(avg. read time: 4–7 mins.)
Of course, the first, foremost, and most obvious foundation of Paul’s theology of resurrection is Jesus’s own resurrection. As noted previously, this is the most distinctively Christian element of his resurrection belief that he had to maintain in the face of different kinds of opposition. But it is not merely an add-on feature, as if Paul’s resurrection theology was practically the same as when he was a Pharisee, but he also happened to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Rather, Jesus’s resurrection reshapes the whole of his resurrection theology. It is Jesus’s resurrection that was at the center of his worldview transformation, and it is this event that is at the center of the worldview he seeks to incorporate others into. It is the resurrection of the crucified Lord that is at the center of the gospel that Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians, and which his fellow apostles also proclaim (1 Cor 15:3–11; cf. 4:6–21). It is in relation to the resurrected crucified Lord that the community of Christians is constituted.
But it is not only the belief that the Messiah has been resurrected that set Paul and early Christian resurrection theology apart. It is also the fact that the Messiah’s resurrection is presented as the foundation of our own, particularly in 1 Cor 15 (vv. 3–23, 44b–49). As Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15, so is he described as the firstborn from the dead in Col 1:18, which is tied with his exaltation as well. Our salvation is built not on one thing happening to Jesus and something completely different happening to us; rather, his resurrection has a purpose in achieving our salvation by bringing about our own resurrection to everlasting life, thereby sharing in his divine life. This is the ultimate outcome of making the gospel story our story (as I noted in my exposition on Phil 3:8–12). This is also what Paul presents in 2 Cor 5:14–15 in that Christ died for all, therefore they have died so that those who live might live for him who died and was raised for them (cf. Rom 14:7–9; 2 Tim 2:8–13). That is, Paul calls upon his audience to embody the gospel of Christ by walking in the newness of life after dying with Christ. Jesus’s resurrection is also linked with our justification (Rom 4:25) and with the expectation that the dead saints will accompany him at his Second Coming (1 Thess 4:14).
It is also notable that when Paul arrives at his resurrection teaching in ch. 15, he thereby envelops the entire letter by building once more on the foundation of the gospel he had already laid among them. After all, ch. 15 (addressing the Corinthians’ errors concerning the message of resurrection) reflects a similar problem and tactic of address as 1:18–2:16 (addressing the Corinthians’ errors concerning the message of the cross). Deviating from both aspects of the gospel has sown discord and produced a factionalism that perpetuates the same. In both cases, to act in denial of the gospel is to deny the word and power of God. Likewise, this structural unity illustrates something of the relationship between the cross and the resurrection. For he clearly proclaimed Jesus’s resurrection to the Corinthians (15:1–4), but he says in 2:2 that he determined not to know anything among the Corinthians except “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The word of the cross is also the word of the resurrection, for they proclaim the same Christ.
Beyond this, the resurrection teaching also brings to fruition the “body” language that Paul has used throughout the letter. Here, it operates on the level of referring to the human body, a synecdoche representing the whole human by particular reference to corporeal, visible, tangible, relational (including ethical), and unifying characteristics. But it also resonates with the unifying characteristics we have seen of the body language elsewhere in the letter (cf. 6:12–20; 7:4, 34; 9:27; 10:16–17; 11:24–34; 12; 13:3). In fact, as Paul illustrates especially in ch. 12, it is precisely the body’s unifying characteristics—both of its different external parts, such as hands and feet, and its internal aspects, such as “mind” and “heart”—that make it a fitting synecdoche for the whole person from a particular angle, as well as a fitting source for “body” language at the corporate level. As such, it is fitting that we who are called the “body of Christ” should share in the fate of the literal body of Christ.
Indeed, as I have illustrated in my forthcoming article, and in my dissertation, the notion of union with and in Christ is another theme present throughout the letter that Paul brings to fruition here (vv. 12–23, 42–49; cf. 1:10–15; 3; 5–6; 8:7–13; 9:19–27; 10:14–33; 11–14). If believers are in this union, it follows that they will share in Christ’s resurrection fate. If this is the telos of the Christian life, all else in Paul’s ethical instruction follows, per 15:29–34 and 58. Likewise, this teaching provides the underlining for Paul’s exhortation to union in worship in the previous chapters, since it is this gospel of which Jesus’s resurrection—and their implied resurrection—is an essential aspect that defines their community as the community of Christ and, indeed, the body of Christ. The other foundations of hope rely on a mix of appeals to the past and the future, but this one most pointedly unites those appeals to portray resurrection as the goal of the reality in which Christians presently live by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s resurrection provides the warrant for the description of Christians being “in Christ” (otherwise, there would be no “Christ” to be “in”), and the reality of being “in Christ” in turn warrants the expectation of sharing in Christ’s resurrection and reception of the kingdom. This participatory reality is also what provides substance to the consequentiality of the Adam-Christ contrast and to the act of baptism as truly signifying this union. The fact that it is the Spirit who forges this union is also consequential for the nature of the coming resurrection, as believers will, like Christ, have bodies that “belong to the Spirit.” These bodies, being the result of resurrection for the dead and transformation for the living, will perfectly demonstrate that believers are in this participatory union by showing that they participate in God’s victory in Christ over death.
There are multiple other cases where Paul links Jesus’s resurrection with the present union with Christ as the latter’s telos. He indicates such in his teaching on baptism in Rom 6:1–11, wherein the believers’ new life when they are raised out of the water is shaped by Christ’s resurrection life, just as his death and burial is what believers participate in via baptism (cf. Col 2:11–15; 3:1–4). Paul emphasizes the indwelling presence of the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead as the one who unites believers with Jesus and guarantees that they will also share in his resurrection (Rom 8:9–11). Likewise, he says that Christ died and arose to make us his own in Rom 14:7–9 (cf. 2 Cor 5:14–15). Paul states that the purpose of his life is to know Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the participation in his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, so that he may thereby attain the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:10–12).
Finally, Jesus’s resurrection shapes the course of history and our perception of the same for multiple reasons. One is that it happened to the one who is the new progenitor of humanity, the Last Adam. Another is that it involves the one who is also on the Creator side of the Creator/creature distinction. He is the one who is thus able to shape history according to his story and to give his eternal, divine life to others through immortalizing them in salvific resurrection and transformation. In these ways he is not only the prototype of the new creation by being the Last Adam; he is also the one through whom the new creation will come to be, as he has been with the original creation (1 Cor 8:6). Furthermore, the event has such a formative influence because it is an eschatological event that has already happened, which is ultimately what gives Christianity its “now and not yet” eschatology. And because the one who rose in this event is the Lord, he has in this way been revealed as the gravitational center of the rest of the eschaton. Everything else that happens in the eschatological schema revolves around and is shaped around the Risen Lord.