John Gill Commentary 1 Corinthians 15

Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel
The apostle here passes on, and proceeds to a new subject, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which some in this church denied; and which he undertakes to prove, establish, and defend; and in order to lead on to it, observes, that what he was about to declare, make known, or put them in mind of, was no other than the Gospel he had formerly preached to them, they had received, professed to stand in, and were saved by, unless their faith was in vain.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead he calls "the Gospel", that being a most important doctrine, and a fundamental article of it. The resurrection of Christ from the dead made a considerable part in the ministry of the apostles, to the grief of the Sadducees among the Jews, to the scorn of the Gentile philosophers, and to the faith, hope, and comfort of Christians: this is the sum and substance of the word of faith, or doctrine of the Gospel, upon which the whole depends; see (Romans 10:8Romans 10:9) and the resurrection of the saints is connected with it, and assured by it. This indeed is the Gospel, good news, glad tidings that the bodies of the saints shall be raised again, and made like to the glorious body of Christ; and being reunited to their souls, shall live with him to all eternity; and were this out of the Gospel, it would not be Gospel, or good news; it would be an idle story, faith would be a vain thing, and hoping and believing Christians of all the most miserable. Moreover, says the apostle, the Gospel I declare, is

which I preached unto you ;
meaning, when he first came among them, and which had been so very useful to them for conversion and consolation; and therefore if he himself, or an angel from heaven, was to preach any other doctrine, it was to be rejected; and hence, much less should the false teachers be regarded: yea, adds he, it is the doctrine

which also you have received ;
when first enlightened and converted, with all gladness and joyfulness, with all readiness and cheerfulness, in the love of it, and by a full assent to it; and therefore having had such an experience of it, should not now depart from it: nay, he further says,

and wherein ye stand ;
as he hoped they did, at least it was what they ought to have done, and doubtless was the case of the majority of them, and whose example it became the rest to follow.

By which also you are saved
It was the means of their salvation, and had been made the power of God unto salvation to them. Salvation is inseparably connected with true faith in Christ as a Saviour, and with a hearty belief of his resurrection from the dead, which is the earnest and pledge of the resurrection of the saints; and because of the certainty of it in the promise of God, through the obedience and death of Christ, and in the faith and hope of believers, which are sure and certain things, they are said to be saved already. To which the apostle puts in the following provisos and exceptions; the one is,

if you keep in memory what I preached to you ;
or rather, "if you hold fast, or retain"; that is, by faith, the doctrine preached to you, and received by you, particularly the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; for the salvation that is connected with it does not depend upon the strength of the memory, but upon the truth and steadfastness of faith: it is the man that perseveres in the faith and doctrine of Christ that shall be saved; and everyone that has truly believed in Christ, and cordially embraced his Gospel, shall hold on, and out to the end; though the faith of nominal believers may be overthrown by such men, as Hymenaeus and Philetus, who asserted, that the resurrection was past already; but so shall not the faith of real believers, because the foundation on which they are built stands sure, and the Lord has perfect knowledge of them, and will keep and save them. The other exception is,

unless you have believed in vain :
not that true faith can be in vain; for that is the faith of God's elect, the gift of his grace, the operation of his Spirit; Christ is the author and finisher of it, and will never suffer it to fail; it will certainly issue in everlasting salvation: but then as the word may be heard in vain, as it is by such who are compared to the wayside, and to the thorny and rocky ground; and as the Gospel of the grace of God may be received in vain; so a mere historical faith may be in vain; this a man may have, and not the grace of God, and so be nothing; with this he may believe for a while, and then drop it: and since each of these might possibly be the case of some in this church, the apostle puts in these exceptions, in order to awaken the attention of them all to this important doctrine he was reminding them of.

For I delivered unto you first of all
Not only in the first place as to order; but among the chief and principal things, as the words will bear to be rendered, this was insisted on in his ministry; this was one he after relates, even a crucified Christ, or the doctrine of his dying for the sins of his people; and which he mentions to lead on to his resurrection; which he meant to improve, and does improve, in a very strong manner, in favour of the resurrection of the saints. This doctrine of a crucified Saviour, which he at first determined only to make known among them, and did make known, was what he fully and faithfully delivered to them, as he had received it:

that which also I received ;
not from men, but from Christ; for from him he had the doctrines of the Gospel, as well as the ordinances of it; and he delivered nothing to be believed and practised, but what he had received, and which ought to be the practice and conduct of every Gospel minister; whatever they have received they should deliver, and nothing else: and especially the following important doctrine,

how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ;
that is, of the Old Testament, the writings of Moses, and the prophets, according to Scripture promises, Scripture types, and Scripture prophecies; particularly (Genesis 3:15) (Psalms 22:1–31) (Isaiah 53:1–12) (Daniel 9:24–27) which declare that his heel was to be bruised, that he should be brought to the dust of death, should pour out his soul unto death, and be stricken and cut off in a judicial way, and that for sins; not his own, but for the sins of his people, in order to atone for them, procure the pardon of them, take them away, make an end of them, and abolish them; all which he has done, as the Gospel declares, and the apostle affirms; and thereby was accomplished what Moses and the prophets did say should come to pass. Every promise, type, and prophecy recorded in the law, in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning his sufferings and death, had their fulfilment in him; nothing was more clearly prefigured and foretold, and nothing more punctually and fully answered.

And that he was buriedThat is, according to the Scriptures; for as he died and rose again according to the Scriptures, he wasburied according to them; which speak of his being in hell, in "sheol", in the grave, and of his making hisgrave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, (Psalms 16:10) (Isaiah 53:9) and which had theiraccomplishment through Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, who begged the body of Jesus, wrapped in linen, andlaid it in his own new tomb. And besides these Scripture prophecies of his burial, Jonah's being three daysand three nights in the whale's belly was a type of it, and according to which our Lord himself foretold it,(Matthew 12:40) . Now since this was prophesied of, and typified, and had its actual accomplishment, it wasvery proper for the apostle to take notice of it, both to confirm the certainty of Christ's death, and thetruth of his resurrection, which his death and burial are mentioned, in order to lead on to, and nextfollows:

and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures :that he should rise again from the dead was very plainly hinted or expressed in several prophecies whichspeak of the rising of his dead body, of its not being left in the grave so long as to see corruption; andwhich therefore could not be in it more than three days; and of his lifting up his head after he had drank ofthe brook by the way; of his ascension to heaven, and session at the right hand of God, which suppose hisresurrection, (Isaiah 26:19) (Psalms 16:10) (Psalms 68:18) (Psalms 110:1Psalms 110:7) .

And that he should rise again the third day, is not only suggested in (Hosea 6:2) but was prefigured by the deliveranceof Isaac on the third day after Abraham had given him up for dead, from which he received him, in a figureof Christ's resurrection; and by Jonah's deliverance out of the whale's belly, after he had been in it threedays.

The Jews take a particular notice of the third day as remarkable for many things they observe^F5 , as ``of the third day Abraham lift up his eyes, (Genesis 22:4) of the third day of thetribes, (Genesis 42:18) of the third day of the spies, (Joshua 2:16) of the third day of the giving ofthe law, (Exodus 19:16) of the third day of Jonah, (Jonah 1:17) of the third day of them that came out ofthe captivity, (Ezra 8:15) of the third day of the resurrection of the dead, as it is written, (Hosea 6:2) "after two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight".''

From which passage, it is clear, that they understood the prophecy in Hosea of the resurrection of the dead;and it is observable, that among the remarkable third days they take notice of, are the two instances ofIsaac's and Jonah's deliverances, which were Scripture types of Christ's resurrection.

From which observations they establish this as a maxim ^F6 , that:

``God does not leave the righteous in distress more than three days.''

That Christ did rise again from the dead, in pursuance of those prophecies and types, the apostleafterwards proves by an induction of particular instances of persons who were eyewitnesses of it.

FOOTNOTES:

• F5: Bereshit Rabba, sect. 56. fol. 49. 3.
• F6: Mattanot Cehunah in ib.

And that he was seen of Cephas
Or Simon Peter; for Cephas was a name given him by Christ, (John 1:42) . This was not another Cephas, one of the seventy disciples, as Clemens suggests ^F7, but the Apostle Peter himself, to whom it is certain the Lord appeared. Not that he was the first person by whom Christ was seen after his resurrection, for he first appeared to Mary Magdalene, (Mark 16:9) but the testimony of the women the apostle omits, and it seems as if Peter was the first of the men that saw Christ when risen, see (Luke 24:34) . Whether he was one of the disciples that went to Emmaus, to whom Christ joined himself, and entered into discourse with, is not certain; it should rather seem, that the appearance here referred to was when he was alone;

then of the twelve ;
though there were then but eleven of them, Judas being gone from them, and having destroyed himself; and at the first appearance of Christ to them, there were but ten present, Thomas being absent; and yet because their original number, when first chosen and called, were twelve, they still went by the same name; see (John 20:24) (Genesis 42:13) . The appearance or appearances here referred to are those in (John 20:19John 20:26) . The Vulgate Latin reads the "eleven"; and so the Claromontane exemplar.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: Apud Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 12.