1 Corinthians 15:12 Commentary and Bible Study

As Paul has already said in defining it, the resurrection is an essential element of the gospel. If so, and if the Corinthians heard preaching which told them that Christ rose from the dead, how can some of them believe that there is no resurrection from the dead, that God’s people should not hope in a future bodily resurrection? ‘How can you be so proud that you, a few Corinthians, think you know better than the apostles, the preachers, the witnesses of the resurrection, and what has always been our teaching. You seem to think that you have the power to deny that. That is extraordinary.’ The resurrection is far more than a demonstration. If you keep that in your mind. You've got it all. The resurrection is far more than a demonstration of the divinity of Christ. It is that, but it is far more than a demonstration of the divine nature of Christ, possessing everlasting life. It actually accomplishes vital things. It is an essential part of the gospel and this is what we need to have clear in our minds. There was a heresy that had reached Corinth and was fertile in the church. It was not a majority of the people who were affected by it, but probably a substantial number, and this heresy said, ‘There is no such thing as bodily resurrection.’ ‘How can you say that?’, says the apostle Paul. How did you ever come to think this way? How do some people deny this? This has always been our message. ‘All of us, Christian preachers,’ says Paul, ‘have preached this same message; witnesses of the resurrection, and those who followed us, and yet now there are some among you who deny it.’ Some people say that there were some converted Sadducees among them, who never believed in resurrection. Remember the apostle Paul was persecuted chiefly because he preached the resurrection, and it was Sadducees who started off the legal action against him, which eventually took him to Rome. More likely though, I think, it was some people among the Corinthians, who hadn’t given up their old lives. As Corinthians, as Greek people, they were very, very proud of their various philosophies, which denied that there could ever be a resurrection. The Greek philosophers almost all taught that matter is intrinsically evil, therefore the body is essentially an evil thing. So of course, there could be no resurrection to a pure place called heaven of this evil body. That is what the philosophers thought. So resurrection, bodily resurrection was impossible, because all matter is evil. This was probably the same heresy that Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching (2 Timothy 2:17-18). They said the resurrection is passed already. They explained it this way: ‘There is no resurrection because matter is evil, so the resurrection is really about the new birth into Christ, and spiritual renewal. The resurrection has happened already, if you are converted. That was their heresy, and they have to be warned, and the same thing is cropping up in Corinth. This has come to the attention of the apostle Paul. And so he begins to answer it.