paul insists that, as we are, we are not fit to inherit the Kingdom of God. We may be well enough equipped to get on with the life of this world, but for the life of the world to come we will not do. A man may be able to run enough to catch his morning train and yet need to be very different to be able to run enough for the Olympic games. A man may write well enough to amuse his friends and yet need to be very different to write something which men will not willingly let die. A man may talk well enough in the circle of his club and yet need to be very different to hold his own in a circle of real experts. A man always needs to be changed to enter into a higher grade of life; and Paul insists that before we can enter the Kingdom of God we must be changed.

(ii) Further he insists that this shattering change is going to come in his own lifetime. In this he was in error; but he looked to that change coming when Jesus Christ came again.

(iii) Then Paul goes on triumphantly to declare that no man need fear that change. The fear of death has always haunted men. It haunted Dr. Johnson, one of the greatest and best men who ever lived. Once Boswell said to him that there had been times when he had not feared death. Johnson answered that "he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." Once Mrs. Knowles told him that he should not have a horror for that which is the gate of life. Johnson answered, "No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." He declared that the fear of death was so natural to man that all life was one long effort not to think about it.

Wherein lies the fear of death? Partly it comes from fear of the unknown. But still more it comes from the sense of sin. If a man felt that he could meet God easily then to die would be only, as Peter Pan said, a great adventure. But where does that sense of sin come from? It comes from a sense of being under the law. So long as a man sees in God only the law of righteousness, he must ever be in the position of a criminal before the bar with no hope of acquittal. But this is precisely what Jesus came to abolish. He came to tell us that God is not law, but love, that the centre of God's being is not legalism but grace, that we go out, not to a judge, but to a Father who awaits his children coming home. Because of that Jesus gave us the victory over death, its fear banished in the wonder of God's love.

(iv) Finally, at the end of the chapter, Paul does what he always does. Suddenly the theology becomes a challenge; suddenly the speculations become intensely practical; suddenly the sweep of the mind becomes the demand for action. He ends by saying, "If you have all that glory to look forward to, then keep yourself steadfast in God's faith and service, for if you do, all your effort will not be in vain." The Christian life may be difficult, but the goal is infinitely worth the struggle.

"A hope so great and so divine,

May trials well endure;

And purge the soul from sense and sin,

As Christ himself is pure."

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

1 Corinthians 15:29

New Paragraph

Baptized for the dead -- Paul does not stop to explain; his point here is regarding the resurrection, not baptism.

    1) Baptism by proxy for the dead (Mormon position).    

    2) Baptism is a picture of death (a burial in water) and a resurrection to a new life. Romans 6:3-5. If there is no resurrection, baptism (for a man dead in sins) is not a valid picture. (WG, while I have no evidence this is Paul’s meaning here, it is my belief this is what he was meaning.)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead,.... The apostle here returns to his subject, and makes use of new arguments to prove the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and reasons for it from the baptism of some persons; but what is his sense, is not easy to be understood, or what rite and custom, or thing, or action he refers to; which must, be either Jewish baptism, or Christian baptism literally taken, or baptism in a figurative and metaphorical sense. Some think that he refers to some one or other of the divers baptisms of the Jews; see Hebrews 9:10 and particularly to the purification of such who had touched a dead body, which was done both by the ashes of the red heifer burnt, and by bathing himself in water; and which, the Jews say l, intimated המתים

לתחיית, "the resurrection of the dead": wherefore such a right was needless, if there is no resurrection; to strengthen this sense, a passage in Ecclesiasticus 34:25 is produced, βαπτιζομενος απο νεκρου, "he that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" but the phrase there used is different; it is not said, he that baptizeth or washeth himself for the dead, but from the dead, to cleanse himself from pollution received by the touch of a dead body: it is also observed, that the Jews, as well as other nations, have used various rites and ceremonies about their dead, and among the rest, the washing of dead bodies before interment; see Acts 9:37 and this by some is thought to be what is here referred to; and the reasoning is, if there is no resurrection of the dead, why all this care of a dead body? why this washing of it? it may as well be put into the earth as it is, since it will rise no more; but how this can be called a baptism for the dead, I see not: rather therefore Christian baptism, or the ordinance of water baptism is here respected; and with regard to this, interpreters go different ways: some think the apostle has in view a custom of some, who when their friends died without baptism, used to be baptized in their room; this is said to be practised by the Marcionites in Tertullian's time, and by the Corinthians in the times of the Apostle John; but it does not appear to have been in use in the times of the Apostle Paul; and besides, if it had been, as it was a vain and superstitious one, he would never have mentioned it without a censure, and much less have argued from it; nor would his argument be of any weight, since it might be retorted, that whereas such persons were mistaken in using such a practice, they might be also in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: others are of opinion that such persons are intended, called Clinics, who deferred their baptism till they came upon their death beds, and then had it administered to them; but as this practice was not in being in the apostle's time, and was far from being a laudable one; and though the persons to whom it was administered were upon the point of death, and nearer the dead than the living, and were as good as dead, and might be intended by them, for their advantage, when dead and not living; yet it must be a great force and strain on words and things, to reckon this a being baptized for the dead: others would have the words rendered, "over the dead"; and suppose that reference is had to the Christians that had their "baptisteries" in their places of burial, and by being baptized here, testified their faith and hope of the resurrection of the dead; but this was rather a being baptized among the dead, than over them, or for them; and moreover it is not certain, that they did make use of such places to baptize in; to which may be added, that the primitive Christians had not so early burying grounds of their own: others would have the meaning to be, that they were baptized for their dead works, their sins, to wash them away; but this baptism does not of itself, and no otherwise than by leading the faith of persons to the blood of Christ, which alone cleanses from sin, original and actual; nor is this appropriate to the apostle's argument. Others imagine, that he intends such as were baptized, and added to the church, and so filled up the places of them that were dead; but the reason from hence proving the resurrection of the dead is not very obvious: those seem to be nearer the truth of the matter, who suppose that the apostle has respect to the original practice of making a confession of faith before baptism, and among the rest of the articles of it, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, upon the belief of which being baptized, they might be said to be baptized for the dead; that is, for, or upon, or in the faith and profession of the resurrection of the dead, and therefore must either hold this doctrine, or renounce their baptism administered upon it; to which may be added another sense of the words, which is, that baptism performed by immersion, as it was universally in those early times, was a lively emblem and representation of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and also both of the spiritual and corporeal resurrection of the saints. Now if there is no resurrection, why is such a symbol used? it is useless and insignificant; I see nothing of moment to be objected to these two last senses, which may be easily put together, but this; that the apostle seems to point out something that was done or endured by some Christians only; whereas baptism, upon a profession of faith in Christ, and the resurrection from the dead, and performed by immersion, as an emblem of it, was common to all; and therefore he would rather have said, what shall we do, or we all do, who are baptized for the dead? I am therefore rather inclined to think that baptism is used here in a figurative and metaphorical sense, for afflictions, sufferings, and martyrdom, as in Matthew 20:22 and it was for the belief, profession, and preaching of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, both of Christ and of the saints, that the apostles and followers of Christ endured so much as they did; the first instance of persecution after our Lord's ascension was on this account. The Apostles Peter and John, were laid hold on and put in prison for preaching this doctrine; the reproach and insult the Apostle Paul met with at Athens were by reason of it; and it was for this that he was called in question and accused of the Jews; nor was there anyone doctrine of Christianity more hateful and contemptible among the Heathens than this was. Now the apostle's argument stands thus, what is, or will become of those persons who have been as it were baptized or overwhelmed in afflictions and sufferings, who have endured so many and such great injuries and indignities, and have even lost their lives for asserting this doctrine,

if the dead rise not at all? how sadly mistaken must such have been!

why are they then baptized for the dead? how imprudently have they acted! and what a weak and foolish part do they also act, who continue to follow them! in what a silly manner do they expose themselves to danger, and throw away their lives, if this doctrine is not true! which sense is confirmed by what follows: the Alexandrian copy, and some others, read, "for them", and so the Vulgate Latin version; and the Ethiopic in both clauses reads, "why do they baptize?"

l R. Bechai & Zohar apud Lightfoot in loc.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.   21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.   22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.   23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.   24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.   25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.   26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.   27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.   28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.   29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?   30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?   31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.   32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.   33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.   34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.

      In this passage the apostle establishes the truth of the resurrection of the dead, the holy dead, the dead in Christ,

      I. On the resurrection of Christ. 1. Because he is indeed the first-fruits of those that slept,1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:20. He has truly risen himself, and he has risen in this very quality and character, as the first-fruits of those who sleep in him. As he has assuredly risen, so in his resurrection there is as much an earnest given that the dead in him shall rise as there was that the Jewish harvest in general should be accepted and blessed by the offering and acceptance of the first-fruits. The whole lump was made holy by the consecration of the first-fruits (Romans 11:16), and the whole body of Christ, all that are by faith united to him, are by his resurrection assured of their own. As he has risen, they shall rise; just as the lump is holy because the first fruits are so. He has not risen merely for himself, but as head of the body, the church; and those that sleep in him God will bring with him,1 Thessalonians 4:14. Note, Christ's resurrection is a pledge and earnest of ours, if we are true believers in him; because he has risen, we shall rise. We are a part of the consecrated lump, and shall partake of the acceptance and favour vouchsafed the first-fruits. This is the first argument used by the apostle in confirmation of the truth; and it is, 2. Illustrated by a parallel between the first and second Adam. For, since by man came death, it was every way proper that by man should come deliverance from it, or, which is all one, a resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:21; 1 Corinthians 15:21. And so, as in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive; as through the sin of the first Adam all men became mortal, because all derived from him the same sinful nature, so through the merit and resurrection of Christ shall all who are made to partake of the Spirit, and the spiritual nature, revive, and become immortal. All who die die through the sin of Adam; all who are raised, in the sense of the apostle, rise through the merit and power of Christ. But the meaning is not that, as all men died in Adam, so all men, without exception, shall be made alive in Christ; for the scope of the apostle's argument restrains the general meaning. Christ rose as the first-fruits; therefore those that are Christ's (1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Corinthians 15:23) shall rise too. Hence it will not follow that all men without exception shall rise too; but it will fitly follow that all who thus rise, rise in virtue of Christ's resurrection, and so that their revival is owing to the man Christ Jesus, as the mortality of all mankind was owing to the first man; and so, as by man came death, by man came deliverance. Thus it seemed fit to the divine wisdom that, as the first Adam ruined his posterity by sin, the second Adam should raise his seed to a glorious immortality. 3. Before he leaves the argument he states that there will be an order observed in their resurrection. What that precisely will be we are nowhere told, but in the general only here that there will be order observed. Possibly those may rise first who have held the highest rank, and done the most eminent service, or suffered the most grievous evils, or cruel deaths, for Christ's sake. It is only here said that the first-fruits are supposed to rise first, and afterwards all who are Christ's, when he shall come again. Not that Christ's resurrection must in fact go before the resurrection of any of his, but it must be laid as the foundation: as it was not necessary that those who lived remote from Jerusalem must go thither and offer the first-fruits before they could account the lump holy, yet they must be set apart for this purpose, till they could be offered, which might be done at any time from pentecost till the feast of dedication. See Bishop Patrick on Numbers 24:2. The offering of the first-fruits was what made the lump holy; and the lump was made holy by this offering, though it was not made before the harvest was gathered in, so it were set apart for that end, and duly offered afterwards. So Christ's resurrection must, in order of nature, precede that of his saints, though some of these might rise in order of time before him. It is because he has risen that they rise. Note, Those that are Christ's must rise, because of their relation to him.

      II. He argues from the continuance of the mediatorial kingdom till all Christ's enemies are destroyed, the last of which is death, 1 Corinthians 15:24-26; 1 Corinthians 15:24-26. He has risen, and, upon his resurrection, was invested with sovereign empire, had all power in heaven and earth put into his hands (Matthew 28:18), had a name given him above every name, that every knee might bow to him, and every tongue confess him Lord.Philippians 2:9-11. And the administration of this kingdom must continue in his hands till all opposing power, and rule, and authority, be put down (1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:24), till all enemies are put under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:25; 1 Corinthians 15:25), and till the last enemy is destroyed, which is death, 1 Corinthians 15:26; 1 Corinthians 15:26.

      1. This argument implies in it all these particulars:-- (1.) That our Saviour rose from the dead to have all power put into his hands, and have and administer a kingdom, as Mediator: For this end he died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living,Romans 14:9. (2.) That this mediatorial kingdom is to have an end, at least as far as it is concerned in bringing his people safely to glory, and subduing all his and their enemies: Then cometh the end,1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:24. (3.) That it is not to have an end till all opposing power be put down, and all enemies brought to his feet, 1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:25. (4.) That, among other enemies, death must be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26; 1 Corinthians 15:26) or abolished; its powers over its members must be disannulled. Thus far the apostle is express; but he leaves us to make the inference that therefore the saints must rise, else death and the grave would have power over them, nor would our Saviour's kingly power prevail against the last enemy of his people and annul its power. When saints shall live again, and die no more, then, and not till then, will death be abolished, which must be brought about before our Saviour's mediatorial kingdom is delivered up, which yet must be in due time. The saints therefore shall live again and die no more. This is the scope of the argument; but,

      2. The apostle drops several hints in the course of it which it will be proper to notice: as, (1.) That our Saviour, as man and mediator between God and man, has a delegated royalty, a kingdom given: All things are put under him, he excepted that did put all things under him,1 Corinthians 15:27; 1 Corinthians 15:27. As man, all his authority must be delegated. And, though his mediation supposes his divine nature, yet as Mediator he does not so explicitly sustain the character of God, but a middle person between God and man, partaking of both natures, human and divine, as he was to reconcile both parties, God and man, and receiving commission and authority from God the Father to act in this office. The Father appears, in this whole dispensation, in the majesty and with the authority of God: the Son, made man, appears as the minister of the Father, though he is God as well as the Father. Nor is this passage to be understood of the eternal dominion over all his creatures which belongs to him as God, but of a kingdom committed to him as Mediator and God-man, and that chiefly after his resurrection, when, having overcome, he sat down with his Father on his throne, Revelation 3:21. Then was the prediction verified, I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion (Psalms 2:6), placed him on his throne. This is meant by the phrase so frequent in the writings of the New Testament, of sitting at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19; Romans 8:34; Colossians 3:1, c.), on the right hand of power (Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69), on the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2), on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,Hebrews 8:1. Sitting down in this seat is taking upon him the exercise of his mediatorial power and royalty, which was done upon his ascension into heaven, Mark 16:19. And it is spoken of in scripture as a recompence made him for his deep humiliation and self-abasement, in becoming man, and dying for man the accursed death of the cross, Philippians 2:6-12. Upon his ascension, he was made head over all things to the church, had power given him to govern and protect it against all its enemies, and in the end destroy them and complete the salvation of all that believe in him. This is not a power appertaining to Godhead as such; it is not original and unlimited power, but power given and limited to special purposes. And though he who has it is God, yet, inasmuch as he is somewhat else besides God, and in this whole dispensation acts not as God, but as Mediator, not as the offended Majesty, but as one interposing in favour of his offending creatures, and this by virtue of his consent and commission who acts and appears always in that character, he may properly be said to have this power given him; he may reign as God, with power unlimited, and yet may reign as Mediator, with a power delegated, and limited to these particular purposes. (2.) That this delegated royalty must at length be delivered up to the Father, from whom it was received (1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:24); for it is a power received for particular ends and purposes, a power to govern and protect his church till all the members of it be gathered in, and the enemies of it for ever subdued and destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:25; 1 Corinthians 15:26), and when these ends shall be obtained the power and authority will not need to be continued. The Redeemer must reign till his enemies be destroyed, and the salvation of his church and people accomplished; and, when this end is attained, then will he deliver up the power which he had only for this purpose, though he may continue to reign over his glorified church and body in heaven; and in this sense it may notwithstanding be said that he shall reign for ever and ever (Revelation 11:15), that he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:33), that his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away,Daniel 7:14. See also Micah 4:7. (3.) The Redeemer shall certainly reign till the last enemy of his people be destroyed, till death itself be abolished, till his saints revive and recover perfect life, never to be in fear and danger of dying any more. He shall have all power in heaven and earth till then--he who loved us, and gave himself for us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood--he who is so nearly related to us, and so much concerned for us. What support should this be to his saints in every hour of distress and temptation! He is alive who was dead, and liveth for ever, and doth reign, and will continue to reign, till the redemption of his people be completed, and the utter ruin of their enemies effected. (4.) When this is done, and all things are put under his feet, then shall the Son become subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all,1 Corinthians 15:28; 1 Corinthians 15:28. The meaning of this I take to be that then the man Christ Jesus, who hath appeared in so much majesty during the whole administration of his kingdom, shall appear upon giving it up to be a subject of the Father. Things are in scripture many times said to be when they are manifested and made to appear; and this delivering up of the kingdom will make it manifest that he who appeared in the majesty of the sovereign king was, during this administration, a subject of God. The glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the dignity and power conferred on it, was no more than a glorious creature. This will appear when the kingdom shall be delivered up; and it will appear to the divine glory, that God may be all in all, that the accomplishment of our salvation may appear altogether divine, and God alone may have the honour of it. Note, Though the human nature must be employed in the work of our redemption, yet God was all in all in it. It was the Lord's doing and should be marvellous in our eyes.

      III. He argues for the resurrection, from the case of those who were baptized for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29; 1 Corinthians 15:29): What shall those do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they baptized for the dead? What shall they do if the dead rise not? What have they done? How vain a thing hath their baptism been! Must they stand by it, or renounce it? why are they baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not? hyper ton nekron. But what is this baptism for the dead? It is necessary to be known, that the apostle's argument may be understood; whether it be only argumentum ad hominem, or ad rem; that is, whether it conclude for the thing in dispute universally, or only against the particular persons who were baptized for the dead. But who shall interpret this very obscure passage, which, though it consists of no more than three words, besides the articles, has had more than three times three senses put on it by interpreters? It is not agreed what is meant by baptism, whether it is to be taken in a proper or figurative sense, and, if in a proper sense, whether it is to be understood or Christian baptism properly so called, or some other ablution. And as little is it agreed who are the dead, or in what sense the preposition hyper is to be taken. Some understand the dead of our Saviour himself; vide Whitby in loc. Why are persons baptized in the name of a dead Saviour, a Saviour who remains among the dead, if the dead rise not? But it is, I believe, and instance perfectly singular for hoi nekroi to mean no more than one dead person; it is a signification which the words have nowhere else. And the hoi baptizomenoi (the baptized) seem plainly to mean some particular persons, not Christians in general, which yet must be the signification if the hoi nekroi (the dead) be understood of our Saviour. Some understand the passage of the martyrs: Why do they suffer martyrdom for their religion? This is sometimes called the baptism of blood by ancients, and, by our Saviour himself, baptism indefinitely, Matthew 20:22; Luke 12:50. But in what sense can those who die martyrs for their religion be said to be baptized (that is, die martyrs) for the dead? Some understand it of a custom that was observed, as some of the ancients tell us, among many who professed the Christian name in the first ages, of baptizing some in the name and stead of catechumens dying without baptism. But this savoured of such superstition that, if the custom had prevailed in the church so soon, the apostle would hardly have mentioned it without signifying a dislike of it. Some understand it of baptizing over the dead, which was a custom, they tell us, that early obtained; and this to testify their hope of the resurrection. This sense is pertinent to the apostle's argument, but it appears not that any such practice was in use in the apostle's time. Others understand it of those who have been baptized for the sake, or on occasion, of the martyrs, that is, the constancy with which they died for their religion. Some were doubtless converted to Christianity by observing this: and it would have been a vain thing for persons to have become Christians upon this motive, if the martyrs, by losing their lives for religion, became utterly extinct, and were to live no more. But the church at Corinth had not, in all probability, suffered much persecution at this time, or seem many instances of martyrdom among them, nor had many converts been made by the constancy and firmness which the martyrs discovered. Not to observe that hoi nekroi seems to be too general an expression to mean only the martyred dead. It is as easy an explication of the phrase as any I have met with, and as pertinent to the argument, to suppose the hoi nekroi to mean some among the Corinthians, who had been taken off by the hand of God. We read that many were sickly among them, and many slept (1 Corinthians 11:30; 1 Corinthians 11:30), because of their disorderly behaviour at the Lord's table. These executions might terrify some into Christianity; as the miraculous earthquake did the jailer, Acts 16:29; Acts 16:30, c. Persons baptized on such an occasion might be properly said to be baptized for the dead, that is, on their account. And the hoi baptizomenoi (the baptized) and the hoi nekroi (the dead) answer to one another and upon this supposition the Corinthians could not mistake the apostle's meaning. "Now," says he, "what shall they do, and why were they baptized, if the dead rise not? You have a general persuasion that these men have done right, and acted wisely, and as they ought, on this occasion; but why, if the dead rise not, seeing they may perhaps hasten their death, by provoking a jealous God, and have no hopes beyond it?" But whether this be the meaning, or whatever else be, doubtless the apostle's argument was good and intelligible to the Corinthians. And his next is as plain to us.

      IV. He argues from the absurdity of his own conduct and that of other Christians upon this supposition,

      1. It would be a foolish thing for them to run so many hazards (1 Corinthians 15:30; 1 Corinthians 15:30): "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Why do we expose ourselves to continual peril--we Christians, especially we apostles?" Every one knows that it was dangerous being a Christian, and much more a preacher and an apostle, at that time. "Now," says the apostle, "what fools are we to run these hazards, if we have no better hopes beyond death, if when we die we die wholly, and revive no more!" Note, Christianity were a foolish profession if it proposed no hopes beyond this life, at least in such hazardous times as attended the first profession of it; it required men to risk all the blessings and comforts of this life, and to face and endure all the evils of it, without any future prospects. And is this a character of his religion fit for a Christian to endure? And must he not fix this character on it if he give up his future hopes, and deny the resurrection of the dead? This argument the apostle brings home to himself: "I protest," says he, "by your rejoicing in Jesus Christ, by all the comforts of Christianity, and all the peculiar succours and supports of our holy faith, that I die daily," 1 Corinthians 15:31; 1 Corinthians 15:31. He was in continual danger of death, and carried his life, as we say, in his hand. And why should he thus expose himself, if he had no hopes after life? To live in daily view and expectation of death, and yet have no prospect beyond it, must be very heartless and uncomfortable, and his case, upon this account, a very melancholy one. He had need be very well assured of the resurrection of the dead, or he was guilty of extreme weakness, in hazarding all that was dear to him in this world, and his life into the bargain. He had encountered very great difficulties and fierce enemies; he had fought with beasts at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 15:32; 1 Corinthians 15:32), and was in danger of being pulled to pieces by an enraged multitude, stirred up by Demetrius and the other craftsmen (Acts 19:24, c.), though some understand this literally of Paul's being exposed to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, at a Roman show in that city. And Nicephorus tells a formal story to this purport, and of the miraculous complaisance of the lions to him when they came near him. But so remarkable a trial and circumstance of his life, methinks, would not have been passed over by Luke, and much less by himself, when he gives us so large and particular a detail of his sufferings, 2 Corinthians 11:24, ad fin. When he mentioned that he was five times scourged of the Jews, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice shipwrecked, it is strange that he should not have said that he was once exposed to fight with the beasts. I take it, therefore, that this fighting with beasts is a figurative expression, that the beasts intended were men of a fierce and ferine disposition, and that this refers to the passage above cited. "Now," says he, "what advantage have I from such contests, if the dead rise not? Why should I die daily, expose myself daily to the danger of dying by violent hands, if the dead rise not? And if post mortem nihil--if I am to perish by death, and expect nothing after it, could any thing be more weak?" Was Paul so senseless? Had he given the Corinthians any ground to entertain such a thought of him? If he had not been well assured that death would have been to his advantage, would he, in this stupid manner, have thrown away his life? Could any thing but the sure hopes of a better life after death have extinguished the love of life in him to this degree? "What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? What can I propose to myself?" Note, It is very lawful and fit for a Christian to propose advantage to himself by his fidelity to God. Thus did Paul. Thus did our blessed Lord himself, Hebrews 12:2. And thus we are bidden to do after his example, and have our fruit to holiness, that our end may be everlasting life. This is the very end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls (1 Peter 1:9), not only what it will issue in, but what we should aim at.

      2. It would be a much wiser thing to take the comforts of this life: Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die (1 Corinthians 15:32; 1 Corinthians 15:32); let us turn epicures. Thus this sentence means in the prophet, Isaiah 22:13. Let us even live like beasts, if we must die like them. This would be a wiser course, if there were no resurrection, no after-life or state, than to abandon all the pleasures of life, and offer and expose ourselves to all the miseries of life, and live in continual peril of perishing by savage rage and cruelty. This passage also plainly implies, as I have hinted above, that those who denied the resurrection among the Corinthians were perfect Sadducees, of whose principles we have this account in the holy writings, that they say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit (Acts 23:8), that is, "Man is all body, there is nothing in him to survive the body, nor will that, when once he is dead, ever revive again." Such Sadducees were the men against whom the apostle argued; otherwise his arguments had no force in them; for, though the body should never revive, yet, as long as the mind survived it, he might have much advantage from all the hazards he ran for Christ's sake. Nay, it is certain that the mind is to be the principal seat and subject of the heavenly glory and happiness. But, if there were no hopes after death, would not every wise man prefer an easy comfortable life before such a wretched one as the apostle led; nay, and endeavour to enjoy the comforts of life as fast as possible, because the continuance of it is short? Note, Nothing but the hopes of better things hereafter can enable a man to forego all the comforts and pleasures here, and embrace poverty, contempt, misery, and death. Thus did the apostles and primitive Christians; but how wretched was their case, and how foolish their conduct, if they deceived themselves, and abused the world with vain and false hopes!

      V. The apostle closes his argument with a caution, exhortation, and reproof. 1. A caution against the dangerous conversation of bad men, men of loose lives and principles: Be not deceived, says he; evil communications corrupt good manners,1 Corinthians 15:33; 1 Corinthians 15:33. Possibly, some of those who said that there was no resurrection of the dead were men of loose lives, and endeavoured to countenance their vicious practices by so corrupt a principle; and had that speech often in their mouths Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Now, the apostle grants that their talk was to the purpose if there was no future state. But, having confuted their principle, he now warns the Corinthians how dangerous such men's conversation must prove. He tells them that they would probably be corrupted by them, and fall in with their course of life, if they gave into their evil principles. Note, Bad company and conversation are likely to make bad men. Those who would keep their innocence must keep good company. Error and vice are infectious: and, if we would avoid the contagion, we must keep clear of those who have taken it. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed,Proverbs 13:20. 2. Here is an exhortation to break off their sins, and rouse themselves, and lead a more holy and righteous life (1 Corinthians 15:34; 1 Corinthians 15:34): Awake to righteousness, or awake righteously, eknepsate dikaios, and sin not, or sin no more. "Rouse yourselves, break off your sins by repentance: renounce and forsake every evil way, correct whatever is amiss, and do not, by sloth and stupidity, be led away into such conversation and principles as will sap your Christian hopes, and corrupt your practice." The disbelief of a future state destroys all virtue and piety. But the best improvement to be made of the truth is to cease from sin, and set ourselves to the business of religion, and that in good earnest. If there will be a resurrection and a future life, we should live and act as those who believe it, and should not give into such senseless and sottish notions as will debauch our morals, and render us loose and sensual in our lives. 3. Here is a reproof, and a sharp one, to some at least among them: Some of you have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame. Note, It is a shame in Christians not to have the knowledge of God. The Christian religion gives the best information that can be had about God, his nature, and grace, and government. Those who profess this religion reproach themselves, by remaining without the knowledge of God; for it must be owing to their own sloth, and slight of God, that they are ignorant of him. And is it not a horrid shame for a Christian to slight God, and be so wretchedly ignorant in matters that so nearly and highly concern him? Note, also, It must be ignorance of God that leads men into the disbelief of a resurrection and future life. Those who know God know that he will not abandon his faithful servants, nor leave them exposed to such hardships and sufferings without any recompence or reward. They know he is not unfaithful nor unkind, to forget their labour and patience, their faithful services and cheerful sufferings, or let their labour be in vain. But I am apt to think that the expression has a much stronger meaning; that there were atheistical people among them who hardly owned a God, or one who had any concern with or took cognizance of human affairs. These were indeed a scandal and shame to any Christian church. Note, Real atheism lies at the bottom of men's disbelief of a future state. Those who own a God and a providence, and observe how unequal the distributions of the present life are, and how frequently the best men fare worst, can hardly doubt an after state, where every thing will be set to rights.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

1 Corinthians 15:1-58

There were people in the Apostles' days who had an idea that there was no resurrection. Paul endeavours torefute the idea, and teaches the Corinthians that there was a resurrection from the dead. From the 1st to the 11th verse he proves the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and upon that grounds the doctrine of the resurrection of the just.

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, and wherein ye stand:

"By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."

Now, we expect to hear a whole list of doctrines when the apostle says "I declare unto you the gospel;" but instead of that, he simply tells us of the resurrection of Jesus, for that is the very marrow of the gospel, the foundation of it that Jesus Christ died and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures."

"And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures."

That is the whole of the gospel. He who perfectly understands that, understands the first principles; he has commenced aright. This is the starting point if we wish to learn the truth, "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

"And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve.

After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

After that he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is one of the best attested facts on record. There were so many witnesses to behold it, that if we do in the least degree receive the credibility of men's testimonies, we cannot and we dare not doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. It is all very easy for infidels to say that these persons were deceived, but it is equally foolish, for these persons could not every one of them have been so positively deceived as to say that they had seen this man, whom they knew to have been dead, afterwards alive; they could not all, surely, have agreed together to help on this imposture: if they did, it is the most marvellous thing we have on record, that not one of them ever broke faith with the others, but that the whole mass of them remained firm. We believe it to be quite impossible that so many rogues should have agreed for ever. They were men who had nothing to gain by it; they subjected themselves to persecution by affirming the very fact; they were ready to die for it, and did die for it. Five hundred or a thousand persons who had seen him at different times, declared that they did see him, and that he rose from the dead; the fact of his death having been attested beforehand. How, then, dare any man say that the Christian religion is not true, when we know for a certainty that Christ died and rose again from the dead? And knowing that, who shall deny the divinity of the Saviour? Who shall say that he is not mighty to save? Our faith hath a solid basis, for it hath all these witnesses on which to rest, and the more sure witness of the Holy Spirit witnessing in our hearts. "And last of all," says the apostle, "he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time: for I am the least of the apostles." We should not have thought Paul proud if he had said, "I am the greatest of the apostles," for he occupies the largest portion of the sacred Scriptures with his writings; and he preached more abundantly than they all. There was not one who could exceed Paul, or even come near him in his arduous labours; yet he says,

"For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God."

When he looked upon the mercies that God gave to him he always recollected how little he deserved; and when he found himself preaching, oh! with what pathos did he preach to the ungodly, for he could always close up: "But I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ might show forth all long-suffering as a pattern to them that believe." Have I a persecutor here? Let him know that his sin is a most damnable sin that will sink him lower into hell than any other; but even for him there is mercy, and abundant pardon; for Paul says he obtained mercy even though he persecuted the church of God.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

"Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed."

"But by the grace of God I am what I am." That is about as far as most of us can get; we shall never get any further. "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all." Then he stops himself: "Yet, not I, but the grace of God which was with me." We should always take care that we do not take any of our good works to ourselves: they are the effects of grace within us. If we once get putting the crown on our own heads we shall soon have heavy heads for our trouble; but if we put them all on the head of Jesus, he will honour us if we honour him.

Having thus proved the resurrection of Christ, he goes on:

"Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

"But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen!

"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

"Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

"For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

"And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins:",

Perhaps it does not strike you at first sight that there is an indissoluble connection between the resurrection of Christ and that of all his people; perhaps you do not see the marrow of the argument. The apostle says, "If the dead do not rise, then Christ did not rise; and if Christ did rise, then all the dead will rise." Do you see how it is? Why, because Christ and human nature are now so linked together that what Christ did, he did as the representative of all his people. When Adam sinned, the world sinned, and the world died. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." Christ could not rise except as the representative of his people; and "if Christ rose," says Paul, "then his people will rise; and if he did not rise then we shall not rise, because we are one with him; and if we do not rise Christ did not rise, because we are one with him." See here a connection which cannot be broken, that if Christ rose, then must the dead rise also. This brings another argument

"Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished."

How do you like that thought?

"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."

For they were then persecuted, cast to the wild beasts, shut up in prison; and if this life were all, what would be the value of the Christian religion? If would only make men miserable.

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

It is no use for the Arminian to strain this, and say that it proves that every one receives grace through Christ. It says no such thing; it simply says, "die" and "live." Everybody shall live at the resurrection.

"But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits: afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

"Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

"For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Here the great proof flashes out if death is to be destroyed, then there must be a resurrection, for death cannot be destroyed until the very bones of the saints are delivered from the strongholds of the enemy.

"For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.

"And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all."

We are not to suppose, when we read that Jesus Christ will deliver up his kingdom to God, even to his Father, that he will therefore cease to be God or cease to be a King. Understand this; God the Father gave to the Son a Mediatorial Kingdom as Man-God; but the Father was just as much God when he had given him that kingdom; it was his own special kingdom which he, as the Man-God Mediator was to take, and God the Father lost no glory by giving it to him. When Christ shall have worked out all his Mediatorial purposes, when he shall have finished the salvation of all his elect, he will lay the crown of his Mediatorial Kingdom at the feet of God, and, as the Man-Mediator, he too will be subject unto the great Jehovah, the Three-one; then there will be no Mediator any longer, since there will be no necessity for any mediation, but we shall all be gathered in one, even the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven one in Christ Jesus. Then Christ will have his kingdom as God, but as Mediator he will have no kingdom. It is a destruction of office, not of person, nor yet of honor; it is a laying aside of his official capacity, not in any degree a diminution of his glory and honor.

"Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"

This text has had thirty or forty explanations. Doddridge and a great many more think it refers to the practice, when a martyr died, for another person to come forward and fill the offices which he held, and so to be "baptized for the dead;" but the meaning I like best is: What shall they do who are baptized with the certainty that they are not baptized to live a long while, but that immediately after baptism they will be dragged away to die baptized in the very teeth of death? For as soon as any one was baptised, the Romans would be looking after him, to drag him away to death. Thus they were many of them baptised as if they were being washed for their burial, and dedicating themselves to the grave. They came forward and said, "O Lord, I give myself unto thy service not to serve thee here below, for that the enemy will not let me do, but since I must die, I will be baptized and brave it all; I will be baptized even for death itself." Well, what shall these do who are baptized in the certain prospect of death if the dead rise not? "Why are they then baptized for the dead?"

"And why stand in jeopardy every hour?

"I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

"If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die."

It does not say that Paul did fight with beasts at Ephesus; but a great many others did. It was a common practice to put Christians to the lions, giving them a short sword, and bidding them fight for their lives; and sometimes, strengthened by God, they fought manfully, and come off alive. But "if," says Paul, "I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?" I might as well give up my religion; then I could lie down and be at peace. "Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die." Oh! wicked Paul! to quote from a heathen poet! How disgraceful. If I were to repeat a verse, and it looked as if Shakespere or any profane author ever wrote such a thing, how criminal! say you. But I like good things wherever I find them. I have often quoted from the devil, and I dare say I shall often quote from his people. Paul quoted this from Meander, and another heathen poet, who wrote far worse things than have been written by modern poets, and if any of us who may have stored our minds with the contents of books we wish we had never read, and if there be some choice gems in them which may be used for the service of God, by his help we will so use them.

"Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

"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."

Christ is coming, and he will find some alive on the earth, and those who are alive will not die. Paul was so full of the Second Coming, that he says: "We shall not all sleep." He did not know but what Christ might come while he was writing the letter. And we are so earnestly looking for Christ, that we too are constrained to say, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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."

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

"The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

"But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

What a shame it is, when we sometimes attend a funeral and hear that magnificent portion of Scripture read over by a chaplain without heart, or soul, or life the quicker he can get through the service the better. Oh that such noble words should be so awfully spoiled by men who know nothing about them!

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

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Just Published, Price Twopence, "Come, ye Children," a Sermon addressed to Sunday School Teachers, by the Rev. C. H. SPURGEON, preached on behalf of the Western Kent Sunday School Union, at the "Temple," Saint Mary Cray, Kent, on Wednesday Afternoon, February 20th, 1856.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

As usual, the introductory words (1 Corinthians 1:1-3) of the epistle give us no little intimation of that which is to follow. The apostle speaks of himself as such "called [to be ] an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God," but coupling a brother with him, "and Sosthenes our brother," he writes to "the church of God at Corinth" not to the saints, as was the case in the epistle to the Romans, but to the church at Corinth "to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus," as in the former epistle "called [to be] saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."

This will be found to lead the way into the main subject of the present communication. Here we must not look for the great foundations of Christian doctrine. There is the unfolding of the assembly in a practical way; that is, the church of God is not viewed here in its highest character. There is no more than an incidental glance at its associations with Christ. No notice is here taken of the heavenly places as the sphere of our blessing; nor are we given to hear of the bridal affections of Christ for His body. But the assembly of God is addressed, those sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints called, "with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord." Thus room is left for the profession of the Lord's name. It is not, as in Ephesians, "to the saints which are in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus." There is no such closeness of application, nor intimacy, nor confidence in a really intrinsically holy character. Sanctified they were in Christ Jesus. They had taken the place of being separate, "calling upon the name of the Lord;" but the remarkable addition should be noticed by the way "with all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord, both theirs and ours." And this is the more notable, because if there be an epistle which the unbelief of Christendom tries more than another to annul in its application to present circumstances, it is this first letter to the Corinthians. Nor need we wonder. Unbelief shrinks from that which calls, now rather recalls, the saints to a due sense of their responsibility in virtue of their position as the church of God here below. Those at Corinth had forgotten it. Christendom has not merely forgotten but denied it, and so would fain treat a large part of that which will come before us tonight as a bygone thing. It is not disputed that God did thus work in times past; but they have not the smallest serious thought of submitting to its directions as authoritative for present duty. Yet who can deny that God has taken more care to make this plain and certain in the very frontispiece of this epistle than anywhere else? He is wise and right: man is not. Our place is to bow and believe.

There is another point also to be weighed in the next verses (4-8). The apostle tells them how he thanks his God always on their behalf, but refrains from any expression of thankfulness as to their state. He recognises their rich endowments on God's part. He owns how they had been given all utterance, and all knowledge, the working of the Spirit of God, and His power. This is exceedingly important; for there is a disposition often to consider that difficulties and disorder among the saints of God are due to a want of government and of ministerial power. But no amount of gift, in few or many, can of itself produce holy spiritual order. Disorder is never the result of weakness alone. This, of course, may be taken advantage of, and Satan may tempt men to assume the semblance of a strength they do not possess. No doubt assumption would produce disorder; but weakness simply (where it leads souls, as it should, to spread out their need before the Lord) brings in the gracious action of the Holy Ghost, and the unfailing care of Him who loves His saints and the assembly. It was not so at Corinth. Theirs was rather the display of conscious strength; but at the same time they lacked the fear of God, and the sense of responsibility in the use of what God had given them. They were like children disporting themselves with not a little energy that wrought in vessels which altogether failed in self-judgment. This was a source, and a main source, of the difficulty and disorder at Corinth. It is also of great importance to us; for there are those that continually cry out for increase of power as the one panacea of the church. What reflecting spiritual mind could doubt that God sees His saints are not able to bear it? Power in the sense in which we are now speaking of it that is, power in the form of gift is far from being the deepest need or the gravest desideratum of the saints. Again, is it ever the way of God to display Himself thus in a fallen condition of things? Not that He is restrained, or that He is not Sovereign. Not, moreover, that He may not give, and liberally as suits His own glory; but He gives wisely and holily, so as to lead souls now into exercise of conscience and brokenness of spirit, and thus keep and even deepen their sense of that to which God's church is called, and the state into which it has fallen.

At Corinth there was a wholly different state of things. It was the early rise of the church of God, if I may so say, among the Gentiles. And there was not wanting an astonishing sample of the power of the Spirit in witness of the victory that Jesus had won over Satan. This was now, or at least should have been, manifested by the church of God, as at Corinth. But they had lost sight of God's objects. They were occupied with themselves, with one another, with the supernatural energy which grace had conferred on them in the name of the Lord. The Holy Ghost in inspiring the apostle to write to them in no way weakens the sense of the source and character of that power. He insists on its reality, and reminds them that it was of God; but at the same time he brings in the divine aim in it all. "God," says he, "is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." Immediately after he alludes to the schisms that were then at work among them, and calls on them to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment; informing them of the tidings which had reached him through the house of Chloe, that there were contentions among them, some saying, "I am of Paul," others "I am of Apollos;" some, "I am of Cephas," and others "I am of Christ himself." There is no abuse to which flesh cannot degrade the truth. But the apostle knew how to introduce the Lord's name and grace with the grandly simple but weighty facts of His person and work. It was unto His name that they were baptized; it was He that had been crucified. And be it observed, that from the first of this epistle it is the cross of Christ that has the prominence. It is not so much His blood-shedding, nor even His death and resurrection, but His cross. This would have been as much out of place in the beginning of Romans as the putting forward of propitiation would be out of place here. Expiation of sins by Christ, His death and resurrection, are given of God to be displayed before the saints, who needed to know the firm, immutable foundation of grace; but what the saints wanted most was to learn the gross inconsistency of turning to selfish ease, honour, and aggrandisement the privileges of God's church, and the power of the Spirit of God that wrought in its members.

It is the cross which stains the pride of man, and puts all his glory in the dust. Hence the apostle brings Christ crucified before them. This to the Jew was a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishness. These Corinthians were deeply affected by the judgment of both Jews and Greeks. They were under the influence of man. They had not realized the total ruin of nature. They valued those that were wise, scribes, or disputers of this world. They were accustomed to the schools of their age and country. They conceived that if Christianity did such great things when those who possessed it were poor and simple, what might it not do if it could only be backed by the ability, and the learning, and the philosophy of men! How it must ride triumphantly to victory! How the great must bow, and the wise be brought in! What a glorious change would result when not the unlettered poor only, but the great and the noble, the wise and the Prudent, were all joined in the confession of Jesus!

Their thoughts were fleshly, not of God. The cross writes judgment on man, and folly on his wisdom, as it is itself rejected by man as folly; for what could seem more egregiously unreasonable to a Greek than the God that made heaven and earth becoming a man, and, as such, crucified by the wicked hands of His creatures here below? That God should use His power to bless man was natural; and the Gentile could coalesce as to it with the Jew. Hence too, in the cross, the Jew found his stumbling-block; for he expected a Messiah in power and glory. Though the Jew and the Greek seemed opposite as the poles, from different points they agreed thoroughly in slighting the cross, and in desiring the exaltation of man as he is. They both, therefore, (whatever their occasional oppositions, and whatever their permanent variety of form,) preferred the flesh, and were ignorant of God the one demanding signs, the other wisdom. It was the pride of nature, whether self-confident or founded on religious claims.

Hence the apostle Paul, in the latter part of chap. 1, brings in the cross of Christ in contrast with fleshly wisdom, as well as religious pride, urging also God's sovereignty in calling souls as He will. He alludes to the mystery (1 Corinthians 2:1-16), but does not develop here the blessed privileges that flowed to us from a union with Christ, dead, risen, and ascended; but demonstrates that man has no place whatever, that it is God who chooses and calls, and that He makes, nothing of flesh. There is glorying, but it is exclusively in the Lord. No flesh should glory in his presence."

This is confirmed in1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, where the apostle reminds them of the manner in which the gospel had entered Corinth. He had come there setting his face against all things that would commend himself. No doubt, to one of such eminent ability and such varied gifts as the apostle Paul, it was hard, to speak after the manner of men, to be nothing. How much it must have called for self-denial utterly to decline that which he could have handled so well, and which people at Corinth would have hailed with loud acclamation. Just think of the great apostle of the Gentiles, on the immortality of the soul, giving free rein to the mighty spirit that was in him! But not so. What absorbed his soul, in entering, the intellectual and dissolute capital of Achaia, was the cross of Christ. He determined therefore, as he says, to know nothing else not exactly to know the cross alone, but "Jesus Christ and him crucified." It was emphatically, though not exclusively, the cross. It was not simply redemption, but along with this another order of truth. Redemption supposes, undoubtedly, a suffering Saviour, and the shedding of that precious blood which ransoms the captives. It is Jesus who in grace has undergone the judgment of God, and brought in the full delivering power of God for the souls that believe. But the cross is more than this. It is the death of shame pre-eminently. It is utter opposition to the thoughts, feelings, judgments, and ways of men, religious or profane. This is the part accordingly that he was led in the wisdom of God to put forward. Hence the feelings of the apostle were distrust of self, and dependence on God according to that cross. As he says, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." Thus, as Christ Himself is said in 2 Corinthians 13:1-14 to be crucified in weakness, such was also the servant here. His speech and his preaching was "not in enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Accordingly, in this chapter he proceeds to supplement the application of the doctrine of the cross to the state of the Corinthians by bringing in the Holy Ghost; for this again supposes the incapacity of man in divine things.

All is opened out in a manner full of comfort, but at the same time unsparing to human pride. Weigh from the prophecy of Isaiah the remarkable quotation "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." There is first the great standing fact before our eyes. Such is the Saviour to the saved. Christ crucified is the death-knell on all man's wisdom, and power, and righteousness. The cross writes total condemnation on the world. It was here the world had to say to Jesus. All that it gave Him was the cross. On the other hand, to the believer it is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because he humbly but willingly reads in the cross the truth of the judgment of his own nature as a thing to be delivered from, and finds Him that was crucified, the Lord Himself, undertaking a deliverance just, present, and complete; as he says, "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Flesh is absolutely put down. Man cannot go lower for weakness and ignominy than the cross on which hangs all the blessedness God gives the believer. And therein God is glorified as He is nowhere else. This in both its parts is exactly as it should be; and faith sees and receives it in Christ's cross. The state of the Corinthians did not admit of Christ risen being brought in, at least here. It might have drawn a halo, as it were, round human nature this presenting the risen man in the first instance. But he points to God as the source, and Christ as the channel and means, of all the blessing. "Of him," says he, "are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." But then, as he shows, there was not only this great source of blessing in Christ, but there is the power that works in us. Never is it the spirit of man that lays hold of this infinite good which God vouchsafes him. Man requires a divine power to work within him, just as he needs the Saviour outside himself

Accordingly, in 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, still carrying on the thought of Christ crucified, and connecting it with their condition, he intimates that he was in no wise limited to it. If persons were grounded in Christianity, he was prepared to go into the greatest depths of revealed truth; but then the power of entering safely was not human, but of the Holy Ghost. Man is no more capable of fathoming the depths of divine things than a brute can comprehend the works of human wit or science. This doctrine was utterly repulsive to the pride of the Greeks. They might admit man to have need of pardon, and of moral improvement. They fully admitted his want of instruction, and refinement, and, so to speak, of spiritualization, if it only might be. Christianity deepens our estimate of every want. Man not only wants a new life or nature, but the Holy Ghost. It is not merely His grace in a general sense, but the power of the Holy Ghost personally dwelling in him. It is this alone which can lead us into the deep things of God. And this, he lets us see, affects not merely this particular or that, but the whole working of divine grace and power in man. The whole and sole means of communicating blessing to us must be the Holy Ghost. Hence he insists, that as it is the Spirit of God in the first place who reveals the truth to us, so it is the same Spirit who furnishes suitable words, as, finally, it is through the Holy Ghost that one receives the truth revealed in the words He Himself has given. Thus, from first to last, it is a process begun, carried on, and completed by the Holy Ghost. How little this makes of man!

This introduces 1 Corinthians 3:1-23 and gives point to his rebukes. He taxes them with walking as men. How remarkable is such a reproach! Walking as men! Why, one might ask, how else could they walk? And this very difficulty as no doubt it would be to many a Christian now (that walking as men should be a reproach) was no doubt a clap of thunder to the proud but poor spirits at Corinth. Yes, walking as men is a departure from Christianity. It is to give up the distinctive power and place that belongs to us; for does not Christianity show us man judged, condemned, and set aside? On the faith of this, living in Christ, we have to walk. The Holy Ghost, besides, is brought in as working in the believer, and this, of course, in virtue of redemption by our Lord Jesus. And this is what is meant by being not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, which is proved by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us.

Here the apostle does not explain all this, and he gives a very withering reason for his reticence. These Corinthians had an uncommonly good opinion of themselves, and so they must be told plainly the reason why he does not open out these deep things. They themselves were not fit; they were but babes. What! the polished Greek believers no more than babes! This was rather what they would have said of the apostle or of his teaching. They thought themselves far in advance. The apostle had dwelt on the elementary truths of the gospel. They yearned after the fire of Peter and the rhetoric of Apollos. No doubt they might easily flatter themselves it was to carry on the work of God. How little many a young convert knows what will best lead him on! How little the Corinthians dreamt of depreciating the Second man, or of exalting the first! Hence the apostle tells them that he could not speak unto them as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat." Far from denying, he owns that their insinuation was true he had only brought before them elementary truths. They were not in a condition to bear more. Now this is full of meaning and importance practically at all times. We may damage souls greatly by presenting high truths to those that want the simplest rudiments of divine truth.

The apostle, as a wise master-builder, laid the foundation. The state of the Corinthians was such that he could not build on the foundation as he would have desired. His absence had given occasion for the breaking out of their carnal wishes after the world's wisdom. They were making even the ardour of a Peter and the eloquence of an Apollos to be a reason for dissatisfaction with one that, I need not say, was superior to both of them. But the apostle meets them in a way most unexpected to their self-satisfaction and pride, and lets them know that their carnality was the real reason why he could not go on with them into deeper things.

This leads him to point out the seriousness of the work or building; for he presents the church of God under this figure. What care each servant needs to take how and what he builds! What danger of bringing in that which would not stand the fire or judgment of God nay, further, of bringing in that which was not simply weak and worthless, but positively corrupting; for it was to be feared there were such elements even then at Corinth! Again he brings in another principle to bear upon them. Their party spirit, their feeling of narrowness, the disposition to set up this servant of Christ or that, was not only a dishonour to the Master, but a real loss to themselves. Not that there is any ground to suppose it was the fault of Peter or Apollos any more than of Paul. The evil was in the saints themselves, who indulged in their old zeal of the schools, and allowed their natural partiality to work. In point of fact this never can be without the most grievous impoverishment to the soul, as well as a hindrance to the Holy Ghost. What faith must learn is, that "all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; . . . . . all are yours." Thus the subject enlarges, as is his wont, taking in an immense breadth of the Christian's possessions life, death, things present, and things to come. "All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

This again brings in another point before the subject closes. He is not content with the pressing of responsibility on others; he had a solemn sense of his own place, which made him wonderfully independent of the judgments of men. Obedience gives firmness as well as humility. Not in the smallest degree was the pride of the Corinthians met by pride on his part, but by keeping the Lord and His will before his soul. Yet this is certainly true that this effect of faith looks like pride to a man who merely views things on the surface. The calm going on in the service of Christ, the endurance of this spirit or that, as no more than the idle wind, was no doubt exceedingly unpleasant to such as were wise in their own conceit, and valued the criticism they freely bestowed on the different servants of the Lord. But Paul sees all in the light of the eternal day. They had forgotten this, and were in a sense trafficking with these powers of the Spirit of God. They were making them the counters of a game they were playing in this world. They had forgotten that what God gives He gives in time, but in view of eternity. The apostle puts the truth of the case before their souls as he had it vividly before his own. (1 Corinthians 4:1-21)

Another thing is noticeable here. He had reproached them with walking not as Christians but as men (that is, with their habitual life and conversation formed on human principles instead of divine). On the other hand, it would appear from what follows, that they reproached the apostle in their hearts, not, of course, in so many words, with not being enough of a gentleman for their taste. This seems to me the gist of the fourth chapter. It was a thing that they considered quite beneath a Christian minister to work from time to time with his hands, often poor, occasionally in prison, knocked about by crowds, and so on. All this they thought the fruit of indiscretion and avoidable. They would have preferred respectability, public and private, in one who stood in the position of a servant of Christ. This the apostle meets in a very blessed way. He admitted that they were certainly not in such circumstances; they were reigning as kings. As for him it was enough to be the off-scouring of all men, this was his boast and blessedness. He wished that they did indeed reign that he might reign with them (that the blessed time might really arrive). How his heart would rejoice in that day with them! And surely the time will come, and they would all reign together when Christ reigns over the earth. But he quite admits that for the present the fellowship of Christ's sufferings was the place he had chosen. Of honour in the world, and ease for the flesh, he at least could not, if they could, boast. Present greatness was what he in no wise coveted; to suffer great things for His sake was what the Lord had promised, and what His servant expected in becoming an apostle. If his own service was the highest position in the church, his was certainly the lowest position in the world. This was as much an apostle's boast and glory as anything that God had given them. No answer can I conceive more telling to any one of his detractors at Corinth who had a heart and conscience.

In 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 we enter on another and more painful part of the epistle. A fearful instance of sin had come to light, so gross, indeed, that the like was not even named among the Gentiles. In fact it was a case of incest, and this among those called of God, and sanctified in Christ Jesus! The question is not in the least raised whether the guilty person was a saint or not; still less does he allow that which one so often and painfully heard pleaded in extenuation, "Oh, but he [or she] is a dear Christian." Christian affection is most excellent; as brethren we should love even to laying down life for each other; as it is also very right that we should own the work God has wrought, above all what He has wrought in grace. But when one bearing the name of the Lord has, through unwatchfulness, fallen into wickedness, which of course grieves the Holy Ghost and stumbles the weak, it is not the time to talk thus. It is the time, in the very love that God implants, to deal sternly with that which has disgraced the name of the Lord. Is this to fail in love to the person? The apostle showed ere long that he had more love for this evildoer than any of them. The second epistle to the Corinthians entreats them to confirm their love to him whom they had put away. They were too hard against him then, as they were too loose now. Here their consciences needed to be roused. To deal with the matter they owed to the Lord Jesus. It was not merely getting rid of the obnoxious man. They had to prove themselves clear in the matter certainly; but he puts before them another course, whenever the guilty one had repented.

"I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already," etc. The case was most gross, and there was no question about it. The facts were indisputable; the scandal was unheard of. "I have judged already, as though present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh." There was no discussion raised whether the person might be converted. The fact is, church discipline supposes and goes on the ground that those on whom it is exercised are Christians; but when it is a question of discipline, it is not the season for the display of Christian affection. This would falsify the conscience and turn the eye from off the point to which the Holy Ghost was directing attention. There was wickedness in their midst; and while known and unjudged, all were implicated; none could be clean till it was put away. Accordingly the apostle, while he expresses the desire that the spirit of the man should be saved in the day of the Lord, flesh being destroyed, at the same time rouses the saints to that which became the name of the Lord on the very ground that they were unleavened. If they were free from evil, let them act consistently. Let them preserve that purity in practice which was theirs in principle. They were unleavened, and therefore should be a new lump. Notoriously there was old leaven among them. What business had it there? "Put away from" not the table of the Lord merely, this he does not say, but "Put away from among yourselves." This is much stronger than expelling from the table. Of course, it implies exclusion from the Lord's table, but from their table too "with such an one, no, not to eat." An ordinary meal, or any such act expressive even in natural things of fellowship with the person thus dishonouring the Lord, is forbidden.

Mark, they must put away. It is not the apostle acting for them; for God took particular care that this case, demanding discipline to the uttermost, should be where the apostle was not. What an admirable instruction for us who have no longer an apostle! None can pretend that it was an assembly where there was a high degree of knowledge or spirituality. The very reverse was the case. The responsibility of discipline depends on our relationship as an assembly to the Lord, not on its changing states. The Corinthians were babes; they were carnal. He who loved them well could not speak of them as spiritual. Nevertheless, this responsibility attached to the very fact that they were members of Christ His body. If saints are gathered to the name of the Lord, and so are God's assembly, if they have faith to take such a position here below, and have the Holy Ghost owned as in their midst, this, and nothing short of this, is their responsibility; nor does the ruined state of the church touch the question, nor can it relieve them from their duty to the Lord. The church at Corinth had soon failed most gravely far and wide. This was the more shameful, considering the brightness of the truth vouchsafed to them, and the striking manifestation of divine power in their midst. The presence of apostles elsewhere in the earth, the beautiful display of Pentecostal grace at Jerusalem, the fact that so short a time had elapsed since they had been brought out of heathenism into their standing in God's grace, all made the present state of the Corinthians so much the more painful; but nothing can ever dissolve the responsibility of saints, whether as individuals or as an assembly. "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person."

Another thing is to be observed, that the Holy Spirit's scale of sin is not that of man. Which of you, my brethren, would have thought of classing a railer with an adulterer? A railer is one who uses abusive language for the purpose of injuring another, not the transient out-breaking of flesh, sad as it is, but provoked it may be, or at any rate, happening through unwatchfulness. The habit of evil speaking stamps him who practises it as a railer; and such a man is unfit for the company of the saints, for God's assembly. It is the old leaven of malice and wickedness. He is unclean. Doubtless the world would not so judge; but this is not the world's judgment. The Corinthians were under the influence of the world. The apostle had already shown that to walk as men is beneath the Christian. Now we see that to walk as the world, no matter how refinedly, ever exposes Christians to act worse than men of the world. God has stamped upon His children the name of Christ; and what does not express His name is inconsistent, not only with the Christian, but with His assembly. They are all as such held responsible, according to the grace and holiness and glory of Christ, for the sin done in their midst, of which they are cognisant. They are bound to keep themselves pure in ways.

There was another case also: brother was going to law with brother. (1 Corinthians 6:1-20) We have no reason to think they had fallen so far as to go to law with those that were not brethren; this would seem to be a lower step still. But brother was going to law with brother, ,and this before the unjust. How often now-a-days one hears, "Well, one expects something better from a brother; and surely he ought to suffer the consequences of his ill-doing." This was just the feeling of the Corinthian plaintiff. What, then, is the weapon that the apostle uses in this case? The dignified place in the glory that God designs for the Christian: "Know ye not that we shall judge the world judge angels?" Were such going before the Gentiles? Thus is seen how practical all truth is, and how God casts the bright light of the approaching day on the smallest matters of the life of today.

Again, there was no quarter in the world where personal purity was more unknown than at Corinth. Indeed, such were the habits of the ancient world, it would only defile the ears and minds of God's children to have any proofs of the depravity in which the world then lay, and that too in its best estate, the wisest and the greatest not excepted, those, alas. whose writings are in the hands of the youth of our day, and more than ever, perhaps, in their hands. Those wits, poets, and philosophers of heathen antiquity lived in habitual, yea, often in unnatural grossness, and thought nothing of it. It is a danger for the saints of God to be tinctured by the atmosphere of the world outside when the first fervour of grace cools, and they begin to take up their old habits. It was certainly so at Corinth.

Accordingly the believers there were betrayed into their former uncleanness of life when the heavenly light got dim. And how does the apostle deal with this? He recalls to them the Holy Spirit's dwelling in them. What a truth, and of what force to the believer! He does not say simply that they were redeemed, though he brings it in also; still less does he merely reason on the moral heinousness of the sin; neither does he cite the law of God that condemned it. He presses upon them that which was proper to them as Christians. It was no question of man, let him be Gentile or Jew, but of a Christian. Thus he sets before them the distinctive Christian blessing the Holy Ghost dwelling in the believer, and making his body (not his spirit but his body) a temple of the Holy Ghost; for here was precisely where the enemy seems to have misled these Corinthians. They affected to think they might be pure in spirit, but do what they liked with their bodies. But, answers the apostle, it is the body which is the temple of the Holy Ghost. The body belongs to the Lord and Saviour; the body, therefore, and not the spirit only, He claims now. No doubt that the spirit be occupied with Christ is a grand matter; but the licentious flesh of man would talk, at any rate, about the Lord, and at the same time indulge in evil. This is set aside by the blessed fact that the Holy Ghost even now dwells in the Christian, and this on the ground of his being bought with a price. Thus the very call to holiness ever keeps the saint of God in the sense of his immense privileges as well as of his perfect deliverance.

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 naturally leads from this into certain questions that had been proposed to the apostle touching marriage and slavery questions which had to do with the various relationships of life. The apostle accordingly gives us what he had learned from the Lord, as well as what he could speak of as a commandment of the Lord, distinguishing in the most beautiful manner, not between inspired and non-inspired, but between revelation and inspiration. All the word is inspired; there is no difference as to this. There is no part of Scripture that is less inspired than another. " All (every) scripture is given by inspiration of God;" but all is not His revelation. We must distinguish between parts revealed and the whole inspired. When a thing is revealed of God, it is absolutely new truth, and of course is the commandment of the Lord. But the inspired word of God contains the language of all sorts of men, and very often the conversation of wicked men nay, of the devil I need not say that all this is not a revelation; but God communicates what Satan and wicked men say (as for instance Pilate's words to our Lord and the Jews). None of these evidently was that which is called a revelation; but the Holy Ghost inspired the writers of the book to give us exactly what each of these said, or revealed what was in the mind of God about them. Take, for example, the book of Job, in which occur the sayings of his friends. What intelligent reader could think that they were in any way authorised communicators of the mind of God? They say sometimes very wrong things, and sometimes wise, and often things that do not in the smallest degree apply to the case. Every word of the book of Job is inspired; but did all the speakers utter necessarily the mind of God? Did not one of the speakers condemn one or other of the rest? Need one reason on such facts? This, no doubt, makes a certain measure of difficulty for a soul at the first blush; but on maturer consideration all becomes plain and harmonious, and the word of God is enhanced in our eyes.

And so it is in this chapter, where the apostle gives both the commandment of the Lord, and his own matured spiritual judgment, which he expressly says was not the commandment of the Lord. Still he was inspired to give his judgment as such. Thus the whole chapter is inspired, one part of it just as much as another. There is no difference in inspiration. What was written by the different inspired instruments is of God as absolutely as if He had written it all without them. There is no degree in the matter. There can be no difference in inspiration. But in the inspired word of God there is not always revelation. Sometimes it is a record which the Spirit gave a man to make of what he had seen and heard, sometimes he recorded by the Spirit what no man could have seen or heard. Sometimes it was a prophecy of the future, sometimes a communication of God's present mind according to His eternal purpose. But all is equally and divinely inspired.

The apostle then lays down at least as far as may be here briefly sketched that while there are cases where it is a positive duty to be married, undisguisedly there was a better place of undivided devotedness to Christ. Blessed is he who is given. thus to serve the Lord without let: still it must be the gift of God. The Lord Jesus had laid down the same principle Himself. InMatthew 19:1-30; Matthew 19:1-30, it is needless to say, you have the selfsame truth in another form.

Again, while the Lord employs the apostle thus to give us both His own commandment and His mind, the general principle is stated as to the relationships of life. It is broadly laid down that one should remain in that condition in which he is called, and for a very blessed reason. Supposing one were a slave even, he is already, if a Christian, a freeman of Christ. You must remember that in these days there were everywhere bondmen: those that then ruled the. world took them from all classes and all countries There were bondmen highly educated, and once in a high position of life. Need it be said that often these bondmen rose up against their cruel masters? The very knowledge of Christ, and the possession of conscious truth, if grace did not counteract mightily, would tend to increase their sense of horror at their position. Suppose, for instance, a refined person, with the truth of God communicated to his soul, was the slave of one living in all the filth of heathenism, what a trial it would be to serve in such a position! The apostle urges the truth of that liberty in Christ which Christendom has well-nigh forgotten that if I am Christ's servant I am emancipated already. Match if you can the manumission he has got. Twenty millions will procure no such emancipation. At the same time, if my master allows me liberty, let me use it rather. Is it not a remarkable style of speech and feeling? The Christian, even if a slave, possesses the best freedom after all: anything else is but circumstantial. On the other hand, if you are a freeman, take care how you use your liberty: use it as the Lord's bondman. The freeman is reminded of his bondmanship; the bondman is reminded of his freedom. What a wonderful antithesis of man is the Second Man! How it traverses all the thoughts, circumstances, and hopes of flesh!

Then he brings before us the different relationships at the end of the chapter, as they are affected by the coming of the Lord. And there is nothing which shows more the importance of that hope as a practical power. There is not only the direct but the indirect allusion when the heart is filled with an object; and the indirect is a yet stronger witness of the place it holds than the direct. A mere hint connects itself with that which is your joy and constant expectation; whereas when a thing is little before the heart you require to explain, prove, and insist upon it. But this chapter brings vividly before them how all outward things pass away, even the fashion of this world. Time is short. It is too late either to make much of scenes so changing, or to seek this thing or that here below with such a morrow before our eyes. Hence he calls on those who had wives to be as those who had none, on those who were selling and buying to be above all the objects that made up the sum of business. In short, he puts Christ and His coming as the reality, and all else as the shadows, transitions, movements of a world that even now crumbles underneath us. No wonder that he follows all up at the end with his own judgment, that the man most blessed is he who has the least entanglement, and is the most thoroughly devoted to Christ and His service.

Next in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 he begins to take up another danger for the Corinthian saints. They had the sound of the truth ringing in their ears; and assuredly there are few sounds sweeter than the liberty of the Christian. But what is more liable to abuse? They had abused power to self-exaltation; they were now turning liberty to license. But there is a solemn fact which none can afford to forget as to both power and liberty that without responsibility nothing is more ruinous than either. Herein lay the sad failure of these saints. In the sense of responsibility they were utterly wanting They seem to have forgotten completely that the Lord from whom the liberty had come is the One in whose sight, and for whose glory, and according to whose will, all power was to be used. The apostle recalls them to this; but he takes up their license in going into heathen temples, and eating things offered to idols, not first of all on the high ground of the Lord, but on account of their brethren. In their boasted liberty, and because they knew an idol was nothing, they considered that they might go anywhere, and do what they pleased. Nay, not so, cries the apostle; you must consider your brother. There is many a disciple who, far from knowing how vain idolatry is, thinks a good deal of the idol. Thus, you that know so much, if you make light of going here and there, will induce other disciples to follow your steps who may slip into idolatry through it, and thus a brother perish for whom Christ died; and what is the liberty of one who is instructed may prove the extreme ruin of one who is equally a believer in the Lord. Thus he looks at the thing in its full character and ultimate tendency if unchecked. Grace, as we know, can arrest these tendencies, and avert the evil results.

In 1 Corinthians 9:1-27 he interrupts the course of his argument by an appeal to his own place as an apostle. Some were beginning to question his apostolate. It was not that he in the slightest degree forgot his call by God's will to that special service; neither was he insensible to the blessed liberty in which he was serving the Lord. He could lead about a sister-wife like another; he had foregone this for the Lord's sake. He could look for support from the church of God; he preferred to work with his own hands. So in the second epistle to the Corinthians he begs them to forgive the wrong; for he would not accept anything from them. They were not in a condition to be entrusted with such a gift. Their state was such, and God had so overruled it in His ways, that the apostle had received nothing from them. This fact he uses in order to humble them because of their pride and licentiousness.

The course of this chapter then touches on his apostolic place, and at the same time his refusal to use the rights of it. Grace can forego all questions of right. Conscious of what is due, it asserts rights for others, but refuses to use them for itself. Such was the spirit and the faith of the apostle. And now he shows what he felt as to practical state and walk. Far from being full of his knowledge, far from only using his place in the church for the assertion of his dignity and for immunity from all trouble and pain here below, he on the contrary was as one under the law to meet him that was under it; he was as a Gentile to meet him that was free from law (that is, a Gentile). Thus he was a servant of all that he might save some. Besides, he lets them know the spirit of a servant, which was so lacking in the Corinthians in spite of their gifts; for it is not the possession of a gift, but love which serves and delights in service. The simple fact of knowing that you have a gift may and often does minister to self-complacency. The grand point is to have the Lord before you, and when others are thought of, it is in the love which has no need to seek greatness, or to a et it. The love of Christ proves its greatness by serving others.

This, then, was the spirit of that blessed servant of the Lord. He reminds them of another point that he was himself diligent in keeping his body in subjection. He was like a man with a race that was going to be run, and who gets his body into training. He puts this in the strongest way, "Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." Mark the tact of the apostle. When he has something discreditable to say, he prefers to say it about himself; when he has something pleasing to say, he loves to put it with regard to others. So here he says, "Lest I myself become a castaway," not " you." He meant their profit, no doubt; his aim was for them to have their own consciences searched by it. If Paul even was exercising himself to have a conscience void offence; if Paul was keeping his body in subjection, how much more did these men need it? They were abusing all the comfort that Christianity brings, to live at ease and play the gentleman, if one may speak according to modern language. They had not entered in the smallest degree into the spirit of the moral glory of Christ humbled here below. They had dislocated the cross from Christianity. They had severed themselves from the power of service. Thus they were in the utmost possible jeopardy; but the apostle, who had the blessedness of Christ before him, and the fellowship of His sufferings is scarce another had like him, even he used all diligence of heart, and held a tight rein over himself. Faithful man as he was, he allowed himself none of these licenses. Liberty indeed he prized, but it was not going here and there to feasts of idols. He was free to serve Christ, and time was short: what had such an one to do with heathen temples?

Thus he wants them to feel their danger, but first of all he begins with himself. He was free but watchful; and he was jealous over himself, the greater the grace shown him. It was not that he in the smallest degree doubted his security in Christ, as some so foolishly say; or that such as have eternal life may lose it again. But it is plain that men who merely take the place of having eternal life may, and often do, abandon that place. Those who have eternal life prove it by godliness; those who have it not prove the lack of it by indifference to holiness, and lack of that love which is of God. So the apostle shows that all his knowledge of the truth, far from making him careless, prompted him to yet greater earnestness, and to daily denial of himself. This is a very important consideration for us all (I press it more especially on the young in such a day as this); and the greater the knowledge of the saints, the more they need to keep it in view.

The apostle draws their attention to another warning in the history of Israel. These had eaten of the same spiritual meat, for so he calls it; they had the heaven-sent manna, had drunk of the same spiritual drink; yet what became of them? How many thousands of them perished in the wilderness? The apostle is approaching far closer to their state. He began with application to his own case, and now he points to Israel as a people sanctified to Jehovah. At length the word is, "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful." This was a great comfort, but it was also a serious caution. "God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." It is in vain, therefore, to plead circumstances as an excuse for sin. "But [He] will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." He makes it plain that he is, with characteristic address, dealing with their little-exercised consciences from the statement of his own earnest vigilance over his ways, and then from the sad and solemn history of Israel judged of the Lord. Thus, too, he goes forward into new ground, the deeper spiritual motives, the appeal to Christian affection as well as to faith. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? He begins with that which most nearly touches the heart. It would have been an order more natural, if one may so say, to speak of the body of Christ; as we know in the Lord's supper habitually, there is that which brings before us first the body and then the blood. The departure from what may be called the historical order makes the emphasis incomparably greater. More than that, the first appeal is founded on the blood of Christ, the answer of divine grace to the deepest need of a soul found in its guilt before God and covered with defilement. Was this to be slighted? "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" He does not here say, "the blood" or the "body of the Lord." This we find in 1 Corinthians 11:1-34; but it is here Christ, because it becomes a question of grace. "The Lord" brings in the idea of authority. This, then, is evidently an immense advance in dealing with the subject. Accordingly he now develops it, not on the ground of injury to a brother, but as a breach of fellowship with such a Christ, and indifference to His immense love. But he does not forget His authority: "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of demons." It is not simply the love of Christ, but His full authority as the Lord. The apostle contrasts two mighty powers that were contesting demons, on the one hand, a power stronger than man, struggling as to him here below; and, on the other hand, there was the Lord that had shed His blood for them, but the Lord of all who should judge quick and dead. Hence he follows up with a comprehensive and simple principle, but full of liberty withal, that in going into the market you need ask no questions. If I do not know that the food has been connected with idols, the idol is nothing to me; but the moment I know it, it is no longer the question of an idol but a demon; and a demon, be assured, is a very real being indeed. Thus what the apostle insists on amounts to this, that their vaunted knowledge was short indeed. Whenever a person boasts, you will in general find. that he particularly fails precisely where he boasts most. If you set up for great knowledge, this will be the point in which you may be expected to break down. If you set up for exceeding candour, the next thing we may well dread to hear is that you have played very false. The best thing is to see that we give ourselves credit for nothing. Let Christ be all our boast. The sense of our own littleness and of His perfect grace is the way, and the only way, to go on well. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?"

Then in 1 Corinthians 11:1-34 we enter on another point. It would seem that the sisters at Corinth gave them a deal of trouble, and that they had forgotten entirely their due relative place. No doubt the men were at least as much to blame. It is hardly possible that women should ever put themselves forward in the church unless Christian men have deserted their true, responsible position and public action. It is the man's place to guide; and although women may assuredly be far more useful in certain cases, still, unless the man guides, what an evident departure from the order God has assigned to them both! How complete a desertion of the relative position in which they were placed from the first! Thus it was at Corinth. Among the heathen, women played a most important part, and in no quarter of the world, perhaps, so prominent a one as there. Need it be said that this was to their deep shame? There was no city in which they were so degraded as that in which the attained such conspicuous and unnatural prominence. And how does the apostle meet this new feature? He brings in Christ. This is what decides all. He affirms the everlasting principles of God, and he adds that which has so brightly been revealed in and by Christ. He points out that Christ is the image and the glory of God, and that the man stands in an analogous place as connected with and distinguished from the woman. That is to say, the woman's place is one of unobtrusiveness, and in fact, she is most effective where she is least seen. The man, on the contrary, has a public part a rougher and ruder task, no doubt one that may not at all bring into play the finer affections, but which demands a calmer and more comprehensive judgment. The man has the duty of the outward rule and administration.

Accordingly he marks the first departure from what was right by the woman's losing the sign of her subjection. She was to have a covering, on her head; she was to have that which indicated as a sign that she was subject to another. The man seemed to have failed just in the opposite way; and although this may seem a very little thing, what a wonderful thing it is, and what power it shows, to be able to combine in the same epistle eternal things and the very smallest matter of personal decorum, the wearing of long hair or short, the use of a covering on the head or not! How truly it marks God and His word!! Men. would scorn to combine them both in the same epistle; it seems so petty and so incongruous. But it is the littleness of man which calls for big matters to make him important; but the smallest things of God have significance when they bear on the glory of Christ, as they always do. In the first place, it was out of order that a woman should prophesy with her head uncovered; man's place was to do so. He was the image and the glory of God. The apostle connects it all with first principles, going up to the creation of Adam and Eve in a very blessed manner, and above all bringing in the second Man, the last Adam. Did they think to improve on both?

The latter part of the chapter takes up not the relative place of the man and the woman, but the supper of the Lord, and so the saints gathered together. The first part of it, as is evident, has nothing to do with the assembly, and thus does not dispose of the question whether a woman should prophesy there. In fact, nothing is said or implied in the early verses of the assembly at all. The point primarily mooted is of her prophesying after the manner of a man, and this is done with the greatest possible wisdom. Her prophesying is not absolutely shut out. If a woman has a gift for prophecy, which she certainly may have as well as a man, for what is it given of the Lord but for exercise? Certainly such an one ought to prophesy. Who could say the gift of prophecy given to a woman is to be laid up in a napkin? Only she must take care how she does exercise it. First of all, he rebukes the unseemly way in which it was done the woman forgetting that she was a woman, and the man that he is responsible not to act as a woman. They seem to have reasoned in a petty way at Corinth, that because a woman has a gift no less than a man, she is free to use the gift just as a man might. This is in principle wrong; for after all a woman is not a man, nor like one officially, say what you please. The apostle sets aside the whole basis of the argument as false; and we must never hear reasoning which overthrows what God has ordained. Nature ought to have taught them better. But he does not dwell on this; it was a withering rebuke even to hint at their forgetfulness of natural propriety.

Then, in the latter verses, we have the supper of the Lord, and there we find the saints expressly said to be gathered together. This naturally leads the way to the spiritual gifts that are treated of in1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31. As to the supper of the Lord, happily I need not say many words to you. It is, by the great mercy of God, familiar to most of us; we live, I may say, in the enjoyment of it, and know it to be one of the sweetest privileges God vouchsafes us here below. Alas! this very feast had furnished occasion, in the fleshly state of the Corinthians, to a most humiliating abuse. What led to it was the Agape, as it was styled; for in those days there was a meal which the Christians used to take together. Indeed, the social character of Christianity never can be overlooked without loss, but in an evil state it is open to much abuse. Everything that is good may be perverted; and it never was intended to hinder abuse by extinguishing that which was only to be maintained aright in the power of the Spirit of God. No rules, no abstinence, no negative measures, can glorify God, or make His children spiritual; and it is only by the power of the Holy Ghost in producing a sense of responsibility to the Lord as well as of His grace that saints are duly kept. So it was then at Corinth, that the meeting for the Lord's Supper became mingled with an ordinary meal, where the Christians ate and drank together. They were glad to meet at any rate, originally it was so, when love was gratified with the company of each other. Being not merely young Christians, but unwatchful and then lax, this gave rise to sad abuse. Their old habits re-asserted their influence. They were accustomed to the feasts of the heathen, where people thought nothing whatever of getting drunk, if it was not rather meritorious. It was in some of their mysteries considered a wrong to the god for his votary not to get drunk, so debased beyond all conception were the heathen in their notions of religion.

Accordingly these Corinthian brethren had by little and little got on until some of them had fallen into intemperance on the occasion of the Eucharist; not, of course, simply by the wine drank at the table of the Lord, but through the feast that accompanied it. Thus the shame of their drunkenness fell upon that Holy Supper; and hence the apostle regulated, that from that time forward there should be no such feast coupled with the Lord's Supper. If they wished to eat, let them eat at home; if they came together in worship, let them remember it was to eat of the Lord's body, and to drink of the Lord's blood. He puts it in the strongest terms. He does not feel it needful or suitable to speak of "the figure" of the Lord's body. The point was to make its grace and holy impressiveness duly felt. It was a figure, no doubt; but .still, writing to men who were at least wise enough to judge aright here, he gives all its weight, and the strongest expression of what was meant. So Jesus had said. Such it was in the sight of God. He that partook undiscerningly and without self-judgment was guilty of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. It was a sin against Him. The intention of the Lord, the true principle and practice for a saint, is to come, examining his ways, trying his springs of action, putting himself to the proof; and so let him eat (not stay away, because there is much discovered that is humbling). The guard and warning is, that if there be not self-judgment, the Lord will judge. How low is the state of things to which all saints tend, and not the Corinthians only! There ought to have been, I suppose, an interposition of the church's judgment between the Christian's lack of self-judgment and the Lord's chastenings; but, alas! man's duty was altogether lacking. It was from no want of gifts. They had no sense of the place God designed self-judgment to hold; but the Lord never fails.

In 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 accordingly, the apostle enters on a full statement of these spiritual powers. He shows that the distinctive feature of that which the Spirit of God leads to is the confession, not exactly of Christ, but of Jesus as Lord. He takes the simplest and most necessary ground that of His authority. This is observable in verse 3: "Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost." Impossible that the Spirit should dishonour, yea, that He should not exalt, Him who humbled Himself for God's glory. "Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God that worketh all in all." They had forgotten all this. They were pre-occupied with human thoughts, with this clever Jew and that able Gentile. They had lost sight of God Himself working in their midst. The apostle points out that if there were different services, if distinct gifts to one and another, it was for the common good of all. He illustrates the nature of the church as a body with its various members subserving the interests of the body and the will of the head. "By one Spirit were we all baptized into one body;" it is not the Holy Ghost merely making many members, but "one body." Accordingly he confronts with this divine aim their misuse of their spiritual powers, independence one of another, disorder as to women, self-glorification, and the like, as we see in1 Corinthians 14:1-40; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 the detail. He presses that the least comely members, those that are least seen, may be of more importance than any others; just as in the natural body some of the most vital parts are not even visible. What would a man do without a heart, or liver, or lungs? So in the spiritual body there are members which are most important and not seen at all. But men are apt to value most those which make a showy appearance. Thus he rebukes the whole tenor and spirit of Corinthian vanity; at the same time he maintains their place of blessing and responsibility to the last. After all their faults he does not hesitate to, say, "Now ye are the body of Christ." This way of dealing with souls has been grievously enfeebled in the present day. Grace is so feebly known, that the first thought you will find amongst godly people is what they ought to be; but the ground and weapon of the apostle Paul is what they are by God's grace. "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the church." It was far from his mind in the least to deny it. Observe here an important use of the expression, "the church." It cannot be the local assembly, because, looking at Corinth, no apostles were there. Whatever might be the providential arrangements outside in the world, he is looking at the assembly of God here on earth; and it is the assembly as a whole, the Corinthian assembly being, as every true assembly is, a kind, of representative, of the church universally. It is the church of God here below; not merely churches, though that was true also.

Thus we can look at what the church will be by-and-by glorified and absolutely perfect. We can also look at a particular local assembly. Besides there is this most important sense of the church never to be forgotten namely, that divine institution viewed as a whole on. earth. Members of Christ no doubt compose it; but there is His body, the assembly as a whole, in which God works here below. Such is the reason why we do not find in this epistle evangelists or pastors, because it is not a question of what is needed to bring souls in or lead them on. He looks at the church as a thing already, subsisting as the witness of the power of God before men. Therefore it was not at all necessary to dwell on those gifts which are the fruit of Christ's love to and cherishing of the church. It is regarded as a vessel of power for the maintenance of God's glory, and responsible for this here below. Therefore tongues miracles, healings, the use of outward powers, are largely dwelt on here.

But we pass on to another and a still more important theme, a wonderfully full picture even for God's word, that most perfect and beautiful unfolding of divine love which we have in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. After all, if the Corinthians had coveted gifts, they had not coveted the best But even if we may desire the best gifts, there is better still; and the best of all is charity love. Accordingly we have this in the most admirable manner brought out both in what it is and in what it is not, and that too as corrective of the wrong desires of the Corinthians, and the evil spirit which had manifested itself in the exercise of their gifts; so that what seems to be an interruption is the wisest of parentheses between chapter 12, which shows us the distribution of gifts and their character, and chapter 14, which directs the due exercise of gifts in the assembly of God. There is but one safe motive-power for their use, even love. Without it even a spiritual gift only tends to puff up its owner, and to corrupt those who are its objects.

Hence 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 thus opens: "Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy." And why? Prophecy seemed to be somewhat despised amongst the Corinthians. Miracles and tongues were liked, because these made themselves of importance. Such wonders made men stare, and drew general attention to those who were invested evidently with a superhuman energy. But the apostle lays it down, that the gifts which suppose the exercise of spiritual understanding have a far higher place. He himself could speak more tongues than they all. It need hardly be added that he did more miracles than any of them. Still, what he valued most was prophesying. We must not suppose that this gift simply means a man preaching. Prophesying never means preaching. More than this, prophesying is not simply teaching. It, no doubt, is teaching; but it is a good deal more. Prophesying is that spiritual application of the word of God to the conscience which puts the soul in His presence, and makes manifest as light to the hearer the mind of God. There is a great deal of valuable teaching, exhortation, and application, that has no such character. It is all very true, but it does not put the soul in the presence of God; it gives no such absolute certainty of God's mind flashing on the condition and judging the state of the heart before Him. I do not speak now of the unconverted, though prophesying might affect such as well as the converted. The direct object of it was, of course, the people of God; but in the course of the chapter the unbeliever is shown coming into the assembly and falling on his face, and owning that God was among them of a truth. Such is the genuine effect. The man finds himself judged in the presence of God.

There is no need to enter into all that this chapter brings before us, but it may be well to observe that we have giving of thanks and blessing, as well as singing and prayer. Prophesying and the rest are brought in as all pertaining to the Christian assembly. What was not directly edifying, as speaking in a tongue, is forbidden unless one could interpret. I doubt very much whether there was any revelation after the scheme of Scripture was complete. To suppose anything revealed, when that which is commonly called the canon was closed, would be an impeachment of God's purpose in it. But till the last portion of His mind was written down in a permanent form for the church, we can quite understand His goodness in allowing a special revelation now and then. This gives no warrant to look for anything of the sort at any time subsequent to the completion of the New Testament. Again, it is plain from this that there are certain modifications of the chapter. Thus so far it is true that if anything has, through the will of God, terminated (for instance, miracles, tongues, or revelations), it is evident that such workings of the Spirit ought not to be looked for; but this does not in the smallest degree set aside the Christian assembly or the exercise according to God's will of what the Spirit still distinctly gives. And undoubtedly He does continue all that is profitable, and for God's glory, in the present state of His testimony and of His church here below. Otherwise the church sinks into a human institute.

In the end of the chapter a very important principle is laid down. It is vain for people to plead the mighty power of God as an excuse for anything disorderly. This is the great difference between the power of the Spirit and the power of a demon. A demon's power may be uncontrollable: chains, fetters, all the power of man outside, may utterly fail to bind a man who is filled with demons. It is not so with the power of the Spirit of God. Wherever the soul walks with the Lord, the power of the Spirit of God on the contrary is always connected with His word, and subject to the Lord Jesus. No man can rightly pretend that the Spirit forces him to do this or that unscripturally. There is no justification possible against Scripture; and the more fully the power is of God, the less will a man think of setting aside that perfect expression of God's mind. All things therefore are to be done decently and in order an order which Scripture must decide. The only aim, as far as we are concerned, that God endorses, is that all be done to edification, and not for self-display.

The next theme (1 Corinthians 15:1-58) is a most serious subject doctrinally, and of capital importance to all. Not only had the devil plunged the Corinthians into confusion upon moral points, but when men begin to give up a good conscience, it is no wonder if the next danger is making shipwreck of the faith. Accordingly, as Satan had accomplished the first mischief among these saints, it was evident the rest threatened soon to follow. There were some among them who denied the resurrection not a separate state of the soul, but the rising again of the body. In fact the resurrection must be of the body. What dies is to be raised. As the soul does not die, "resurrection" would be quite out of place; to the body it is necessary for God's glory as well as man. And how does the apostle treat this? As he always does. He brings Christ in. They had no thought of Christ in the case. They seem to have had no wish to deny the resurrection of Christ; but should not a Christian have at once used Christ to judge all by? The apostle at once introduces His person and work as a test. if Christ did not rise, there is no resurrection, and therefore no truth in the Gospel; "your faith is vain: you are yet in your sins." Even they were quite unprepared for so dreadful a conclusion. Shake the resurrection and Christianity goes. Having reasoned thus, he next points out that the Christian waits for the time of joy and glory and blessing for the body by-and-by. To give up resurrection is to surrender the glorious hope of the Christian, and to be the most miserable of men.. For what could be more cheerless than to give up all present enjoyment without that blessed hope, for the future at Christ's coming? Thus strongly was the whole complex nature of man before the apostle's mind in speaking of this hope of blessedness by-and-by.

Then, somewhat abruptly, instead of discussing the matter any more, he unfolds a most weighty revelation of truth "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the. resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." True, the kingdom is not yet come for which we are waiting, but it 'will come. See how all truth hangs together, and how Satan labours to make a consistency in error. He knows the weakness of man's mind. Nobody likes to be inconsistent. You may be dragged into it, but you are never comfortable when you have a sense of inconsistency about you. Hence, after one. error gains empire over the mind of man, he is ready to embrace others just to make all consistent.

Such was the danger here among the Corinthians. They had been offended by the apostle's supreme indifference to all that is of esteem among men. His habits of speech and life were not at all up to the mark that they supposed seemly before the world in a servant of God. Out of this fertile root of evil has the clergy grown. It has been the effort to acquire as much refinement as possible. Holy orders make a man a sort of gentleman if he was not so before. This seems to have been at work in, the minds of these critics of the apostle. Here we find what lay at the bottom of the matter. There is generally a root of evil doctrine where you find people wrong in practice. At any rate, where it is a deliberate, persistent, and systematic error, it will not be merely a practical one, but have a root deep underneath. And this was what now came out at Corinth. It was feebleness about that which, after all, lies at. the very foundation of Christianity. They did not mean to deny the person of Christ or His condition as risen from the dead; but, this is what the enemy meant, and into this their wrong notion tended to drift them. The next step, after denying resurrection for the Christian, would be to deny it about Christ. And here the apostle does not fail to rebuke them, and in a manner trenchant enough. He (exposes the stupidity of their questions, wise as they flattered themselves to be. How? It is always the danger of man that he is not content to believe; he would like first of all to understand. But this is ruinous in divine things, which are entirely outside sense and reason. All real understanding for the Christian is the fruit of faith.

The apostle does not hesitate in apostrophising the unbeliever, or at any rate, the errorist he has in view, to expose his folly. "Thou fool," says he, "that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." Thus the strongest possible censure falls on these Corinthians, and this for the very matter in which they plumed themselves. Human reasoning is poor indeed outside its own sphere. However, he is not content merely with putting down their speculations; he brings in subsequent and special revelation. The previous part of the chapter had pointed out the connection of Christ's resurrection with our resurrection, followed by the kingdom which finally gives place in order that God may be all in all. In the latter part of the chapter he adds what had not been explained hitherto, From the early portion we should not have known but that all saints die, and that all rise at Christ's coming. But this would not be the full truth. It is most true that the dead in Christ rise, of course, but this does not explain about the living saints. He had vindicated the glorious character of the resurrection; he had proved how fundamental, and momentous, and practical, is the truth that the body is to be raised again, which they were disposed to deny as though it were a low thing, and useless even if possible. They imagined the true way to be spiritual was to make much of the spirit of man. God's way of making us spiritual is by a simple but strong faith in the resurrection-power of Christ; look to His resurrection as the pattern and spring of our own. Then at the last he adds that he would show them a mystery. On this I must just say a few words in order to develop its force.

The resurrection itself was not a mystery, The, resurrection of just and unjust was a well-known Old Testament truth. It might be founded on Scriptures comparatively few, but it was a fundamental truth of the Old Testament, as the apostle Paul lets us hear in his controversy with the Jews in the Acts of the Apostles. In fact, the Lord Jesus also assumes the same thing in the gospels. But if the raising of the dead saints was known, and even the raising of the wicked dead, the change of the living saints was a truth absolutely unrevealed. Up to this it was not made known, It was a New Testament truth, as this indeed is what is meant by a "mystery." It was one of those, truths that were kept secret in the Old Testament, but now revealed not so much a thing difficult to comprehend when stated, as a thing not revealed before. "And behold," says he, "I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Evidently this supports and confirms, while it might seem an exception to, the resurrection; but, in point of fact, it gives so much the more force and consistency to the rising of the dead in a very unexpected way. The general truth of the resurrection assuredly does put the sentence of death on all present things to the believer, showing that the earth cannot rightly be the scene of his enjoyment, where all is stamped with death, and that he must wait for the resurrection power of Christ to be applied before he enters the scene where the rest of God will be our rest, and where there will be nothing but joy with Christ, and even this earth will behold Christ and His saints reigning over it till the eternal day. The addition to this of the New Testament truth of the chance gives immense impressiveness to all, and a fresh force, because it keeps before the Christian the constant expectancy of Christ. "Behold, I show you a mystery" not now that the dead in Christ shall rise, but "we," beginning with the "we" "we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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; for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." And "therefore," as he closes with the practical deduction from it all, "my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work, of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

The last chapter is now before us, in which the apostle lays down a weighty exhortation as to collections for the saints. He puts it on the ground of their being prospered in any degree, and connects it with the special day of Christian enjoyment, when they gather together for the communion of saints. "Upon the, first day of the week let every one of you lay by in store as he has been prospered, that there be no gatherings when I come." Need it be said how human influence has dislocated the truth there? No doubt this was precisely what the apostle, or the Holy Ghost rather, discerned to be at work at Corinth, the same mistake that has wrought so malignantly in Christendom; that is to say, personal rank, learning, eloquence, or a great name (as of an apostle for instance), invoked to call out the generosity of the saints (perhaps, even of the world), and increase the proceeds by all these or like means.

But is there not another danger? Is there no snare for you, beloved brethren? When persons are more or less free from the ordinary incubus of tradition, when they are not so much under the influence of excitement, and of those appeals to the love of being known and of pleasing this or that man, or the cause, or any of those human motives that often do operate, I apprehend that they are exposed to danger in a wholly opposite direction. Do we sufficiently make it a matter of personal responsibility to the Lord, everyone of us, to give, and that in connection with the first day of the week and its blessed surroundings and objects, when we meet at His table? Do we every one of us give as we are prospered by the way? It is very well to keep clear of human influence, but let us see to it that we do not forget that "the Lord has need" of our giving for the purposes He loves here below. And of this I am sure, that if we have rightly cast aside mere human calls, and if we do thank God for the deliverance from worldly influence, and from the power of custom, public opinion, etc., it would be a deep reproach if we did not do double as much now, under the grace that confides in us, as we used to do under the law that used to govern us. Your own consciences must answer whether you can meet the Lord about this matter. I believe that we are in no small danger of settling down in the conviction that our old way was quite wrong, and simply keeping the money in our pockets. It does seem to me, I confess, that bad as human pressure may be in order to raise money, bad as may be a variety of earthly objects in this way or that, bad as a worldly lavish expenditure is, after all, a selfish personal keeping to ourselves of what we have is the worst thing of all. I am quite persuaded that the danger of the saints of God who have been brought outside the camp lies here, lest, delivered from what they know to be wrong, they may not seek in this an exercised conscience. Standing in the consciousness of the power of God's grace, they need to be continually looking out that they be devoted to Him. To cease doing what was done in a wrong way, and sometimes for wrong ends too, is not enough. Let there be zealous and vigilant exercise of soul, and enquiry how to carry out right objects in right ways, and so much the more, if indeed a simpler, fuller knowledge of God's grace and of Christ's glory has been given us.

Then we have various forms of ministry noticed. It is not here gifts as such, but persons devoted to labouring in the Lord; for there is a difference between the two things, as this chapter shows us strikingly. For instance, the apostle himself comes before us in ministry with his especial gift and position in the church. Then again, Timothy is there, his own son in the faith, not only an evangelist, but with a charge over elders at length, to a certain extent acting occasionally for the apostle Paul. Again, we have the eloquent Alexandrian thus introduced: "As touching our brother Apollos I greatly desired him to come unto you, but his will was not at to come at this time." How delicate and considerate the grace of Paul who wished Apollos to go to Corinth then, and of Apollos who wished not to go under the circumstances! On the face of the case we have the working of liberty and responsibility in their mutual relations; and the apostle Paul is the very one to tell us that Apollos's will was not to go as he himself wished at this time. It was no question of one in a place of worldly superiority regulating the movements of another of subordinate degree. The apostle did express his strong desire for Apollos to go; but Apollos must stand to his Master, and be assured that he was using a wisdom greater than that of man's. Finally, we observe another character of service lower down in "the house of Stephanas." This was a simpler case and a humbler position, but very real before God, whatever the danger of being slighted of men. Hence, I think, the word of exhortation "I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,)" etc. They gave themselves up in an orderly manner to this work. "That ye submit yourselves," not merely to Timothy or to Apollos, but to such, to the simple-hearted Christian men whose desire was to serve the Lord with the measure of power they had, and this proved by their persevering labour. Undoubtedly, in the midst of the difficulties of the church, in the face of the oppositions and disappointment, manifold griefs, enemies, and sources of sorrow and shame, it requires the power of God to go on without being moved by any of these things. It is an easy thing to make a start; but nothing short of the power of God can keep one without wavering at the work in the face of everything to cast down. And this was the question. We may suppose that these Corinthians were troublesome enough. From the statements made in the early part of the epistle it is evident; and so the apostle calls upon them to submit themselves. Evidently there was an unsubject spirit, and those ministered to thought they were just as good as the house of Stephanas. It is good to submit ourselves "unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us and laboureth." I am persuaded, beloved brethren, that it is no impeachment of the blessedness of the brotherhood to maintain the speciality of ministry in the Lord. There can be in these matters no more deplorable error than to suppose that there is not to be this godly submission one toward another, according to the place and power that the Lord is pleased to entrust.

The Lord grant that our souls may hold fast the truth here revealed, and in no general or perfunctory way. All I pretend to now is to give a sketch or combination of the parts of the epistle. But may the word itself, and every part of it, sink into our souls and be our joy, that we may not only take the precious truth of such an epistle as the Romans for the peace and joy of our hearts in believing individually, but also may understand our place by faith as of God's assembly on earth, and with thankful praise as those that call on the name of the Lord ours as well as theirs as those that find ourselves practically in need of such exhortations. The Lord give us His own spirit of obeying the Father.