According to the reading of the original which is adopted, this passage bears an indicative or an imperative meaning. If imperative, then it is an admonition to cultivate and perfect in our character and life, even now upon earth, the moral and spiritual image of the Divine Lord. If indicative and future, then it is an assertion that, in the coming time, the time of celestial glory, Christians shall bear the image of the heavenly.

I. WHOSE IMAGE IS THIS? The answer to this question cannot be doubtful. The heavenly One, whose image Christians are to reflect, can be none other than the Divine Lord himself. There is a measure in which this resemblance is attained even upon earth, and many admonitions are addressed to Christians, to cultivate moral resemblance to their great and glorious Head. But in the future state hindrances to assimilation shall be removed; and "we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). As St. Paul expresses it elsewhere, we shall be "changed into the same image." So that the apostles agree as to what shall constitute the peculiar privilege and glory of the coming state of felicity.

II. IN WHAT DOES THIS IMAGE CONSIST?

1. It is a spiritual likeness, consisting not in the similarity of form or feature, but in that of character, of moral life.

2. It is a likeness in true holiness. God's holy Child or Servant, Jesus, is the model of all purity and perfection, and to be like Christ is to be holy even as he is holy.

3. It corresponds to God's original intention as to what man should be. He at first created man in his own image; and although that image was marred by sin, grace restores it; and the great Father and Lord of all beholds his original conception realized in the regenerated and glorified humanity.

III. BY WHOM IS THIS IMAGE PARTICIPATED?

1. Properly speaking, it will be apparent in all those who by Divine grace are brought upon earth to the enjoyment of Christian character and privilege, and who are led safely home to glory. It is the family likeness by which the spiritual children are identified.

2. There is a wider sense in which all the holy intelligences who people heaven may be considered as bearing this image. There are those who have not borne the image of the earthly, who from their creation have been citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, in whom appear the spiritual lineaments which are the mark of a Divine parentage and the earnest of a blessed immortality.

APPLICATION. That this image may be borne in all its brightness and beauty hereafter and above, its first rudiments must be traced here. The life of faith, obedience, and aspiration is the divinely appointed preparation for the glories and felicities of heaven. And no religion is of worth which does not form and cherish the spiritual likeness which alone can qualify for the employments and the society of heaven. - T.

I. THE FIRST — is of the earth, earthy — consequently —

1. Confined to earth.

2. Perishes with the earth.

II. THE SECOND — from heaven, heavenly.

1. Rules the earth.

2. Opens heaven.

3. Lives for ever.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

Χοὶκος properly means "clayey," but is here used to express man's terrestrial nature. Because he is of the earth in his origin — i.e., as to his body, there is a terrestrial side to his nature and sphere of action. From this we may infer —

I. THAT MAN IN HIS SINLESS STATE HAD A BODY CAPABLE OF DYING. If he had continued sinless, his body would have been rendered immortal by a Divine act, and we gather from Genesis 3:22 that the tree of life was the appointed sacrament of immortality. This is consistent with Romans 5:12. In the case of man sin brought death, not mortality, into the world. The correctness of this hypothesis is confirmed by the side light it throws upon the voluntariness of Christ's death. As Christ was sinless, death was not a necessity to Him, though He had a mortal body; and as He was Divine as well as sinless, death was impossible to Him without a voluntary act of "laying down" His life.

II. THAT THE DIVINE IMAGE IN ADAM CONSISTED, negatively, in sinlessness and, positively, in a potential and rudimentary goodness; by no means in the full perfection of human nature. Christ does infinitely more than restore our original state (cf. Wisdom 8:1).

(Principal Edwards.)

In what sense is our Lord the second man? There were so many millions intervening between Him and Adam. The answer is that all the others were mere copies of the first; whereas Christ introduced a new kind of man, and became the head of a new family.

I. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ADAM AND CHRIST. There is a difference.

1. Of origin.(1) The first man is of the earth, earthy."(a) Whatever may be said of Adam's Divine parentage, according to his physical nature, he and his belong essentially to this earth; they are part of its fauna, and stand at the head of long lines of animal life, which, commencing with the lowest of sensitive creatures, find their highest term in man. All the materials of his physical life and being belong to the planet of which he is the chief inhabitant, of whose vital forces he is simply the highest outcome, the most elaborated product.(b) There are many who tell us that man is "of the earth, earthy," in the sense of being descended from the lower forms of animal life through the process of natural selection; but this can only be received as an hypothesis; yet there is nothing in it contrary to Scripture. If true it gives a new and most marvellous aspect to the Incarnation. Of course, if our ancestors were "marine ascidians," so were His; and thus we see Him in an unexpected sense, gathering together in one, and summing up in Himself all created life (Ephesians 1:10), and reuniting it unto God. I do not know why a Christian should be staggered at the thought of one unbroken continuity of life; for the great gap in the cycle of life, which seemed to be eternally impassable, was above man, not below him, and yet we know that this gulf which separated the highest creature by an infinite distance from the Creator was bridged by the condescension of the Son.(2) For the second man was the Lord from heaven. His origin was as distinctly Divine and heavenly as Adam's origin was earthy.

2. Of nature. This difference was not in wealth, happiness, beauty, nor in any of those things which ordinarily make one man superior to another, for in all these things Christ voluntarily placed Himself at a disadvantage; but it was in holiness.(1) Adam was a rebel, a sinner; and after him all we are the same. No doctrine of the Scripture is more confirmed by constant experience, or more in accordance with modern science than that of hereditary sin. For not only does every child afford a fresh example of the tendency to do wrong, but as the instinct by which the young bird feeds itself is the transmitted experience of its remote ancestors, so the mortal evil which began in Adam has become an inseparable characteristic of his race.(2) But Christ was not sinful. Coming into the world by a miraculous and immaculate conception, it was said to Mary, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God"; and this holiness, which belonged to Him by virtue of His origin, He kept spotless amidst all the temptations of His earthly life. And what was the consequence of this holiness? This — that He was by right immortal and incorruptible, even as man; death and the grave could have no claim on One who had no sin. But did He not die? Yes, truly; but it was by His own permission. Being holy, although He was capable of death, it was not possible that He should be holden of it. I have seen some large insect fly into a spider's web, and the hungry spider has come forth with haste, thinking he has caught a finer prize than has fallen into his clutches for many a long day. But the prisoner is stronger than any for which the web was made; he gathers up his might, he throws himself hither and thither, he shakes the web violently, he rends it from top to bottom — he is gone, and has left the broken net and the baffled spider behind him. Even so death had spread his snares for the sons of men, and had caught them all one by one, and had held them fast; at last came the Son of Man, and He, too, died like men, and death and hell rejoiced together over their notable captive. But they did not rejoice long; their toils were not made for Him. The bands of death were to Him as the "green withes" were to Samson. As the flush of morning comes back upon the earth, as the tints of spring return upon the trees, and we cannot say at what moment it begins, so did Christ rise, we know not when; it needed no effort nor preparation; it was as natural and proper to Him to live, to be abroad in the freedom of unfettered life, as it is for the dew to rise when the sun is warm.

II. CHRIST IS CALLED THE SECOND ADAM BECAUSE —

1. He introduced into the world a new type, a new order of humanity — a child of man, indeed, but such a child of man as had never been seen before. He was the beau ideal of the human race; all that is noble and lovely in other human beings was united in Him, and all that is noble and lovely in our dreams and fancies about what human beings might be was realised in Him. You have heard of those tropical plants which are said to blossom but once in a hundred years, then, having thrown up a single spike of exquisite white blossom, to die. This (however exaggerated in fact) may serve to illustrate the relation of Christ to the human race: once, and once only, humanity blossomed up and put forth one exquisite faultless flower, in which its entire life culminated, in which all its possibilities were exhausted; that flower was Christ, the Son of Man, par excellence, the second man.

2. But Adam not only set a type, but he began a race, a series like himself, and thus he became the fountain-head of a guilty and perishing humanity. In like manner Christ began a new race, and became the fountain.head of a new regenerate human life, cleansing itself from sin, rising victorious over death.

(R. Winterbotham, M.A.)

1. On the one side traced to Adam who is of the earth — on the other to Christ who is the Lord from heaven.

2. On the one side he derives an earthly nature, on the other a heavenly.

3. On the one side he is stamped with the features of the earthy, on the other with those of the heavenly.

4. On the one side he can claim no inheritance in the kingdom of God, on the other becomes heir of all things.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

I. THE EARTHY — frail, sensual, dying — can only produce his like.

II. THE HEAVENLY — pure, spiritual, immortal — communicates His own nature by a new birth, to be consummated in the resurrection.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

I. THE REDEEMER OF THE WORLD IS THE HEAVENLY.

1. The Scriptures represent Him as the express character of God's person, the brightness of His glory. The perfections of the Divine nature indeed shine forth in all the works of creation; but there is a clearer and more glorious display of them all in "God manifest in the flesh."

2. His life and character demonstrate Him to be the Heavenly.

II. THE POINTS OF SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY AND THOSE WITH WHOM HE STANDS CONNECTED.

1. That we may be humble, contemplate the dissimilarity. There is in Him the complete perfection of those various graces and virtues of which, in the saints, there is only an extremely remote resemblance.

2. But although the dissimilarity be great, there is an obvious similarity.

(1)In heavenliness of mind. A carnal Christian is a contradiction in terms.

(2)In faith. Like Christ, they put their trust in their heavenly Father.

(3)In being of a devotional spirit.

(4)In humility.

(5)In their conversation.

(6)In active goodness.

(T. Swan.)

A soul chained down to earth is as little suited for the occupations of heaven as is a body framed of the dust for becoming the eternal tenement of a spirit that liveth for ever. Temper, in its widest acceptation, is the uniform frame of the mind; the disposition, which it partly derives from nature and partly from circumstance; but to which, in its better condition, it is principally reduced by Divine grace and by religious cultivation. Thought is a sudden conception or a process of the intellect, and the fitful spring of action. Passion is a desultory violence of the soul when roused by external impressions. Both thought and passion are subject to variations in the same breast, and both may have intervals of cessation. But disposition is the inward light — the permanent hue of the heart, which tinctures the moral complexion, and blends with the whole course of thought, action, passion and existence. What, then, is that spirit, that disposition, which prevails among the blessed above, and by imitating which we may humbly aspire to be joined to their high and holy association?

1. In its reference to God it implies a spirit of devotion. To acquire the habit of contemplating, under all circumstances, the bond which connects earth with heaven, and of acknowledging the impulse which all the affairs of life are constantly receiving from an unseen arm: to discover providence where ignorance sees but chance, or where pride confesses only the power of man; to hear the voice of God in the accents of instruction; to trace His workmanship in the magnificence of Nature; to admire His beneficence throughout the varied year, whether crowned with blossoms or laden with sheaves — this is to imbibe the spirit of the heavenly; for the works and the wonders of Providence, we may rest assured, for ever occupy the meditations, the converse, and the praises, of the blessed, in the courts of light.

2. The temper and spirit of heaven may be considered, secondly, as it relates to our neighbour. Charity is the bond of union among the blessed above; all is there harmonious as the silent chime of the spheres.

3. It now remains to consider heavenly-mindedness in its immediate relation to ourselves. Humility is the pre-eminent virtue of the heavens. Another feature in the disposition which looks towards a heavenly prototype, and a feature relating to ourselves, is purity. The enjoyments of heaven, and the affections of its inhabitants, we may be sure, are unstained by the cloud or shadow of a thought that may suffuse the mind with the tinge of shame. But the crowning quality of temper, which at once unites and assimilates probationary mortals unto the multitude — the Sabaoth of heaven — is serenity. To this entire composure it cannot be expected that creatures such as we, in a state like that which we inherit, can attain. But here, too, though all may not be achieved or hoped, the task is not to be wholly relinquished. Some self-discipline is practicable; and what is practicable is what God expects. We have the treasury of grace for our feebleness — we have devotion as the key which unlocks it.

(J. Grant, M.A.)

I. THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHY.

1. Sin.

2. Sorrow.

3. Death.

II. THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.

1. Holiness.

2. Happiness.

3. Life.

(F. A. Cox, LL.D.)

The great hindrance to our reception of the full power of these words lies in the difficulty of realising them as a present experience. We fancy that death is the great magician. Paul contemplated the change as actually begun. We were once merely natural men, and knew nothing of the higher spiritual world. Then quickened by the grace of God in Christ we became spiritual. Thus because the quickening Spirit of Christ is forming His image in us now, the earthly shall perish, and we shall wear the image of the heavenly. Just as the flowers which open beneath the summer sunshine are folded in the dark buds which are beaten and tossed in the winter winds; just as the strength of will, the fire of feeling, etc., of a man are hidden in the child, so the heavenly life is within us now, and because it is there it is possible for us to reach the full formed image of the heavenly.

I. THE GREAT AIM OF CHRISTIAN ASPIRATION — "to bear the image," etc. This is one of the deepest longings of the soul. We yearn for rest, for service, for happiness; but there is a deeper longing; we want to be holier, heavenlier men. This is also the all-embracing Christian aim. Every prayer for light, blessedness, strength, is gathered up and centred in the aim to be like Christ. Observe His image has three great features.

1. Divine vision — the spiritual insight that realises the presence of God and the unseen world. It is true that we cannot see God and the radiance of eternity with the bodily eye; but were we like Christ, we should apprehend them through the sympathies of the soul.

2. Divine love. We admit the feebleness of our love to God, yet in many ways we aspire after a deeper love. What means our perpetual unrest, our constant effort after the unattained, etc., but the yearning after that love of God which alone can fill us, our longing after the image of Christ who realised it fully.

3. Divine power.

II. THE HINDRANCE TO ITS ATTAINMENT. "The image of the earthy," i.e., the body of corruption whose tendency is —

1. To limit aspiration to the earthy.

2. To become an aid to the sin of the soul.Conclusion:

1. Our aspirations must be earnest and real. What we sincerely aspire to be we may become.

2. Our endeavour must be practical. Meditation alone will do but little.

3. God will aid us by the discipline of life. Many strokes may be needed; but as the form of immortal loveliness lies concealed in the block of stone, and is being moulded stroke by stroke by the sculptor's genius, so the heavenly form in man is being developed by the Eternal Sculptor, who by His discipline is unveiling in us the image of His Son.

(E. L. Hull, B.A.)

I. WHEREIN CONSISTS THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHY.

1. In innocent infirmities; hunger, thirst, weariness, etc., and the like. How unlike are we in this respect to the blessed who hunger no more, and thirst no more, and rest not day nor night.

2. In sinful imperfections, commonly expressed by the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of nature.

3. In the consequences.

(1)The miseries of this life.

(2)Death.

(3)A liableness to suffer under the wrath and curse of God for ever.

II. THE RESPECTS IN WHICH TRUE BELIEVERS SHALL BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.

1. In the glorious spirituality of the body. How vastly will it differ from what it now is (vers. 42-44).

2. In the perfect holiness of the soul.

3. In complete happiness.

4. In immortality.

(D. Whittey.)

I. THE CHARACTERS HERE PLACED IN CONTRAST.

1. The earthy.

2. The heavenly.

II. THE FACT ASSUMED — "that we have all borne," etc.

1. The first man is emphatically styled earthy (ver. 47).

(1)On account of his origin.

(2)Because of his tendency.

(3)Because of his apostasy.

2. But Christ is the heavenly One, because of —

(1)His pre-existence.

(2)The moral beauty and glory displayed by Him while on earth.

3. Therefore it is said that we have borne the image of the earthy.

4. And not only because of this, but also because the first man's moral image has become characteristic of us.

III. THE PROMISE IN REFERENCE TO BELIEVERS. A perfect moral resemblance to Christ will be attained at the last day.

(J. Scott.)

I. CONFIRM THE LAMENTABLE FACT THAT, BY NATURE, WE ALL BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY. So says my text; so says my experience, the melancholy experience of all ages and nations; so witness our own feelings in the endurance of those ills to which mortality is subject. Behold it —

1. In our bodies, which are earthly, frail, and tending to dissolution. What is that in the cold corpse which shocks the feelings of humanity, and harrows up the soul? It is the image of the earthly Adam! And ere long you shall bear it too.

2. We all bear this image in our souls.

(1)Our souls are defiled with sin.

(2)Our souls are exposed to Divine wrath, and thus bear the image of the earthly.

II. REJOICE IN THE GLORIOUS TRUTH THAT, AS BELIEVERS, WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE LORD FROM HEAVEN.

1. It is first impressed upon us at the time of our regeneration. Effectual grace then gives a new bias to the mind, and the Father of the spirits of all flesh then makes us new creatures in Christ Jesus. The Saviour imparted to us the principle of grace; He made us, who before lived only for folly and sin, to pant after holiness as our noblest pursuit; to grasp after purity as our noblest attainment.

2. This image shall visibly discover itself through the whole course of the Christian's life, producing a happy effect upon his temper, his passions, his pursuits; it shall make him to speak, to look, to live, like the children of God.

3. This image shall be rendered more striking and glorious on the resurrection morning.

(T. Spencer.)

Adam, Cephas, Corinthians, James, Paul, PeterCorinth, EphesusBear, Borne, Dust, Earthly, Earthy, Heaven, Heavenly, Image, Let's, Likeness, Resemblance1. By Christ's resurrection,
12. he proves the necessity of our resurrection,
16. against all such as deny the resurrection of the body.
21. The fruit,
35. and the manner thereof;
51. and of the resurrection of those who shall be found alive at the last day.

1 Corinthians 15:49

     2024   Christ, glory of
     2339   Christ, example of
     5013   heart, divine
     6214   participation, in Christ
     8117   discipleship, benefits
     9315   resurrection, of believers
     9410   heaven
     9414   heaven, community of redeemed

1 Corinthians 15:35-54

     5136   body

1 Corinthians 15:42-49

     2421   gospel, historical foundation

1 Corinthians 15:42-50

     6139   deadness, spiritual

1 Corinthians 15:42-54

     4010   creation, renewal

1 Corinthians 15:42-55

     9110   after-life

1 Corinthians 15:45-49

     5023   image of God
     5082   Adam, significance
     5492   restitution

1 Corinthians 15:47-49

     1194   glory, divine and human
     5005   human race, and redemption

1 Corinthians 15:48-49

     6213   participation, in sin

1 Corinthians 15:48-57

     5467   promises, divine

1 Corinthians 15:49-53

     8206   Christlikeness

The Image of the Earthly and the Heavenly
Eversley, Easter Day, 1871. 1 Cor. xv. 49. "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." This season of Easter is the most joyful of all the year. It is the most comfortable time, in the true old sense of that word; for it is the season which ought to comfort us most--that is, it gives us strength; strength to live like men, and strength to die like men, when our time comes. Strength to live like men. Strength to fight against the temptation which …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

Third Sunday after Easter Second Sermon.
Text: First Corinthians 15, 20-28. 20 But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by man came 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 they that are Christ's, at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

Fourth Sunday after Easter
Text: First Corinthians 15, 35-50. 35 But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with what manner of body do they come? 36 Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die: 37 and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind; 38 but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one flesh of men, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

Fifth Sunday after Easter
Text: First Corinthians 15, 51-58. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity Paul's Witness to Christ's Resurrection.
Text: 1 Corinthians 15, 1-10. 1 Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, 2 by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures; 5 and that …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Small Duties and the Great Hope
'But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. 10. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; 11. And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; 12. That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. 13. But I would not have …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Christian and the Scientific Estimate of Sin
"Christ died for our sins."--I COR. XV. 3. Nothing is more characteristic of Christianity than its estimate of human sin. Historically, no doubt, this is due to the fact that the Lord and Master of Christians died "on account of sins." His death was due, as we have seen, both to the actual, definite sins of His contemporaries, and also to the irreconcilable opposition between His sinless life and the universal presence of sin in the world into which He came. But it is with the Christian estimate …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

Outward and Inward Morality
OUTWARD AND INWARD MORALITY I Cor. xv. 10.--"The Grace of God." Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all …
Johannes Eckhart—Meister Eckhart's Sermons

April the Sixth First-Hand Knowledge of Christ
"Last of all He was seen of me also." --1 CORINTHIANS xv. 1-11. And by that vision Saul of Tarsus was transformed. And so, by the ministry of a risen Lord we have received the gift of a transfigured Paul. The resurrection glory fell upon him, and he was glorified. In that superlative light he discovered his sin, his error, his need, but he also found the dynamic of the immortal hope. "Seen of me also!" Can I, too, calmly and confidently claim the experience? Or am I altogether depending upon another …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

April the Seventh if Christ were Dead!
1 CORINTHIANS xv. 12-26. "If Christ be not risen!" That is the most appalling "if" which can be flung into the human mind. If it obtains lodging and entertainment, all the fairest hopes of the soul wither away like tender buds which have been nipped by sharp frost! See how they fade! "Your faith is vain." It has no more strength and permanency than Jonah's gourd. Nay, it has really never been a living thing! It has been a pathetic delusion, beautiful, but empty as a bubble, and collapsing at …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Sudden Conversions.
"By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain."--1 Cor. xv. 10. We can hardly conceive that grace, such as that given to the great Apostle who speaks in the text, would have been given in vain; that is, we should not expect that it would have been given, had it been foreseen and designed by the Almighty Giver that it would have been in vain. By which I do not mean, of course, to deny that God's gifts are oftentimes abused and wasted by man, which …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

Paul's Estimate of Himself
'By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.'--1 COR. xv. 10. The Apostle was, all his life, under the hateful necessity of vindicating his character and Apostleship. Thus here, though his main purpose in the context is simply to declare the Gospel which he preached, he is obliged to turn aside in order to assert, and to back up his assertion, that there was no sort of difference between him and the other recognised teachers of Christian truth. He …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Unity of Apostolic Teaching
Whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.'--1 COR. xv. 11. Party spirit and faction were the curses of Greek civic life, and they had crept into at least one of the Greek churches--that in the luxurious and powerful city of Corinth. We know that there was a very considerable body of antagonists to Paul, who ranked themselves under the banner of Apollos or of Cephas i.e. Peter. Therefore, Paul, keenly conscious that he was speaking to some unfriendly critics, hastens in the …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Certainty and Joy of the Resurrection
'But now is Christ risen from the dead ... the first fruits of them that slept.'--1 COR. xv. 20. The Apostle has been contemplating the long train of dismal consequences which he sees would arise if we only had a dead Christ. He thinks that he, the Apostle, would have nothing to preach, and we, nothing to believe. He thinks that all hope of deliverance from sin would fade away. He thinks that the one fact which gives assurance of immortality having vanished, the dead who had nurtured the assurance …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Remaining and Falling Asleep
'After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.'--1 COR. xv. 6. There were, then, some five-and-twenty years after the Resurrection, several hundred disciples who were known amongst the churches as having been eyewitnesses of the risen Saviour. The greater part survived; some, evidently a very few, had died. The proportion of the living to the dead, after five-and-twenty years, is generally the opposite. …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Death of Death
'But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. 21. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.... 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, (for the trumpet shall sound;) and the dead shall …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Power of the Resurrection
'I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; 4. And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.'--1 COR. xv. 3, 4. Christmas day is probably not the true anniversary of the Nativity, but Easter is certainly that of the Resurrection. The season is appropriate. In the climate of Palestine the first fruits of the harvest were ready at the Passover for presentation in the Temple. …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

On the Atonement.
"How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."-1 Cor. xv. 3. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."-2 Cor. v. 21. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."-Rom. v. 8. "The Lord is well pleased for his Righteousness' sake: he will magnify the law and make it honorable."-Isa. xlii. 21. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, …
Charles G. Finney—Sermons on Gospel Themes

Victory Over Death.
Preached May 16, 1852. VICTORY OVER DEATH. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."--1 Cor. xv. 56, 57. On Sunday last I endeavoured to bring before you the subject of that which Scripture calls the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. The two points on which we were trying to get clear notions were these: what is meant by being under the law, and what is meant by being free from the law? When …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

Thoughts on the Last Battle
When I select such a text as this, I feel that I cannot preach from it. The thought o'ermasters me; my words do stagger; there are no utterances that are great enough to convey the mighty meaning of this wondrous text. If I had the eloquence of all men united in one, if I could speak as never man spake (with the exception of that one godlike man of Nazareth), I could not compass so vast a subject as this. I will not therefore pretend to do so, but offer you such thoughts as my mind is capable of …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

"Alas for Us, if Thou Wert All, and Nought Beyond, O Earth"
We will try and handle our text this morning in this way. First, we are not of all men most miserable; but secondly, without the hope of another life we should be--that we are prepared to confess--because thirdly, our chief joy lies in the hope of a life to come; and thus, fourthly, the future influences the present; and so, in the last place, we may to-day judge what our future is to be. I. First then, WE ARE NOT OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE. Who ventures to say we are? He who will have the hardihood …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 10: 1864

A Leap Year Sermon *
"One born out of due time."--1 Corinthians 15:8. PAUL THUS DESCRIBES himself. It was necessary that Paul, as an apostle, should have seen the Lord. He was not converted at the time of Christ's ascension; yet he was made an apostle, for the Lord Jesus appeared to him in the way, as he was going to Damascus, to persecute the saints of God. When he looked upon himself as thus put in, as it were, at the end of the apostles, he spoke of himself in the most depreciating terms, calling himself "one born …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 46: 1900

Resurgam
I propose this morning, as God shall enable, to listen to that voice of spring, proclaiming the doctrine of the resurrection, a meditation all the more appropriate from the fact, that the Sabbath before last we considered the subject of Death, and I hope that then very solemn impressions were made upon our minds. May the like impressions now return, accompanied with more joyous ones, when we shall look beyond the grave, through the valley of the shadow of death, to that bright light in the distance--the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 6: 1860

28TH DAY. A Joyful Resurrection.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "This corruptible must put on incorruption."--1 COR. xv. 53. A Joyful Resurrection. Marvel of marvels? The sleeping ashes of the sepulchre starting at the tones of the archangel's trumpet!--the dishonoured dust, rising a glorified body, like its risen Lord's? At death, the soul's bliss is perfect in kind; but this bliss is not complete in degree, until reunited to the tabernacle it has left behind to mingle with the sods of the valley. But tread lightly on that grave, …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

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