The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (193 page)

15:14 your faith is in vain:
The Resurrection of Jesus is a historical foundation so essential to Christianity that, without it, the entire structure of the faith collapses in ruins (CCC 651). 
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15:15 he raised Christ:
I.e., God the Father (CCC 648). Technically, the Resurrection is the work of all three Persons of the Trinity—Father (Rom 6:4), Son (Jn 10:17-18), and Spirit (Rom 1:4). 
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15:17 still in your sins:
If Jesus did not overcome death, then he could not have destroyed sin, for death is the consequence of sin (Gen 3:17-19). It is precisely Christ's victory over death that demonstrates his triumph over the cause of death (1 Cor 15:56-57). 
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15:20 the first fruits:
In the liturgy of ancient Israel the first portion of a crop was offered to God in the Temple as a means of consecrating the whole of the expected harvest (Ex 23:19; Lev 23:10-14). So, too, Christ is not only the first to be raised in glory, but his resurrected humanity is an offering that ensures an entire harvest of believers will be raised as he was (Acts 26:23; Rom 11:15-16).
fallen asleep:
A euphemism for biological death (15:6; 1 Thess 4:15). 
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15:21-22
Paul compares and contrasts
Adam
and
Christ
as the two individuals whose lives have had the greatest impact on the entire human race. Sin had its beginning with Adam, and because of him the human family enters the world estranged from God and destined to die. Salvation comes to us through Christ, whose triumph over sin reverses the damage done by Adam and gives us the hope that even our mortal bodies will be resurrected to new life. This contrast continues in 15:45-49. 
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15:23 at his coming:
Only when Christ returns in glory (Acts 1:11) will the bodies of the saints be raised in glory (Phil 3:2021). See word study:
Coming
at Mt 24. 
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15:24 rule . . . authority . . . power:
Demonic spirits hostile to God and the advance of his kingdom (Col 2:15; 1 Pet 3:22).
See note on Eph 1:21
. 
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15:25-27
Paul summarizes the drama of the last days, when Christ will
triumph
over his enemies and
transfer
his kingdom over to the Father (CCC 1042-50). He makes use of imagery from Ps 110:1 and Ps 8:6, passages linked by the expression
under his feet
(1 Cor 15:25, 27). • Psalm 110 portrays the Messiah enthroned at Yahweh's right hand and awaiting the subjection of his enemies. Psalm 8 reflects on the original vocation of man to stand above all of creation as its ruler and steward. Christ assumes both of these roles at his Ascension, from which time his reign continues until all creation bows in homage and his final adversary, death, falls in defeat (CCC 668, 1008). 
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15:25 until:
This expression fixes a limit to the conflict between Christ and his enemies, not to his kingship. His rule will be perfected, not terminated, when death is finally destroyed. 
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15:28 everything to every one:
Or, "all things in all". In the end, creation and even the incarnate Son will honor the Father as the Lord of all and the absolute Origin of all life. 
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15:29 baptized on their [the deads'] behalf:
This passage continues to baffle interpreters, since neither the form nor the meaning of this practice is familiar to us today. Perhaps living believers were receiving baptism for the sake of deceased persons, hoping its benefits would accrue to them in the afterlife (cf. 2 Mac 12:39-45). Another possibility, suggested by the verses that follow (1 Cor 15:30-34), is that Paul is talking about people who endure a baptism of suffering for the sake of others who are physically or spiritually dead (Mk 10:38; Lk 12:50). Either way, Paul reasons that such baptisms are pointless apart from belief in a future resurrection. 
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15:32 What do I gain:
Suffering would be meaningless without the prospect of a heavenly reward (4:9-13; 2 Cor 4:11).
Let us eat and drink:
A quotation from Is 22:13. • Isaiah echoes the words of the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem, who despised the Law of God in their pursuit of selfish enjoyments. Such a carefree philosophy of life makes sense only if there is no hope of life beyond death. 
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15:33 Bad company ruins good morals:
An excerpt from
Thais,
a comedy written by the Greek poet Menander. Paul cites it to warn that doctrinal error about the resurrection breeds immorality that is both destructive and contagious (6:13-14; Prov 13:20). 
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15:35-58
Paul moves from defending the resurrection to explaining the constitution of resurrected bodies. For those Corinthians who believed a resurrection was impossible—given the frailty of our bodies at present—Paul insists that risen bodies will be clothed in power, glory, and immortality (15:42-44, 51-53). 
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15:36 unless it dies:
As seeds must decay in order to germinate and bring forth life, so death is merely a prelude to resurrection and new life (Jn 12:24). Paul may be continuing the illustration of 15:23, where the risen body of Christ is the first offering of a crop that consecrates a whole harvest of resurrected saints. 
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15:38-41
Variations in nature between the dignity of living beings
(men, animals, birds, fish)
and heavenly bodies
(sun, moon, stars)
enable Paul to illustrate the different gradations of glory that will characterize the bodies of risen believers. •Daniel 12:2-3 likewise compares the righteous who rise again with the lights and stars shining in heaven. 
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15:42-44
Our risen bodies will be the same bodies that we possessed during earthly life, only transformed by new and spiritual qualities. The Resurrection of Christ's crucified body is a demonstration of this (Jn 20:26-28; CCC 999, 1017). • Catholic theology enumerates four qualities that will endow the risen bodies of the saints:
impassibility
(immunity to suffering),
agility
(freedom from weakness),
subtility
(complete subjection of the body to the soul), and
brightness
(outward radiance in proportion to the degree of inward holiness). 
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15:44 spiritual body:
The body in its risen and glorified state. More than a resuscitated corpse, the resurrected body will be supernaturally transformed by the divine power of Christ (Phil 3:21). • It is not called a "spiritual" body because the body will become a spirit but because the body will remain immortal and incorruptible through the spirit that enlivens it (St. Fulgentius,
On the Faith
70). 
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15:45 The first man:
The contrast between Adam and Christ shows that by nature we get a body from Adam that is physical, earthly, and mortal; and by grace we expect a body from Christ that is spiritual, heavenly, and immortal (15:21-22). • Paul draws on Gen 2:7 to hint that Adam's creation bears a certain likeness to Christ's Resurrection. Just as Adam's body was raised from the earth by the breath of natural life, so Christ's body was raised from the earth by the Spirit of supernatural life. It is this life-giving Spirit, now channeled to the world through the sacrament of Christ's risen humanity, that will raise our bodies also (Rom 8:11). 
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15:50 flesh and blood:
A Semitic idiom for human beings, weak and subject to corruption (Sir 14:18; Mt 16:17). Paul is not denying that resurrected bodies will have flesh and blood; his point is that our physical bodies cannot enter God's kingdom in their present state of weakness; they must be radically "changed" (1 Cor 15:51). 
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15:51 We shall not all sleep:
The last generation that lives to see Christ return may be spared the experience of bodily death. Some scholars interpret this verse to mean that Paul expected Christ to come again during his own lifetime, since he seems to number himself ("we") among this final generation of Christians. Two considerations, however, suggest these words are rhetorical and should not be taken literally.
(1)
Elsewhere Paul counts himself among those who would be raised ("us") from the dead (1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14).
(2)
Paul sees death, through either hardship or martyrdom, as a real possibility for himself in several letters (2 Cor 1:8-9; Phil 3:10-11; 2 Tim 4:6). 
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