As we surveyed in chapter 2, Jewish interpreters often used the story of the creation and fall of Adam to explain that the crises they faced were a consequence of their own disobedience to God’s commands and their disloyalty to the covenant. Consequently they exhorted their audience to abide by God’s commandments in order to avoid punishments and to be rewarded either in this life or in the future. Paul’s letters reflect this trend of Jewish interpretation of the story of the creation and fall of Adam, which inferred ethical implications from it. This does not imply literary dependence but rather common traits of interpretation. Paul interprets the Scriptures through the prism of the eschatological event of Christ as the fulfillment of the promises found in the Jewish Scriptures, promises made also to those who believe in Christ and in his resurrection. Yet, as his Jewish contemporaries did, Paul also draws ethical implications from the narrative of Genesis 1–3. He introduced the figure of Adam explicitly at least twice in his letters, 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45-49, and Rom 5:12-21.[1] In both passages, Paul contrasts Adam and Christ and the effects on those who belong to each. In the context of the first passage, Paul responds to those who claim that there is no bodily resurrection of the dead. In the context of the second passage, Paul discusses the transformation of believers from sin and death into God’s grace and eternal life through Christ’s expiatory death. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul exhorts the believers “to sin no more” (15:34), “to put on the imperishable,” and “to stand firm abounding in the work of the Lord” (15:53, 58). Likewise, in Romans 5 Paul concludes that Christ’s grace abounded all the more “so that grace may also reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:20-21). Therefore, in these passages Paul introduces the Adam typology in order to illustrate the antithesis between the first and the last Adam, and between the death and life that their deeds introduced into the world. In order to participate in the eschatological victory over sin and death, believers must clothe themselves “with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality” (1 Cor 15:53) and must die to sin so that God’s grace may reign through righteousness into eternal life (Rom 5:21).
In his correspondence[2] with the Christian community in Corinth, Paul addresses several issues concerning the identity of the community in the midst of a cosmopolitan society.[3] In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul discusses the question of the resurrection of Christ and of believers and how their faith or lack of it may affect their conduct and their future participation in the resurrection from the dead.[4] Most scholars recognize that Paul builds his argument on traditional material with which the Corinthians were probably familiar, either through Paul himself or through another Jewish Christian missionary (cf. 1:12; 3:5). First, he introduces the creedal formula about Christ’s resurrection and his victory over death. Second, he also incorporates two sets of Jewish traditions of the creation of the world, Adam, and the fall.[5] The first is an apocalyptic interpretation that attributes to Adam the beginning of death; the second interpretation contrasts the earthly and the heavenly man. In this context, Paul contrasts Adam and Christ as paradigms of the old and new creations who respectively brought death and life to all (1 Cor 15:21-22, 45-49). Paul conveys that the audience’s faith and life would be vain if there is no resurrection of the dead, and he exhorts his audience to live and behave according to what they believe—“come to your right mind, sin no more” (15:34), “stand firm (ἑδραῖοι γίνεσθε)[6] [in this faith] immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (15:58).
In order to rediscover the transformative power of Paul’s gospel, which impels a transformation of the individual and the community, we need to identify the traditional material Paul used, the rhetorical comparison between Adam and Christ in the context of chapter 15, and the ethical implications for the believer in the present in order to participate in the future resurrection.[7]
After Paul discusses the spiritual gifts in the Christian community, exhorting them to behave properly in the assembly (12:1—14:40), he addresses the question of the resurrection of believers. Apparently this matter also caused divisions among them that affected their conduct.[8] The overall structure of chapter 15 is divided into three sections:
A. Christ’s resurrection as the foundation of the believers’ resurrection (15:1-11). Paul recalls the gospel that he preached and that the Corinthians received, which contained a pre-Pauline creedal formula concerning Christ’s resurrection and his appearances to Cephas and the Twelve (vv. 3-5).[9] Then he adds a list of further appearances (vv. 6-7) that culminates with Christ’s appearance to Paul himself, which by the grace of God, makes him an official and authorized apostle of the gospel (vv. 8-10; cf. 9:1). The creedal formula asserts that Christ’s death and resurrection occurred “according to the Scriptures” (vv. 3b-4).[10] Christ’s burial emphasizes his death, and his appearances underlie his resurrection. Paul asserts that his proclamation of the gospel and the Corinthians’ faith would be vain (εἰκῇ, 15:2) if there were no resurrection from the dead, a theme he develops further in vv. 12-19.[11] Thus, this section validates Paul’s apostleship, and, more importantly, it lays the foundation for the belief of the Christians in bodily resurrection, which Paul develops in the following two sections.
B. Paul retorts to “some” (τινες) who deny the resurrection of the dead (15:12-34). The structure of this section forms the following chiasm:[12]
a. 15:12-19: Through seven conditionals clauses (εἰ δέ) Paul demonstrates ad absurdum how futile (κενός, ματαία) his preaching and the Corinthians’ faith would be if there is not resurrection from the dead. Consequently, Christ has not been raised from the dead either and those who are alive “are still in your sins,” and “those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost (ἀπώλοντο)” with no hope at all (vv. 17-19).
b. 15:20-28: These verses constitute the kernel of the argument, where Paul emphatically states, “but indeed (νυνὶ δέ) that Christ has been raised from the dead” (v. 20a).[13] This section stands in sharp contrast to sections a (15:12-19) and a´ (15:29-34), where Paul describes what would be “if there is no resurrection of the dead.”
a´. 15:29-34: Paul questions those who practice baptism “on account of the dead” (15:29),[14] and asks, “why are we put in danger every day . . . if there is no resurrection of the dead at all (ὅλως)?” (15:29-32a). He ironically concludes that “if (εἰ) the dead are not raised, ‘let us drink and eat for tomorrow we die’” (v. 32b), possibly referring to the attitude and practice of those who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.[15] Thus, disbelief in the resurrection apparently led some into a dissolute lifestyle.
Paul concludes section B (15:12-34), exhorting the audience: “Do not be misled (μὴ πλανᾶσθε), ‘bad company corrupts good character.’[16] Come back to your right senses (ἐκνήψατε δικαίως), and to sin no more (μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε). For there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame” (15:33-34). Paul turns from the argumentative style to a direct exhortation with three imperatives in the second person plural, μὴ πλανᾶσθε, ἐκνήψατε, and μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε.[17] He addresses “some who ignore God (ἀγνωσίαν γὰρ θεοῦ τινες ἔχουσιν),” that is, those who deny the resurrection of the dead (vv. 12-34; cf. v. 12).[18]
C. In the third section (15:35-58) Paul responds to “someone” (τις) who questions the bodily resurrection from the dead. This one can be identified with the some (τινες) in 15:12, and also with those whom Paul calls “bad company who corrupt good character” and have a dissolute lifestyle (15:32-33).[19] This section contains three subunits. First, Paul describes different kinds of bodies found in creation (15:35-44). Second, he contrasts the first and the last Adam as two paradigms of humankind, earthly and heavenly, respectively (vv. 45-49). Third, Paul concludes this section—and the entire chapter 15—by describing the eschatological events, when the perishable and the mortal will be transformed into imperishable and immortal, and “death will be swallowed up in victory” (v. 54; cf. 15:26); by praising God for Christ’s victory; and by exhorting the audience to “stand firm abounding in the work of the Lord” (15:58).
In sections B (15:12-34) and C (15:35-58), Paul introduces the figure of Adam in contrast to Christ to explain the future and bodily resurrection of believers. The figure of Adam is part of the larger creation motifs that P...
