Which are fallen asleep in Christ. Christians whose bodies have sunk into the sleep of death. Are perished. A notion which he feels that Christians must reject as utterly impossible. All that goodness, faith, tenderness, love, have not been dissolved to nothing. read more
Then they also ... - This verse contains a statement of another consequence which must follow from the denial of the resurrection - that all Christians who had died had failed of salvation, and were destroyed.Which are fallen asleep in Christ - Which have died as Christians; 1 Corinthians 15:6 note; 1 Thessalonians 4:15 note.Are perished - Are destroyed; are not saved. They hoped to have been saved by the merits of the Lord Jesus; they trusted to a risen Saviour, and fixed all their hopes of... read more
1 Corinthians 15:14-18. Then is our preaching In consequence of a commission supposed to be given after his resurrection; vain Without any real foundation, and destitute of truth; and your faith In our preaching; is vain Is grounded on falsehood and deception; yea, and we are false witnesses of God Having testified that Jesus of Nazareth is his Son and the Messiah; that he hath atoned for sin; hath risen from the dead and ascended into heaven; hath obtained for his followers the... read more
A guarantee of final victory (15:12-28)To those who claim there will be no bodily resurrection of the dead, Paul replies that if this is true it means that Christ has not been raised. In that case the gospel he preaches is not true and the believer’s faith is without foundation (12-14). Furthermore, it means that the preachers of the gospel have misled their hearers. For if Christ has not been raised from the dead, he is certainly not the victorious Saviour. He has not conquered sin; sin has... read more
are fallen = fell. are . Omit. perished . Greek. apollumi. See 1 Corinthians 1:18 . read more
Then they also that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.The otherworldliness of Christianity shines in this. The great proposition that undergirds Christianity is that the saved shall be forever with the Lord in that upper and better world where all the problems of earth shall be solved in the light and bliss of heaven. Christianity is not to be advocated merely upon the premise that it is good psychology, or... read more
1 Corinthians 15:18. Fallen asleep in Christ.— "All deceased Christians, not excepting the most excellent of them, who have died for their religion. They have lost their life and being together, on this supposition, in the cause of one, who, if still among the dead, must have been an impostor, and a false prophet." read more
18. fallen asleep in Christ—in communion with Christ as His members. "In Christ's case the term used is death, to assure us of the reality of His suffering; in our case, sleep, to give us consolation: In His case, His resurrection having actually taken place, Paul shrinks not from the term death; in ours, the resurrection being still only a matter of hope, he uses the term falling asleep" [PHOTIUS, Quæstiones Amphilochiæ, 197]. perished—Their souls are lost; they are in misery in the unseen... read more
The negative alternative 15:12-19Paul first appealed to the Corinthians’ logic. In this form of logic, called modus tollens, Paul’s argument was that since Christ was raised there is a resurrection of believers. That Paul had believers in view, rather than all people, seems clear in that he was discussing the hope of believers. Other passages teach the resurrection of other groups of people, even all others (e.g., Daniel 12:2; Revelation 20:4-5; Revelation 20:12; et al.). Here it becomes clear... read more
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The Pulpit Commentary - 1 Corinthians 15:12-34
Denying the resurrection from the dead, and what the denial involves. Some of these Corinthian Christians denied that there would be a literal resurrection. They understood little or nothing of the idea of the body, of its uses intellectually and morally regarded, and of its partnership with the soul in all that concerned present probation and future reward. What had Grecian philosophy taught them? That the body was the seat of evil. What had Grecian art taught them? To admire the body for... read more