Adam and Christ in 1 Cor 15 and Rom 5
(avg. read time: 10–20 mins.)
My post today will be a slightly expanded version of an extract from my dissertation. As such, one part will have a significant amount of footnotes while the other will not. But I aim to examine Paul’s Adam-Christ contrasts in 1 Cor 15:20–22, on the one hand, and Rom 5:12–21, on the other. Although my tendency this year has been to proceed in canonical order of books, here I examine the 1 Cor 15 text first for two reasons. One reason is that I have done a lot more work on it. The other reason is that Romans in many respects serves as a summary of Paul’s teaching for a group of Christians that was not personally familiar with him, whereas 1 Corinthians was written to one of his most familiar assemblies, it was earlier, and it presents some of the reasoning that stands behind what he writes in Romans. With that said, let us begin with the analysis of 1 Cor 15:20–22.
The Adam-Christ Contrast in 1 Cor 15:20–22
Paul’s opening νυνὶ δέ (“but actually”) in v. 20 serves to connect his teaching in this segment directly as a consequence of the gospel events—especially Jesus’s resurrection—summarized in vv. 3–4 and attested by witnesses in vv. 5–11. The construction serves to create a disjunction with the immediately preceding segment of vv. 12–19. Since the circumstances discussed therein are hypothetical conditions that would obtain if Jesus never rose from the dead, the νυνὶ δέ signals a return to conditions of the actual world as initially described in the more distant unit of vv. 3–11. Whether one describes this shift as moving from a hypothetical timeline in vv. 12–19 to the real timeline in vv. 20–28 or as moving from irreal conditionals to the adversative reality, Paul’s point in making the transition is fundamentally the same and the continuity in logic is maintained between vv. 20–28 and vv. 3–11.1 As such, the form of Paul’s argument itself, in addition to its content, attests to the link between Jesus’s resurrection and the resurrection of believers.
At this point, Paul gives further specificity to his description of the nature of the causal relationship between Christ’s resurrection and the believers’ resurrection through two images. First, Paul represents the resurrections as one event in two phases by using the language of “firstfruits” (ἀπαρχή) to refer to Jesus in his resurrection (vv. 20, 23). Such terminology would be readily comprehensible for Paul’s audience, given the general religious significance of offering the first/best part of something to a deity for the purpose of dedication and consecration.2 It also had particular significance for Paul’s Jewish background in the Jewish cult (Exod 23:16, 19a; Lev 23:10–15; Num 18:11–18; Deut 18:4; 26:2, 10; 2 Chr 31:5; Prov 3:9), including in its renewal after the Babylonian exile (Neh 10:35–37; Tob 1:6–7; Jdt 11:13; Sir 7:31; 35:10; 45:20; Josephus, Ant. 12.50; 16.172–173) and in eschatological hopes (Ezek 44:30; 11QTa XVIII–XIX). According to the arguments of Jacob Thiessen and Joel White, this language may be suggestive of a further link with vv. 3–4 in that they relate the statement that Jesus was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures to the timing of the offering of firstfruits.3
In any case, scholars have often noted the suggestiveness of this imagery, the significance of which Anthony Thiselton has summarized well as involving, “(1) prior temporality; (2) representation of the same quality or character; and (3) promise or pledge of more of the same kind to come.”4 One may add to this list the sense of a priority of “rank” (combined with the use of τάγμα [“order”] in v. 23): the firstfruits represents the first, choice, and best parts of the harvest as a whole (cf. Exod 34:26; Jer 2:3; Hos 9:10). Paul thus explains the unprecedented division of the eschatological resurrection into two parts while still maintaining the connection between Jesus’s resurrection with the resurrection of the faithful as one event through the use of this image of Jesus as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (once again illustrating the temporariness of the state in light of the resurrection). Jesus is the first part of the resurrection in both time and rank, the representative of what is yet to come, and the pledge that the rest of the harvest of resurrection of those who sleep will indeed come.
To revisit the logic of vv. 12–19, one also sees here a portrayal of Paul’s reasoning for the inextricable link of Jesus’s resurrection with the general resurrection. There is no harvest without firstfruits, a promise of more to come. Conversely, there is no firstfruits without the harvest, for in such a case the firstfruits would be a lie, a false promise. But since Christ has in fact risen, he is the promise of more to come, for a hope beyond this life and even this age.
Indeed, outside of this text the NT often declares that Jesus’s resurrection was the first piece of the eschatological reality, that the new creation and the new human family—consisting of both Jews and gentiles—began with Jesus (Acts 3:15–21; 26:23; Rom 8:11, 23, 28–29; 2 Cor 1:22; 4:13–5:5; Eph 1:14, 19–20; Phil 3:19–21; Col 1:18; 1 Thess 4:14–15; 5:9–10; Heb 2:14–15; Rev 1:5).5 The imagery in these other texts differ, but the different expressions still articulate some dimension of this common belief. Jesus has inaugurated this eschatological reality by virtue of his becoming the new progenitor in his resurrection.
On that note, Paul here also attends to a second image of Christ as the contrast of Adam. In the logic of Paul’s argument the respective characters and fates of these two progenitors connects intricately with the expected fate of those who participate in the patterns of their lives, whether that pattern is one of disobedience that leads to death or faithfulness that leads to death’s reversal in resurrection unto everlasting life.6 As Murray J. Harris notes in relation to resurrection in particular, “It is helpful to view resurrection in its bodily aspect either as a single continuum, marked at one end by the resurrection of Christ and at the other end by the resurrection of believers, or as a single unit with the resurrection of believers proleptically or ideally involved in the resurrection of Christ.”7 This participatory pattern relies on a larger framework of union with the progenitor in question, since death and resurrection are only the culminations of lives lived in union with one progenitor or another. Furthermore, that framework of union in turn relies on a larger framework of union between the respective progenitors and the old and new creations they participate in as microcosms, particularly by virtue of the ruling powers they release on their respective creations: sin in the case of Adam and the Holy Spirit in the case of Christ.8 Paul’s conception of the resurrection makes the sense that it does in light of the cosmic-scale hope he articulates in terms of the kingdom of God and new creation.
But more specifically for this text, the primary point of contrast is the antithetical manner in which both Adam and Christ serve as progenitors who define the dominions of their progeny.9 Indeed, as C. E. Hill notes, “it is because Christ stands in such a relation to Christians as Adam does to those who die that the historical reality of Christ's bodily resurrection can furnish grounds for the Christians' hope of their own.”10 While Adam is the progenitor of humanity by virtue of being the first man, Christ is the new progenitor of humanity by virtue of his resurrection and communication of resurrection life to others. The first Adam could only receive life and then die, so that death defines the dominion of Adam (vv. 21a, 22a); Christ, the Last Adam (v. 45), gives life by his resurrection, so that resurrection life defines the dominion of Christ (vv. 21b, 22b).11 Indeed, this resurrection life is the direct reversal of death through giving immortal life that is of Christ (v. 49).12 This fact fits with the role of Christ in relation to Adam, to be for the world—for humanity—what Adam should have been: God’s true image-bearer.13 N. T. Wright summarizes well that in this function as the proper progenitor in God’s new creation project, Jesus in his resurrection “enters upon a new mode of human existence, becoming in one sense the pattern and in another sense the life-giving source for the future resurrection life of those who belong to him.”14 As such, Paul argues that Christ has become a proper counteract to Adam; both serve as patterns and sources for their progeny, but Christ is the pattern and source of life that reverses the death that leaves one separated from God borne in Adam (cf. vv. 45–49).
The key language that Paul uses to define this relationship for Christians is his frequently used phrase ἐν [τῷ] Χριστῷ (v. 22),15 contrasted here with ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ. In line with what I have noted elsewhere about ἐν Χριστῷ, scholars generally take these phrases to denote “location,” of being in the domain/dominion of Adam or Christ.16 Constantine Campbell notes that this interpretation fits with the logic of the subsequent text concerning kingdoms and the rule of Christ’s kingdom over the powers of the world (vv. 24–26), in which the dominion of Adam previously defined the domain of humanity.17 Eckhard Schnabel states that the phrases function instrumentally, causally, and locally.18 However, it is not clear that the phrase itself functions in the former two ways, especially since Paul conveyed instrumentality well enough in v. 21 with his διά phrases. In the same way, the causal sense is implied by Paul’s argument to this point, particularly in his use of the “firstfruits” imagery. Therefore, even if the phrase itself does not have such a complex function, the context indicates that the relationship between Christ and Christians is such that resurrection defines the dominion occupied by those who are in incorporative, identifying, and participatory union with Christ (local), who receive resurrection life through the one who was resurrected (instrumental), because the effect of union with Christ is sharing in his fate (causal).
This contrast between the domains and dominions of the progenitors Adam and Christ raises the question of scope that has interested interpreters for centuries. In other words, if one assumes that the “all” of ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες is universal in scope, because all die, should one not also assume that the “all” of ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες is universal in the same sense? The general view has been that the latter is not universal in the sense that the former is.19 After all, the second πάντες seems to be qualified on both sides by terms otherwise exclusively applied to believers in union with Christ that have soteriological significance (ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, ζῳοποιηθήσονται; cf. v. 45).20 This position also seems plausible in light of the fact that nowhere in this passage does Paul seem directly concerned with the resurrection of those who are not believers (such is only implied by the implicit references to final judgment I have noted in my dissertation). In fact, in every case in which Paul unpacks the significance of gospel events like the crucifixion or resurrection, he only writes concerning the consequences for believers.21
However, a few scholars have disputed this view and insisted that one should read both ἐν τῷ … πάντες constructions as universal in scope. Andreas Lindemann is incredulous that Paul would argue that Adam defines the domain and fate of all people, but Christ defines the domain and resurrection fate of a potentially small subset of humanity.22 Wolfgang Schrage likewise insists that the πάντες cannot be restricted, given the global scope of Christ’s work in Paul’s argument.23 Sebastian Schneider, since he already sees the resurrection of unbelievers implied in vv. 51–52 (rather than a distinction between those who are dead and those who are alive at the time of the Parousia), insists that it is possible to read Paul’s vocabulary here in such a way as to include unbelievers.24 He thinks Paul is using a more inclusive version of his ἐν Χριστῷ phrase, since it now includes an article, and the use of ζῳοποιέω for “making alive” in reference to unbelievers need only imply that they receive the positive outcome of returning to life, even if it is to judgment.25
These objections to the restricted scope fail in the context of this passage and in the context of Paul’s overall theology. The generalized sense of ζῳοποιέω does not work in light of the usage elsewhere in Paul or the rest of the NT—where it carries the theological freight of receiving the everlasting, resurrection life, rather than simply arising after being dead (John 5:21; Rom 4:17; 8:11; 2 Cor 3:6; 1 Pet 3:18)—and no other contextual clues indicate a different use here, unless one begs the question on πάντες.26 If Paul’s point was to indicate a universal resurrection, he was clearly capable of using ἐγείρω rather than the more soteriologically loaded ζῳοποιέω.27 Schneider’s attempt to differentiate the use of ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ here from other uses based on the appearance of the article places far too much weight on the article, which only appears rarely in this phrase in Pauline literature and never with the obviously more inclusive sense Schneider tries to find in it (cf. 2 Cor 2:14; Eph 1:10, 12, 20; 3:11).28 The more general argument that Adam and Christ should correspond in their scope does not take into account what advocates of the traditional position have noted. By Paul’s logic, all humans are related to Adam regardless of volition—although their sin further confirms their connection to Adam and his fate—but not all people are naturally related to Christ; only those who are in willing union with him are so related.29
Furthermore, it may be that the assumption on which proponents of both views typically build is false, as they do not take proper account for the combination of Paul’s foundations of resurrection belief (as I review in my dissertation and my article on 1 Cor 15:12–19) of Christ’s and union with Christ. Is it truly the case that Paul sees a universal scope in his phrase ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες? This assumption would require that Paul’s argument identifies believers as being in the domain of Adam no matter what they do, but that they are additionally in the domain of Christ. Ironically, this logic would dictate that, at least for most believers, it would take death to free them from the domain of Adam—the one by whom death came into the world—before they could be exclusively of the domain of Christ. The transformation of those who are alive at the time of Christ’s coming would likewise be a transferal into the domain of Christ. Such an argument would undermine the tenor of Paul’s logic concerning the union of Christians with Christ.
One should not see ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ as defining one aspect of the current state of believers—namely, their mortality—but rather as a shorthand for the former state of believers, one in which they would remain if Christ never rose. The phrase ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ is thus connected with the consequences outlined in vv. 12–19 in the event that there is no resurrection. It is a state of hopelessness where death is not simply the end of mortal beings, but the ultimate separation from God, which leads to perishing rather than sleeping (v. 18).30 Indeed, Paul insists that not everyone will die anyway (vv. 51–52), so even in that sense Adam does not define them. Instead, those who are ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ are defined in contrast to those who are ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ, as Paul will also do later in his argument when he writes about receiving a body like Christ’s in contrast to one like Adam’s (vv. 42–49). Paul ultimately says that the wearing of Christ’s image is in the future because it involves resurrection (v. 49b), but he also relegates the wearing of Adam’s image to the past (v. 49a). The present state of believers is defined primarily in relation to this future state rather than both the past and future state, since the future state is the goal of the current conforming process of sanctification (cf. Rom 8:29–30; 2 Cor 3:18; Phil 3:10–11, 20–21). This is also why Paul defines the resurrection with which he is concerned as victory over death (vv. 26, 54–57), which is never the inheritance of those identified with Adam.
The Adam-Christ Contrast in Rom 5:12–21
This account fits with Paul’s analogous argument in Rom 5:12–21. This unit and the subsequent argument illustrate a distinction between being defined by Adam and being defined by Christ. In both texts, Christ reverses the effects of Adam and brings those who receive God’s grace through him into a new dominion. In Rom 5, this is indicated particularly in reference to the “all,” since Rom 5:17–18 indicates that not all will be both condemned and justified (nor does Paul argue that all who were once condemned will be justified), but all who define themselves in relation to Adam will be condemned while all who receive God’s grace in Jesus will be justified. One should see both uses of πάντες in 1 Cor 15:22 in the same way, as defining all who are in union with Adam as being subject to the dominion of death and all who are in union with Christ as being subject to the dominion of the God who raises the dead.
Naturally, Paul’s argument in Rom 5 is not quite the same, since he now incorporates matters one can infer he had already addressed (in some way) in his extensive previous engagements with the Corinthians about the Torah, its role between Adam and Christ, and the theology of justification, which fits with Paul’s larger argument in this section, but there are some significant functional connections. This goes even beyond the contrast of how Adam is identified with the way of sin and death while Christ is identified with the way of righteousness and everlasting life. One, Adam is described as a pattern, or more properly a type (τύπος), of the one who was to come. Christ is not identified as the “Last Adam” here as in 1 Cor 15, but this language shows that the notion is assumed, as Christ is the anti-type to Adam’s type. The contrast comes not simply from Christ’s character compared to Adam’s, for it is also a function of the fact that Christ is the fulfillment and replacement of Adam as the new progenitor of humanity, the humanity that belongs to the new creation.
Two, there is thus also a sense in which Christ fulfills the story of Scripture in both contexts, though this is more explicit in 1 Cor 15 and more distant in Rom 5, as it was set up more generally in Rom 1:2–4 and more proximately in ch. 4 concerning the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham. But now the story broadens further to where Jesus represents a fulfillment of a different kind for Adam. That is, as Paul addresses in 1 Cor 15 through his use of Pss 8 and 110 (as well as his allusions to Dan 7 and Gen 5), Christ is what Adam should have been and solves the problems Adam created.
Three, although it is further separated from the new creation implications in Romans, the Adam-Christ contrast in both texts anticipates Jesus’s work of new creation, where resurrection will also play the explicit role that is left implicit in Rom 5 with its contrast of death and life with the second following the first. Patristic interpreters particularly emphasized the implications of Christ’s reversal of Adam’s disobedience that led to death. If Christ truly reverses the work of Adam, then his work must entail the redemption of the body otherwise doomed to rot in death. As in new creation, where what is subject to death and decay is renewed and redeemed (Rom 8:18–25), the resurrection must involve redemption of the body (Irenaeus, Haer. 2.29.2; 3.18.7, 23.7–8; 5.1.3, 13.4; Epid. 31; Tertullian, Res. 48; Marc. 5.9; Athanasius, Inc. 10; 21; 24; 29; Epiphanius, Pan. 64.64–65; 67.6). If the body is abandoned rather than redeemed, then there is an anthropological hole in the logic of the expectation of new creation.
Four, there is a participatory logic in both texts that forges the link between the person and Adam on the one hand and Christ on the other. People participate in Adam in that they participate in the submission to the powers of sin and death. But people participate in Christ in that they make the gospel story their story and, in the application of Christ’s salvific work on their behalf, become part of a new creation, a new Genesis story. Of course, Paul will extend the participatory logic in Rom 6 with his exposition on baptism and what it means to die to sin in Christ and arise to walk in newness of life through the grace-gift he has given.
In both Romans and 1 Corinthians, we can see a few ways in which the opening chapters of Genesis are influential. One, the reference to the story of Adam in general evokes Genesis and its origin story of the current world order. The gospel story provides the new Genesis story that represents fulfillment of the original Genesis. Two, the reference to Adam as the progenitor in parallel to Christ relies on the role of Adam as one of the original humans made in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). Three, the “image” language itself appears in 1 Cor 15:49, although there it more directly relies on Gen 5:1–3 with reference to wearing the images of Adam and Christ respectively. It also appears in Rom 8:29 to further accentuate sanctification as “Christification,” as God’s purpose is to conform us to the “image” of his Son, thereby bringing the family of God to be through him. That use of “image” language is anticipated in Rom 5 through the contrast of the two progenitors, known for being the prime image-bearers of God, the latter of whom is the fulfillment of the former and thus is the one whose image we should bear. Four, the reference to Adam bringing death to the world relies on the story of Gen 3 with Adam’s disobedience and the consequent death sentence placed upon him and his descendants who follow in his footsteps (i.e., who participate in his way of sin that leads to death). The combination of these elements is important to Paul’s argument as his contrast between Adam and Christ is one between the image-bearer of God who fell and brought death to the world (Rom 5:12–14, 17–18; 7:7–25; 1 Cor 15:21–22, 54–56) and the image-bearer of God who arose and brought life to the world (Rom 5:11, 15–21; 8:1–25; Cor 15:20–23, 45, 54–57). Five, in 1 Cor 15 this contrast establishes a later one relying on Gen 2:7 in v. 45, in which the original Adam is a life-receiving being, while the Last Adam is life-giving, one who communicates his resurrection life to others. In Rom 5, the contrast sets up a later one in Rom 7, where Paul is speaking in the persona of Adam, which he then follows with stating the present reality and future hope of being in Christ in Rom 8.
For the first alternative, see Kevin Southerland, “Not One Iota Will Ever Pass Away: A Discourse-Pragmatic Approach to Understanding Nυνί Versus Nῦν” (paper presented at the Midwest Region Meeting of the Society of the Biblical Literature/Middle West Branch of the American Oriental Society, Notre Dame, IN, 3 February 2018), 9–11. For the second, see Eckhard J. Schnabel, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, Historisch Theologische Auslegung (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 2006), 918; Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor. 15,1-16,24), EKKNT 7/4 (Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 159; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 1223. Gordon D. Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT [Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2014], 828) sees both logical and temporal significance in this construction. Michel Quesnel (La première épître aux Corinthiens, Commentaire biblique: Nouveau Testament 7 [Paris: Cerf, 2018], 382), notes that the ultimate force of this construction in context is to indicate that the preceding conditions are irrelevant in actuality.
Joost Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia: A Traditio-Historical Study of Paul’s Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15, NovTSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 49–50; Gerhard Delling, “ἀπαρχή,” TDNT 1:484–85.
Jacob Thiessen, “Firstfruits and the Day of Christ’s Resurrection: An Examination of the Relationship Between the ‘Third Day’ in 1 Cor 15:4 and the ‘Firstfruit’ in 1 Cor 15:20,” Neot 46 (2012): 379–93; Joel R. White, “‘He Was Raised on the Third Day According to the Scriptures,’ (1 Corinthians 15:4): A Typological Interpretation Based on the Cultic Calendar in Leviticus 23,” TynBul 66 (2015): 103–19. Also see Joel R. White, “Christ’s Resurrection Is the Spirit’s Firstfruits (Romans 8,23),” Resurrection of the Dead: Biblical Traditions in Dialogue, ed. Geert Van Oyen and Tom Shepherd, BETL 249 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 289–303.
Thiselton, Corinthians, 1224 (emphases original). Cf. Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SP 7 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 548; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, AB 32 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 674–75; Terri Moore, The Mysteries, Resurrection, and 1 Corinthians 15: Comparative Methodology and Contextual Exegesis (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books; Fortress Academic, 2018), 110–11; Schrage, Korinther, 160–61. On the last point of significance, see particularly Tertullian, Res. 51.
On Rom 8:23 specifically, White argues that the phrase τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος is an allusion to Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 15:20. White, “Christ’s Resurrection,” 300–302.
Murray J. Harris, From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1990), 224.
Harris, Grave to Glory, 220.
Cf. Sarah Harding, Paul’s Eschatological Anthropology: The Dynamics of Human Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 119–21; David R. Kirk, “Seeds and Bodies: Cosmology, Anthropology and Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15:35–49” (PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2015), 206–17; Thiselton, Corinthians, 1270–73. It is this dual framework of union and participation that informs the argument here, rather than the idea of “Adam” and, by extension, “Christ” as corporate personalities. The fullest articulation of this idea in relation to 1 Cor 15 is probably Bernardin Schneider, “The Corporate Meaning and Background of 1 Cor 15,45b—‘O Eschatos Adam eis Pneuma Zōiopoioun,” CBQ 29 (1967): 450–67.
On Jewish traditions about Adam and Paul’s place in relation to them, see Felipe de Jésus Legarreta-Castillo, The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15: The New Creation and Its Ethical and Social Reconfiguration (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 33–117; John R. Levison Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch, JSPS 1 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988).
C. E. Hill, “Paul’s Understanding of Christ’s Kingdom in I Corinthians 15:20-28,” NovT 30 (1988): 305.
In the NT, the verb used for giving life here—ζῳοποιέω—elsewhere conveys the communication of resurrection life or otherwise appears in the context of resurrection imagery (vv. 36, 45; John 5:21; Rom 4:17; 8:11; 2 Cor 3:6; 1 Pet 3:18).
On the connection resurrection and sharing in the immortal life of Christ, see Harris, Grave to Glory, 270–75.
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 334.
N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 35. For more on Paul’s Adam-Christology, see Wright, Climax, 26–37.
The article is in brackets because it does not often appear in the common phrase.
Timothy A. Brookins and Bruce W. Longenecker, 1 Corinthians 10-16: A Handbook on the Greek Text, BHGNT (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 154; Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 142; Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 570; Legarreta-Castillo, Figure, 132; Martin Luther, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15,” 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, Luther’s Works 28, ed. Hilton C. Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia, 1973), 114–15, 120–21; Thiselton, Corinthians, 1225; Christian Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, THKNT 7 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000), 384–85.
Campbell, Union, 348.
Schnabel, Korinther, 923.
John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 39.5; Augustine, Ep. 157.14; Civ. 13.23; Ambrosiaster, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:22; Theodoret, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:22; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1968), 352; M. Eugene Boring, “The Language of Universal Salvation in Paul,” JBL 105 (1986): 279; Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Cambridge: Apollos, 2010), 764; Collins, First Corinthians, 548; Hans Conzelmann, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 252–54; Georg Strecker, Theology of the New Testament, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, trans. M. Eugene Boring (New York; Berlin: de Gruyter; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 269; Fee, Corinthians, 831; Jean Héring, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, trans. A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock (London: Epworth, 1962), 165; Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 550; R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1963), 666; Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 95; Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead According to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts 12 (London: Bloomsbury; T&T Clark, 2012), 153–54; William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians, AB 32 (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 332; Schnabel, Korinther, 923; Thiselton, Corinthians, 1227; Hans-Alwin Wilcke, Das Problem eines messianischen Zwischenreichs bei Paulus, ATANT 51 (Zürich: Zwingli, 1967), 84; Andrew Wilson, “The Strongest Argument for Universalism in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28,” JETS 59 (2016): 805–12; Ben Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 192; Wolff, Korinther, 384–85; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 733–37.
Frederic Louis Godet, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. A. Cusin, vol 2. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 353; Hill, “Paul’s Understanding,” 306; Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia, 53.
Roger Paul Lucas (“The Time of the Reign of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 in Light of Early Christian Session Theology” [PhD diss., Andrews University, 1997], 261–68) comes to this conclusion about the scope of the resurrection effects on the basis of connections he makes between this passage and the sequence of events in the pervasive New Testament “session theology.”
Andreas Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief, HNT 9/1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 344. Cf. Origen, Fr. 1 Cor. 84; Marlis Gielen, “Universale Totenauferweckung und universales Heil? 1 Kor 15,20–28 im Kontext paulinischer Theologie,” BZ 47 (2003): 89–91; Quesnel, Corinthiens, 362, 383; Sebastian Schneider, Auferstehen: Eine neue Deutung von 1 Kor 15, FB 105 (Würzburg: Echter, 2005), 169–70; Schrage, Korinther, 163–64; Johannes Weiss, Der Erste Korintherbrief, KEK 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 356–57.
Schrage, Korinther, 165–66. Cf. Origen, Princ. 1.6; M. E. Dahl, The Resurrection of the Body: A Study of I Corinthians 15, SBT 1/36 (London: SCM, 1962), 34 n. 2, 76 n. 3; Scott M. Lewis, So That God May Be All in All: The Apocalyptic Message of 1 Corinthians 15:12-34 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1998), 50–51; Quesnel, Corinthiens, 383.
Schneider, Auferstehen, 168. Cf. Gielen, “Universale Totenauferweckung,” 92–95, 100–102.
Schneider, Auferstehen, 168–69. He further justifies this argument by claiming that v. 26 would be undermined if there was no resurrection of unbelievers.
For more on this term, see John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, WUNT 2/410 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 37–45.
Even in John 5:21, which occurs in the context of a statement of the universal resurrection, this same terminology does not appear in the actual statement of universal resurrection, but only in terms of giving life to whomever the Son wills. In other cases, it indicates more than restoration to life; it indicates receiving everlasting life by the salvific action of God, the one who makes alive (Rom 4:17; 8:11; 2 Cor 3:6; 1 Pet 3:18).
The article is also used in the parallel Adam phrase, but the article itself does not have the significance there. At least part of the explanation for the use of the article in either case is stylistic consistency of these parallel phrases.
Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia, 55; Schnabel, Korinther, 924.
Thiselton, Corinthians, 1228–29.