First Corinthians Fifteen
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About this ebook
Paul explains how the resurrection of Jesus carries over into the daily lives of those who believe in him: we die with him and we rise with him – in this life.
Edwin Walhout
I am a retired minister of the Christian Reformed Church, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Being retired from professional life, I am now free to explore theology without the constraints of ecclesiastical loyalties. You will be challenged by the ebooks I am supplying on Smashwords.
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First Corinthians Fifteen - Edwin Walhout
FIRST CORINTHIANS FIFTEEN
An Exegetical Essay
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Edwin Walhout
Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.net)
See Smashwords.com for additional titles by this author.
Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CONTENTS
Verse 1 Verse 2 Verse 3 Verse 4 Verse 5 Verse 6 Verse 7 Verse 8 Verse 9 Verse 10 Verse 11 Verse 12 Verse 13 Verse 14 Verse 15 Verse 16 Verse 17 Verse 18 Verse 19 Verse 20 Verse 21 Verse 22 Verse 23 Verse 24 Verse 25 Verse 26 Verse 27 Verse 28 Verse 29 Verse 30 Verse 31 Verse 32 Verse 33 Verse 34 Verse 35 Verse 36 Verse 37 Verse 38 Verse 39 Verse 40 Verse 41 Verse 42 Verse 43 Verse 44 Verse 45 Verse 46 Verse 47 Verse 48 Verse 49 Verse 50 Verse 51 Verse 52 Verse 53 Verse 54 Verse 55 Verse 56 Verse 57 Verse 58
1 Corinthians 15:1
Γνωρίζω δὲ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν,
ὃ καὶ παρελάβετε, ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἑστήκατε,
Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you,
which you received, in which also you stand,
Γνωρίζω
Root meaning: make known, reveal, declare
Hence: remind
εὐηγγελισάμην (1 pers sing, aor 1, ind mid)
Root meaning: to address with good tidings, proclaim good tidings
Hence: the good news I proclaimed
παρελάβετε (2 pers pl, aor 2, ind act)
Root meaning: to take to one’s side, receive
Hence: accepted
ἑστήκατε
Root meaning: to make to stand, establish, confirm
Hence: you stand
The New Revised Standard Version here is a good translation, but note that, in trying to be gender inoffensive, it adds the term and sisters to the translation without textual warrant.
Also, it is interesting to note that the Greek of good news and of proclaimed is the same root word. Paul is saying, the evangel which I evangelized to you.
Also the translation of νωρίζω (from to know) as remind is to the point, since Paul is not telling them something they do not know, but recalling to their attention things he has previously explained.
After having dictated in exhaustive length his advice on the numerous problems that the Corinthian delegation of elders had brought to his attention, Paul now goes basic in this chapter. He wants to remind the good Christian people of Corinth of the basics of the gospel from which he has been drawing implications throughout the previous sections of the letter.
Paul does not excoriate them for their failures but recognizes that they are doing their best to receive and to stand in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as if to say, So, in your difficulties and troubles, do not be overwhelmed by them; go back instead to the foundation of our faith; I will help you now to do this.
That is good advice for all of us.
1 Corinthians 15:2
δι' οὗ καὶ σῴζεσθε,
τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν εἰ κατέχετε,
ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ εἰκῇ ἐπιστεύσατε.
through which also you are being saved,
if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you –
unless you have come to believe in vain.
σῴζεσθε (2 pers pl, pres ind pass.)
Root meaning: to save, rescue; to preserve safe and unharmed
Hence: you are being rescued
τίνι (dat sing interrog)
Meaning: direct inquiry, Who? What? Why? Wherefore?
Hence: in case, if
ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ Greek idiom for unless, except
Paul is saying that the gospel which he has preached to them is the way in which they are being rescued (present tense). For Jewish Christians this would mean rescue from bondage to the Torah and its legalistic requirements, a rescue which Paul himself had experienced early in his life at Damascus. For Greek Christians this would mean rescue from the errors of polytheism and the immorality engendered by it. Both groups must pay attention to the evangel which is in the process of rescuing them.
Paul is questioning them as to whether or not they are holding firm to the evangel he has brought them. Not that he is indirectly accusing them of not doing so, but that he is challenging them to examine how firmly they hold it and live by it, urging them to strengthen that commitment.
Having challenged them to stronger commitment, Paul now asks them to consider whether they take the evangel seriously. Unless, he says, you have only pretended to accept the evangel and thus have made your faith completely useless. The test, he is implying, is whether or not you allow the evangel to control the way you confront all those issues in your church life that we have been examining in the previous segments of this letter. To say you hold to the evangel, but refuse to live by it, is making your faith vain, useless, meaningless. Paul wants them to think about whether or not they are confronting their inner-church relationships by accepting the guidance of the evangel.
1 Corinthians 15:3
παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον,
ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς,
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn received:
that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures,
παρέδωκα (1 pers pl, aor 1 ind act)
Root meaning: deliver, give over, hand over, commit, intrust, transmit.
Hence: we transmitted
ἐν πρώτοις
Meaning: first in dignity or importance, chief, principal, most important
Hence: of primary importance
παρέλαβον (1 pers, sing, aor 2, ind, act.)
Root meaning: to take to one’s side, to take, to receive to one’s self
Hence: I received
ὑπὲρ
Meaning: above, over, in behalf of, instead of, in maintenance of
Hence: for
τὰς γραφάς
Meaning: things written
Hence: the scriptures
Paul reminds them that he (and his associates) transmitted the evangel to them, and that this evangel is of primary importance in the conduct of their lives and church affairs. He knows that there are enemies who are challenging his authority and credentials as an apostle, and that they are affirming that what Paul had been teaching the Corinthian believers is incomplete and thus not reliable. So he reminds them that he did not invent the evangel but that he too received it, and is now passing it on to them.
In this verse Paul begins to list the most basic components of the evangel. We may assume that this is a repetition of the things he had taught them during the time he was with them in Corinth. It is always useful for us to go back to the basics of the gospel, lest we get so involved in complicated affairs that we go off in unwarranted directions and get enmeshed in opinionated disputes that simply cannot be solved.
This is straightforward Greek, Christ died for our sins, and we today are very familiar with the formula. Paul’s original readers in Corinth, however, did not have the two millennia of theological development that we