In Acts, when Paul meets the Risen Jesus, the Lord identifies Himself with the Christians Paul threatens with beatings, imprisonment, death. Christ said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (9:5), associating Himself with the church. Paul develops this in his teaching about the church as the Body of Christ.
Paul’s doctrine on this is found prominently in the Corinthian epistles. They appear in disjointed fashion during the early weeks of all three cycles in Ordinary Time, as in this year’s Sundays leading into Lent.
Unfortunately, the thoughtful reader does not hear enough of either epistle for long enough to grasp Paul’s argument or pastoral insights. This is particularly regrettable with regard to his magisterial handbook on Christian life — First Corinthians — which treats burning pastoral issues of the first century that remain relevant today.
For example, in chapters 5-7, Paul responds to questions from his converts and gives his replies about lawsuits between Christians (6:1-11); sexual issues such as incest and immorality (5:1-13) or prostitution (6:12-20); celibacy, sexual abstinence in marriage, the marriage of Christians with unbelievers — including the possibility of divorce in the case of a non-Christian being unwilling to live in peace with a believer (the so-called “Pauline Privilege”) — and even whether to marry at all (7:1-40), given that “the present form of this world is passing away” (7:31).
Other issues considered in chapters 8-15 include how Christians should act when they consider that their behaviour affects other people’s lives (8:1-13; 10:1-33); how Corinthian divisions, between rich and poor and between slave and free, debase the Eucharist (11:17-34); how spiritual gifts are to be understood by members of the church (11:2-16; 12:1-31; 14:1-40); how the resurrection of Christ is the mystery central to all of Christian belief and how confusion about it and the coming resurrection of believers leads to other misconceptions about life in this world or in regard to the future life Christian disciples one day will share with God (15:1-58).
Undergirding these issues which the Corinthians or Paul raised are several key principles: above all, the importance of the human body; the nature of freedom itself (9:1-26); and how indispensable self-sacrificing love in imitation of Christ is (the famous “Hymn to Love” in 12:31-13:13).
Because Paul attempted to walk in the way of Jesus to the best of his ability, he could unabashedly urge his converts at Corinth to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (11:1).
Some years ago, a thin volume caught my attention, Hans Frör’s, You Wretched Corinthians! The German scholar gives his interpretation of Paul’s teaching by suggesting what the Corinthians might have written to the Apostle to elicit his responses.
Introducing discussion of the resurrection, Frör imagines one Melas, a representative of Egyptian wisdom, arguing as follows: “You must make a distinction... between the earthly Jesus and the Christ who is near to us in the spirit. Jesus the bodily man is a part of, an embodiment of, the world which has fallen victim to death. How can divine life have anything in common with decay?
“The spirit is life, Christ in us, infinitely far away from the abyss of rotting bodies and meaningless plagues. Christ, the Spirit, that’s eternal life. God’s living being, which was there long before the world, untouched by the corruptible. We can experience that. It fills us! Can’t you feel it?”
Another member of the Corinthian church, Deborah, struggled with Melas’ argument and pleaded, “Tell us what happens to the bodies of the dead if divine life and earthly fate have nothing in common? What happens to the resurrection then?” To which Melas boldly replied, “Resurrection from the dead? There’s no such thing” (p. 74).
In the second century, the apologist Justin Martyr admitted to Trypho the Jew that there are “some who are called Christians who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven.” Justin did not mince his words when attacking such “godless, impious heretics”: “Do not imagine that they are Christians.”
Paul’s answer to some at Corinth who denied the future resurrection of believers was to go back to the foundations of Christian faith — that Christ died and rose “according to the Scriptures.” Paul also argued that underlying this matter was a question about God, “if the dead are not raised...” (that is, “if God is unable to raise the dead”), then Christ has not been raised and a whole series of conclusions follows. Among these are: “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
For the Christian, everything hinges on Jesus’ bodily resurrection. To deny the resurrection of Jesus (or the future resurrection of the believer) is to misrepresent God (“we testified of God that He raised Jesus”), to negate the Gospel and, ultimately, to empty the Gospel of its power.
Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. is a noted Scripture scholar and writer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Fordham University, Master of Divinity and Doctor of Theology degrees from Toronto School of Theology and a Licentiate in Theology from Regis College. Archbishop Prendergast taught in Halifax at Atlantic School of Theology from 1975-1981, then was Rector of Toronto's Regis College from 1981-87 and Dean of Theology from 1991-1994. For 10 years he wrote a weekly column on Scripture for The Catholic Register.
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In Acts, when Paul meets the Risen Jesus, the Lord identifies Himself with the Christians Paul threatens with beatings, imprisonment, death. Christ said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (9:5), associating Himself with the church. Paul develops this in his teaching about the church as the Body of Christ.
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