Big Idea: The veracity of bodily resurrection is not up for debate. Christ’s resurrection is the climactic point of salvation history—the moment when God most decisively altered the course of history—as announced beforehand in the Scriptures and attested to by faithful eyewitnesses.

Understanding the Text

Chapter 15 functions both as a crescendo of this letter and as the high-water mark of Paul’s theological exposition. It provides the theological key that reveals Paul’s mind to his audience and explains the structure of his ethics. For Paul, everything he has said in this letter hinges on the historical reality of Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead. Christ’s resurrection stands as the climactic point, without which his suffering and death have no significance, and because of whi…