1 Corinthians 15
New Catholic Bible
The Resurrection[a]
The Resurrection of Christ
Chapter 15
The Risen Christ, Foundation of Our Faith.[b] 1 And now, brethren, I want to remind you of the gospel I proclaimed to you, which you received and in which you stand firm. 2 Through it you are also being saved, provided that you are holding fast to what I proclaimed to you. If not, then you have believed in vain.
3 [c]For I handed on to you as of primary importance what I received: that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried and that he was raised to life on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and later to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some have fallen asleep.[d] 7 After that he appeared to James,[e] and then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, he appeared to me, as to one born abnormally. 9 For I am the least of the apostles. I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. 10 However, by the grace of God I am what I am, and the grace he has bestowed upon me has not proved to be fruitless. Indeed, I have worked harder than any of them—although that should not be credited to me but to the grace of God within me. 11 But whether it was I or they, this is what we preach and what you have come to believe.
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 The Resurrection and Faith.[f] Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. 15 We are even false witnesses to God, for we testified that he raised Christ when he did not raise him up, assuming it is true that the dead are not raised.
16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is without any foundation, and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost. 19 If it is for just this life that we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable of all men.
20 Christ, the Firstfruits.[g] But Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came into the world through a man, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a man.
22 Just as in Adam all die, so all will be brought to life in Christ, 23 but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every sovereignty and authority and power.[h] 25 For he is destined to reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he has put all things under his feet. But when it says “all things are put under,” it is obvious that this excludes the one who subjected everything to him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who made all things subject to him, so that God may be all in all.
29 Practical Faith. Otherwise, what will people accomplish when they have themselves baptized for the dead?[i] If the dead are not raised at all, why should anyone be baptized for them? 30 And why should we be placing ourselves in danger every hour? 31 I face death every day—that is as sure as the pride that I have in you, brethren, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
32 With only human hopes, what would I have gained by fighting those wild beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised,
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
33 Do not let anyone lead you astray. “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 34 Come to your senses and sin no more. For some of you have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
The Mode of the Resurrection
35 The Resurrected Body. Someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? What sort of body will they have when they come back?” 36 This is foolish. What you sow must die before it is given new life, 37 and what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare grain of wheat or of something else. 38 God gives to it a body that he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own particular body.
39 Not all flesh is alike. There is one kind for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The splendor of heavenly bodies is of one kind, and that of earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has a splendor of its own, the moon another splendor, and the stars still another. Indeed, the stars differ among themselves in splendor.
42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 What is sown in dishonor is raised as glorious. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. 44 What is sown is a physical body; what is raised is a spiritual body.
The Natural and the Spiritual Body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 As it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam has become a lifegiving spirit. 46 But the spiritual body did not come first. Rather the natural body came first, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was formed from the dust of the earth; the second man is from heaven. 48 The man formed from dust is the pattern for earthly people; the heavenly man is the pattern for those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man formed from dust, so shall we also bear the likeness of the heavenly one.
50 Where, O Death, Is Your Victory?[j] What I am asserting, brethren, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can the perishable inherit what is imperishable.
51 Listen while I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed 52 in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.[k] 53 For this perishable body must be clothed with the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then will the words that are written be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
55 Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law. 57 But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, stand firm and immovable, devoting yourselves completely to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 15:1 According to Greek thought, the soul is imprisoned in the body; it alone is destined for immortality, and death comes to set it free. As heirs of this mentality, the Corinthians are unable to understand why there should be a resurrection of the body. Does Christianity perhaps desire that the soul again become a prisoner? Paul corrects this notion, which is not in accord with the Christian faith.
The biblical tradition holds that the human being is one, created by God in body and soul. Death does not constitute the deliverance of the soul, but the unraveling of this unity. It is a violent state produced by sin. In atoning for sin, Christ has conquered death. It is the whole person that is saved and the whole person that is involved in the resurrection. But Paul takes account of the objection that the Greeks can bring up: the resurrection is not a simple return to the earthly condition; the risen body does not limit the aspirations of the spirit. It will be “spiritual,” a new creation in the risen Christ. - 1 Corinthians 15:1 Paul takes as his starting point a fact: the resurrection of Christ. This is the primordial certainty of the Christian faith. He recalls this teaching of the Church and confirms it by listing the witnesses who had seen the risen Christ. In this passage, we find the main elements of the Christian creed and, at the same time, the earliest written witness to the handing on of the original teaching of the Church and to the appearances of Jesus Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul offers two lines of testimony for Christ’s Passion and Resurrection: (1) the testimony of the Old Testament (e.g., Ps 16:8-11; Isa 53:5f, 11) and (2) the testimony of eyewitnesses (Acts 1:21f). He lists only six appearances of the risen Christ; the Gospels and Acts offer ten (see note on Mt 28:10).
- 1 Corinthians 15:6 Have fallen asleep: an image of death. The same expression is used in vv. 18, 20, and 51, and is the usual one in the New Testament. In it, Christians indirectly expressed their faith in the resurrection (in Greek the same verb means both “to awaken” and “to bring back to life”). From this phrase, we also derive our word “cemetery,” i.e., literally, a place of sleepers.
- 1 Corinthians 15:7 Appeared to James: Paul inserts the risen Lord’s appearance to James as a kind of transition to his own experience of seeing Christ. Like Paul, James, “the brother of the Lord” (Gal 1:19), had not been a disciple of Jesus (see Acts 1:12f). An account of such an appearance to James is found in the Gospel of the Hebrews, an apocryphal Jewish-Christian gospel.
- 1 Corinthians 15:12 The Resurrection of Jesus, to which the apostles are witnesses, is the basic proof that there is a resurrection of the dead; the Old Testament initially voiced a hope of this (Ps 16:10; Job 19:25; Ezek 37:10) and later taught it explicitly (2 Mac 7:9). The Resurrection of Jesus is thus the very foundation of our faith; Christ is the firstborn of the dead, who will rise in their turn.
- 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul contrasts two states of the human race: on the one side, the fallen state of sin, symbolized by Adam; on the other, the state of life and salvation brought about by Christ (see Rom 5:17-21).
- 1 Corinthians 15:24 Sovereignty and authority and power: these words signify all the forces, angelic and human, that are opposed to the Kingdom of God (see 1 Cor 2:6; Col 2:15).
- 1 Corinthians 15:29 Baptized for the dead (v. 29) refers to a rite, unknown to us, a type of baptism by proxy. Paul uses the image of wild beasts (v. 32) to express the hostility he encountered at Ephesus. In v. 33 he is citing Menander, a Greek comic poet, although by this time the saying may already have become a popular proverb.
- 1 Corinthians 15:50 Using images traditional in the Bible, Paul describes in a few lines the great day of universal salvation, when humanity reaches its destiny.
- 1 Corinthians 15:52 The trumpet was part of apocalyptic choreography (see Mt 24:31; 1 Thes 4:16); it symbolized the solemn proclamation of the divine plan (see the seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation: 8:6-12; 9:1-21; 11:15-19).
1 Corinthians 15
King James Version
15 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
6 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.
7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 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.
11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 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.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
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.
35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.
48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 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.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 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.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
