Christ and the Spirit in Resurrection in 1 Cor 15:45
(avg. read time: 3–5 mins.)
This post will be an extract from my recent long post on the resurrection body in 1 Cor 15:42–49. There is a certain portion that I wanted to bring to further attention because of how it highlights the relationship of Christ and the Spirit. In turn, this will serve as preparation for engaging another text from 2 Corinthians.
Paul makes his link between Jesus’s resurrection and Christian resurrection on the basis of his belief in the foundation of union with Christ, which Christians have by virtue of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.1 The Spirit is the essential link of continuity between the present reality and the future hope, but the Spirit also guarantees the transformation of the resurrection body, as implied in the description of the σῶμα πνευματικόν.2 Indeed, the only other reference to resurrection in 1 Corinthians (6:14) is linked to Paul’s statement of how the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19), which conveys not only the strong interest the Spirit has in making the body what it is and will be, but also that the Spirit is the direct link of union between Christians and Christ.3
Paul articulates this union further in vv. 45–49 through his description of Jesus as life-giving Spirit, which is an expansion on his earlier point of contrasting Christ and Adam in vv. 20–23. While the Gen 2:7 text he uses here originally signaled the beginning of the story of humanity, its function in 1 Cor 15:45 and 47 is to serve as the first half of a contrast with the last progenitor, who begins the story of the new humanity and the new creation. Unlike the first life-receiving ψυχή Adam, this last Adam is life-giving (ζῳοποιοῦν, a term I have noted previously as connected to resurrection or resurrection imagery) and πνεῦμα. Since it is unlikely that Paul would refer to a human spirit as “life-giving,” the “spirit” in question is likely the Spirit of God and Christ (cf. Rom 8:2, 9–11; 2 Cor 3:6; Gal 6:8). Furthermore, James D. G. Dunn notes, “the Spirit of God is the obvious manifestation of the life-giving power of God. And although zoopoieo as such is not used of the Spirit in Jewish scriptures, an association between ‘(God’s) Spirit’ and ‘life’ was bound up with the word itself, since Hebrew ruach, like Greek pneuma, denotes also ‘breath,’ the breath of life.”4 Such a link is evident from the Genesis text Paul uses here, as well as Job 33:4; Ps 104:29–30; and especially Ezek 37:9–10, a passage also connected with resurrection imagery.5
The early church would likewise give the Spirit a prominent role in articulations of resurrection belief. One early post-NT example is the Martyrdom of Polycarp, wherein Polycarp declares his hope that he might be conformed, like the other martyrs, to Christ and might receive resurrection to everlasting life in the “incorruptibility [or absolute vivification] of the Holy Spirit” (14.2). Likewise, Irenaeus refers to the resurrection body as possessed by the Spirit and having the qualities of the Spirit (Haer. 5.9.3). With texts like 1 Cor 15:45 in mind, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed refers to the Spirit as the giver of life.
In this case, this intertwinement of Christ and the Spirit to describe Christ as “life-giving Spirit” in contrast to the living being who was the first Adam is not an easily derivable typological conclusion, but is more likely based on Paul’s and the Corinthians’ experience of spiritual relationship with Christ as the life-giving Spirit, a type of relationship Christ initiated consequent to his resurrection.6 Mehrdad Fatehi notes that there is an ontological link between the Spirit and Christ so that Christ truly is present through the Spirit, but is not reducible to the Spirit:
This would mean that the Spirit, when viewed in its capacity as the Spirit of Christ, does not refer to the risen Lord as he is in himself, but as he communicates his power, his life, his will, his very presence, to his people. So even where Paul comes closest to speak of the Spirit in referring to Christ’s own resurrection life and power, he turns out to be speaking of his communicating that life and power to his people (Rom. 1:3–4; 1 Cor. 15:45; cf. 2 Cor. 13:3–4).7
Dunn similarly notes that from the perspective of revelation to humans, the Spirit has become identifiable by his relation to Christ:
The Spirit’s presence is indicated by the cry “Abba! Father!” in distinctive echo of Jesus’ prayer and indicative of a sharing in his sonship (Rom. 8.14-17). The Spirit’s inspiration is marked by the confession “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12.3). The work of the Spirit is to transform Christians into the divine likeness (2 Cor. 3.18), which is Christ (4.4). Hence also the Spirit is now known as “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8.9), “the Spirit of [God’s] Son” (Gal. 4.6), “the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1.19) [cf. Acts 16:7; 1 Pet 1:11].8
Paul’s close identification of Christ and the Spirit in the same text as he describes Christ as the Last Adam thus presents Christ on both sides of the God-human relationship. He is on the human side by virtue of being the Last Adam, the new progenitor of humanity, and the prototype of the new creation. He is on the side of God by virtue of communicating divine qualities and life to those in union with him, being Lord, being worthy of worship with God, and being identified with the life-giving Spirit (or as the source of life, as in Rom 5:17; 8:1–11; 2 Cor 4:8–10).9
Furthermore, as Dunn summarizes, “in between he is God’s Son, whose sonship is shared with those who believe in him, the elder brother of a new family, firstborn from the dead. Yet he is also Son of God in power. And he is Lord, whose lordship both completes the intended dominion of Adam and exercises divine prerogatives.”10 One sees a similar overlap here in his function as Last Adam. 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. Thus, vv. 22 and 45 use the same verb to indicate that Christ’s own resurrection is the basis of the believers’ (cf. vv. 13–16, 20).
It is notable that in several of the texts that illustrate the theme of union with Christ in this letter, Paul also refers to the presence of the Spirit (3:16; 6:19; 12:3–4, 7–9, 11, 13).
Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 148; Claudia Janssen, Anders ist die Schönheit der Körper: Paulus und die Auferstehung in 1 Kor 15 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2005), 201–2; Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor. 15,1-16,24), EKKNT 7/4 (Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 299, 306; Margaret E. Thrall, “Paul’s Understanding of Continuity between the Present Life and the Life of the Resurrection,” in Resurrection in the New Testament: Festschrift J. Lambrecht, ed. R. Bieringer, V. Koperski, and B. Lataire, BETL 165 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 297–98.
Schrage, Korinther, 306.
James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 261.
A further layer to this last text is that it in turn alludes to Gen 2:7 to describe the resurrection action as an act of new creation.
Dunn, Theology, 262; Mehrdad Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, WUNT 2/128 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 282; Christian Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, THKNT 7 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000), 409–10. Pace Andreas Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief, HNT 9/1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 360.
Fatehi, Spirit’s Relation, 304–5. Cf. David Abernathy, “Christ as Life-giving Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45,” IBS 24 (2002): 5.
Dunn, Theology, 263.
Dunn, Theology, 265.
Dunn, Theology, 265.