In 1 Corinthians Paul deals pastorally with the church's presenting problems - those both reported and written to him. These can be examined under the heading of cause, consequence and cure. Bruce argues that the causes of the problems arise from the influence of secular ethics... the way Corinthian culture had programmed the converts before they became Christians and significant social changes that had occurred after Paul left Corinth.
1 Cor 15 shows Paul dealing with the underlying problems. What has the 'wake out of drunkeness' passage have to do with the resurrection of the body, however? In this chapter, Paul is dealing with the effect that their concept of anthropology are causing.
In Philo of Alexandria we see just such a critique of a pagan anthropology. The orators of Alexandria were saying 'Is not the body the soul's house?' 'Did not nature creat pleasures and enjoyments and the delights that meet us all the way through life for the dead, or for those who have never come into existence, and not for the living?' 'The so-called lovers of virture are almost without exception obscure people, looked down upon, of mean estate, destitute of the ncessities of life, not enjoying the privileges of subject peoples or even of slaves, filthy, sallow, reduced to skeletons, with a hungry look for want of food, the prey of disease, in training for dying'....
Philo called these opponents the 'lovers of self' ...
In Corinth, Paul likewise finds people living out of their anthropology: that the body and its behaviour doesn't have eternal significance at all.
Paul talks about his own life, with its own struggles:
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1Co 15:10 TNIV)
30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?
31 I face death every day--yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord.
32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
33 Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."
(1Co 15:30-33 TNIV)
Bruce wants to suggest that the last set of injunctions is key. 15:58 begins with a strong injunction - they are to be steadfast by how they live their lives; immovable about their thinking. Not prone to the smorgasbord approach to Christianity. The last line is a very important line!
See For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2Co 5:10 TNIV)
The presenting problems are serious matters indeed: the incestuous relationship in ch 5, for example. Surface conformity was the go in Rome, hiding deep competetiveness and conflict.
Education was a means of getting ahead, not of actual learning. Don't forget the vexatious litigations issue. People are being contentious... see 1 Cor 11.
Has Bruce ignored what the passage is actually about? Well, he says he has tried to raise the often overlooked sections which reveal the underlying cause: a popular anthropology that the Christians were toying with while at the same time invoking the Christian identity. The Christian playboy 'your best life now' philosophy! Life is NOT all about my pleasure... But I did it my way is now the most popular funeral hymn in England...
The issue is the insurrection of the body, to which the resurrection of the body is the retort.
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