5.2 Resurrection

Adam and Christ—The End of All Things

HAVING AFFIRMED THE CREED (15:1-11) and having stressed that without the resurrection all Christian faith is empty (15:12-20), Paul is ready to talk about the broad sweep of history and the resurrection. He does this in his first presentation of Christ and Adam [see fig. 5.2(1)].

THE RHETORIC

This homily also exhibits seven cameos. But in this instance Paul has fit the seven cameos into the “high jump format.” The homily opens with two cameos for the approach, followed by two cameos for the jump. The climax (as always) is the crossing of the bar (the center), to which Paul adds a two-cameo descent on the far side. This format appears a total of twelve times in 1 Corinthians 24 and is one of Paul’s favorite styles, which he uses with imagination and creativity.

The center is again filled with an Old Testament quotation, a feature that appears seven times in the epistle.25 All seven of them are constructed using the high jump format.

1.	^15:21For as by a man came death,
	by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.	ADAM AND
	²²For as in Adam all die,	Christ
	so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

2.	²³But each in his own order:
	Christ the first fruits,	CHRIST—FIRST
	²⁴then at his coming	Then Those in Christ
	those who belong to Christ.

3.	Then comes the end,
	when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father	THE END—ALL
	after destroying every rule	To God the Father
	and every authority and power.

4.	²⁵For he must reign until he has put	ALL ENEMIES
	all his enemies under his feet.	Under His Feet

5.	²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death	DEATH AND ALL
	²⁷“For God has put all things in subjection	In Subjection
	under his feet.” [Ps 8:6]	Under His Feet

6.	But when it says,
	“All things are put in subjection under him,”	ALL THINGS
	it is plain that he is excepted	In Subjection
	who put all things under him.	Except: The Father

7.	²⁸When all things are subjected to him,
	then the Son himself will also be subjected	THE END—ALL
	to him who put all things under him,	To the God/Father
	that God may be all in all.26

Figure 5.2(1). Resurrection: Christ and Adam—The end of all things (1 Cor 15:21-28)

COMMENTARY

As he did in 3:21-23, Paul steps back to take a long view from the creation of Adam to the end of all things. It is a breathtaking vista that begins with cameo 1.

1.	^15:21For as by a man came death,
	by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.	ADAM AND
	²²For as in Adam all die,	Christ
	so also in Christ shall all be made alive.27

Adam brought death and “in Adam all die.” Two things are said about Adam and two about Christ:

What happened: Adam brought death.
Result: In Adam all die.
What happened: Christ’s resurrection.
Result: In Christ all are made alive.

It is significant that Eve is not mentioned. Ben Sirach blames Eve for everything when he says, “Sin began with a woman, and thanks to her we all must die” (Sir 25:24). Like Paul, Ben Sirach’s statement falls into two parts:

What happened: Sin began with a woman.
Result: Thanks to her, we all must die.

Paul does not follow Ben Sirach’s lead, even though it was in the Jewish tradition. Yes, in 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul notes in passing that Eve was deceived, but he does not blame her for introducing death.28 In harmony with Romans 5:12-21 Paul places the blame squarely on Adam. One man (Adam) was responsible for bringing death into the world, and one man (Christ) brings life. This choice to blame Adam, and not Eve, is significant in any evaluation of Paul’s attitudes toward women and men in the church.

Paul is talking about “those who belong to Christ.” This is evident from verse 23 where that language is used. Cameo 1 is explained by Augustine as meaning, “No one comes to death except through Adam, and no one comes to life except through Christ.”29

Cameo 2 continues the discussion.

2.	²³But each in his own order:
	Christ the first fruits,	CHRIST—FIRST
	²⁴then at his coming	Then Those in Christ
	those who belong to Christ.

The word “order” (tagma) is a military term that has to do with a corps or rank of troops.30 A military image is again selected by Paul to communicate to a colony originally settled by retired soldiers. The first rank is the resurrected Christ, who is the “first fruits.” The second rank, made up of “those who belong to Christ,” join the military parade at his coming. Paul is projecting ahead from the resurrection of Jesus to the end of all things.

There is no third rank. What about unbelievers? The text gives no answer. Findlay writes, “There is nothing to exclude O.T. saints (see x. 4; Heb. xi. 26, 40, John i. 11), nor even the righteous heathen (Acts x. 35, Matt. xxv. 32, 34, John x. 16), from the tagma (rank) of ‘those who are Christ’s.’”31 Barrett leaves the question unanswered as he says, “nothing is said about the future life of those who are not Christians, and with this silence we must be content.”32

The parousia (coming) is part of the discussion. In A.D. 66 Nero visited Corinth. The visit of an emperor or even a high official was called an adventus, which was the Latin equivalent to the Greek word parousia. For Nero’s visit a special coin was struck inscribed with Adventus Aug(usti) Cor(inthi). The other side of the coin read Adventus Augusti.33 A great many such coins commemorating Hadrian’s various visits have been recovered in Corinth. Such days were at times called “holy days,” and Deissmann notes that some affirmed, “in Greece a new era was begun with the first visit of the Emperor Hadrian in the year 124.”34 The pomp and circumstance must have been extraordinary. The god was coming on a visit! What could be more worthy of worship and praise? Writing to a Roman colony, Paul invokes all adoration and honor for the adventus of the resurrected Christ.

With this grand setting Paul presents the five cameos that compose the high jump. Close examination of the parallel cameos is necessary in order to follow Paul’s mindset as he uses this high jump format. Cameos 3 and 7 are the outside pair [see fig. 5.2(2)].

3.	^24bThen comes the end,
	when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father	THE END—ALL
	after destroying every rule	To God the Father
	and every authority and power.

7.	²⁸When all things are subjected to him,
	then the Son himself will also be subjected	THE END—ALL
	to him who put all things under him,	To the God the Father
	that God may be all in all.

Figure 5.2(2). Cameos 3 and 7 (1 Cor 15:24b, 28)

Cameo 3 mentions “every arkhen [rule] and every exousian [authority] and every dunamin [power].” These are not rare words that refer exclusively to secret societies or esoteric myths, Jewish or Greek. They are standard words used for governments and earthly rulers. When Paul writes the epistle to the Romans and discusses obedience to the Roman state (Rom 13:1-7), he refers to the authorities with the words arkhontes (rulers) and exousia (authority).

As observed, in 44 B.C. when the rebuilding of Corinth began, each of the retired soldiers settled there received a home and a piece of land from the Roman state. It is natural to assume that they and their descendants were solid supporters of their benefactor. When Paul wrote, “We have one Lord, Jesus Christ” (8:6), he was not only confessing his faith, he was also making a political statement. If Jesus is kurios (Lord), then Caesar isn’t. In like manner, here in verse 24, even though Paul was writing about the climactic end of the age, he was at the same time de-absolutizing the rulers, authorities and powers around him. It was dangerous to even think let alone proclaim such things anywhere in the Roman Empire. But to write this kind of subversive literature and send it to the largest Roman city outside Rome was extremely risky. The apostle as much as announces that one of the goals of the resurrected Christ was the setting aside of eternal Rome. Paul was intimidated by no one, and by committing his vision to writing he surrendered control over who would discover these views.

As in previous homilies in this epistle, if these two cameos were side by side in the text and if cameos 4-6 were missing, no reader would observe any break in the flow of the argument. The Son delivers the kingdom to “God the Father” (cameo 3) and then subjects himself to the Father so that at the end God will be “all in all” (cameo 7). Paul’s Christology never slides into tritheism. But this is not the totality of what Paul has to say. Three other cameos appear in the middle of the five cameos [see fig. 5.2(3)].

4.	²⁵For he must reign until he has put	ALL ENEMIES
	All his enemies under his feet.	Under His Feet

5.	²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death.	DEATH AND ALL
	²⁷“For God has put all things in subjection	In Subjection
	under his feet.” [Ps 8:6]	Under His Feet

6.	But when it says,
	“All things are put in subjection under him,”	ALL THINGS
	it is plain that he is excepted	In Subjection
	who put all things under him.	Except: The Father

Figure 5.2(3). Cameos 4-6 (1 Cor 15:25-27)

Death was introduced by Adam, conquered through resurrection by Christ (the first fruits), and will be finally destroyed in the ultimate victory of Christ at the end of history. The reign of Christ that began at the resurrection will eventually put all enemies under his feet (cameo 4). But more than that, as Scripture has affirmed (cameo 5) “all things” will be “in subjection under his feet”—ah yes, of course, with the single exception of the Father (cameo 6).

The climax is again a Scripture quotation. The psalmist used this metaphor about the feet in Psalm 8:6 and Psalm 110:1. For the psalmist God placed all animals (domesticated and wild) and all fish under the feet of humankind. Paul quotes the text but gives it a new meaning. Now all things are put under the feet of the messianic King, who has conquered death. The quote is from Psalm 8:6, but the range of the Messiah’s rule is displayed in Psalm 110:1, where God is going to overcome kings, nations and chiefs for the Messiah. The image of “under the feet” that projects the extent of this victory is a powerful Middle Eastern metaphor.

In the Cairo Museum of Antiquity the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamen are on display. One of the striking exhibits is a life-size wooden statue of the Pharaoh seated on his throne with his feet elevated on a stool. The surface of the stool is filled with carefully carved bass relief images of the enemies of the king, all with their hands tied behind their backs. The enemies are “under the feet” of Pharaoh. Tutankhamen died in the fourteenth century B.C.

One of my colleagues, while I was teaching at the Ecumenical Institute (Tantur) in Jerusalem, was the late Sister Maria Nora of Italy. With two earned doctorates and the ability to teach theology in Latin, Italian, French and English, Sister Maria Nora had been sent to Eritrea by her order to build a university. She achieved that goal and in the process became a confidant of Emperor Haile Selassie. When the socialist regime of Mengistu Haile Miriam overthrew the country, Haile Selassie was murdered and his body disappeared. At that time Sister Maria Nora was obliged to flee for her life. After some years she joined our staff in Jerusalem and told us the following story.

After the fall of the socialist regime in Ethiopia, Sister Maria Nora was able to quietly contact some of her highly placed Ethiopian friends. From them she learned that when Mengistu’s government fell, the new rulers of Ethiopia wanted to find Haile Selassie’s body. When the palace servants were questioned, they told the authorities, “Dig up the tiled floor under the desk in Mengistu’s office.” The authorities did so and found the body of Emperor Selassie. Mengistu had secretly buried the emperor under the floor of his desk so that every day, as he sat at his desk, his “enemy” was “under his feet.”

For Paul, all things will be under the feet of Christ. The language carries with it the image of total surrender and the impossibility of the enemies ever contemplating a “comeback.”

Paul is thereby saying to his readers, “If Christ is not raised, then this vision of the end of all things is a lie. But Christ is raised, and we the apostles have seen him. If you deny him as the reigning Lord, you are the losers.”

Having discussed this eagle’s-eye view of the ages, Paul turns his attention to some of the immediate ethical issues critical to the resurrection.