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‘Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom of God’1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Joachim Jeremias
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Extract

The thesis which I would like to discuss is the negative one that the sentence ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God’ does not refer to the resurrection of the dead, but is to be understood otherwise. I shall try, firstly, to give a short exegesis of the verse I Cor. xv. 50 and of its context; then, secondly, to re-examine the line of thought of I Cor. xv in the light of this exegesis; and lastly, try to show some consequences of the result for our understanding of the eschatology of the Apostle.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , February 1956 , pp. 151 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1957

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References

page 153 note 1 Weiss, J., Der erste Korintherbrief (1910), p. 377; K. H. Rengstorf, Die Auferstehung Jesu2 (1954), p. 67, n. 37; p. 103. Rengstorf gives more examples in Exkurs 2, ‘Traditionelle Elemente in I Kor. 15’ (pp. 101–5). We may add as a further example that whereas according to v. 26, death is over-come as the last enemy, v. 54 says that death is already totally annihilated at the parousia. This contradiction is explained by the use of traditional material in v. 26 (cf. Rev. xx. 14, xxi. 4).Google Scholar

page 153 note 2 An exception is Schniewind, J., Nachgelassene Reden und Aufsatze, ed. Kahler, E. (1952), pp. 136f.Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 As I intend dealing with this subject shortly in the Festschrift fÜr Johannes Leipoldt, some examples may suffice: Rom. ix. 24–9, x. 9f., xi. 22; I Cor. i. 12f., 24f., iv. 10, 13 etc.

page 154 note 2 de Wette, M. D. L. (1855), B. Weiss (1907), E. KÜhl (1907), W. Bousset (1917), H. Lietzmann (1923), J. Héring (1949), W. G. KÜmmel (1949).Google Scholar

page 154 note 3 Chr., J.Hofmann, K. (1864), J. Weiss (1910), Ph. Bachmann (1921), J. Sickenberger (1921), O. Holtzmann (1926), H. D. Wendland (1933), A. Schlatter (1934), W. Meyer (1945).Google Scholar

page 158 note 1 I am glad that this result is in agreement with what Professor Sevenster has shown in Marburg last year in his paper ‘Einige Bemerkungen Über den “Zwischenzustand” bei Paulus’, N.T.S. vol. i (1955), pp. 291–6.

page 159 note 1 So rightly E. Teichmann, op. cit. p. 36.

page 159 note 2 So also Or. Sib. iv, 181 ‘as they were before’.

page 159 note 3 Syr. Bar. li; cf. Hen. cviii. 11. If I Cor. xv. 50a is a quotation of an early Christian eschatological saying (see above, p. 152) it must originally have had in mind this change after the judgment.

page 159 note 4 The passives in I Cor. xv. 51f. are circumlocutions for the action of God, cf. vi. 14 ὁ δὲ θεός…ἡμᾶς ἐξεγερεῖ That in Phil. iii. 21 it is Christ who effects the change is another of the details in which we observe a development in the Pauline utterances about the resurrection of the dead.