Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 15:22

"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." — 1 Corinthians 15:22 (ASV)

As in Adam . . .—Better, as in the Adam all die, so in the Christ will all be made alive. The first Adam and the second Adam here stand as the heads of Humanity. All that is fleshly in our nature is inherited from the Adam; in every true son of God it is dying daily, and will ultimately die altogether.

All that is spiritual in our nature we inherit from the Christ; it is immortal, is rising daily, will ultimately be raised with a spiritual and immortal body.

We must remember that the relationship of Christ to Humanity is not to be dated only from the Incarnation. Christ stood in the same federal relation to all who came before as He does to all who have come since. (See the same thought in 1 Corinthians 10:4, and in Christ’s own words, Before Abraham was, I am.)

The results of Christ’s death are co-extensive with the results of Adam’s fall—they extend to all people; but the individual responsibility rests with each person as to which they will cherish—that which they derive from Christ or that which they derive from Adam—the offence of Adam or the grace of Christ.

The best comment on this passage is, perhaps, the prayer in the Baptismal Office: “O merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in him.”

There seems to be this moral significance in these words of St. Paul, as well as the obvious argument that, as all people die physically, so all will be raised from the dead; as we have the evidence of death in the death of a person and of all people, so we have the evidence (and not the mere theoretical promise) of a resurrection in the resurrection of the Man Christ Jesus.