The principle of toleration, however, culminates in the principle of love. If there must be a choice between the exercise of different gifts, then the choice should be in favor of those gifts which are most profitable to other men. Finally, even the highest spiritual gifts are not independent of reason. I Cor. 14:32,33. That is a far-reaching principle. Some modern Christians seem to think that an appeal to the inward voice of the Spirit excuses them from listening to reasonable counsel. Such is not the teaching of Paul.
The error which is combated in the fifteenth chapter of the epistle could hardly have been a denial, in general, of continued existence after death, but was rather a denial of the resurrection of the body as over against the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul. In reply, Paul appeals to the resurrection of Jesus. The appeal would seem to be futile unless Paul means that the resurrection of Jesus was a bodily resurrection. If the appearances of Jesus were no more than incorporeal manifestations of his spirit, then obviously the believer in a mere immortality of the soul remained unrefuted. In this chapter there is an advance over the simple teaching of First Thessalonians. Here the character of the resurrection body comes into view. The resurrection body will have a real connection with the old body--otherwise there would be no resurrection--but the weakness of the old body will be done away. There is continuity, but also transformation.
Certain passages in First Corinthians, which are introduced only in an incidental way, as illustrations of the principles which are being applied, are of inestimable historical value. These passages include not only the great autobiographical passage in the ninth chapter, where Paul illustrates from his own life the limitation of the principle of freedom by the principle of love, but also two all-important passages which refer to the life of Christ.
It is generally admitted that First Corinthians was written at about A. D. 55. The eleventh chapter of the epistle gives an account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, in which Jesus teaches the sacrificial significance of his death; and the fifteenth chapter gives a list of the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection. The information contained in these passages was not invented by Paul; indeed he distinctly says that it was "received." In A. D. 55, then, not only Paul, but also the Church generally believed that Jesus' death, according to his own teaching, was sacrificial, and appealed in support of his resurrection to a wealth of competent testimony. But from whom had Paul "received" these things? Hardly from anyone except those who had been Christians before him--in other words, from the Palestinian church. We have here an irremovable confirmation of the Gospel view of Jesus. First Corinthians is a historical document of absolutely priceless value.
