1 Corinthians 15: 20 – 28

“Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man”. The difficult thing about this is not understanding that in Jesus God did something unique in bringing in a new age, but the rooting of the argument in the idea that death came through a man and a literal reference to Genesis in the same context as the resurrection. And the contemporary challenge to Paul’s argument arises from how we take the different texts.

The first few chapters of Genesis are taken by most to be a different sort of a text to the resurrection accounts. They are stories aimed at explaining the state of the relationships between God and people; people and each other; people and the planet. To accept these stories as history takes us beyond what is reasonable in the light of our understanding of the natural world. That’s not to say that such understanding is aimed at placing the human mind above God, but rather that the gifts God has given to the human race has enables them to explore the universe to the point at which they can critically appraise preconceived or inherited ideas – including the literal acceptance of a creation story.

So does this changing worldview undermine Paul’s argument and understanding of what God is doing in Christ? I don’t think so. It’s a little bit like the writer of Hebrews saying that the cultic practices and laws were a mere shadow for what Christ has done literally. Christ the reality blows the stories and images out of the water. The same kind of thinking is going on here – just as the relationships between God and people have been understood as being broken through the decision taken by Genesis characters to turn away from God and to hide, so the reality of Christ has taken the relationship between God and people into a new phase. In the past we understood through stories (shadows) but now we understand through revelation in person – the real thing. Rather than undermining the contrast between the old and the new our deepening understanding of our world gives scripture here a deeper meaning. The analogy becomes more profound.

The difficulty is, of course, that we live in the time when the old and the new compete for space – both in the world and in ourselves as part of the world. We belong to Christ as Paul says, and in Him, the first fruits, the Kingdom is complete. But in His Grace God has allowed the dominions, authorities and powers to continue that they too (whoever they may be!) may become part of the Kingdom - not by force, but by choice. God’s gift of patient love has a high price but will win the highest returns.