1 Corinthians 15:2 - Printer Friendly

ESV: and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

NIV: By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

NASB: by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

CSB: and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.

NLT: It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you — unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

KJV: By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

NKJV: by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

Paul has set out to clear up some misunderstanding among the Christians in Corinth about resurrection. He began in the previous verse by asking them to remember the gospel as he first preached it to them when establishing the church in Corinth.

Paul will insist that the content of the gospel, and their belief in all of it, is the foundation for everything that is true. He has reminded them that they received the gospel as it was presented to them; they continue to have a right standing before God because of their faith in the truth of the gospel.

Now Paul adds that they are in the process of being saved by the gospel right now. When Paul and other New Testament writers talk about salvation, they often use the past, present, and future tenses. Those in Christ have been saved, in the sense that our sins are forgiven and our place in eternity is secure. We are being saved; God is active right now in sanctifying us to be like Christ. We will be saved when the moment comes for us to stand before God in eternity, and we're freed from all sin.

There's a problem, however. Paul describes those who have received the gospel as "being saved" if they hold firmly to the truth as he preached it to them. The word "if" is easily interpreted as "since," because this statement is tied to them holding fast to the word preached to them. But the Corinthians have believed the gospel in vain if they did not and are not believing the gospel as he preached it to them. In other words, if anyone is believing a false version of the gospel of Jesus, that person should not think that they have any standing before God.

The part of the gospel Paul will emphasize in this chapter is faith in Christ's resurrection, as well as His death. Both must be believed to hold to the gospel as Paul preached it to them.

First Corinthians 15:1–11 describes the gospel as it was delivered to Paul and as he delivered it to the Corinthians. It begins with the death of Christ on the cross for our sins, but it continues to His burial and, significantly, His resurrection. The alive-again Christ appeared to many people still alive at the time Paul wrote his letter. Paul establishes that the Corinthians believed the gospel, including faith in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Paul will connect that faith to belief in the resurrection of all believers from the dead.

Paul provides thorough teaching about the resurrection of Christians from the dead. This is a direct counter to some group of Corinthians who did not believe in such a resurrection. He shows that natural death is not the end of life for Christians; it is the last step before receiving a glorified, resurrected body like that of the risen Christ. That ''spiritual'' body will be as different from our current bodies as a star is from a fish. In that moment, for all who have believed in Christ, living and dead, death will be defeated for good.

In chapters 12, 13, and 14, Scripture focused on the concept of spiritual gifts and how best to use them. This follows several other ideas where Paul corrected errors in the Corinthians' thinking. Chapter 15 contains extensive teaching on one last issue about which some Corinthians were confused or misled. Apparently, they harbored some doubts about the physical resurrection of Christians from the dead. After clearing up these confusions, Paul will address various other items, of a less doctrinal nature, and close out his letter.

First Corinthians is one of the more practical books of the New Testament. Paul writes to a church immersed in a city associated with trade, but also with corruption and immorality. These believers are struggling to properly apply spiritual gifts and to resist the ungodly practices of the surrounding culture. Paul's letter gives instructions for real-life concerns such as marriage and spirituality. He also deals with the importance of unity and gives one of the Bible's more well-known descriptions of love in chapter 13.