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Tag: adam

Our Imperishable Resurrection Body Raised in Glory and Power
1 Corinthians 15: CSB

Paul , in a first letter to the Corinthians, addresses the logic (Promethean though it be to some skeptics of the Gospel), and presents a body of evidence about the resurrection body.

Resurrection is Certain

The Apostle begins with Christ’s resurrection. Then Paul argues (logically to these wisdom-seeking Achaeans) to the nature of death and resurrection of the dead in general. The Apostle’s closing arguments of this logic-based epistle calls the question of the nature of our resurrection body.
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OUTLINE
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- The Fact of Christ’s Resurrection
  - 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
- Resurrection Essential to the Gospel (CSB)
- The Risen Christ, Faith’s Reality (NKJV)
And Now the News – Just the Facts
- The Resurrection of the Dead
  - 1 Corinthians 15:12-34 KJV
And Now the News – Resurrection of the Dead
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Our Look at the Resurrection Body on TalkofJESUS.com will also separate these topics more fully. 
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- Resurrection Essential to the Faith (CSB)
  - 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
  - Christ’s Resurrection Guarantees Ours
  - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
- The Risen Christ, Our Hope (NKJV)
  - 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
  - The Last Enemy Destroyed
  - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Death Put Under the Authority of God —Resurrection — in Order

..that God may be all in all.

A LOGICAL ARGUMENT — a COURT CASE — a testimony, a closing argument. Call the Apostle’s defense of the Gospel GOOD NEWS of the resurrection of the body what you will.

Paul concludes his letter with an authoritative approach to separating the heretical hopes of life and death (as our end) from the foundational NEW Testament of the glory of the resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus as the first-fruits of our GOOD NEWS!

The last enemy to be abolished is death.

1 Corinthians 15:26 CSB

IF the Resurrection Body Perishes
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Remember, Paul writes to defend Christ, who he has seen! 

And now the Apostle takes the stand opposing the prosecutorial case of the Promethean philosophers accusing the saints of Corinth of worshiping a 'dead Jesus.' 
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Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?

If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

1 Corinthians 15:29 ESV

Great question, right?

Rhetorical, certainly; but Paul may have been responding to an actual case and question presented to him by the leadership of the Corinthian church.

WHY REPENT, for Christ’s sake— if our Savior is now dead?

(Baptism, of course, is a public witness that you have permanently changed your lifestyle – fruit of your beliefs — having given up your former sins in order to follow the living Lord, Christ Jesus of the Cross.)

Paul then testifies(as I included previously) that he had been willing to die in Ephesus (which, of course, most the the Corinthians would have already heard the Apostle proclaim in person).

His prosecution of those who doubt the resurrection is direct:

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”

1 Corinthians 15:33 CSB

ARE SOME in Corinth deceiving the saints who have heard and proclaimed Paul’s Gospel?

No doubt.

And the Apostle gently reminds the faithful of how they remain ignorant concerning the gospel, after which he will answer some questions of their ignorance.

Come to your senses [lit. sober up] and stop sinning; for some people are ignorant about God.

I say this to your shame.

1 Corinthians 15:34

The Nature of the Resurrection Body

The example of Christ
- Christ died.
- After three days Christ rises from the grave.
- He appears for forty days to many, (as Paul has already witnessed) with a resurrection body
  - DIFFERENT from His incarnate body;
  - DIFFERENT than simply a spirit;
  - and actually different in appearance to several witnesses — JESUS had a resurrection body
  - and THEN ASCENDS into the clouds of HEAVEN!
Will OUR resurrection body be like HIS?

Paul assures those in Corinth who receive such questions

(as if WE must explain HOW God does such things).

But someone will ask,

“How are the dead raised?

What kind of body will they have when they come? ”

1 Corinthians 15:35 CSB
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'Would you rather be dead?' I might quickly reply to the Promethean prosecutor with the cunning to take CHRIST out of my personal witness.
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Paul responds:

You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

And as for what you sow — you are not sowing the body that will be, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. But God gives it a body as he wants, and to each of the seeds its own body.

1 Corinthians 15:37-38 CSB

A Perishable Body and our Resurrection Body

For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans,

another for animals,

another for birds,

and another for fish.

There are heavenly bodies

and earthly bodies,

but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind,

and the glory of the earthly is of another.

1 Corinthians 15:(39),40 ESV

Paul points to the sun and moon and stars all being different in nature, as well as distinct from each other.

What is sown is perishable

THEN the Apostle compares DEATH to the seed planted —
- It is sown in dishonor;
- It is sown in weakness;
- It is sown a natural body;
ζῳοποιέω – zōopoieō
- it is raised in glory.
- it is raised in power.
- it is raised a spiritual body.
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Then Paul proceeds logically from mortal death to the spiritual body, with a comparison of ADAM (the first man) to CHRIST (the first fruits from death).
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- If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
So it is written,
The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1 Corinthians 15:45 CSB

The Apostle refers to JESUS as ‘the last adam,’ in Greek: eschatos — a superlative for the last or extreme [adam] — Ἀδάμ.

THEN the Spirit adds through Paul:

πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν –

[became] a life-giving spirit.

CHRIST [the quintessential adam in the image of GOD — born, buried and risen in a resurrection body — ζῳοποιέω – zōopoieō [quicken (9x), give life (2x), make alive (1x)] pneuma [spirit].

Christ + the LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT

Paul THEN compares the adam from the dust of the earth to the second adam from heaven — HE IS the very perfect incarnate IMAGE of God the Father — Creator and Authority over all creation and creatures.

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.

1 Corinthians 15:49

ἰδού – Behold..
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ἰδού, a demonstrative particle (in Greek writings from Sophocles down) 
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Beloved saint of Christ, you have heard this before — hundreds of times in the preaching of the Gospel. And the apostle to the gentiles uses it here — ‘idou‘ or in English, behold.

Behold, G2400 a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Gospel of Matthew 1:23 KJV

And, behold, G2400 one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

Gospel of Matthew 19:16 KJV

And, behold, G2400 there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

Gospel of Matthew 28:2 KJV

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, G2400 Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Gospel of Matthew 28:9 –

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

(‘lo’ and ‘behold’ are the same Greek word drawing forth our attention)
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(Beloved saint, you know the rest — and Paul reminds of our hope in the Gospel and of our commission by Christ.)
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mystērion

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. Listen, I am telling you a mystery:

We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

1 Corinthians 15:50b-52a

Don’t we want that? CHANGED immediately? SLEEPERS AWAKE!

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality.

When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place:
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Paul quotes the Prophet Isaiah 
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He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

Isaiah 25:8 KJV

O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
1 Corinthians 15:55 KJV

a Closing Call for Repentance
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Surely Paul's letter will be received by all the saints of Corinth with thanksgiving and a renewed faith in the resurrection body because of Christ. 
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The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:56-57 KJV
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And the Apostle's plea to all saints in every time and each temporal place: 
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So then, dear brothers and sisters,

be firm.

Do not be moved!

Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:58 New English Translation

P.S.

As is his custom, Paul will close his epistle with some personal greetings and instructions [Chapter 16]

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel

God-willing, perhaps you and I should add our own personal applications of the Apostle’s great instructions to the church concerning issues of the resurrection body, death, resurrection, ascension and time of the last judgment and eternal life.

Talk of JESUS . com
May 29, 2025
And Now the News – Resurrection of the Dead
Paul first establishes the indisputable facts of the Resurrection of Christ supported by evidence.

And Now the News – Just the Facts

the Logic of Christ’s Resurrection

The FACTS established, now the Apostle to the Gentiles must convince believing Corinthians influenced by cultural ‘scientists of Promethean logic‘ about the truth of the nature of the resurrection of the dead.
- How can worshippers of myths — a myriad of made-up gods and goddesses — purport LOGIC as truth?
- How can we present the resurrection of the dead as truth rather than myth (upon which Greek religion tenuously stands)?
This is Paul’s cultural challenge — and ours.

Resurrection is Key to the Gospel

Even Jerusalem’s Sadducees denied the truth and evidence of the resurrection.

Certainly many Greek worshippers of pagan gods held philosophies allowing the evil of the body to coexistence with a soul (hopefully) worthy of heaven.

Paul had encountered such opposition in Athens just before he arrived in Corinth to preach.

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked...

Acts of the Apostles 17:32a

Note that this mocking at mention of the resurrection is similar to that in Jerusalem at the time many Jews received the Holy Spirit.

They believe these things, but hate them; and they also hate God.

WARRANTED CHRISTIAN BELIEF P.291

Is it not so? Hasn’t this hatred of God also been your experience simply at the mention of Jesus Christ?

Pagan ridicule of the resurrection provides false evidence to their Promethean proofs justifying the sins their flesh-indulged minds.

This was the challenge of the Apostle Paul in A.D. 55, as it is ours in this Common Era of indulgent inclusion.

IF Christ is risen..

Paul has established the indisputable facts of the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now he continues in his key logic of the gospel of resurrection of the body and spirit.

1 Corinthians 15: –

“.. this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

1 COR 15:11b BSB

: RESURRECTION IS: CERTAIN (15:1-34)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,

how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

1 Cor 15:12 ESV

Paul now addresses those believing doubters of the resurrection influenced by the surrounding pagan culture.

The Apostle follows a step-by-step logical argument:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

1 Cor 15:13 ESV

These logical Greek Corinthians hear the argument of the Pharisee (Saul of Tarsus) refuting the unbelieving Sadducees.

— AND Paul has just presented the FACTS and evidence that Christ was raised from the grave after His crucifixion.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

1 Cor 15:14 ESV

SO — You are a follower of The Way – a saint of your local church…

WHY THEN did we preach Christ to you and your fellow saints?

Is your faith in a myth just vanity?
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And Paul continues rhetorically challenging the veracity of his own preaching of the Christ and Jesus' resurrection from DEATH on a Roman cross in Judea.

The apostle of this gospel self-convicts in this alternative scenario concluding: 
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We are even found to be misrepresenting God,

because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

1 Cor 15:15 ESV

Heresy!

What is the Apostle’s proposition?

YOU — Corinthians — (and YOU, Common Era questioners) — must judge the TRUTH of the RESURRECTION of the dead based on the FACTS & EVIDENCE that the Lord Jesus Christ was the first man raised from death for your sins.
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Why do I make the bold point that this  would be HERESY? 

Other translations provide a more pointed translation of the Greek that may help us understand the seriousness of Paul's alternative false proposition. 
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εὑρισκόμεθα δὲ καὶ ψευδομάρτυρες

v.15a Moreover we are even found [in a legal sense] to be false witnesses [pseudomartys] of God..

[This would be false testimony against Almighty God, certainly punishable by death of the mortal body and punishment of their immortal soul.]

HERESY – αἵρεσις – hairesis

But the Corinthian saints know that Paul has NOT chosen himself over GOD [Theos].

The Apostle, however, continues down this logical path of its false-reasoning conclusion.

Now to the Apostle’s logical connection:

For if the dead are not raised,
not even Christ has been raised.
1 Cor 15:16 ESV
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(Paul has already opened his argument to the court of logic with Christ's resurrection.)
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Then those also who have fallen asleep [koimaō – a metaphor for death] in Christ have perished [ἀπόλλυμι – .apollymi].

1 Cor 15:18

The Perishing Promethean Heretics

Paul, in providing a clear choice to those who trust in the Way and Truth and Life of Christ, offers a clear logical choice.

The Apostle had opened his Epistle to the Corinthians clearly stating:

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing^G622,

but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I WILL DESTROY^G622 THE WISDOM OF THE WISE,

AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.”

1 Corinthians 1:18-19 LSB – Paul, citing Old Testament Scripture

“Where is the one who is wise?

Paul had rhetorically asked in the opening of this epistle [1 Cor 1:20].

νυνί – now, at this very moment

NOW Paul continues in the only logical conclusion: :

But now [at this very moment] is Christ risen from the dead
1 Corinthians 15:20a – KJV [def. Gk. νυνί]

The Apostle here is emphatic in his belief proclaimed in his closing.

“But in fact..,” “At this very moment..,” “And now..,

Christ hath risen out of the dead,” read just a few English translations of Paul’s logical Greek argument.

Then Paul proclaims the benefits of Christ’s resurrection applied to the death of those in Christ.

Christ’s resurrection + the firstfruits

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…

.. Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

1 Cor 15:20,23b ESV

Between Paul’s representation of the resurrection of Christ and resurrections of ‘those who belong to Christ’ — (faithful saints of the Church redeemed in Him) — the Apostle points back once more to original sin and the source of death replacing eternal life with God.

IN THE BEGINNING…

For as in Adam all die…

Paul proclaims:

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die,

even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 Cor 15:20-22 KJV

IN THE BEGINNING God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void…

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed… But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:

for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 1-2 KJV excerpts

IN ADAM… ALL DIE.

IN ABRAHAM & JACOB.. ALL DIE.

IN MOSES ALL DIE

and IN DAVID… ALL DIE!

in Christ all will be made alive.
For just as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ all will be made alive.
But each in his own order:
Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming,
those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end…

1 Corinthians 15:22-24a CSB
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Good NEWS of the Resurrection of the DEAD - To be continued... 
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May 19, 2025
Gardener, Shepherd and Hunter: 6 – Synopsis ACT 1
The Scenes

Once upon a time…
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An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place.
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We learned (with our eyes closed) that sometimes the only way for the blind to see beyond the ends of the infinite line of time is to listen to our Guide rather than than embrace the false vision of a fallen world.

Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
Genesis 2:15 NASB20

The Characters
- Narrator
- a Guide, who has led our Narrator through scenes so far near the beginning of time and engages us in conversation and thought about God’s word and character
- Cahyin – קַ֫יִן proper name, masculine Cain, Kain eldest son of Adam and Eve
  - a farmer (or a gardener)
- Abel – הֶבֶל Hebel, heh’-bel; , the son of Adam:—Abel.
  - a shepherd
- the LORD – יְהֹוָה Yᵊhōvâ
- Eve – חַוָּה khav-vaw’ Eve = “life” or “living”
  - (living with the grief of the death of her son Abel and the sin of her son Cain)
- the Serpent – נָחָשׁ naw-khawsh’, From נָחַשׁ nâchash, naw-khash’; a primitive root; properly, to hiss
  - the Hunter, cunning, constantly questioning God and known by many names
Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground.
Genesis 4;2b NASB20

Some takeaways from Act 1

He has sown the seeds of envy and will harvest the thistles of thanklessness.
Insight of the Guide about the Gardener, Cahyin

“Not only is this tragic death of their son Abel new to them,” my guide pointed out to me, “the impact of DEATH itself has just gripped Adam and Eve — two parents who the LORD had told many years before,

‘You shall surely die.’”
Genesis 2:17 וּמֵעֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמֽוּת׃

You open your eyes in a place of darkness. And darkness and deception are the place where the hunter hides.

If you look closely you will find the hunter wherever there is disobedience to God.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made.
Genesis 3:1a NASB20

Introducing the first adam:
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COMMENTARY: Adam did not create Eve. 
Some Bibles translate 'Adam' as 'man' because Scripture commonly uses the word to mean (literally) mankind (by contrast to creatures of God not in His image).
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Lexicon :: Strong’s H120 – ‘āḏām אָדָם

Then the man said,
“At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called ‘woman,’
Because she was taken out of man.”

Reintroducing ‘Eve’

Lexicon :: Strong’s H802 – ‘iššâ אִשָּׁה

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife H802; and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24 NASB20
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COMMENTARY: Note that WIFE and WOMAN are the same word: אִשָּׁה 'iššâ
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Once upon a time…

… there was a woman. She was wife of the man. They both sinned. And almost immediately their own children (even as grown men) also sinned.

It was only then that Eve would have wailed wantonly with tears of remorse.

For by their sin, she and her husband would first witness death — as the LORD God had warned — DEATH of their son by the blood-stained hands of the first son of the first adam who disobeyed God.

They had ALL been deceived by the constant, cunning questioning by the hissing hater of God.

Did God really say..?

To be continued..

God willing…
May 3, 2022