1 CORINTHIANS 15:29-34
IN EACH OF THE FOUR PREVIOUS ESSAYS Paul placed his theological teachings in the center of the essay and positioned the ethical problem under discussion on the outside, around that center. For example, in the first essay the ethical problem was the Corinthian quarrel over Paul, Apollos and Cephas. After introducing that ethical problem, Paul discussed the theology of the cross, which was for all, both Jews and Greeks. He then presented a second ethical discussion of Paul, Apollos and Cephas. His pattern was ethics then theology and finally a return to ethics. He followed that pattern in each of the three following essays. But in this last essay, the order is reversed. On the outside there are two theological discussions centered on the resurrection. In the center, however, he points briefly to a series of concrete ethical issues that are profoundly related to the resurrection. The text of this central ethical discussion is displayed in figure 5.3(1).
This short passage is a simple five-cameo discussion of various ethical issues. The five cameos relate to each other using ring composition. As is customary, the climax is in the center, where Paul invokes the name of “Jesus Christ our Lord” and cries out in pain, “I die every day!” At the end there is a brief aside, such as appears on three other occasions in the epistle.1
If cameos 1 and 5 appeared in the text without the three intervening cameos the reader would not observe any break in the line of thought. The discussion of “if the dead are not raised” would flow seamlessly from 1 to 5. The same is true with 2 and 4. If the climax of 3 were not in the text, no one would detect its absence. These are signs of Paul’s skillful use of ring composition.
1. | 15:29Otherwise, what do people mean |
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| by being baptized for the sake of the dead? | IF DEAD NOT RAISED |
| If the dead are not raised at all, | Why Be Baptized for Their Sake? |
| why are people baptized for their sake? |
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2. | 30Why am I in peril | WHY ENDURE? |
| every hour? |
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3. | 31I protest, brethren, by my boasting in you | BY MY BOASTING |
| which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, | In Christ |
| I die every day! | I Die Every Day! |
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4. | 32What do I gain if, humanly speaking, | WHAT REWARD? |
| I fought with beasts at Ephesus? |
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5. | If the dead are not raised, | IF DEAD NOT RAISED |
| “Let us eat and drink, | Eat, Drink and Die! |
| for tomorrow we die.” |
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| [Aside] |
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6. | 33Do not be led astray, “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34Come to your right mind, and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. | |
Figure 5.3(1). Resurrection and ethics (1 Cor 15:29-34)
Cameo 1 presents a widely debated puzzle. The text reads:
1. | 15:29Otherwise, what do people mean |
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| by being baptized for the sake of the dead? | IF DEAD NOT RAISED |
| If the dead are not raised at all, | Why Be Baptized for Their Sake? |
| why are people baptized for their sake? |
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What does Paul mean when he writes “baptized for the sake of the dead”? In 1914 Robertson and Plummer were aware of thirty-five explanations of this verse.2 Thiselton notes that the count is now over forty.3 He then proceeds to set out the thirteen more notable interpretations (some of which offer multiple subdivisions).4 But in spite of the complexity and multiplicity of interpretations, one option has had strong endorsement for more than a hundred years.
In 1900, G. G. Findlay wrote that Paul was referring to a common experience where
the death of Christians leads to the conversion of survivors, who in the first instance “for the sake of the dead” (their beloved dead), and in the hope of reunion, turn to Christ—e.g., when a dying mother wins her son by the appeal, “Meet me in heaven!”5
Joachim Jeremias came (independently) to the same conclusion in 1960 when he wrote regarding 15:29,
Take, for instance, a case in which a young woman belonging to the church, and engaged to be married, died, and whose heathen bridegroom had himself baptized “for her sake”—that is, in order to be united with her in the resurrection. This interpretation fits excellently into the context of the apologetic reflections of I Cor. 15.12-19…. The apostle had said in v. 18 that if Christ were not risen “they who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” Now he adds that the same is true of their Gentile kinsmen (husbands, wives, lovers), who had themselves baptized in order to be united with them in the resurrection.6
After his own detailed discussion of the options, Thiselton describes the same alternative as follows:
Baptism for the sake of (‘υπερ) the dead refers to the decision of a person or persons to ask for, and to receive, baptism as a result of the desire to be united with their believing relatives who have died. This presupposes that they would share the radiant confidence that they would meet again in and through Christ at the resurrection of the dead.7
Thiselton goes on to conclude that this view is “the least problematic and most convincing of all.”8 Thus this view has had major champions across the twentieth century and beyond. I find it fully convincing.
The matching cameo 5 reads:
5. | If the dead are not raised, | IF DEAD NOT RAISED |
| “Let us eat and drink, | Eat, Drink and Die! |
| for tomorrow we die.” |
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If there is no resurrection, give up! Hedonism is the appropriate way to shorten life and “get it over with.” Drink yourself to death—why not? Paul borrows language from Ecclesiastes 8:15. Jesus appears to have used the same source for his parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:19).
The center of this ring composition is displayed in figure 5.3(2).
2. | 30Why am I in peril | WHY ENDURE? |
| every hour? |
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3. | 31I protest, brethren, by my boasting in you | BY MY BOASTING |
| which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, | In Christ |
| I die every day! | I Die Every Day! |
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4. | 32What do I gain if, humanly speaking, | WHAT REWARD? |
| I fought with beasts at Ephesus? |
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Figure 5.3(2). Cameos 2-4 (1 Cor 15:30-32)
The language Paul uses in the opening of cameo 3 is that of an oath. The Greek word ne occurs only here in the New Testament. It is also used in one text in the Greek Old Testament (lxx) where Joseph says to his brothers,
It is as I said to you, you are spies. By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place, unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain in prison, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies. (Gen 42:14-16, italics added)
The phrase by the life of Pharaoh in the Greek Old Testament begins with the same Greek word ne that Paul uses in cameo 3. The standard use of this word is in an oath on a god or something exceedingly precious. Joseph’s oath was “on the life of Pharaoh.” (Pharaoh was divine for the Egyptians.) This is mirrored even today where an extremely common oath in modern Arabic is, “By my life” or “By the life of God.” Paul is not declaring an oath “On the life of God” or “On the life of the resurrected Lord,” but by something extremely precious to him, which is, “By my boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As noted in the earlier discussion of 13:3, Paul joins the idea of “boasting before God on the day of judgment” to the parallel idea of the hope to receive a reward from the judge. Here also the idea of “boasting in you—in Christ Jesus our Lord” is attached to the idea of “gain” that occurs in cameo 4.
Paul is not swearing an oath in the modern sense, but he uses the language of making an oath and says something like, “By that which is very precious to me I affirm: I die every day.”
Paul knows full well the risks he is taking in Ephesus. Any foreigner who would dare enter a city like Ephesus and preach a message undermining the financial security of the “establishment” would be in grave danger. This was particularly true when the patron goddess of the city was involved. Because of Paul’s preaching, the goddess of the city was under attack and income from “tourism” was threatened. Who would complain if the corpse of the foreigner who was causing this disruption was dumped into the harbor some moonless night? Yes, he is a Roman citizen, and that would help him if he made it to courts. But what if he never got that far? Paul uses the language of the fights to the death with wild beasts in the arena to describe his struggles in Ephesus.
Having lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war and through the Israeli invasion of Lebanon the summer of 1982, I understand the affirmation “I die every day.” This is the speech of someone who goes out each day wondering if it will be his last. Included in this is the never to be forgotten feeling at a rogue checkpoint when stopped by heavily armed militiamen. On such occasions one is convinced, “I will not be alive five minutes from now.” The fall of 2009 I was privileged to meet Mr. Paul, the senior manager of “Hotel Rwanda” during the massacres that took place in Rwanda in 1994. For the three-month period of the massacres, Mr. Paul “died every day.” It was the look in the eye. We understood each other. Paul the apostle breaks into very strong language, indeed the language of oath taking, as he declares, “I die every day.”
If there is no resurrection—life is not worth it. Live it up and die—a natural conclusion to any denial of the resurrection, be it Sadducean or secular!9 As Garland notes, “Resurrection means endless hope, but no resurrection means a hopeless end—and hopelessness breeds dissipation.”10
This carefully structured homily is followed by a generalized aside that reads:
6. | 33Do not be led astray, “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34Come to your right mind, and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. |
This aside may include a quotation from Menander’s play Thais.11 The reference to bad company and good morals may also have been a popular proverb. The same phrase reflects Isaiah 22:13. Is this a primitive error? At an early stage did someone insert a note on the margin of Paul’s letter and the note was then transcribed as part of the original when the letter was copied? Or could it be a note that Paul added after his chosen scribe completed the requested “clean copy”? In the hymn to the cross (1:17–2:2) Paul managed to use language that would resonate both with Greeks and Jews. This may be a second example of that same extraordinary ability to speak to both communities by quoting from Menander and Isaiah at the same time. This is the fourth brief aside in the epistle that is attached to the end of a finely structured homily.12
After finishing these ethical reflections Paul is ready to continue his essay on the resurrection by presenting a balancing second homily on “Adam and Christ.”