Wrong. Lit., companionships. Rev., company.

Manners (ἤθη)

Only here in the New Testament. Originally ἦθος means an accustomed seat or haunt; thence custom, usage; plural, manners, morals, character. The passage, "Evil company doth corrupt good manners," is an iambic line; either the repetition of a current proverb, or a citation of the same proverb from the poet Menander. Compare Aeschylus: "Alas for the ill-luck in mortals that brings this honest man into company with those who have less regard for religion. In every matter, indeed, nothing is worse than evil-fellowship" (ὁμιλίας) ("Seven against Thebes," 593-595).

Only here in the New Testament. It means to awake from a drunken stupor. Compare Joel 1:5, Sept. The kindred verb ἀνανήφω return to soberness (A.V. and Rev., recover), occurs at 2 Timothy 2:26.

Have not the knowledge (ἀγνωσίαν ἔχουσιν)

Lit., have an ignorance. Stronger than ἀγνοεῖν to be ignorant. They have and hold it. For the form of expression, see on have sorrow, John 16:29. The word for ignorance is found only here and 1 Peter 2:15 (see note).

Rev., correctly, with what manner of. There are two questions: the first as to the manner, the second as to the form in which resurrection is to take place. The answer to the first, How, etc., is, the body is raised through death (1 Corinthians 15:36); to the second, with what kind of a body, the answer, expanded throughout nearly the whole chapter, is, a spiritual body.

Body (σώματι)

Organism. The objection assumes that the risen man must exist in some kind of an organism; and as this cannot be the fleshly body which is corrupted and dissolved, resurrection is impossible. Σῶμα body is related to σάρξ flesh, as general to special; σῶμα denoting the material organism, not apart from any matter, but apart from any definite matter; and σάρξ the definite earthly, animal organism. See on Romans 6:6. The question is not, what will be the substance of the risen body, but what will be its organization (Wendt)?

Thou is emphatic. Every time thou sowest, thou sowest something which is quickened only through dying. Paul is not partial to metaphors from nature, and his references of this character are mostly to nature in connection with human labor. Dean Howson says: "We find more of this kind of illustration in the one short epistle of St. James than in all the writings of St. Paul" ("Metaphors of St. Paul." Compare Farrar's "Paul," i., 20, 21).

Die

Become corrupted. Applied to the seed in order to keep up the analogy with the body.

Or, more literally, that shall come to pass. Meeting the objector's assumption that either the raised body must be the same body, or that there could be no resurrection. Paul says: "What you sow is one body, and a different body arises;" yet the identity is preserved. Dissolution is not loss of identity. The full heads of wheat are different from the wheat-grain, yet both are wheat. Clement of Rome, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, arguing for the resurrection of the body, cites in illustration the fable of the phoenix, the Arabian bird, the only one of its kind, and which lives for a hundred years. When the time of its death draws near it builds itself a nest of frankincense, myrrh, and other spices, and entering it, dies. In the decay of its flesh a worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has acquired strength, it takes up the nest with the bones of its parent and bears them to Heliopolis in Egypt.

Bare (γυμνὸν)

Naked. The mere seed, without the later investiture of stalk and head.

It may chance (εἰ τύχοι)

Lit., if it happen to be: i.e., whatever grain you may chance to sow.

Lit., even as He willed; at the creation, when He fixed the different types of grain, so that each should permanently assume a form according to its distinctive type - a body of its own: that wheat should always be wheat, barley barley, etc. Compare Genesis 1:11, Genesis 1:12.

Still arguing that it is conceivable that the resurrection-body should be organized differently from the earthly body, and in a way which cannot be inferred from the shape of the earthly body. There is a great variety of organization among bodies which we know: it may fairly be inferred that there may be a new and different organization in those which we do not know. Flesh is the body of the earthly, living being, including the bodily form. See on Romans 7:5, sec. 3.

Not angels. For the meaning of σώματα bodies is not limited to animate beings (see 1 Corinthians 15:37, 1 Corinthians 15:38), and "the scoffers who refused to believe in the existence of the future body would hardly have admitted the existence of angelic bodies. To convince them on their own ground, the apostle appeals exclusively to what is seen" (Godet). The sense is, the heavenly bodies, described more specifically in 1 Corinthians 15:41.

Bodies terrestrial (σώματα ἐπίγεια)

Looking back to 1 Corinthians 15:39, and grouping men, beasts, birds, fishes under this term. It is to be observed that the apostle makes two general categories - terrestrial and celestial bodies, and shows the distinctions of organization subsisting between the members of each - men, beasts, fishes, birds, and the sun, moon, stars; and that he also shows the distinction between the two categories regarded as wholes. "The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is different."

Lustre; beauty of form and color.

"As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue

The one revolveth, through his course immense

Might love his fellow of the damask hue,

For like and difference."

" - the triple whirl

Of blue and red and argent worlds that mount

.....

Or float across the tube that Herschel sways,

Like pale-rose chaplets, or like sapp'hire mist,

Or hang or droop along the heavenly ways,

Like scarves of amethyst."

Jean Ingelow, "Honors."

continued...

Having argued that newness of organization is no argument against its possibility, Paul now shows that the substantial diversity of organism between the earthly and the new man is founded in a diversity of the whole nature in the state before and in the state after the resurrection. Earthly beings are distinguished from the risen as to duration, value, power, and a natural as distinguished from a spiritual body.

It is sown

Referring to the interment of the body, as is clear from 1 Corinthians 15:36, 1 Corinthians 15:37.

Compare Homer: "The feeble hands of the dead" ("Odyssey," v., 21); and the shade of Agamemnon stretching out his hands to Ulysses, "for no firm force or vigor was in him" (Id., xi., 393). See Isaiah 14:10.

See on 1 Corinthians 2:14. The word ψυχικόν natural occurs only twice outside this epistle; James 3:15; Jde 1:19. The expression natural body signifies an organism animated by a ψυχή soul (see on Romans 11:4); that phase of the immaterial principle in man which is more nearly allied to the σάρξ flesh, and which characterizes the man as a mortal creature; while πνεῦμα spirit is that phase which looks Godward, and characterizes him as related to God. "It is a brief designation for the whole compass of the non-corporeal side of the earthly man" (Wendt). "In the earthly body the ψυχή soul, not the πνεῦμα spirit is that which conditions its constitution and its qualities, so that it is framed as the organ of the ψυχή. In the resurrection-body the πνεῦμα spirit, for whose life-activity it is the adequate organ, conditions its nature" (Meyer). Compare Plato: "The soul has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing; when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and is the ruler of the universe; while the imperfect soul loses her feathers, and drooping in her flight, at last settles on the solid ground - there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, not having seen nor surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal creature having a body, and having also a soul which are united throughout all time" ("Phaedrus," 246).

Spiritual body (σώμα πνευματικόν)

A body in which a divine πνεῦμα spirit supersedes the ψυχή soul, so that the resurrection-body is the fitting organ for its indwelling and work, and so is properly characterized as a spiritual body.

"When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh

Is reassumed, then shall our persons be

More pleasing by their being all complete;

For will increase whate'er bestows on us

Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme,

Light which enables us to look on Him;

Therefore the vision must perforce increase,

Increase the ardor which from that is kindled,

Increase the radiance from which this proceeds.

But even as a coal that sends forth flame,

continued...

See Genesis 2:7. Here ψυχή passes into its personal sense - an individual personality (see Romans 11:4), yet retaining the emphatic reference to the ψυχή as the distinctive principle of that individuality in contrast with the πνεῦμα spirit following. Hence this fact illustrates the general statement there is a natural body: such was Adam's, the receptacle and organ of the ψυχή soul.

Last Adam

Christ. Put over against Adam because of the peculiar relation in which both stand to the race: Adam as the physical, Christ as the spiritual head. Adam the head of the race in its sin, Christ in its redemption. Compare Romans 5:14.

Quickening spirit (πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν)

Rev., life-giving. Not merely living, but imparting life. Compare John 1:4; John 3:36; John 5:26, John 5:40; John 6:33, John 6:35; John 10:10; John 11:25; John 14:6. The period at which Christ became a quickening Spirit is the resurrection, after which His body began to take on the characteristics of a spiritual body. See Romans 6:4; 1 Peter 1:21.

A general principle, illustrated everywhere in human history, that the lower life precedes the higher.

Only in this chapter. The kindred noun χοῦς dust appears Mark 6:11; Revelation 18:19. From χέω to pour; hence of earth thrown down or heaped up: loose earth. Compare Genesis 2:7, Sept., where the word is used.

From heaven (ἐζ οὐρανοῦ)

Ἑξ out of, marking the origin, as ἐκ γῆς out of the earth. Meyer acutely remarks that "no predicate in this second clause corresponds to the earthy of the first half of the verse, because the material of the glorified body of Christ transcends alike conception and expression." The phrase includes both the divine origin and the heavenly nature; and its reference, determined by the line of the whole argument, is to the glorified body of Christ - the Lord who shall descend from heaven in His glorified body. See Philippians 3:20, Philippians 3:21.

The great weight of authority is in favor of φορέσωμεν let us bear. This reading presents a similar difficulty to that of let us have in Romans 5:1 (see note). The context and the general drift of the argument are certainly against it. The perceptive or hortative subjunctive is, as Ellicott remarks, singularly out of place and unlooked for. It may possibly be a case of itacism, i.e., the confusing of one vowel with another in pronunciation leading to a loose mode of orthography.

Not, there is not one of us now living who shall die before the Lord's coming, but, we shall not all die. There will be some of us Christians living when the Lord comes, but we shall be changed. The other rendering would commit the apostle to the extent of believing that not one Christian would die before the coming of Christ.

Only here in the New Testament. Atomos, from ἀ not and τέμνω to cut, whence our atom. An undivided point of time. The same idea of indivisibility appears in ἀκαρής (not in the New Testament), from ἀ not and κείρω to shear; primarily of hair too short to be cut, and often used in classical Greek of time, as in the phrase ἐν ἀκαρεῖ χρονοῦ in a moment of time.

Twinkling (ῥιπῇ)

Only here in the New Testament. Originally the swing or force with which a thing is thrown; a stroke or beat. Used in the classics of the rush of a storm, the flapping of wings; the buzz of a gnat; the quivering of a harpstring; the twinkling of the stars. Generally of any rapid movement, as of the feet in running, or the quick darting of a fish.

As if pointing to his own body. Compare these hands, Acts 20:34; this tabernacle, 2 Corinthians 5:1.

Put on (ἐνδύσασθαι)

The metaphor of clothing. Compare 2 Corinthians 5:2-4. Incorruption and immortality are to invest the spiritually-embodied personality like a garment.

From Isaiah 25:8. The quotation agrees with the Hebrew: He shall swallow up death forever, rather than with the Septuagint, Death has prevailed and swallowed men up, which reverses the meaning of the Hebrew. Compare 2 Corinthians 5:4.

In victory (εἰς νῖκος)

Lit., unto victory, so that victory is to be established.

From Hosea 13:14, a free version of the Sept.: "Where is thy penalty, O Death? Where thy sting, O Hades? Heb.: Where are thy plagues, O Death? Where thy pestilence, O Sheol?

O grave (ἅδη)

Which is the reading of the Septuagint. The correct reading is θάνατε O death. So Rev. Hades does not occur in Paul's writings. In Romans 10:7 he uses abyss. Edwards thinks that this is intentional, and suggests that Paul, writing to Greeks, may have shunned the ill-omened name which people dreaded to utter. So Plato: "People in general use the word (Pluto) as a euphemism for Hades, which their fears lead them to derive erroneously from ἀειδής the invisible" ("Cratylus," 403).

Sting (κέντρον)

In the Septuagint for the Hebrew pestilence. See on Revelation 9:9. The image is that of a beast with a sting; not death with a goad, driving men.

The present participle marking the certainty of the future victory. Contrast Sir Walter Raleigh's words in concluding his "History of the World." "It is therefore Death alone that can make any man suddenly know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar - a naked beggar - which hath interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness; and they acknowledge it.

"O eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man; and covered it all over with these two narrow words: Hic Jacet."

The former refers to their firm establishment in the faith; the latter to that establishment as related to assault from temptation or persecution. Fixedness is a condition of abounding in work. All activity has its center in rest.

Peculiar to the New Testament, and occurring only here and 1 Corinthians 16:2. The classical word is συλλόγη, Vulg., collecta, which latter is also used of the assemblies in which the collections took place. From λέγω to collect. For such material ministries Paul uses a variety of words; as χάρις bounty, 1 Corinthians 16:3; κοινωνία contribution, Romans 15:26; εὐλογία. blessing, 2 Corinthians 9:5; λειτουπγία ministration, 2 Corinthians 9:12; ἐλεημοσύναι alms, Acts 24:17. The word ἔρανος was used by the Greeks to denote a feast of contribution or picnic; a club for mutual relief, and a contribution, made as a club-subscription, or for the support of the poor.

The saints

At Jerusalem. Evidently the community of property (Acts 2:44) had been abandoned; and Augustine supposes that the poverty of the Jerusalem Christians was due to that practice. See note on Romans 15:26. The precise causes of the destitution in that church can be only conjectured.

Κατὰ has a distributive force, every first day. For week, lit., Sabbath, see on Acts 20:7.

Lay by him in store (παῤ ἑαυτῷ τιθέτω θησαυρίζων)

Lit., put by himself treasuring. Put by at home.

As God hath prospered (ὅ τι ἂν εὐοδῶται)

Lit., whatsoever he may prosper in. See on Romans 1:10; see on 3 John 1:2; and see on Acts 11:29 for the verb εὐπορέω in the similar sense of making a prosperous journey.

No gatherings, etc.

Rev., collections. The amount would be greater through systematic weekly saving than through collections made once for all on his arrival.

When I am come (ὅταν ἔλθω τότε)

Lit., then whenever I may have come. The indefinite whenever and the emphatic then indicate his unwillingness to rely upon a special contribution called forth by his arrival at any uncertain time. Christian beneficence is to be the outcome of a settled principle, not of an occasional impulse.

So A.V. and Rev. Others, however, connect by letters with will I send, making the letters to be Paul's introduction to the church at Jerusalem. The latter is preferable. The givers are to choose the bearers of the collection; Paul, as the originator and apostolic steward of the collection, will send the money.

Lit., if it be worthy of my going, i.e., if the gift be sufficiently large to warrant an apostolic journey to Jerusalem. This is better than if it be becoming.