In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul addresses the fourth and final major issue in the Corinthian church: some of them are denying the resurrection of the body. (In Greek, literally “the rising of the corpses.”)
What’s fascinating is that in all the issues he addresses in the letter this is the only time he does not directly correct their behavior. In chapter 15 he is correcting their theology. But can beliefs and behaviors be so easily separated?
In his commentary Richard Hays suggests that the Corinthians’ denial of the resurrection may be at the heart of all their behavioral problems:
The many moral failings of the Corinthians may in fact all be surface symptoms of their underlying misapprehension of the heart of the gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of the body is the heart of the gospel. First for Jesus, then for us. Our future is an embodied future because he is embodied—and we are that body.
But in order for something to be risen it must first die. Paul concludes with the comparison between the first Adam—who is an animated being, enlivened with breath—and the second Adam, Jesus—who is vivified by the eternal Spirit. The first Adam is a living soul. The second Adam is a life-giving Spirit.
To bear the image of the first Adam is to breathe only for yourself, to be concerned with preserving your own breath for as long as possible. To bear the image of the second Adam you must give up your attempts to hold on to your own breath. You must lay it down. Lose your breath and you will find it.
Christ does not desire to hold on to his breath for his own sake. He lets go of his breath for the sake of others. He is a life-giving spirit. When he breathes he gives life to others, he doesn’t suck the oxygen out of the room.
Christ breathes for others even when he is punched in the gut. When the wind is knocked out of him he does not fight to hold on to it but prays, “Father, forgive them.”
And because he is the Spirit-bearer he is the Spirit-baptizer.
At the cross when Jesus breathed out his last breath the Gospel of John tells us that “He handed over the Spirit.” (Not, as many English translations have it, “he handed over his spirit.”) Jesus is the life-giving Spirit.
Psalm 104:29-30 tells us about this great mystery:
You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. You send forth your Spirit and they are created.
If we meet Christ in his death—at the cross—he will take our breath away. We die with him. But here’s the promise: he will send forth his Spirit so that we can finally be created.
All the saints know this in their bones. Hannah knew it. That’s why she sings: “The Lord kills and he makes alive. He brings down to the grave and he raises up” (1 Samuel 2:6).
The order is the key. Grace must first kill. Only then can it make us alive.
Throughout the teaching I am heavily relying on John Behr’s reading of 1 Corinthians 15:44-45 and Chris Green’s reading of Psalm 23.
Grace Kills and Makes Alive