The Battle Cry of the Risen Savior (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

Three Important Elements in Paul’s “Battle Cry of the Risen Savior”

Christ as “Firstfruits”

There are three important elements found in Paul’s “battle cry of the Risen Savior.” First, Paul speaks of Christ’s resurrection as the “firstfruits,” which is an agricultural term, referring here to a much larger harvest yet to come.[1] When viewed against the background of the Old Testament, when the first sheaf of the harvest was brought to the temple so as to consecrate the entire harvest of grain which had not yet ripened or been harvested,[2] so too, Christ’s resurrection consecrates the entire harvest of those who also will be raised from the dead–that is, all of the elect, who are already seen as “raised with Christ” (cf. Ephesians 2:4-7; Philippians 3:20-21).[3]

The very fact that the resurrection constitutes the “firstfruits” of a future harvest, guarantees that there will be a much larger harvest yet to come. Lest we forget, this includes all those who have “fallen sleep,” that is, those who have died in Christ. As Wright points out, Paul “is arguing for the certainty of the future bodily resurrection of all the Messiah’s people.”[4] Gaffin adds, our Lord’s “resurrection is the representative beginning of the resurrection of believers.”[5] This should give us great optimism as far as the missionary enterprise is concerned, because the multitude before the throne who are raised with Christ is so vast they cannot be counted (cf. Revelation 7:9). The harvest will be huge–beyond all human imagination.

Christ’s Bodily Resurrection Guarantees Our Future Resurrection

Second, since Christ’s resurrection serves as the guarantee of the future bodily resurrection of Christian believers at the end of the age, the New Testament is filled with references to the fact that Christ’s resurrection is the basis for the repeated assertion that the believer has already been raised with Christ (e.g., Colossians 1:13-14; 3:1-4; Romans 6:5-11).[6]

Elsewhere, Paul can speak of Christian believers as seated in the heavenlies even while they are still living (cf. Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12-13; 3:1). Because believers have been raised with Christ and are united to him through faith, even now we participate in our Lord’s resurrection as citizens of the age to come–a point Paul makes directly in Philippians 3:20-21. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

As firstfruits of the coming harvest, Paul directs the Corinthians ahead to the future, because this gives life meaning now. We need not endure suffering as would a Stoic, trying to face death without fear. As the Roman philosopher Seneca put it, we are to endure death bravely, since suffering and dying are part of the very fabric of the universe and the human experiences of such a world.[7] Nor can we live as Epicurean libertines indulging every bodily urge since there is no existence after death. Rather, Christians face death with the hope of the resurrection of the dead and life eternal.

Unlike the Greco-Roman pagans, Christians do not see death as non-existence or as wandering spirits confined to another realm (the underworld) with no hope of escape. God’s people see death as culminating in the bodily resurrection of all of Christ’s people–the ultimate family reunion.

Christ’s Resurrection Ushers in the “Last Days”

Third, by conquering death and ushering in a new and final era of redemptive history, Christians have been living in the last days from the time of Jesus and the apostles (Hebrews 1:2; 2 Timothy 3:1). Although the term “firstfruits” in 1 Corinthians 15:20 ff., is commonly understood to refer to the fact that Christ’s resurrection is chronologically prior to all those who will rise after him (i.e., it comes first), Paul’s use of the term “firstfruits,” demonstrates a unity between Christ and his people who have been raised with him in his own resurrection. Jesus might be the first to rise bodily from the dead, but he is not the last.[8] His resurrection culminates in his ascension. After his ascension, then comes Pentecost. After an indeterminate period of time–the inter-advental age and the “last days”–then Jesus will return at the end of the age to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new.

In verses 21-22, Paul’s contrast between the two Adams (the first man and the second Adam–Christ) is key to understanding the course of redemptive history.[9] The apostle makes the same comparison in greater detail in Romans 5:12-21.[10] In verse 21, Paul explains to the Corinthians that “for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” A number of redemptive-historical points come from Paul’s assertion which are the foundation of much of Reformed covenant theology.

Death is understood as the end of life, and not natural to human nature–contra Ben Franklin who famously tied death to taxes as inevitable bad outcomes of life. Rather, Scripture tell us that death is a curse, the consequence of Adam’s rebellion in Eden. We are united to our federal head Adam in his willful violation of the stipulations of the covenant of works and the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:1-15; Hosea 6:7). As the biological and federal head of the human race, the guilt of Adam’s sin and the curse of death was passed on to all of Adam’s descendants (i.e., Romans 5:12-21)–original sin.[11]

The old saying is certainly true, “in Adam’s fall, sinned we all.” Due to Adam’s act of treason, Meredith Kline describes the subsequent course of human history as “a shadow . . . cast by the inevitability of death over all man’s earthly existence, making all his efforts like clutching at the wind.”[12] All that the Greco-Roman pagans could look to were the shadows of this cursed life, ending in eternal darkness at death. Paul’s gospel, on the other hand, proclaimed the glorious light of a new heaven without need of sun or moon (Revelation 21:23) because the glory of God and the lamb are its light.

If the curse and death come through a man (Adam), so too, Paul explains, the reversal of the consequences of the curse (death) must also come through a man (the second Adam, Jesus Christ that one in whom those who will live come to life).[13] All those who are united to Jesus Christ through faith are raised with him, when Jesus himself is raised from the dead. Jesus died for us and was raised for us. This is what Paul is getting at when in verse 22 he says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Ciampa and Rosner summarize the matter quite well.

To be in Adam is to be part of the group which finds in Adam its representative and leader, which finds its identity and destiny in Adam and what he has brought about for his people. To be in Christ is to be part of the group which finds in Christ its representative and leader, which finds its identity and destiny in Christ and what he has brought about for his people. All humans who have not yet found redemption through faith in Christ remain in Adam. Those who have entered into the promise of new life, the life of Christ, are in Christ, and will find that their initial experience of the newness of life was but a foretaste of the ultimate restoration of life that awaits them in the resurrection.[14]

Those in Christ will live (ζῳοποιέω–zoopoeio), a verb used elsewhere to designate the resurrection (e.g. Romans 4:17; 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18).[15] There are both individual, and corporate elements present here. Each believer will live, as will all of God’s people represented by Christ–a new humanity freed from the guilt and power of sin as participants of Christ’s resurrection victory (1 Corinthians 15:45).[16]

Taken from Season Three/Episode Twenty-Seven of the Blessed Hope Podcast: “Christ Has Been Raised,” and edited for the Riddleblog

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[1] Gaffin, In the Fullness of Time, 305.

[2] S. M. Baugh, Majesty on High: Introduction to the Kingdom of God in the New Testament, (self-published, 2017), 51.

[3] Morris, 1 Corinthians, 209.

[4] Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 333.

[5] Richard B. Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1987), 34.

[6] Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, 60.

[7] James P. Ware, “What No Other God Could Do: Life and Afterlife Among Paul and the Philosophers,” Dodson and Briones, Paul and the Giants of Philosophy, 126.

[8] Beale, Union With the Resurrected Christ, 275-276.

[9] Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 241.

[10] Perkins, Reformed Covenant Theology, 29, 64-65.

[11] Horton, The Christian Faith, 423-431.

[12] Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 135.

[13] The Heidelberg Catechism (Q & A 14 and 15) summarizes this point as follows. Q 14. Can another creature—any at all—pay this debt for us? A. No. To begin with, God will not punish any other creature for what a human is guilty of. Furthermore, no mere creature can bear the weight of God’s eternal wrath against sin and deliver others from it. Q 15. What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for then? A. One who is a true and righteous man, yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is also true God.

[14] Ciampa and Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, 763.

[15] Schreiner, 1 Corinthians, 312.

[16] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 1225.