Lessons #579 and 580

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +

+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +

+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +

+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +

+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +

+ NAB=New American Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +

+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +

+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +

+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +

+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +

+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +

+ 4. Text is based on 1984 edition of the NIV +

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mystery of end revealed (1 Cor 15:51-57)

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵²in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”⁵⁵“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me refresh your mind that the general message of this section of 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 that we have been considering is that Not everyone will experience physical death, but everyone will undergo a bodily transformation necessary for existence in the eternal state. Our last study focused on verses 53 and 54. In verse 53, Apostle Paul provided an explanation for the necessity of bodily transformation of those who died or alive when the second coming takes place. As we stated in our last study, the apostle, having explained the necessity for bodily transformation, proceeded to relate its relevance to the fulfillment of the Scripture. In effect, the apostle indicates that bodily transformation will define the time of the fulfillment of the Scriptures that he cited. We then considered the first quotation in verse 54 “Death has been swallowed up in victory” that is from Prophet Isaiah’s writing (Isaiah 25:8) and so we continue in today’s study with the second quotation of the apostle.

The second quotation of the apostle of the Scripture that would be fulfilled at the time of bodily transformation is given in 1 Corinthians 15:55“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”. There is a manuscript variation in this verse in that in the first question instead of the Greek word that means “victory” the Greek word “sting” is used as reflected in the KJV. Similarly, in the second question, instead of the word “death” the word “Hades” is used as also reflected in the KJV. The authorities have determined that the reading reflected in the NIV and in nearly all our English versions is the correct reading of what Apostle Paul wrote. The difference in reading of the manuscripts is due to the fact that there is a difference in the reading of the Septuagint from the Hebrew text the apostle quoted. He quoted from Hosea 13:14:

“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? “I will have no compassion,

Hosea 13:14 as we have it in the NIV is translated from the Masoretic Text that is the basis for our English versions. There is difficulty of how to translate the verse into the English. Two approaches have been adopted in translating the first two Hebrew lines from the Masoretic Text. A first approach is to consider the Hebrew sentences as positive assertions as indicated, for example, in the NIV. A second approach is to consider them as questions as reflected, for example, in the NASB that reads Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? Our English versions are evenly divided in their approach to the translation of the first two sentences of the Hebrew text. Our concern in this study is with the portion of the verse that the apostle quoted, that is, the next two Hebrew lines. Even that is problematic.

Majority of our English versions translate the next two Hebrew lines as questions as we find in the NIV Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? However, a handful of English versions take the two Hebrew lines as commands or summons to do something. This approach is reflected in the translation of the NET, the CEV, and the TEV among others. The TEV reads Bring on your plagues, death! Bring on your destruction, world of the dead! The two approaches lead to two different interpretations of what Prophet Hosea taught. A first interpretation is that the two Hebrew lines are concerned with the Yahweh’s announcement of the triumphant victory over death through resurrection. A second interpretation is that the two Hebrew lines or sentences under consideration refer to God summoning agents of destruction to bring death to Israel in the sense of demise and exile of the nation. This interpretation makes more sense in the context of God’s pending judgment on His people, and it is probably what the prophet meant since such interpretation is supported by what Yahweh says next in Hosea 13:14 I will have no compassion. Nonetheless, we adopt the translation that involves question format since that is how Apostle Paul used it in our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:55. The apostle’s quotation of the passage from Hosea is probably a case of what is known technically as Sensus Plenior (fuller sense). This term is defined as “that additional deeper meaning, intended by God but not clearly intended by the human author, which is seen to exist in the words of a biblical text (or group of texts, or even a whole book) when they are studied in the light of further revelation or development in the understanding of revelation.”^¹ An example of this is in Hosea 11:1:

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

This verse refers to Israel’s exodus from Egypt, but Matthew under the Holy Spirit applied it to Jesus’ coming out of Egypt where the parents fled to avoid Herod’s rage as we read in Matthew 2:14–15:

¹⁴So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Be that as it may, the apostle when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:55“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” either quoted from a version of the Septuagint that is not available to us or he was guided by the Holy Spirit to provide a different interpretation to the text available to him. We say this because a translation of the Hosea 13:14 from the Septuagint reads:

From the hand of Hades I will rescue, and from death I will ransom them. Where is your penalty, O death? Where is your sting, O Hades? Comfort is hidden away from my eyes.

The Septuagint differs from the quotation of the apostle because of two words used in the Septuagint that are not reflected in the quotation of the apostle. The first is the word “penalty” in the translation of the Septuagint that is translated from a Greek word (dikē) that may mean “punishment” as it used to describe God’s eternal punishment for which, what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah typifies as we read in Jude 7:

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

The word may mean “Justice” as personification of deity or a goddess who personifies justice in seeking out and punishing the guilty; for that was the sense the Islanders of Malta used the word to interpret the fact that a snake coiled around Apostle Paul’s arm after he had survived shipwreck as we read in Acts 28:4:

When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”

The Greek word in question does not have the meaning of “victory” used in Apostle Paul’s quotation in 1 Corinthians 15:55. The word “victory” the apostle used is translated from a Greek word (nikos) that means “victory,” that is, “a successful ending of struggle.” This notwithstanding, it is likely that the Holy Spirit enabled the apostle to interpret the word “penalty” used in the Septuagint of Hosea 13:14 in such a way so he could use the word “victory” instead of “penalty.” This we can understand because death is the penalty for sin. Thus, there is a sense that penalty due to sin could be seen as death being victorious over humans because of sin. However, when bodily transformation takes place, it could be interpreted that the victory death had because of sin has been lost so that the question of the apostle Where, O death, is your victory? in the quotation is appropriate rhetorical question that indicates victory over death because of the work of Jesus Christ and subsequent bodily transformation of those who have died or alive at His second coming.

The second word that appears in the Septuagint but not in the Apostle’s quotation is the word “Hades” that is translated from a Greek word (hadēs) that refers to a place or abode of the dead, including both the righteous and the unrighteous hence means “Hades, grave, hell” as it is used to describe the place of abode of the rich man and Lazarus after their death in Luke 16:23:

In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

It means “Hades” as personified in the description of the fourth seal in Revelation as we read in Revelation 6:8:

I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

In this passage in Revelation, Death and Hades are associated so that it is conceivable that the apostle would have combined the two words using the meaning “death,” but we cannot be certain. If he did, he was guided by the Holy Spirit to provide an interpretation to the original word used in the Septuagint so that instead of the word “Hades” he used the word “death” in his quotation.

Anyhow, the word “death” used in the two rhetorical questions in the apostle’s quotation in 1 Corinthians 15:55 is translated from a Greek word (thanatos) that may mean death as a termination of physical life as the apostle used it to state the effect of God’s commandment in Romans 7:10:

I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

The Greek word may refer to spiritual death as that which results from sin as the word is used to describe the state of every unbeliever before salvation in 1 John 3:14:

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

The word may mean “plague, pestilence, pandemic disease” associated with God’s punishment as it is used in the passage we cited previously, that is, Revelation 6:8:

The phrase famine and plague is literally with hunger and with death. The word may refer to eternal death, that is, eternal separation from God, described as second death in Revelation 20:6:

Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:55, the word means “death” as an event that involves termination of physical life on this planet although it is personified in our verse. In any event, the first question Where, O death, is your victory? is rhetorical and expects the answer that death has no more victory since it has been defeated through the death of Jesus Christ and eventual bodily transformation of those who died prior to the second coming of Christ.

Anyway, Apostle Paul used the same word “sting” used in the Septuagint in the second rhetorical question of 1 Corinthians 15:55 Where, O death, is your sting? The word “sting” is translated from a Greek word (kentron) that may mean “a goad,” that is, a pointed stick that serves the same purpose as a whip used to prod animals “to make move or otherwise control” them as the word is used by Apostle Paul to describe what the Lord Jesus said to him when He appeared to him on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, regarding how useless it would be for him to resist heavenly calling as we read in Acts 26:14:

We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

The word may mean “sting, stinger” as a sharp pointed projection used to sting as the word is used to describe God’s future judgment using locust that their sting is compared to the sting of a scorpion in Revelation 9:10:

They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.

In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:55, the word is used with the meaning “sting,” that is, “a painful wound caused by the thrust of an insect’s venomous stinger into skin.” Anyway, the rhetorical question Where, O death, is your sting? requires the answer that the sting of death no longer exists since those who are alive when Christ returns have their bodily transformation without passing through death. Furthermore, since death would no longer occur then it is clear it cannot inflict any more pain as it did prior to the second coming of Christ.

Be that as it may, the apostle followed the two rhetorical questions with an explanation that is concerned with the sting of death in verse 56. It is not readily apparent that verse 56 is an explanation of the sting of death primarily because the translators of the NIV had no connective between verses 55 and 56. However, verse 56 is linked to verse 55 with a Greek particle (de), not translated in the NIV and in majority of our English versions, that may be used to connect one clause to another, either to express contrast or simple continuation but in certain occurrences the marker may be left untranslated. Although it is often translated “but” in the English when there is a perceived contrast between two clauses, but it has other meanings such as “now,” “then,” “and,” “so” when it is used to link segments of a narrative. It can also be used to indicate transition to something new or to resume a discourse after an interruption. In the verse we are considering, it is to continue the concept of the sting of death introduced in verse 55 but in such a way as to provide further explanation about the sting of death so that it may be translated “now” as in the ISV or “for” in the NLT although the translators of the CEB interpret it as a marker of parenthesis so that they put parentheses on verse 56. The reality is that the Greek particle is used to provide an explanation that is an aside comment to what preceded so that in today’s way of writing, the verse would be placed as a footnote or parenthetical. That aside, the apostle provides an explanation in verse 56 to the sting of death he mentioned in the second rhetorical question of verse 55.

The apostle’s explanation is introduced in the first sentence of 1 Corinthians 15:56 The sting of death is sin. The Greek phrase translated The sting of death in the NIV may be interpreted as either the sting that leads to death or the sting that causes death. Either way, sting is associated with sin.

The word “sin” is translated from a Greek word (hamartia) that refers to departure from either human or divine standards of uprightness and so means “sin,” the action itself as well as its results. Thus, the word is used by Apostle Paul to acknowledge its presence in the world before the law was given as stated in Romans 5:13:

for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

The word may mean “a state of sinfulness” as the word is used by those who rebuked the man born blind that Jesus healed because of what he said about Him as read in John 9:34:

To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

The word may mean “guilt,” that is, the moral consequence of having sinned as that is the sense of the word when Jesus described the state of unbelief of the Pharisees due to their claim of not being blind, that is, ignorant of God’s truth in John 9:41:

Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

The sentence your guilt remains is literally your sin remains. It is not the actual event of sinning that is in view but the consequence of sinning hence the meaning is “guilt” in John 9:41. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:56, the word means “sin personified as a destructive and depraved principle reigning over unbelievers and persisting in believers.” It is sin that produced death’s ability to inflict pain on humanity. Death is the penalty or result of sin as we read in Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The word “wages” is translated from a Greek word (opsōnion) that means “pay, wages” or “compensation” but in this passage it probably means “result”, so we recognize that death is the result of sin. Thus, the sentence The sting of death is sin should be understood to mean that the ability of death to cause cessation of life on this planet or to cause harm or pain to humans is derived from sin.

Pain inflicted on people due to death, besides death itself, manifests itself in form of bereavement or grief hence the instruction to believers not to grieve like unbelievers when the sting of death is manifested on a fellow believer as stated in 1 Thessalonians 4:13:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.

Sin produced pain not only associated with death but with living in that having and raising children are associated with pain as well as making a living as we may gather from the punishment God pronounced on Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis 3:16–17:

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” ¹⁷To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

The point is that what produces death’s ability not only to take away physical life but to inflict pain on humanity is sin.

In any case, the apostle continued with his explanation regarding the ability of sin itself as given in the next sentence of 1 Corinthians 15:56 and the power of sin is the law.

The word “power” is translated from a Greek word (dynamis) from where we derive our English word “dynamite”; it basically means “power.” The word may refer to special enablement or strength that the Lord Jesus promised the disciples would receive to help them be His witnesses as we read in Acts 1:8:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The word can refer to the power that works wonders as the power associated with Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry, as Apostle Peter stated in Acts 10:38:

how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

Power may be understood in a general way of the potential for functioning in some way. It is in this way that the word is used regarding the gospel as the means of showing divine power that accomplishes salvation in Romans 1:16:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

When the Greek word is used in the plural, the word predominantly means “miracles” as that done by God through Apostle Paul as stated in Acts 19:11:

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,

In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:56, the word means “power” as “the potential for functioning in some way.” Sin functions in the way it does and produces death because of the existence of law as in the sentence the power of sin is the law or better, the Greek may be translated what gives sin its power to function is the law as suggested the standard Greek English Lexicon (BDAG).

The word “law” is translated from a Greek word (nomos) that is used in three ways in the Scripture. It is used for a procedure or practice that has taken hold and so means “a custom, rule, principle, norm, law.” It is in the sense of “principle” that Apostle Paul used it in Romans 7:21:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

The context of Romans 7:21 indicates that the word “law” refers to “principle” as reflected in the translation of many English versions, such as the NASB and the Revised edition of the NAB. The translators of the CEB and the NJB used the word “rule” in place of “law” in their rendering of this passage in Romans. Another usage of the Greek word translated “law” is for describing the first five book of Moses (i.e., Genesis to Deuteronomy) often known as the Torah, as that is the sense of the word when Apostle Paul quoted Deuteronomy 25:4 in 1 Corinthians 9:9:

For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?

Still another usage of the Greek word translated “law” is as a reference to the entire OT Scriptures. It is in this sense that the word is used by the Jews regarding what is written concerning Christ in John 12:34:

The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever, so how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”

There are at least two passages that the crowd could have referred from which they heard about Christ ruling forever. A first passage is Isaiah 9:7:

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

A second passage is Daniel 7:14:

He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

These two passages are not in the Torah and so it is clear that the law refers to OT Scripture. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:56, the word means “law of God,” that is, “any representative declaration of God’s legal requirements for His creatures; whether in Scripture or in the conscience.” However, in the context, the apostle meant the Mosaic Law.

Be that as it may, when the apostle wrote the power of sin is the law or what gives sin its power to function is the law he meant for us first to recognize that it is the presence of God’s first command to Adam that led to sin. God instructed Adam not to eat from the fruit of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden as stated in Genesis 2:16–17:

¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

It is the existence of this command to Adam that Satan used to deceive Eve to disobey God and so to sin. Satan, described as the “serpent,” appealed to this command of God as he tempted the woman as we read in Genesis 3:1:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

When the woman took Satan’s bait, she disobeyed God and consequently, she sinned as she confessed in Genesis 3:13:

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam joined the woman in the disobedience but because he is the head of the woman his sin is one that is highlighted so we read that sin and so death came into the world through Adam as stated in Romans 5:12:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—

Thus, sin existed in the world before God gave the law to Israel as Apostle Paul stated in his epistle to the Romans in the passage we cited previously, that is, Romans 5:13:

for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

When God gave the law, it brought the consciousness of sin as stated in Romans 3:20:

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Furthermore, it is because of the existence of law that sin as a force works on humans to ensure we go against it and so to sin against God as we may gather from Romans 7:5:

For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.

Sinning against God draws His wrath since the Holy Spirit through the apostle implies that law draws God’s wrath when it is violated as we may gather from Romans 4:15:

because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

These facts we have presented that associate sin and law were brought to the mind of the apostle as he penned down the sentence of 1 Corinthians 15:56 the power of sin is the law.

We are certain that the facts we presented above about sin and law were in the mind of the apostle because of the thanksgiving he got involved with in the passage we are studying. The apostle recognized the oppression of sin on humanity that is contrasted with the blessings of being in Christ. Thus, he began verse 57 with the conjunction but that is translated from a Greek particle (de) that we indicated previously may be used to link segments of a narrative. However, in the verse we are about to consider, it has the meaning “but,” to signal the contrast between the effects of sin especially enslavement of an individual and eventual death considered in the preceding verse 56 and the victory that is given through Christ. The effect of sin is painful but the victory in Christ is cause for rejoicing and so the apostle burst into praise or thanksgiving to God.

Apostle Paul’s praise or thanksgiving is introduced in the first sentence of 1 Corinthains 15:57But thanks be to God! The apostle was certainly excited or overjoyed as he recognized the victory that is through Jesus Christ in contrast to death brought through Adam that he was elliptical in that he did not use any verb. We say this because the expression thanks be to God is literally thanks to God.

The word “thanks” is an important word that we should spend some time to examine the Greek word so translated. It is translated from a Greek word (charis) that is often rendered “grace” in our English versions. “Grace” is often taken as a reference to God’s unmerited favor in some contexts but that is not a blanket meaning. For example, the Greek word is used in Luke 2:40:

And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Clearly, since the recipient of God’s grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, grace could not possibly mean God’s underserved favor to sinners. Here grace means “blessing” or God’s favor in a general sense of His beneficent disposition toward someone. It can also mean favored status indicating that Jesus enjoyed favored status with God. In some context, the Greek word rendered “grace” when used of God means His “gracious care” as part of the meaning of the Greek word as “beneficent disposition toward someone.” It is this meaning that is intended when the Greek word is used in connection with the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in what they did, reported in Acts 14:26:

From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.

In effect, the phrase committed to the grace of God means that Paul and Barnabas were entrusted to God to care for them or to show His goodness to them. Thus, the word “grace” has the meaning of “gracious care” in this passage in Acts. Anyway, the Greek word often translated “grace” has various ranges of meaning. The word when used in relationship with a person may refer to that which is attractive or appealing in someone that draws favorable reaction from others, hence may mean “charming, pleasant, attractive” as the word is used by Apostle Paul in his instruction regarding believer’s speech or communication in Colossians 4:6:

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The instruction let your conversation be always full of grace means that believer’s conversation should always be pleasant.

Another meaning of the Greek word is “thanks, gratitude” as a response to generosity one receives. It is in this sense that the word is used in the instruction of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Another meaning of the Greek word is that beneficent disposition toward someone, that is, favor, help or care, good will, shown or received by another. Grace as a favor that one grants to another without any obligation on the part of the one who grants the favor is reflected in what God did for us in Christ in eternity in 2 Timothy 1:9:

who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Grace in this verse is that special favor that God granted us in Christ Jesus.

Another general meaning of our Greek word is a practical act of goodwill hence means “favor, gracious deed, or gift.” It is in this sense that the word is used to describe what God gives to the humble in James 4:6:

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

To say that God gives grace in this context means He shows kindness or favor. In other context, grace may mean “kindness” or “love.” This is the sense of the word in John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

To say that Jesus is full of grace means that He is full of love and kindness so that grace has the sense of “love” and “kindness.” By the way, to say that Jesus is full of truth means He is the true or complete revelation of God. There are other meanings to our Greek word but the ones we have given show that it is a word with a range of meanings. That aside, in our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:57, the word has the sense of “thanks,” that is, “an acknowledgment of appreciation (to a divinity).” In effect, Apostle Paul burst into thanksgiving to God as he recognized what God has done for us in Christ.

Thanksgiving is an important activity expected from believers. You can understand this because we are commanded to thank God in every circumstance of our life as the Holy Spirit directed Apostle Paul to pen down in 1 Thessalonians 5:18:

give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

It is almost impossible to obey this command without a thorough grasp of the fact that God is in control of every situation of one’s life. If one recognizes that God is in control over the individual’s life and that He has a plan for the person, such a person will thank God even when things are difficult since such would challenge the idea of thanking God. Of Course, we should recognize that the good and bad circumstances of our lives are brought about by God for His purpose as we learn from Ecclesiastes 7:14:

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.

The point is that we should learn to be thankful to God for every situation of our lives. Thankful attitude to God in every circumstance of life is one that is learned by recognizing He is in control of our lives. This requires the believer to be controlled by the Holy Spirit since a natural person could not possibly truly thank God for every circumstance of life.

In any case, the thanksgiving of Apostle Paul in the verse we are considering was directed to God as we read in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 15:57 to God. The word “God” is translated from a Greek word (theos) that in Greco-Roman world may refer to a supernatural being who exercises extraordinary control in human affairs or is responsible for bestowal of unusual benefits hence means “deity, god, goddess” as the word is used by the islanders of Malta to change their view of Apostle Paul when a viper coiled on his hand without him being bitten as we read in Acts 28:6:

The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

However, in our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:57, the word is used for the unique supreme, supernatural being as creator and sustainer of the universe, that is, “God.” The God we worship exists in three persons so that sometimes the word may be used to describe any of the three members of the Godhead. Consider its use to describe God the Father as the first member of the Godhead as we read in Galatians 1:4:

who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father

In our passage of 1 Corinthians 15:57, the apostle used it to refer to God the Father. This is because he mentioned Christ later in the verse and so he could not be thinking of the three members of the Godhead at this point. Besides, we know that the apostle often offers thanksgiving to God the Father so that he commands believers to do the same as stated, for example, in Ephesians 5:20:

always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Anyway, thanksgiving must always have a basis. Therefore, the apostle states the reason for his thanksgiving as given in the last sentence of 1 Corinthians 15:57 He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are out of time so we will consider this in our next study. However, let me end by reminding you of the message of this section, which is that Not everyone will experience physical death, but everyone will undergo a bodily transformation necessary for existence in the eternal state.

12/08/23

1 Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, edited by Carson and Woodbridge, p.201.