1 Corinthians 15:12

2. A denial of the resurrection is a denial of the resurrection of Christ, and so a repudiation of the Christian faith, 12-19.

12. If… how say This draws out the issue.

Some Who or what were these some? Though with the Sadducees they denied the resurrection of the dead, and probably also the existence of spirit, the opposition between Sadducees and Christians renders it improbable that these deniers belonged to that sect. They may have been converts from among the followers of the Athenian philosophers, especially the Epicureans, who dismissed Paul so promptly for preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Indeed, the summit of the Acrocorinthus was almost in sight of Athens; and this epistle, addressed not only to Corinth but to the Churches of Achaia, doubtless included Athens. Nevertheless the some appear, from the objections of theirs answered by St. Paul, to have rejected the resurrection on account of their holding the oriental Gnostic doctrine of the essential impurity of matter. See note on Acts 8:9.

Resurrection The resurrection is, in the New Testament, designated by two words, each designating precisely the same event, but from a different standpoint; 1. ‘ Εγειρω , to raise, transitively; where the divine power is the agent; 2. Ανιστημι , (noun αναστασις ,) to rise up; where the person rising is the agent. In this chapter the former word is used at 1 Corinthians 15:4; 1Co 15:12-15 ; 1 Corinthians 15:15; 1 Corinthians 15:15-16; 1 Corinthians 15:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1Co 15:29 ; 1 Corinthians 15:32; 1 Corinthians 15:35; 1 Corinthians 15:42-43; 1 Corinthians 15:43-44; the latter at 1 Corinthians 15:12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1Co 15:42 ; 1 Corinthians 15:52. Both words are applied to the resurrection of Christ, and to the resurrection of the general dead indiscriminately. The former is uniformly held as the essential model of the other.

He rose from the dead Literally, that he has been raised from deads. See our note on Luke 20:35, where the difference between a resurrection of the dead, a resurrection from the dead, and a resurrection from deads, ( dead being Greek plural and without the article,) is shown. This is a very important distinction, which no commentator has clearly noticed. Here it is a resurrection from deads or dead ones, Christ himself being included in the dead ones from whom he is raised; the being raised from one’s own dead self being included in the word.