NOTES for Co1 15:12-19

Somehow, in everyday usage the word faith has come to mean the opinion that God exists—as though this could be doubted. But the Apostle Paul gives this word a completely different meaning: that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified on the tree, rose from the dead. Everything else was, in essence, said by Jesus Himself, and our trust in His words rests on faith in His Resurrection.

Therefore, we turn to Him in prayer: He is alive and consequently hears us. Therefore, we seek His authority: He is alive and shepherds His sheep. Therefore, we await our final hour with hope: He is alive, and we shall see Him. Therefore, we accept what befalls us in life: He is alive and is with us always, to the end of the age. Therefore, we feed on His Flesh and Blood: this is the Flesh and Blood of the One who will never die again, but will live—in us.

People guessed from the earliest times that physical death is by no means the end of a person's existence. Some ideas about the afterlife already existed among people in the Paleolithic era. But when it comes to Christianity, the matter is not the afterlife, but something qualitatively different: resurrection. It might seem that the difference is small. But it only seems so at first glance. In fact, every idea of an afterlife, of postmortem existence whether of a shade or of a soul, presupposes that after physical death a person no longer lives a full life.

From the most ancient idea of the world of shadows, the kingdom of the dead, where all are equal and where there is only a semblance of life, to teachings about recompense after death, about a good and bad afterlife, characteristic of civilizations such as the Egyptian or Greek, the spiritual and historical distance is very great. But even the ideas of the immortality of the soul characteristic of Greek philosophy did not presuppose a full life after death: only the soul remained of the person, only thought and self-awareness, while everything else remained on earth with the body left behind at the moment of death.

Of course, this is not the world of shadows, where consciousness barely glimmers and where there is no place for thought or memory, but still one cannot speak here of life even in that very relative fullness characteristic of a fallen person in a fallen world. For Greek philosophers, however, many of whom after Plato considered the body only a prison of the soul, such incompleteness was preferable to life in the body.

The Bible from the very beginning orients a person not so much toward existence after death as toward the complete overcoming of death. This is not surprising: none of the authors of the biblical books looks at the body as a prison of the soul. For them the fullness of life presupposes life in the body.

But to recent pagans who had turned to Christ, such a view evidently seemed strange. They may have imagined the Kingdom as some dwelling place of pious souls, something like the medieval Orthodox or Catholic paradise. Paul does not tire of reminding them that the Kingdom is not paradise, not Elysium, and not the fields of Osiris. The Kingdom is new life in all its fullness, spiritual and bodily, in the same fullness in which the fullness of the life of the risen Christ was revealed to the faithful.

People from the earliest time guessed the fact that physical death is not at all the end of the human existence. Some ideas on after death were already to people in the Paleolithic era. But, when it concerns Christianity, it is not about the after death, but about something qualitatively different - about the resurrection. It would seem the difference is not big. But it seems so only at first sight. Indeed, any idea about after death, whether it is about the post-mortem existence of the shadow or the soul, supposes that man cannot already live a full life after the physical death.

Of course, the distance is very big between the representation of the antiquity on the world of the darkness, on the kingdom of death, where all are equal and where there is only a resemblance of life, and the doctrines about the rewards after death, about the good and the bad after death, typical for such civilizations, as the Egyptian or Greek, spiritual, and even historic. But even the ideas appropriate to the Greek philosophy on immortality of the soul did not suppose a full life after the death: because remained to man only the soul, only the idea and the consciousness, and all the rest remained on the earth with the body leaving at the time of death.

Of course, it is not the world of darkness, where the consciousness hardly dawns and where there is no place either for ideas, nor for memory, but all the same we can speak here about the life at least in its very relative fullness, that is appropriate to the fallen man in the fallen world. Moreover, for the Greek philosophers, of whom many after Plato considered the body only as the prison of the soul, such incompleteness was more preferable to the life in the body. But here is, the Bible from the very beginning directs man not so much on the existence after death, as much on the complete overcoming of death.

It is not surprising: because none of the authors of the biblical books looks the body as a prison of the soul. Moreover, the completeness of life for them supposes the life in the body. However, as we see, such view seemed strange for the heathen recently converted to Christ. They imagined probably the Kingdom as a certain house of the pious souls, a kind of medieval orthodox or catholic paradise. Nevertheless, Paul never ceases to remind them that the Kingdom is neither the paradise, nor the Elysium and nor the field of Osiris. The Kingdom is a new life in all its completeness, spiritual and physical. In the same completeness, that revealed itself the real completeness of the life of the risen Christ.

For Paul, Christ's resurrection from the dead is the cornerstone of all Christianity. In fact, Christianity in every age has been founded precisely on faith in the resurrection from the dead of every person, and also on the fact that this process was begun by the Savior's resurrection. The issue is not only that, if there is no life after death, human earthly life becomes largely meaningless.

Faith in the immortality of the soul and in recompense after death was characteristic in antiquity of the Egyptians, partly of the Greeks, and of some other peoples. But the Bible speaks of something else. Here the question is not that some part of the human personality, even the most important part, is preserved after death and that because of this a person continues to live, remembering and recognizing himself.

The Bible speaks of more; it speaks of resurrection, of the return to life of the whole person, and to full life, not to a partial and limited life such as the life of the soul alone would inevitably be. For important as the soul is, it is only part of the human personality, not the whole personality. But for a person's resurrection to become possible, the world had to change. Death and the evil that gave birth to it had to be driven out of the world into which they entered after the fall.

The world had once again to become the Kingdom of God, as it already was on the first day of creation: for then, on the first day, there was neither darkness nor evil in the world; it was wholly pierced by the light of God's presence, which made it the Kingdom of the living and utterly real God. And God wants to see the world exactly like this; He will not accept less. And the human person, according to His plan, must become an inhabitant of this world, receiving in it a fullness of life unimaginable today.

And the center of this process was Christ's resurrection from the dead. Human salvation consists in being included in the universal resurrection; otherwise one will have to forget the Kingdom. The apostle understands all this perfectly and never tires of reminding others: to remain outside what is happening means to lose everything. Then Christianity too loses all meaning, turning into a religion, a teaching, in short, into something that by itself cannot make a person a participant in the life of the Kingdom. And to live by talk about a Kingdom toward which one is not going truly means being the most pitiable of all people.