1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news (εὐαγγέλιον) that I proclaimed (εὐηγγελισάμην) to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message (λόγῳ) that I proclaimed (εὐηγγελισάμην) to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. This statement at least hints that to hold firm to the message is a condition for their salvation. 3 For I handed on to you as of first importance, and therefore of top priority in his preaching and teaching, what I in turn had received. Paul also received the message about the Lord’s Supper (11:23). Thus, we learn that Paul received what he has delivered to them concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus. He would have received this teaching in the first years after the crucifixion and the proclamation of the resurrection. To expand upon the modern historical credibility of the material, the earliest account we have of the appearances is in I Corinthians 15, written around 57 AD in Ephesus. According to Galatians 1:18, Paul was in Jerusalem three years after his conversion. Thus, he was there around 33-35 AD, if we put the death of Jesus in 30 AD. The witnesses of the appearances are quite close to the event of the resurrection. As we have already noted, Paul appeals to an established tradition, rather than his own memory. The assumption that several members of the primitive Christian community genuinely experienced appearances of the resurrected Lord, and therefore not invented in the course of later legendary development, has good historical foundation.[1]
First, Paul received the message that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Christ made expiation for our sins. Human beings could not compensate God for the wrong they had done. One puzzlement the theory of expiation presents is that it suggests that God is hard to please. If human beings could do nothing to make amends does that say “something” about God? Without pursuing this thought too far, the doctrine of the atonement says that God is the one making the sacrifice that human beings did not have the capacity to make. The endless round of sacrifices, both animal and grain, did not place human beings in right relationship with God. Paul is clearly presenting the death of Jesus in this way, freeing us from the responsibility of making something right that we could never make right. In this case, one goes back to Isaiah 53:3ff. Jesus died as one rejected by his people. This passage is the only part of the Jewish tradition to which the early Christians could go to interpret his death in an expiatory way. The circumstances of the death of Jesus provided a reason to go back to this prophetic passage because his people in fact despised and rejected Jesus, but the one whom God also in his resurrection.[2]4 As if to emphasize the point, he stresses that he received the teaching that his friends buried him. Eventually, this fact will become an important part of the “proof” that God raised Jesus from the dead. The disciples discovered the emptiness of the tomb. Yet should we consider it significant that Paul does not write directly about the emptiness of the tomb? Paul may have had no interest in such a legend. The Gospel story itself reminds us that historically, the emptiness of the tomb is an ambiguous fact.[3] Yet, the sequence of dead, buried, and raised hints at the emptiness of the tomb. The emphasis upon burial seems to stress that Jesus truly died. Thus, it was not just a literary device.[4] He may have considered the emptiness as self-evident. The “proof” Paul needed was in the appearance of the risen Lord to him, and thus, the emptiness of the tomb was ambiguous. Further, if the tomb is empty, it makes the idea that the appearances are hallucinations less likely. The empty tomb resists any superficial spiritualizing of the Easter message. We can admit that Jesus rose into the kerygma of the church. We can admit that the risen Lord identifies himself with the church so much that it has become the body of Christ. Such notions will push into the background the uniqueness of the event of Christ, transforming it into a generalized spiritual and ethical principle. It connects the earthly corporeality of Jesus with the eschatological reality of a new life. The empty tomb tradition is a separate, independent witness to what happened to Jesus after his death. It becomes an anticipation of the transformation of all creation that Christians anticipate will be the end of creation and thus humanity.
Christianity is the only religion in the world that places at the very heart of its message the death of its founder. Every other religion has a teacher who lived a human life and died, but followers did not consider that death as something to celebrate. Quite the contrary, followers remember the deaths of the Buddha or Muhammad or Confucius or Zoroaster with solemnity. Followers may consider manner of their deaths as noble. Yet, in the last analysis, they do not view the death of the teacher as especially helpful. Their death is a tragic and irrevocable loss. Not so for the death of Jesus. Paul proclaims that Jesus died for our sins. His words become harsher when he emphasizes the burial of Jesus. Because of his death, we are free.
Each of us, at some time in life, comes face to face with a massive void, a big empty place. Such experiences are like the emptiness that death will bring. It happens …
• when you give your heart to someone who doesn’t accept the gift
• when you learn a sport, practice hard and still don’t make the team
• when you study and pursue a profession, only to find you hate your work
• when you create something beautiful, and discover that no one’s interested
• when you try to resist a temptation, but then give in to it again and again
• when you jump to a new job, then lose it in a downsizing
• when you put money into a home, only to see your equity disappear
• when you retire from a long career, and wake up with nothing to do
• when you lose a spouse to cancer, and find yourself all alone in the world.
These are huge cold spots. Massive voids. No, you cannot believe you can do anything, and you will do it. Rather, you will have disappointments in your life. It can feel like the emptiness and void of death. We are all going to face some empty places in life, and we need to take them seriously.
The passion narrative taken seriously is a massive cold spot, emptiness, and silence, from God. The silence of God makes what happens next in the proclamation of Paul a surprise.
Second, Paul received the message that God raised him on the third day in accordance with the scripture. Easter was, and is, a gracious surprise. The scientific details — the biology — of resurrection are a mystery. Christians need to admit the difficulty of continuing to believe the surprise of Easter is a promise for humanity and for creation. The event is entirely God-generated. Jesus did not rise from the dead under his strength or power. Resurrection depended upon the action of God on his behalf. The same is true for all human beings. Note that as Paul continues, his whole focus shifts to the resurrection. Given the similarity of this statement with the “passion predictions” in Mark, and given the fact that Paul says received this tradition, Paul is relating an early statement of beliefs the church had concerning Jesus. This reference to scripture proved the veracity of the message of the resurrection of Jesus. This passage expresses why Paul is so astounded that the issue of resurrection should have even come up. His message of crucifixion and resurrection was of a single piece and primary elements of his preaching. Crucifixion and resurrection form the heart of the message, so much so that one without the other would have brought the salvation Paul is proclaiming. Their preaching would be in vain (verse 12) were it not for the resurrection. Many scholars will agree with Bultmann, who thinks that “resurrection” here simultaneously means “exaltation.” The proper background for the language of resurrection is Jewish apocalyptic. The language is metaphor, in the sense of someone rising from sleep. It hints at new life. It will always be debatable since it points to an event beyond our everyday experience. The resurrection affirms the divine Yes over the life of Jesus, and therefore, re-focuses us upon the event nature of the relationship between God and humanity.
Third, Paul received the message that the risen Lord appeared to certain ones who would become witnesses. I will summarize the work of Reginald H. Fuller.[5] The fact that Paul relates about the event of Christ rests upon witness or testimony is significant. It does not rest upon the type of certainty one can have in math and science. In your life, you have relied upon witnesses. Someone testifies to a wonderful experience (movie, play, restaurant, and so on) and you take his or her word for it. You may be happy you did. They increase their credibility for you. You may be sorry you did, decreasing their credibility. When someone testifies to something unbelievable, such as seeing someone alive after he had surely died, it stretches our ability to believe the witness. Suppose today, someone testified to you she had seen a vision. It does not matter what it was a vision of, but you hear them say it. Testimony, in other words, is notoriously subjective to the offering the testimony and to the one hearing it. A follower of Jesus is willing to believe God acted in an incredible way in Jesus, and will therefore act in an incredible way for us as well.
I do think that this passage has the effect of offering historical veracity to the resurrection of Jesus. Yet, we need to exercise some caution. To call it proof is to go a bit far. We often think of proof as having the certainty of math and science. If we could do that through the resurrection of Jesus, we would have a historical proof for the existence of God. I am not willing to go to that place. However, we need to have the courage to look at what Paul offers here as providing a basis for legitimately looking upon the event of Christ as a genuine event in the life of the relationship between God and humanity. It heightens the event nature of that relationship. It emphasizes the revelatory character of that relationship. God discloses something to us that we could not figure out on our own. In his event, God is the one who promises that death and darkness is not the end. Rather, life and light is our end. My focus, naturally, will be the witness Paul provides concerning the resurrection of Jesus. As we explore Paul’s list of witnesses to the appearances of Jesus. His account here predates the gospel accounts. Just as the Corinthians could not fill in the details of what Paul says here by recalling the gospel narratives, we should not harmonize his list to their stories. Paul may well have provided more details in his teaching and preaching while in Corinth, but to assume his stories would have matched the evangelists’ (which do not even match one another) is an extreme argument from silence. The early church had independent traditions concerning both the appearances and the empty tomb. Yet, the empty tomb receives its significance from the appearances. The experiences of the risen Lord these persons received became an important part of the proof of the message of the resurrection of Jesus.[6] When gnostic elements in Corinth push him, Paul is willing to enumerate witnesses as a proof.[7] The significance of the list of witnesses is that Paul is going to make vast affirmations in verses 12ff for individuals and for the universe based upon the veracity of what he says here. One needs to have the theological courage to determine precisely as possible what the event of resurrection was for Jesus. Apart from that courage, the theologian runs the risk of becoming little more than offering Gnostic speculation and opinion. [8] The appearances might suggest a distribution between Galilee and Jerusalem, but it would be difficult to know how. Even from the standpoint of modern historical study, the fact that Paul knew the witnesses involved, or most of them, himself being the last in the series, lends credibility to this list. Paul brought this list together to give proof for the fact of the resurrection. Thus, 5 he appeared (ὤφθη) to Cephas, then to the twelve. This appearance is the establishment of the church. It confirms the founding significance of the disciples. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. This appearance would appear to be the first fruits of the founding of the church, quite likely the result of the labors of the disciples in Jerusalem. If so, even if it can be nothing more than a supposition, it may have a connection with the event Luke describes on Pentecost in Acts 2.[9] The intent of the enumeration is to give proof by means of witnesses for the facticity of the resurrection of Jesus is particularly strong here. Given the standards of the time, one can hardly call into question the intention Paul has of giving a convincing historical proof.[10] 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Although James himself stayed in Jerusalem, he assisted the church in its early missionary outreach into Judea and Samaria. Thus, this appearance would have a connection with that calling and mission. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born (miscarried, aborted), he appeared also to me. The idea is that from the spiritual point of view he was not born at the right time, because he had not been a disciple during the lifetime of the disciples. It could also refer to the idea of unfitness for life, a charge against Paul by his opponents.[11] He would be an unlikely person to choose as an apostle, being an active opponent and persecutor of the church. However, the disciples whom Jesus formed during his life were also unlikely choices. Recognizing this, it would be an interesting study of the unlikely persons and groups of persons with whom God works to be witnesses to the saving works of God. The only criteria seems to be a willingness to listen and respond to the call. One can have little doubt that his appearance has a close connection, not only to his personal conversion, but also to his missionary outreach to the gentile world. It suggests that the appearance to Paul is on a par with or like the appearance to that of the disciples. It suggests the disciples accepted the appearance of the risen Lord to Paul as credible and bound them together in a common mission. All of this gives some credibility to the notion that the appearances were more like the prophetic visions we have in the Old Testament. Isaiah had a vision of the Lord in the Temple. We could compare the visionary experiences of Ezekiel and Zechariah as well. They were disclosures or revelations to these individuals and groups of the risen Lord. We do not have to view such a vision as subjective psychological projection. In this case, the sheer number of the visions occurring over several years suggests something more than simple projection. [12] The witnesses to the appearances “saw” an end-time reality. If our time and place is the present time, the old age that is passing away, then the appearances are the new age. How can we expect that we can clearly define it in our terms? The appearances occur over a period of three years, which should lend some validity to their historicity.[13] Paul is insisting that the Jewish apocalyptic hope remains valid for these Gentiles, regardless of heavily influenced they might be by their Greek philosophical tradition. Thus, one might be able to designate the resurrection of Jesus as an historical event. If one can understand the emergence of primitive Christianity only considering the eschatological hope for a resurrection from the dead that occurs in Jesus of Nazareth, then it would be designated a historical event, even if we do not know anything more about it. For some people, he admits, violating the laws of nature is too much to take.[14]
Scholars who want to explore the historical basis for Christian claims will focus on what Paul says here, in I Corinthians 15:1-11, and rightly so. The appearance stories in Matthew, Luke, and John come 30-40 years later. The narrations of the appearances of Jesus in the gospel story are vehicles for the theological perspective of each writer.[15]
The theological significance of this passage is immense. The letters of Paul formulate basic Christian beliefs along the line of Jewish apocalyptic. An important reason for this is his belief that God raised Jesus from the dead. I do not think most scholars would disagree with this. However, one area that will need some exploration is whether Paul carried out this formulation like his rabbinic heritage, or whether he abandoned it in favor of Hellenism.
W. D. Davies will make the case that whatever changes he notes in what Paul presents in his letters occur in the context within Judaism. I will focus only on what he says that is pertinent to this passage.[16] For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the first fruits of the general resurrection. This image implies that the full harvest will follow. In the resurrection of Jesus, Paul saw the beginning of the end. The powers of the age to come were already at work in his time and place. It was along these lines that Paul participated in the reconstruction of the eschatology of the early church. Now, the background for this reconstruction was Judaism, in that it had already expended much thought upon the problems involved in the notion of resurrection. Such Jewish speculation influenced early church thinking in this regard. For Davies, the most important aspect of this speculation was in Hebrew anthropology and psychology. Judaism conceived of the human being as a totality, a union of flesh and soul. A truly living being was always an embodied spirit, God having created both soul and body. They have a mutual interdependence, incapable of genuine life apart from each other. Death was not natural. It was the consequence of sin. The reunion of soul and body in resurrection was involved in any teaching concerning eternity with God. Life in the age to come must be embodied life.
I want to build upon the suggestion of Pannenberg that the testimonies concerning the appearances and the empty tomb provide reasonable grounds for Christian confidence that God raised Jesus from the dead.[17] This means the appearances did not develop as a legend over the years. This fact separates it from his approach to the legendary stories related to the birth of Jesus.[18] In this view, he has a somewhat surprising ally in Bultmann who also admits that the cross and resurrection as salvation occurrences is different from the myth of the mystery religions and from Gnostic thought.[19] The differences consist in the fact that the subject is a historical person, Jesus, and his death on the cross only a few years earlier is at the center of the salvation occurrence. One does not accept the witness based on authority, of course. The nature of the witness will have to hold up to the testing to which we as modern persons put them. This passage concludes with the personal testimony of Paul to the work of grace in his life. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to have God call me as an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. The recipient of grace presupposes that individuals are nothing. This passage brings out the meaning of grace.[20] 10 Nevertheless, by the grace of God I am what I am, and the grace of God toward me has not been in vain. Without the grace of God, he has no place … no ministry … no job … no nothing. Paul sees himself as unfit and undeserving. The loving grace of God saved him, lifted him up and set him on a new course, giving a new and quite different meaning to his life. We are where we are and who we are by the grace of God. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. It seems that the pattern of death and resurrection is true for us as well. If we do not die, then rebirth makes little sense. Yes, Christ has suffered and died for us. For the sake of our spiritual growth, however, our game needs to fall apart. We have lived with a definition of what it means for us to be successful, moral, better than, right, and good. That by which we have gained our identity needs to fail, to the point where we do not feel worthy because we have sinned. At such a point, we realize that live is never about what we do for God. Rather, our lives are about what God has done for us. We stop trying to love God more and we allow God to love us.[21] 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
Paul is emphasizing that the preaching of the disciples and the early church in Jerusalem are consistent with his preaching. Paul wants to emphasize both the historicity of the resurrection and its centrality in the community’s proclamation. We can say historically that witnesses claim, after the death of Jesus, to have seen him. Based on such visions, they arrived at the theological conclusion that God raised Jesus from the dead. They knew they spoke of an event that actually happened. They became convinced that the resurrection of Jesus had taken place. Historically, we cannot establish this fact. If the appearances were the sole means by which the certainty that God raised Jesus from the dead came to the disciples, and on which the church came into being, how was it possible for these experiences to have had such an effect? We simply cannot reserve this question for faith, and deny the question to the historian.
Yet, I would make the point that Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, and all the apostles, had a decision to make. They had come to a point in their lives when they could respond with faith in what they had seen or turn away from what they had seen. We are at one with the first believers and with Paul himself in our common faith. Granted, our decision relies upon their testimony, but even then, the object of faith remains the risen Lord. When we look upon texts honestly, we can only say that the decision is in part weighing of evidence, but has also become for us the risk of laying our lives alongside that of the crucified and risen Lord. The evidence for the resurrection can only be fragmentary and contradictory. The chronology and topography is vague. We do not have independent sources from which to check the evidence. One should not take narratives of the appearances as history in the purest form. In fact, we treat verses 3-8 in a “strangely abstract way” if we regard it as a citation of witnesses for the purpose of historical proof. The reason we have something related to historical saga is that they describe something beyond the reach of historical study.[22] These verses are not an attempt at an historical proof, for the history of the appearances cannot take place within the confines of modern historical study. This passage is not an attempt at an external objective assurance that the history did take place. The reason is that the witnesses are the tradition that underlies the community, which calls for a decision of faith, not for the acceptance of a well-attested historical report. They are those who have made this decision of faith. The appeal is to faith based in the recollection of the faith that constitutes the community.[23]
This passage is renowned for its ability to arouse passionate debate about Christ’s resurrection and the post-resurrection appearances. This dispute became particularly pronounced in the 20th century after Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing enterprise. He, along with others, pondered whether or not Christ’s resurrection and post-resurrection appearances were literal, physical, bodily events. For Bultmann, they were not. For him, “the gospel” was “the Christ of faith” not the “Jesus of history.” It is commonplace for some scholars to claim that Christ’s resurrection and post-resurrection appearances were figurative and spiritual (e.g., Marcus Borg).
While it is possible to view Christ’s resurrection and the post-resurrection appearances exclusively on a metaphorical, spiritual plane — especially in light of Paul’s later remarks (e.g., “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” [15:50; cf. vv. 51-57]) — such a one-sided conclusion is problematic. For instance, it seems somewhat inconsistent to regard Christ’s death and burial as bodily events, and then suddenly shift and speak of Christ’s resurrection exclusively in spiritual terms. Is such an abrupt change logical in this passage? In addition, although we might struggle to accept a literal, physical resurrection, would Paul have found it dubious given what he reportedly said in Acts 26:8?
Irrespective of one’s position regarding the preceding disagreement, it seems clear that Paul’s understanding of the gospel integrates not only Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, but also Christ’s appearances, especially to him. Consequently, Paul’s profound experience when he received the gospel is not incidental, but critical for the Corinthians. They must remember both the fundamental aspects of the cross — i.e., Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection — and the effects of the gospel.
One approach to the issues raised here is that of keeping the event nature of Christianity before us. The event of Jesus of Nazareth, especially the cross and resurrection, are significant events in the life of God and in the salvation history of humanity. Christianity will lose what is central to it if that event is forgotten. However, it must not become a strangely abstract event of the past. This event of the past needs to have a corresponding event within us, in which, as Paul will say elsewhere, we die with Christ and rise with him. As the life-giving Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead, the same life-giving Spirit can empower us as well.
[1] Pannenberg (Jesus: God and Man, p. 91)
[2] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, p. 425)
[3] Gordon D. Kaufmann (Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective, p. 418)
[4] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, p. 359)
[5] Reginald Fuller (The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 1971, pp. 34-48)
[6] Bultmann, (Theology of the New Testament, Volume 1, p. 82)
[7] Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume 1, p. 295)
[8] Gordon D. Kaufmann (Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective, p. 416-417)
[9] Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume 1, p. 45)
[10] Pannenberg (Jesus: God and Man, 1964, 89)
[11] (Schneider, TDNT, Volume 2, p. 466-467)
[12] Pannenberg (Jesus: God and Man, p. 92-23)
[13] Reginald H Fuller (The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 1971, p. 48-49)
[14] Pannenberg (Jesus: God and Man, p. 98)
[15] In Mark, though there are not appearances in the strict sense of the term, the nature miracles of Jesus seem nothing less than the heavenly Jesus appearing. The baptism (1:10-11) and the transfiguration (9:2-11) declare Jesus to be the Son. The feeding of the 5OOO (6:35-43) and the 4OOO (8:1-10) show Jesus in his Eucharistic presence feeding the faithful with bread from heaven. The calming of the storm (6:47-52) shows Jesus in command of the storms of life that Mark's community was facing. The exorcisms proclaim Jesus the Son of God through the voice of the demons (1:23-28; 5:1-20). In Matthew, the risen Lord gives the commission to make disciples of all peoples, thereby making it clear that the mission to Israel is over and that the rest of the world awaits the good news. The risen Lord will be with them. In Luke, the interest is verifying the physical nature of the resurrection, a process begun by Mark’s emphasis on the empty tomb. This is likely the result of the early debate with Gnosticism. None of these stories has any claim to historical accuracy, though they have been great opportunities for meditation in the theology and mission of the church. The defense of the resurrection appears to be their motivation. They also become ways in which the gospel writers convey their theology. That is why we find so much diversity in the accounts of the appearance, while we have so much similarity in the in the narrative of the last week of his life. The theological richness of these texts makes them wonderful for preaching. However, the historian can give little credibility to them.
[16] W. D. Davies (Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, p. 285-320)
[17] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 2, p. 352-353)
[18] Pannenberg (ibid., p. 318).
[19] Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume 1, p. 295)
[20] Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume 1, p. 284)
[21] —Richard Rohr, “The performance principle,” Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation for June 15, 2016. cac.org. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
[22] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.2, p. 452 [47.1])
[23] Barth (ibid., IV.1, p. 335 [59.3]),
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