1Cor 15:20-23 - Making a Federal Case of It

20-23 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

Back to the context ... this is about resurrection and its essentiality to Christian faith through identification with Christ’s resurrection. It is important for all Christians to understand the doctrine of resurrection - not only for its theological content, but also to understand how it comes about for every believer. We believe that we were raised with Christ in the Spirit and that we are now unified with Him and that we already have eternal life, starting when we first believed.

But an important part of resurrection is the resurrection of the body. This is where Christ’s bodily condition now differs from ours. He has a resurrected body and we don’t. Looking at the outside alone - through the eyes of the flesh, you could never tell the difference between Christians and unbelievers in this regard. They all get sick, they age and they die.

It’s perfectly understandable that unbelief, overt or not, is bamboozled by this apparent homogeneity. Unbelief does not receive the truth about our race, that when Adam sinned then all of his (future) offspring sinned in him. Unbelief cannot assimilate the federal principle of responsibility in which a single person stands (or falls) as the representative of a whole group of people. Unbelief does not believe that it sinned in Adam and that we are all born already under the condemnation of God, having of ourselves not yet done anything either good or evil - and that this is because our forefather, Adam, sinned as the representative of us all ,and that the whole race was consigned unto death both spiritual and physical on account of his act.

But the Bible teaches this federal responsibility not to create despair, but to point to hope. For, as we all sinned and died in Adam, so all who are in Christ are made alive. Christ is the federal representative of His people, just as Adam was the representative of his. As all are born lost in Adam, so all who are reborn in Christ are reborn unto eternal life in Him - all those that the Father gave to the Son out of the mass of lost humanity.

You cannot have one without the other. We are all Adam’s children and we are all lost until regenerated by God through faith in the work of Jesus Christ. And this work is attested to as acceptable to the Father by Christ’s resurrection from the dead. It is the seal. It is the authentication. It is the amen of heaven to the declaration "paid in full" that Christ made from His cross.

Remember that the Corinthians are being told by some that there is no resurrection. Christ’s resurrection, which is believed by all who truly are His, is all the proof necessary for the child of God to be assured that he will one day follow his Lord in bodily resurrection and glorification. We are subjected in hope until that day, according to the definite plan of God from eternity. Our trust is in Him that these things will come to pass. It is a part of the testing of our faith - and we all understand that testing is for us, and not for God, Who already knows everything. But we, by trusting in what is not seen, but is promised by our faithful Saviour, are living as all God’s children lived from the earliest days - by faith, which both pleases and glorifies God.

Christ, then, is the firstfruits in the same sense as there must always be some grain or some particular fruit that ripens first, and is ready for harvest. We are not ready until our body dies in the providence of God or the Lord returns. Christ was ready first because, in the eternal perspective, and as a man, He is the very first Who was dead to sin and the very first to be raised in sinless, glorified perfection.

So we must die bodily just like everybody else. But our death has no sting, for though we die bodily, yet we live in the presence of God, and never die - for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What state this shall be we are not told in any detail. But we are told that He will descend from heaven with the shout of the archangel on the day of His coming and that the dead in Christ shall rise first. The only way we can be both dead and alive is if it is our bodies which die while our renewed spirit (new man) lives on until we receive a new body in the resurrection spoken of. This will be at the end of history as we know it.

Paul has reminded the Corinthians of a very important part of the gospel. It is a part that was under attack then, as now and many times since the Apostolic age. I’m not talking about those outside the church who disbelieve in the resurrection. Such people need evangelizing. I’m talking about those who have crept in unawares and seditiously attack the faith. Angels of light bringing subtle heresies. Such people need rebuking and rooting out.

There is an error called Pelagianism which denies original sin and its effects, despite what the Bible clearly teaches on the matter. This error gives birth to more error by putting man in charge of his own salvation and effectively turning him away from the humility of the cross, with its death and its resurrection. It destroys Biblical evangelism and makes means the effectuator of decisions, rather than the Holy Spirit, through the plain preaching of Christ.

It would be another 350 years before Pelagius actually showed up in history and gave a name to this heresy that was even then troubling some in Corinth. But Paul saw it for what it was right away, and did what a good under shepherd always does - he corrected it by retelling as often as necessary (and it is always necessary, whether as a preventative or as a restorative) the correct doctrine about the matter.