Levend Water
The Apostle of the Reconciliation - Charles H. Welch
Index - Page 107 of 159
RECONCILIATION AND FAILURE OF THE LAW107
There is no reference to this type in the epistles of the mystery. The resurrection of Christ in the sphere of the
mystery goes back further still and places the title `Firstborn from the dead' in line with `Firstborn of all creation'.
1 Corinthians 15 deals with `all in Adam'. Leviticus 23:10,11 must be considered in order to see the type in its
original setting:
`Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and
shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he
shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall
wave it'.
There is undoubted prophecy in this type of the resurrection of Christ. The first day after the passover sabbath
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was the actual day upon which Christ rose from the dead. The apostle does not detail the outworking of this great
type beyond that which immediately applies to the believers of the period, whose hope was the parousia of the Lord.
The resurrection and the hope of the one body as revealed in the Prison Epistles, written after Acts 28, find no
mention here. Neither is there anything said of `the rest of the dead' that `lived not again till the thousand years were
finished'. Paul is not teaching the reconciliation or expounding the great purpose of the ages; he is correcting rather
the error of the Corinthians on the one subject of the resurrection, and brings to bear this great theme in order to
reveal the tremendous issues that hang upon the doctrine.
The `coming' of Christ here is the parousia. This word means His personal presence, and is found in the Papyri
in reference to the coming of a king (Teblunis Papyri, No. 116,57).
`We now may say that the best interpretation of the primitive Christian hope of the parousia is the old advent
text, Behold thy king cometh unto thee' (Deissmann, Light from Ancient East, page 372).
Its first occurrence is Matthew 24:3. It comes again in Matthew 24:27,37,39. Again in 1 Thessalonians 2:19;
3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1,8; James 5:7,8; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4; 1 John 2:28. It is associated with the time
when the earth will be like it was in the days of Noah, with great signs in the heavens, with the man of sin and the
temple, with the period immediately after the great tribulation. The word parousia is never used by Paul in his later
epistles for the hope of the church of the one body. It is limited to the period covered by the Gospels and the Acts
and is associated with the people of Israel, and the day of the Lord.
The death brought in by Adam is removed by Christ in the case of some believers at His Coming, in the case of
others after the Millenium, but there is also to be a resurrection of the just and the unjust, and none can live again
apart from Christ. He is the Firstfruits.
The Corinthians are now taken one step further in the endeavour to impress upon them the fundamental
importance of the resurrection. The very goal of the ages is impossible without it. This is shown in the verses that
follow.
1 Corinthians 15:24-28
A 15:24-.  The end.
B a 15:-24-.  WHEN He delivers up the kingdom.
b 15:-24.   WHEN He abolishes all rule.
c 15:25-.   FOR He must reign.
d 15:-25.  Till all enemies under foot.
d 15:26-.  The last enemy; death abolished.
c 15:-26.   FOR He hath put all things under His feet.
b 15:27.
WHEN. The one exception.
a 15:28-.   WHEN. The Son Himself subjected.
A 15:-28.  That God may be all in all.
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See chapter 15 of Life Through His Name by C.H. Welch, for a detailed study of the day and time of the
crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord.