Patterns of Gospel Proclamation in Acts and 1 Cor 15
(avg. read time: 8–16 mins.)
In my previous work on Acts, I have shown both the variety and consistency in the gospel proclamations of Acts (which I previously summarized here). Additionally, I have argued elsewhere in an article that is forthcoming that the analogy of gospel proclamations in Acts can help illuminate the question of how much of 1 Cor 15:3b–7 belongs to pre-Pauline tradition. Here, I want to explore further the patterns of gospel proclamation we see in both sources. To combine observations from both of these to form a baseline of what we will be examining, it should be noted: 1) while there is variety in structure and content across the gospel proclamations in Acts, the variety in content noticeably increases past Paul’s proclamation in ch. 13; 2) Paul’s proclamation in ch. 13 is the last summary that includes witness testimony besides his own (which he invokes in chs. 22 and 26 in his trials); 3) given the similarities of the gospel proclamations in Acts with 1 Cor 15:3b–7, which we have good reason to think goes back before Paul’s conversion to potentially within weeks or months of the original proclamation (as outlined in my article), we also have good reason to think that Luke’s summaries have their roots in such early proclamations as well. Paul’s proclamation in ch. 13 has notable similarities to Peter’s in ch. 2 (again, as I have reviewed elsewhere). While such resemblances have rhetorical value in showing Paul’s consistency with the earliest proclamation of the gospel by Peter, in light of parallels with Paul’s own summary in 1 Cor 15, they also show consistency between Paul and Acts in the presentation of Paul’s evangelism. Paul was versatile in how he presented the gospel, but it is also notable, considering that his proclamation of the gospel in Corinth in Acts 18 would have taken place at least a couple years after the one in Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13, that there was an underlying fundamental proclamation he continued returning to in the various places he traveled.
To explore these patterns, we will begin with the speeches I compared to 1 Cor 15:3b–7 in my article. With those comparisons as a baseline, we can begin making extrapolations with the rest of 1 Cor 15 and these speeches. We can then see what other support for these extrapolations we can find in Paul’s other summaries of the gospel. Finally, we will return to the other proclamations of Acts we did not consider earlier to see what other consistencies in pattern we can observe.
The speeches of most relevance to 1 Cor 15, the ones that cite witness testimony, appear in Acts 2; 3; 5; 10; and 13. Paul’s summary of his gospel proclamation in 1 Cor 15:3b–7 moves from Christ’s death (15:3b), which was according to Scripture (15:3b), to his burial (15:4a), to his resurrection (15:4b), which was according to Scripture (15:4b), to his appearances to the list of witnesses (15:5–7 with the appearance to Paul added in v. 8). Peter’s speech on Pentecost in Acts 2 moves from Jesus’s death (2:23) to his resurrection and implied burial corresponding with Scripture (2:24–32a) to the declaration of witness testimony (2:32b). Likewise, Peter’s speech at Solomon’s Porch moves from Jesus’s death (3:13b–15a) to his resurrection (3:15b) to the declaration of witness testimony (3:15c), later followed by linking with Scripture (3:18, 22–25). The speech of the apostles in Acts 5 is different in that it moves from a statement of Jesus’s resurrection (5:30a) to a description of his death (5:30b) to a statement of his exaltation (5:31) to the declaration of witness testimony (5:32).1 Peter’s speech to Cornelius in Acts 10 is especially emphatic on the element of witness, as he moves from declaration of apostolic witness of Jesus’s ministry (10:39a) to describing Jesus’s death (10:39b) to his resurrection (10:40a) to declaration of witness testimony (10:40b–42) to fulfillment of Scripture (10:43). Finally, Paul’s own speech in Pisidian Antioch moves from referencing Jesus’s death in connection with Scripture (13:27–28) to an explicit burial (13:29) to his resurrection (13:30) to the declaration of witness testimony that implies a crowd larger than the Twelve, as in 1:1–3, 15 (13:31, omitting clear reference of Jesus’s appearance to Paul, unlike his defense speeches), which he then follows with further correspondence of Jesus’s resurrection with Scripture (13:32–37). We can summarize these different texts in the following chart:
As we can see, the structures of presentation are often not consistent. Sometimes fulfillment of Scripture is not only in one part of the relevant text. Sometimes such reference to Scripture follows after laying out the gospel events. Like most references to the fulfillment of Scripture in summary statements, the reference remains generalized (cf. Acts 3:24; 8:32–35; 10:43; 17:2–3, 11, 18; 18:28; 26:6–8, 22–23; 28:23; Rom 1:1–4), but it is noteworthy that Acts 2:22–36 and 13:27–37 show that even when specific Scriptures were cited, there were multiple ones and they were not a small, fixed collection used for whatever the situation. On one occasion, the resurrection is mentioned before Jesus’s death. In Peter’s proclamation to Cornelius, he invokes apostolic witness both for Jesus’s ministry and for his resurrection. In most cases, the burial is not referenced. Interestingly, the only proclamation in which the burial is explicitly referenced is Paul’s in Acts 13, though it is implied in Acts 2. Of all the Acts speeches, Acts 13, Paul’s speech, matches 1 Cor 15 most closely in both content and structure (even down to separate statements about the fulfillment of Scripture in relation to his death and resurrection), with Acts 2 being a not-so-distant second. We thus have independent attestation from 1 Cor 15, with its reference to a pre-Pauline tradition, to a consistent core of gospel proclamations separated by decades, but not to the degree that the structure of presentation was fixed or that there is a case of one text deliberately copying the other. The remarkable similarity between 1 Cor 15 and Acts 13 thus attests to this speech accurately reflecting how Paul proclaimed the gospel, even when his speech is not directly summarized.
Of course, most of these proclamations are more extensive than the texts most directly relevant to 1 Cor 15. The occasion for Acts 2 is explaining the speaking in tongues, which Peter first does by appealing to Joel 2:28–32 (2:14–21), followed by his brief summary of Jesus’s ministry (2:22), with the text following our relevant portion concerning Jesus’s exaltation (2:33–35), as well as the declaration of him as Lord and Messiah (2:36), and the promise of the reception of the Holy Spirit with repentance and baptism closes the speech (2:38–39). In Acts 3, the statement of Jesus’s exaltation actually precedes the reference to the crucifixion (3:13a), and the relevant text range includes the declaration that Jesus is the Messiah (3:20–21) as well as the promise of the forgiveness of sins with repentance (3:19–21). The shorter proclamation of Acts 5 also includes references to Jesus’s exaltation and to the forgiveness of sins with repentance (5:31). Peter’s speech to Cornelius in Acts 10 is notable for being like Acts 2 in explicitly referencing Jesus’s ministry (10:36–39), and it includes scattered references to Jesus’s exaltation through him being Messiah and Lord (10:36, 38, 42) as well as the promise of forgiveness of sins (10:43). The proclamation in Acts 13 has largely been covered, but there is also an element of Paul proclaiming the forgiveness of sins that should be noted as well (13:38–39).
When we look to 1 Cor 15, we will, of course, not see all of these elements assumed, though the presence of 1 Cor 11:23–25 may indicate that Paul passed on some stories of Jesus’s life, whether or not as part of his original proclamation. But the forgiveness of sins is assumed as something Paul has passed on to the Corinthians in 15:17 and it is probably implied in the description of Jesus’s death as well (cf. 6:11). He has also declared Jesus to them as Messiah and Lord, hence his frequent references to him as such, including in terms of being “in Christ” and “in the Lord” (15:18–19, 22, 31, 57–58; cf. 1:2, 4, 30; 3:1; 4:10, 15, 17; 5:4; 6:11; 7:22, 39; 9:1–2; 10:16; 11:11; 16:24). Indeed, the background of Paul having already proclaimed his exaltation underlies his teaching in vv. 20–28. The whole logical flow of this text follows the gospel progression, in which Jesus’s resurrection defeats death and precedes exaltation. Of course, this gospel pattern is expanded to include Christ’s people, in that the general resurrection must precede the consummate kingdom in which God will be all in all. While vv. 3b–7 (minus 6b) is obviously a summary of what Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians at first, there is thus reason from both Acts and 1 Cor 15 (as well as the letter in general) to think that it involved more than the elements listed. Sure, these matters may have been brought up later, but given how Acts shows how naturally they fit in gospel proclamation, even from the earliest time, there is no reason to think they were not involved then. Paul only refers to this much of the proclamation because of the point of resurrection in contention and the need to remind them of the apostolic witness that attests to Jesus’s resurrection so as to reinforce how untenable a position denial of the general resurrection—tied as it is to Jesus’s resurrection—would be (I have gone over such issues in more depth here).
Are the other gospel summaries in Paul’s letters consistent with what we see here both in terms of the summary and the extrapolated extra elements beyond what he explicitly references? As a matter of fact, they are on both counts. Another text in Paul that appears to be derived from a pre-Pauline tradition in Rom 1:1–4 shares the motifs of fulfillment of Scripture and resurrection, while leaving reference to his death implicit. The exaltation is invoked here both explicitly and implicitly by reference to him as God’s Son, Messiah, and Lord. Paul follows this with referring to his apostleship in 1:5, but the motif of witness is only left implied here in that notion of apostleship. Romans 10:9 provides an even shorter summary by reference to Jesus’s exaltation (by referring to him as Lord), to God raising him from the dead, and to our resultant salvation that comes from connecting with these realities through belief and confession. It is notable that these features appear in summaries in a letter later than 1 Corinthians to an audience who are already Christians that, generally, did not know him personally. As such (and since he is not referring to his earlier proclamation among them), he does not invoke the other apostolic witnesses, but he is otherwise appealing to elements that remain consistent in the gospel proclamation decades later than what he received.
There is not as much a straightforward summary in 2 Corinthians, but we see again and again appeal back to the gospel summary presented already. Paul once again defines the content of the gospel by reference to Jesus’s death and resurrection in 5:15, here made as an identity statement about Jesus (“the one who…”). The exaltation of Jesus is once again not directly stated, but it is implied in the context of this statement in the reference in 5:10 to the judgment seat of Christ, as well as in statements about Christ’s glory (3:18; 4:4, 6; 8:19, 23), and in the entire framework of the letter in statements collocating him with God the Father (1:2; 13:14). Finally, as this is the letter that most thoroughly explicates Paul’s teaching on the apostolic ministry, this letter also features several statements of how the apostolic ministry in particular (as well as the Christian life in general by implication) bears the pattern of the gospel narrative in suffering/death and resurrection (1:5–9; 4:10–12, 14; 5:15; 13:4), as well as exaltation (3:18; 4:17–18). That apostolic ministry is also defined in terms of being the ministry of reconciliation (5:18–21).
When we see Paul’s summary in Eph 1:19–23, we see a further accentuation on the exaltation by appeal to God’s power to raise the dead, by which he resurrected Christ and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. He says Christ was exalted far above every principality, authority, power, dominion, and name, and that this exaltation is permanent, lasting from now into the everlasting age to come. To put an even finer point on the exaltation, he says that all things have been placed under his feet, a statement which echoes both Ps 8:6 and 110:1, as in 1 Cor 15, and that he is the head of the body that is the Church (1:22–23). This summary serves to uphold the other dimension of the gospel that he brings out later in how this gospel pattern is the narrative pattern for Christ’s followers, who are made alive with Christ and are exalted with him (2:4–10).
Another gospel summary Paul provides in Philippians does not explicitly feature Jesus’s resurrection (as that is left for ch. 3 to be paired with one of the other major gospel events in different parts of the chapter). When he enjoins the Philippians to be humble by having the mind of Christ Jesus (2:5), he makes his point through an appeal to a gospel summary that refers to Christ’s humbling Incarnation for his death on the cross (2:6–8), which, after an implicit resurrection, is followed by God’s exalting him as Lord above all (2:9–11). Those who follow the narrative pattern of the gospel in humbling themselves with the mind of Christ will likewise follow the pattern of being exalted by God (2:12–16).
Colossians 1:15–20 may or may not be derived from a pre-Pauline composition, but it is consistent with what we have seen thus far, particularly in vv. 18–20. He first references the resurrection (as he is the firstborn from among the dead), then the exaltation that resulted from it (1:18), and then the death by which God made peace (1:19–20). In the text immediately following this, Paul accentuates how his audience has been the beneficiary of God’s reconciling action in Christ (1:21–23). Those who are “in him” go through the same narrative pattern, as signified in baptism and rising to walk in the newness of life (2:11–15), taking part in God’s victory over the powers achieved by the cross, and having the assurance that those who are raised with Christ will also appear with him in glory, thus partaking also of his exaltation (3:1–4).
The last summary in Paul’s letters appears in 2 Timothy, his farewell letter. He speaks of Jesus Christ raised from the dead and descended from David (thus evoking the fulfillment of Scripture in the gospel events, as in Rom 1:3) as his gospel (2:8). This fits with how he describes Christ Jesus as the one who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality through the gospel (1:10). Of course, as in Acts, reference to the resurrection tends to bring the other events in tow. Although such is not present in the summary in 2:8, the “trustworthy word” Paul uses in 2:11–13 brings in the other events in reference to the gospel pattern applied to the lives of believers, including dying with him, living with him, and reigning with him. In between, Paul’s testimony is also invoked, but more in terms of his endurance than of his witness of the resurrected Jesus, as such things will have been covered with Timothy already.
Finally, let us consider the other proclamations of Acts beyond chs. 2, 3, 5, 10, and 13. As these early proclamations are generally distinguished by invoking the witness motif, we do not see it elsewhere, except for with Paul’s defense (most explicitly in 26:16–18, though it is implied in ch. 22). Fulfillment of Scripture appears with both specific citations and general statements beyond these texts (4:11–12; 8:32–35; 17:2–3, 11; 18:28; 26:17–23; 28:23). In the setting of the Areopagus in Athens, Paul makes such an argument without direct appeal to Scripture, but with the same force of an eschatological paradigm shift that has happened with Jesus’s resurrection (17:30–31). In a few more cases, we see explicit reference to Jesus’s death both before and after Paul’s proclamation in ch. 13 (4:10–11; 17:3), including one that is primarily focused on it in Philip’s conversation with the Ethiopian eunuch in 8:32–35. Each of these cases also involves appealing to the fulfillment of Scripture in Jesus’s death. Even more summaries feature reference to the resurrection (3:26; 4:2, 10–11, 33; 17:2–3, 18, 30–32; 23:6; 24:21; 26:6–8, 23), including in fulfillment of Scripture (4:10–11; 17:2–3; 26:6–8, 23). Several more summaries declare Jesus’s exaltation by reference to him as Messiah (5:42; 8:5; 9:22; 17:3; 18:5, 28; 26:23; 28:31) and/or Lord (4:10–12, 33; 9:28; 11:20; 13:12; 17:6–7, 31; 28:31). Forgiveness of sins was also proclaimed along with the commands to repent and be baptized (8:15–16, 22, 35–38; 11:17–18; 13:38–39; 17:30–31; 26:20).
The patterns of gospel proclamation evident in 1 Cor 15, as well as other Pauline works, and Acts are not completely identical in either content or structure. Still, there is a remarkable degree of consistency amidst all of the variation and the expansions and contractions of the presentation. The earliest gospel proclamation cited by Paul comports with what we see in Acts, especially with the earliest one in Acts 2 and Paul’s earliest extensively summarized one in Acts 13. Thus, we have reason to think, beyond specific idiosyncrasies of certain texts like 1 Cor 15:3b–7, that when Paul tells us that he passed on to the Corinthians what he first received, and when Luke implicitly communicates to us that these are the sorts of statements the earliest proclaimers made, both were telling the truth.
The fulfillment of Scripture had been highlighted in the previous speech before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:11.