Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 15:11
Therefore whether [it were] I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
11. Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed ] The word preach (derived from the Latin praedicare, to proclaim) has now acquired the conventional sense of discoursing publicly about religion. The word used by St Paul refers to the work of a herald, the formal proclamation of matters of importance by one who was commissioned to make it. The substantial identity of the message, by whomsoever it was at first delivered, is a matter of fact, as the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists plainly shew. “By his earnestness in saying this, the Apostle testifies to the immense value and importance of historical Christianity.” Robertson.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Therefore, whether it were I or they – I or the other apostles. It is comparatively immaterial by whom it was done. The establishment of the truth is the great matter; and the question by whom it is done is one of secondary importance.
So we preach – So we all preach. We all defend the same great doctrines; we all insist on the fact that the Lord Jesus died and rose; and this doctrine you all have believed. This doctrine is confirmed by all who preach; and this enters into the faith of all who believe. The design of Paul is to affirm that the doctrines which he here refers to were great, undeniable, and fundamental doctrines of Christianity; that they were proclaimed by all the ministers of the gospel, and believed by all Christians. They were, therefore, immensely important to all; and they must enter essentially into the hopes of all.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 15:11
Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
The truly important in preaching.
1. Not the preacher, but the truth preached.
2. Not the hearing, but the belief of the truth. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
An example of a faithful ministry and the conduct of a faithful people
I. A faithful ministry.
1. The gospel preached. Not scientific or philosophical discussions occupied St. Pauls ministry or that of his fellow apostles, but he proclaimed–
(1) Christs atoning death.
(2) Christs certified resurrection. These must be ever the themes of a true minister.
2. The character possessed.
(1) Humility breathes through the words, I am not worthy to be called an apostle. What true minister of God feels his worthiness to handle those sacred truths?
(2) Dependence on Divine grace. By the grace of God I am what I am, etc.
3. The work accomplished. I laboured more abundantly than they all. Follow the zealous work of St. Paul from Damascus to Rome. Labour for God must be earnest and abundant.
II. A faithful people. So ye believed. The death and resurrection of Christ preached in the spirit of humility, and the co-operation of the grace of God, the grace of God with me, should ever produce this result–faith. (Clerical World.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. Whether it were I or they] All the apostles of Christ agree in the same doctrines; we all preach one and the same thing; and, as we preached, so ye believed; having received from us the true apostolical faith, that Jesus died for our sins, and rose again for our justification; and that his resurrection is the pledge and proof of ours. Whoever teaches contrary to this does not preach the true apostolic doctrine.
Paul was the last of the primitive apostles. The primitive apostles were those who had seen Christ, and got their call to the apostolate immediately from himself. There were many apostles after this time, but they were all secondary; they had a Divine call, but it was internal, and never accompanied by any vision or external demonstration of that Christ who had been manifested in the flesh.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whether it were I or they; whether I or any other of the apostles preached amongst you.
So we preach, and so ye believed: this was one great point that we preached amongst you, that Christ was risen again from the dead. This we held forth to you as the object of your faith, this you received and closed with as the object of your faith; we did not only preach to you, that Christ died for our sins, but that he rose again for our justification. Neither was your faith objected only in Christ as one that was crucified and had died, but as one that was risen from the dead. Thus Peter preached, Act 2:31; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; and Stephen, Act 7:56; and Peter, Act 10:40; and Paul, Act 13:37; 17:3,31; and so all the apostles.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. whether it were I or they(theapostles) who “labored more abundantly” (1Co15:10) in preaching, such was the substance of our preaching,namely, the truths stated in 1Co 15:3;1Co 15:4.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore whether it were I or they,…. By whom Christ was seen first or last, we were all eyewitnesses of him; or whether I am the least, and others the chief of the apostles; or whether I have laboured more abundantly than they all, this matters not:
so we preach; we agree in our ministry to preach Christ, and him only, and with one heart and mouth assert, that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day:
and so ye believed; these several truths relating to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Thus the apostle, after he had made a digression upon his own character, as one of the witnesses of Christ’s resurrection, returns to the subject he set out upon in the beginning of the chapter, in order to lead on to the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which he proves by the resurrection of Christ, in the following verses. One of Stephen’s copies read, “so we believed”; and so the Ethiopic version seems to have read; see 2Co 4:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
So we preach, and so ye believed ( , ). This is what matters both for preacher and hearers. This is Paul’s gospel. Their conduct in response to his message was on record.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Ye believed [] . When the Gospel was first preached : with a suggestion of a subsequent wavering from the faith.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Therefore whether it were I or they,” (eite oun ego eite ekenoi) “Whether therefore I (labor) or those.” Paul turned from comparing himself with the other apostles in trial and exhausting labor in declaring the resurrection and gospel story.
2) “So we preach,” (houtos keroussomen) “Thus we proclaim or herald,” Paul closed his testamentary arguments of presenting apostolic witnesses of the resurrection by asserting that whether he or they preached the resurrection gospel, Corinth brethren believed.
3) “And so ye believed.” (kai houtos episteusate) “And thus you all trusted.” Whether they believed by Paul, Peter, Apollos, Christ, or other apostles’ preaching the resurrection gospel, they were still saved by God’s grace.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. Whether I or they Having compared himself with the other Apostles, he now associates himself with them, and them with him, in agreement as to their preaching. “I do not now speak of myself, but we have all taught so with one mouth, and still continue to teach so.” For the verb κηρύσσομεν (we preach) is in the present tense — intimating a continued act, or perseverance in teaching. (31) “If, then, it is otherwise, our apostleship is void: nay more — so ye believed: your religion, therefore, goes for nothing.”
(31) “ Perseuerance a enseigner ceste mesme chose;” — “Perseverance in teaching this same thing.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) Therefore whether . . .Better, Whether, therefore, it were I or they. Such (see 1Co. 15:3-4) was and is our teaching, such was your belief. It matters not from whom it came, whether from the greatest or least of the Apostles, the gospel was preached, and was accepted by you. These words thus recall the reader from the strong personal feeling shown in the preceding verse to the main argument.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. Therefore In view of this profession of faith.
Or they The other apostles.
So we preach Ours is a common and unanimous apostolic doctrine; including the resurrection of the dead. This is a very positive declaration of Paul that he and the other apostles preached one faith and dogma.
So ye believed As I have preached, so have ye believed, the one common catholic apostolic faith. The concealed object of this covered approach is revealed in the next paragraph.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Argument For The Resurrection (15:11-19).
‘Whether then it be I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.’
But let them recognise in the end that it matters little which Apostle they appeal to. All teach the same. All are at one in their doctrine. All proclaim this message he is declaring. And it is the message that the Corinthians themselves originally believed. Let them consider that.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Co 15:11 . ] takes up again the thread of the discourse which had been interrupted by 1Co 15:9-10 , as in 1Co 8:4 , but yet with reference to 1Co 15:9 f.
] i.e. the rest of the apostles, 1Co 15:7-9 f.
] so as was stated above, namely, that Christ is risen, 1Co 15:4 ff., and see 1Co 15:12 .
] and in this way , in consequence, namely, of this, that the resurrection of Jesus was proclaimed to you, ye have become believers ( . as in 1Co 15:2 ).
Observe, further, in , , the apologetic glance of apostolic self-assertion, which he turns upon those who questioned his rank as an apostle.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
Ver. 11. So we preach, and so ye believed ] A happy compliance, when the hearers’ affections and endeavours do answer the affections and endeavours of the preacher, as here, and at Ephesus, Act 20:31-37 ; when people deliver themselves up to the form of doctrine, and are cast into the mould of the word, Rom 6:17 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 .] He resumes the subject after the digression respecting himself: it matters not whether it were I or they (the other Apostles) SUCH is the purport of our preaching SUCH was your belief : , after this manner, viz. that Christ died, was buried, and rose again , as 1Co 15:3-4 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 15:11 breaks off the comparison between himself and the other App., into which Paul was being drawn, to sum up the statement of fact and evidence concerning Christ’s resurrection: “Whether then it were I (1Co 15:8 f.) or they (Kephas, the Twelve, the first disciples, James 5 ff.), so we proclaim (1Co 15:3 f.), and so you believed (1Co 15:2 )”. For , , giving alternatives indifferent from the point of view assumed, cf. 1Co 3:22 , 1Co 10:31 , etc. is emphatic: in the essential matters of 1Co 15:1-4 and the crucial point of the resurrection of Jesus, there is not the least variation in the authoritative testimony; Peter, James, Paul Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth are in perfect accord, preaching, believing, with one mind and one mouth, that the crucified Jesus rose from the dead. On , see note to 1Co 1:23 . This closes the case on the ground of testimony.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
1 Corinthians
THE UNITY OF APOSTOLIC TEACHING
1Co 15:11
Party spirit and faction were the curses of Greek civic life, and they had crept into at least one of the Greek churches-that in the luxurious and powerful city of Corinth. We know that there was a very considerable body of antagonists to Paul, who ranked themselves under the banner of Apollos or of Cephas i.e. Peter. Therefore, Paul, keenly conscious that he was speaking to some unfriendly critics, hastens in the context to remove the possible objection which might be made, that the Gospel which he preached was peculiar to himself, and proceeds to assert that the whole substance of what he had to say to men, was held with unbroken unanimity by the other apostles. ‘They’ means all of them ; and ‘so’ means the summary of the Gospel teaching in the preceding verses.
Now, Paul would not have ventured to make that assertion, in the face of men whom he knew to be eager to pick holes in anything that he said, unless he had been perfectly sure of his ground. There were broad differences between him and the others. But their partisans might squabble, as is often the case, and the men, whose partisans they were, be unanimous. There were differences of individual character, of temper, and of views about certain points of Christian truth. But there was an unbroken front of unanimity in regard to all that lies within the compass of that little word which covers so much ground-’ So we preach.’
Now, I wish to turn to that outstanding fact-which does not always attract the attention which it deserves-of the absolute identity of the message which all the apostles and primitive teachers delivered, and to seek to enforce some of the considerations and lessons which seem to me naturally to flow from it.
I. First, then, I ask you to think of the fact itself-the unbroken unanimity of the whole body of Apostolic teachers.
Now, what lies in it? The Person spoken of-the Christ, and all that that word involves of reference to the ancient and incomplete Revelation in the past, its shadows and types, its prophecies and ceremonies, its priesthood and its sacrifices; with all that it involves of reference to the ancient hopes on which a thousand generations had lived, and which either are baseless delusions, or are realised in Jesus-the Person whom all the Apostles proclaimed was One anointed from God as Prophet, Priest, and King; who had come into the world to fulfil all that the ancient system had shadowed by sacrifice, temple, and priest, and was the Monarch of Israel and of the world.
And not only were they absolutely unanimous in regard to the Person, but they were unbrokenly consentient in regard to the facts of His life, His death, and His Resurrection. But the proclamation of the external fact is no gospel. You must add the clause ‘for our sins,’ and then the record, which is a mere piece of history, with no more good news in it than the record of the death of any other martyr, hero, or saint, starts into being truly the good news for the world. The least part of a historical fact is the fact; the greatest part of it is the explanation of the fact, and the setting it in its place in regard to other facts, the exhibition of the principles which it expresses, and of the conclusions to which it leads. So the bare historical declaration of a death and a resurrection is transmuted into a gospel, by that which is the most important part of the Gospel, the explanation of the meaning of the fact-’He died for our sins.’
If redemption from sin through the death of a Person is the fundamental conception of the Gospel for the world, then it is clear that, for such a purpose, a divine nature in the Person is wanted. Your notion of what Christ came to do will determine your notion of who He is. If you only recognise that His work is to teach, or to show in exercise a fair human character, then you may rest content with the lower notion of His nature which sees in Him but the foremost of the sons of men. But if we grasp ‘died for our sins,’ then for such a task the incarnation of the Eternal Son of God is the absolute pre-requisite.
Still further, our text brings out the contents of this gospel as being the declaration of the Resurrection. On that I need not here and now dwell at any length. But these are the points, the Person, the two facts, death and resurrection, and the great meaning of the death-viz. the expiation for the world’s sins: these are the things on which the whole of the primitive teachers of the Apostolic Church had one voice and one message.
Now, I do not suppose that I need spend any time in showing to you how the extant records bear out, absolutely, this contention of the Apostle’s. I need only remind you how the opposition that was waged against him-and it was a very vigorous and a very bitter opposition-from a section of the Church, had no bearing at all upon the question of what he taught, but only upon the question of to whom it was to be taught. The only objection that the so-called Judaising party in the early Church had against Paul and his preaching, was not the Gospel that he declared, but his assertion that the Gentile nations might enter into the Church through faith in Jesus Christ, without passing through the gate of circumcision. Depend upon it, if there had been any, even the most microscopic, divergence on his part from the general, broad stream of Christian teaching, the sleepless, keen-eyed, unscrupulous enemies that dogged him all his days would have pounced upon it eagerly, and would never have ceased talking about it. But not one of them ever said a word of the sort, but allowed his teaching to pass, because it was the teaching of every one of the apostles.
If I had time, or if it were necessary, it would be easy to point you to the records that we have left of the Apostolic teaching, in order to confirm this unbroken unanimity. I do not need to spend time on that. Proof-texts are not worth so much as the fact that these doctrines are interwoven into the whole structure of the New Testament as a whole-just as they are into Paul’s letters. But I may gather one or two sayings, in which the substance of each writer’s teaching has been concentrated by himself. For instance, Peter speaks about being ‘redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot,’ and declares that ‘He Himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree.’ John comes in with his doxology: ‘Unto Him that loved us, and loosed us from our sins in His own blood’; and it is his pen that records how in the heavens there echoed ‘glory and honour and thanks and blessing, for ever and ever, to the Lamb that was slain, and has redeemed us unto God by His blood.’ The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, steeped as he is in ceremonial and sacrificial ideas, and having for his one purpose to work out the thought that Jesus Christ is all that the ancient ritual, sacerdotal and sacrificial system shadows and foretells, sums up his teaching in the statement that Christ having come, a high priest of good things to come, ‘through His own blood, entered in, once for all, into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.’
There were limits to the unanimity, as I have already said. Paul and Peter had a great quarrel about circumcision and related subjects. The Apostolic writings are wondrously diverse from one another. Peter is far less constructive and profound than Paul. Paul and Peter are both untouched with the mystic wisdom of the Apostle John. But, in regard to the facts that I have signalised, the divinity, the person of Jesus Christ, His death and Resurrection, and the significance to be attached to that death, they are absolutely one. The instruments in the orchestra are various, the tender flute, the ringing trumpet, and many another, but the note they strike is the same. ‘Whether it were I or they, so we preach.’
II. Now, let me ask you to consider the only explanation of this unanimity.
Now, just think what a huge-I was going to say-inconceivability that supposition is. For there is no point, say from the time at which the Apostle who wrote the words of my text, which was somewhere about the year 56 or 57 A.D.,-there is no point between that period, working backwards through the history of the Church to the Crucifixion, where you can insert such a tremendous revolution of teaching as this. There is no trace of such a change. Peter’s earliest speeches, as recorded in Acts, are in some important respects less developed doctrinally than are the epistles, but Christ’s Messiahship, death, and Resurrection, with which is connected the remission of sins, are as clearly and emphatically proclaimed as at any later time. So these points of the Apostolic testimony were preached from the first, and, if in preaching them, the witnesses perverted the simple teaching of the Carpenter of Nazareth, and ascribed to Him a character which He had not claimed, and to His death a power of which He had not dreamed, they did so at the very time when the impressions of His personality and teaching were most recent and strong. It seems to me, apart altogether from other considerations, that such a right-about-face movement on the part of the early teachers of Christianity, is an absolute impossibility, regard being had to the facts of the case, even if you make much allowance for possible errors in the record.
But I would make another remark. If misapprehension came in, if these men, in their unanimous declaration of Christ’s death as the Sacrifice for sin, were not fairly representing the conclusions inevitable from the facts of Christ’s life and death, and from His own words, is it not an odd thing that the same misapprehension affected them all? When people misconceive a teacher’s doctrine, they generally differ in the nature of their misconceptions, and split into sections and parties. But here you have to account for the fact that every man of them, with all their diversity of idiosyncrasy and character, tumbled into the same pit of error, and that there was not one of them left sane enough to protest. Does that seem to be a likely thing?
And what about the worth of the teacher’s teaching, that did not guard its receivers from such absolute misapprehension as that? If the whole Church unanimously mistook everything that Jesus Christ had said to them, and unwarrantably made out of Him what they did, on this hypothesis, I do not think that there is much left to honour or admire in a teacher, whose teaching was so ambiguous, as that it led all that received it into such an error as that into which, by the supposition, they fell.
No, brethren; they were one, because their Gospel was the only possible statement of the principles that underlay, and the conclusions that flowed from, the plain facts of the life and the teaching of Jesus Christ. I am not going to spend time in quoting His own words. I can only refer to one or two of them very succinctly. ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’ ‘My flesh is the bread which I will give for the life of the world.’ ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.’ ‘This is My body broken for you; take, eat, in remembrance of Me.’ ‘This is My blood, shed for many for the remission of sins; this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ What possible explanation, doing justice to these words, is there, except ‘Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures’ ? And how could men who had heard them with their own ears, and with their own eyes had seen Him risen from the dead and ascending into heaven, do otherwise than eagerly, enthusiastically, at the cost of all, and with unhesitating voice of unbroken unanimity, ‘so preach’ ?
I quite admit that in Christ’s teaching in the gospels you will not find the articulate drawing out into doctrinal statement of the principles that underlay, and the conclusions that flow from, the historical fact of Christ’s propitiatory death. I do not wonder at that, nor do I admit that it is any argument against the truth of the divine revelation which is made in these doctrinal statements, to allege that we find nothing corresponding to them in Jesus Christ’s own words. The silence is not as absolute as is alleged, as the quotations which I have made, and which might have been multiplied, do distinctly enough show. Even if it were more absolute than it is, the silence is by no means unintelligible. Christ had to offer the Sacrifice before the Sacrifice could be preached. He Himself warned His disciples against accepting His own words prior to the Cross, as the conclusive and ultimate revelation. ‘I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot carry them now.’ There was need that the Cross should be a fact before it was evolved into a doctrine. And so I venture to say that the unanimity of the preaching is only explicable on the ground of that preaching in both its parts-its assertion of Jesus’ Messiahship and of His propitiatory death-being the repetition on the housetop of the lessons which they had heard in the ear from Him.
III. Note, briefly, the lesson from this unanimity.
Let me say again, and in a word only, that the considerations that I have been trying to submit to you in this sermon, show us the limits within which the modern cry of ‘Back to the Christ of the Gospels,’ is right, and where it may be wrong. I believe that in former days, and to some extent in the present day, we evangelical teachers have too much sometimes talked rather about the doctrines than about the Person who is the doctrines. And if the cry of ‘Back to the Christ’ means, ‘Do not talk so much about the Atonement and Propitiation; talk about the Christ who atones,’ then, with all my heart, I say, ‘Amen!’ But put the Person in the foreground, the living-loving, the dying-loving, the risen-loving Christ, put Him in the foreground. But if it is implied, as I am afraid it is often implied, that the Christ of the Gospels is one and the Christ of the epistles is another, and that to go back to the Christ of the gospels means to drop ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures,’ and to retain only the non-miraculous, moral and religious teachings that are recorded in the three first gospels, then I say that it is fatal for the Church, and it is false to the facts, for the Christ of the epistles is the Christ of the gospels: the difference only being that in the one you have the facts, and in the other you have their meaning and their power.
So, lastly, let this text teach us what we ourselves have to do with this unanimous testimony. ‘So we preach, and so ye believed.’ Brother! Do you believe so ? That is to say, is your conception of the Gospel the mighty redemptive agency which is wrought by the Incarnate Son of God, who was crucified for our offences, and rose that we might live, and is glorified that we, too, may share His glory? Is that your Gospel? But do not be content with an intellectual grasp of the thing. ‘So ye believed’ means a great deal more than ‘I believe that Christ died for our sins.’ It means ‘I believe in the Christ who did die for my sins.’ You must cast yourself as a sinful man on Him; and, so casting, you will find that it is no vain story which is commended to us by all these august voices from the past, but you will have in your own experience the verification of the fact that He died for our sins, in your own consciousness of sins forgiven, and new love bestowed; and so may turn round to Paul, the leader of the chorus, and to all the apostolic band, and say to them, ‘Now I believe, not because of thy saying, but because I have seen Him, and myself heard Him.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
whether, or. App-118.
preach. App-121.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
11.] He resumes the subject after the digression respecting himself:-it matters not whether it were I or they (the other Apostles)-SUCH is the purport of our preaching-SUCH was your belief:-, after this manner, viz. that Christ died, was buried, and rose again, as 1Co 15:3-4.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 15:11. , we preach) all the apostles with one mouth.-, ye believed) Faith once received lays the foundation for subsequent faith: and its first firmness not only obliges [binds] those wavering, but also often retains them.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 15:11
1Co 15:11
Whether then it be I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.-He and the other apostles preached the same gospel of the resurrection and the Corinthians became Christians by accepting Christs resurrection as the fundamental truth of the gospel which they received.
[The resurrection of Christ was attested by a plurality of occasions, a plurality of witnesses, and a plurality of the senses. Hence the apostles gave their testimony to the world without a shadow of doubt upon their souls as to its truthfulness and encountered every form of persecution in its behalf with unfaltering confidence and the utmost composure. They were not credulous dupes blindly led by cunningly devised fables.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
1Co 15:3, 1Co 15:4, 1Co 2:2
Reciprocal: 1Co 3:10 – and another 1Co 15:2 – keep in memory Phi 1:18 – and I Col 1:6 – knew 2Ti 2:8 – raised
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL
So we preach, and so ye believed.
1Co 15:11
According to the context there seem to be two principal reasons why the Apostle speaks in this way of the death of the Redeemer. One is on account of the place which it occupies in the redemption of man. The other is on account of the place which it occupies in the revelation of truth.
I. The place it occupies in the redemption of man.What did the death of the Redeemer follow on the one hand? What followed it on the other?
(a) The answer to the first question is plain. The death of the Saviour followed the act of laying on Him the sins of the world. This is the uniform scriptural explanation of that otherwise astonishing fact.
(b) Hence, therefore, next, the exceeding importance of that which followed Christs death, viz. of course, as here set forth, His rising again. For not only was such a sequel to such an event a most remarkable thing in itselfremarkable as being a complete reversal of that which had previously happeneda movement in the exactly opposite direction, a passing back from death into life, a turning of darkness into light, such as never happened before; but it was still more striking, because, in the circumstances noted, it had such singular meaning and force.
II. Much the same is true when we consider, next, the place occupied by this same two-sided conflict with deaththis tasting of its full bitterness on the one hand, and this total annihilation of its utmost power on the otherin the message of God to mankind. We may consider that message to consist, practically, of two principal parts. Our Bibles recognise this in their familiar distinction between the Old Testament and the New. In the one we have a sketch of what God taught the world in the ages before Christ. In the other we have a sample of what He taught the Church in the age which followed Christs death. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets may be regarded as speaking to us in the one. The glorious company of the Apostles virtually teach us in the other.
(a) With regard to the earlier of the two witnesses in questionthe Old Testament portion of the message of God to mankindthe answer is given at once in these words of St. Paul to which we have already adverted: I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
(b) The same is true of the subsequent witness of the glorious company of the Apostles. Using that name in its widest sense, the New Testament is their work. By their hands, or by hands guided by them, they themselves being first taught by the Spirit of God, all its pages were written. What was their special office in doing so, according to their own account of the matter? The office of being witnesses of the fact of the Resurrectionafter first dying for sinof their Lord. So we find them recorded as doing.
III. The twofold truth, thus doubly set forth, is shown thereby to be our all in all in two principal ways.
(a) It is so, first, as being all, from a Christian point of view, which requires to be taught. Who can do more, be he who he may, than teach the essence of truth? And where else is the benefit, be it what it may, of attempting anything else? Give me the germ, you give me also the plant. Show me the north, you show all other quarters as well. Keep the heart, you keep the life too. Just so, to teach nothing but the Crucified Risen One is, in fact, to teach all.
(b) This summary of truth is all that requires to be held.Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in the Lamb that was slain, believe in Him risen again, believe in Him really and truly, and thou shalt be saved. This follows necessarily from the kind of salvation which is implied in this truth. For it is a salvation which in fact is effected for us by the experience of another. He was delivered, it is written, for our offences, and raised again for our justification. In that He died, it is written again, He died unto sin once; in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. There cannot, therefore, be a fuller work or a completer result. There cannot, consequently, be anything left for us except to rely upon both. The simplest trust in a perfect work is perfect, too, in its way, and on that very account.
Rev. W. Sunderland Lewis.
Illustration
Remember the power of Christs Resurrection. Take two instances almost at random: one early in the thirteenth century, the other late in the eighteenth. A certain rollicking youth in a little Italian town gives himself to Christ, and Francis of Assisi becomes Francis the great Gospel-preacher of his age; John Newton, the blaspheming, slave-dealing sea-captain, became the great evangelical preacher and hymn-writer. In each case the change was nothing short of a resurrection.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Co 15:11-12. Having given proper credit for the work done under God, the apostle settles down upon the argument that is indicated in the beginning of the chapter. He will proceed to show the inconsistency between the professed faith of the Corinthians in the bodily resurrection of Christ, and their denial of a like event for those who die in Him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 15:11. Whether then it be I or theyno matter who the preachers,so we preach (as said 1Co 15:3), and so ye believed.
Note.Observe here what the primitive apostolic Gospel consisted ofa connected series of historical facts, the story of Christs life in its main features: dying for our sins according to the Scriptures; His resurrection from the dead attested by a multitude of competent witnesses; His ascension and session at the right hand of God, as evinced by the promised descent of the Spirit at Pentecost which was to be the proof of it; and His final coming again to judge the quick and the dead, always held forth. In this historical sense our Lord Himself had used the word Gospel (Mar 14:9). But not as bare historical facts were these held forth. The truths which the facts embodied constituted their whole value, and theseas richly developed in the apostolic epistleswere imparted along with the facts, as the converts were able to receive them, as is plain from this very epistle.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 11. Therefore whether I, or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
The , so, expressly goes back on the , in what sense, of 1Co 15:2. The present , we preach, denotes a constant fact; the aorist , ye believed, a past fact done once for all, but without the idea of a spiritual decline, which Chrysostom found in this past. This declaration proves that it was matter of notoriety in the Church that the gospel of Peter and of the Twelve rested on the same foundation as that of Paul, on the facts of Christ’s death and resurrection regarded as having effected the salvation of the sinful world (for our sins, 1Co 15:3; and that according to the Scriptures, 1Co 15:3-4). The historical conception of primitive Christianity presented by Baur is incompatible with the fact attested by Paul.
This verse, while summing up the foregoing passage, forms the transition to the following section.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Whether then it be I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. [Paul recognizes the tardiness of his belief on the Lord and the lateness of his vision of him as an evidence of his unworthiness. Though this personal allusion appears on its face to be a digression from his argument, it really lends great force to it. There could be no higher honor known to men than to be chosen as a witness of the resurrection of Christ. For this reason it might be thought that Paul was zealous in establishing the truth of the resurrection because of the honors which he enjoyed as a witness to that truth. But he reminds them that the circumstances under which he saw the Lord so emphasized his own unworthiness (he being then on his way to persecute the Christians at Damascus) that the memory of the event wakened in him a sense of humiliation rather than exaltation. In fact, he would be exalted rather than dishonored by their unbelief, for he could claim no reverence as a witness when his testimony necessarily involved a confession of his crimes. But having confessed his crime and consequent inferiority, and knowing that this admission would be most strictly construed by those who disparaged him and contended that he was not an apostle, he rehabilitates himself by showing that his own littleness had been made big by the abounding grace of God, so that he had labored more abundantly than any of the apostles. Moreover, those to whom Peter or Apollos were more acceptable, would gain nothing by their partiality and discrimination in respect to this matter, for all who had preached Christ to them had been a unit in proclaiming the resurrection. Christ had never been preached otherwise than as a risen one. Again, this preaching had resulted in their believing, which was the point he did not wish them to lose sight of. Having committed themselves to belief, they did wrong in thus becoming champions of unbelief; i. e., unbelief in the resurrection. It should be observed that in proving the resurrection Paul cites witnesses (1) who were living; (2) who were many of them commonly known by name; (3) who were too familiar with the form, face, voice, manner, life, etc., of Jesus to be deceived by a pretender, if any could have found motive for practicing such a deception. Having shown their folly in abandoning without evidence that which they had believed on competent testimony, the apostle turns to show the consequences of their act.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 11
So we preach; so we testify, namely, that Jesus did actually arise from the dead.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Paul and the other apostles all believed and preached the same gospel. Paul did not proclaim a different message from what Peter, James, and the others did (cf. Gal 2:1-10). This commonly agreed on message is what the Corinthians had believed when those who had ministered in Corinth had preached to them. By denying the resurrection the Corinthians were following neither Apollos, nor Cephas, nor Christ. They were pursuing a theology of their own.
The point of this section of verses was to present the gospel message, including the account of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, as what many reliable eyewitnesses saw and all the apostles preached. Paul did this to stress that Jesus Christ’s resurrection, which most of the Corinthian Christians accepted, had objective reality, not to prove that He rose from the dead. Even though Paul had a different background from the other apostles, he heralded the same message they did. Consequently his original readers did not need to fear that what they had heard from him was some cultic perversion of the truth. It was the true gospel, and they should continue to believe it.