1 Corinthians 15:56Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore the law contributed greatly both to a fuller knowledge of sin and to an increase of punishment. Yet if the law, whose aim was to restrain sin, made it more grievous, the blame lies not with the physician, but with him who used the medicine badly.

So also the coming of Christ became a greater burden for the Jews. Yet we do not blame it for this. On the contrary, we marvel at it all the more, and condemn them more severely, because they suffered harm from what should have profited them.

That the law itself did not give strength to sin is clear from this: Christ fulfilled everything, and yet He was a stranger to sin.

See how through this also the Apostle proves the resurrection. If sin is the cause of death, and Christ, by coming, destroyed sin and delivered us from it through Baptism, then He also brought the law to an end together with sin.

For sin consists in the transgression of the law. How then, after this, can one doubt the resurrection? By what will death now be strong? By the law? But it has been brought to an end. By sin? But it has been destroyed.

He gave His whole Self over to death, in order to slay the insatiable beast and destroy bonds that could not be filled. For His immortal body He everywhere sought its proper food.

This food was not bound in any way to pleasure, malice, disobedience, or the ancient sin in general, the first food of death. For it is said, “the sting of death is sin” (1 Cor 15:56).

And since nothing was found in Him that could serve as food for death, death remained by itself and was deprived of nourishment. Thus it became death to itself, as many of the righteous had prophetically announced concerning the resurrection of the Firstborn from the dead.

For this reason He endured the three-day sojourn in the earth, that instead of the law He Himself might save the whole human race in its entirety. Perhaps He also became three-day, in order to restore man wholly: soul, spirit, and body.

We did not use the law as we ought, as a medicine. This has been said at greater length and more fully in the Epistle to the Romans.

Therefore, man, do not doubt the resurrection. You see that sin, which was the weapon of death, has been destroyed. The law, which incidentally became the strength of sin, has been abolished.

When death has been disarmed, it is clear that it no longer has power.

Why is the strength of sin the law, if the law is good (1 Tim 1:8; cf. Rom 7:8)? Because the law, through what is good, brought death into operation, so that sinfulness might abound.

That is, it gained greater strength through the transgression of the law. Why did we die to sin through the body of Christ, if the law is good?

Because we died to condemnation by the law, for we were freed from what the law punishes and condemns.

Thus one and the same rule is law for those who fear it, and grace for those who love it.

One should not marvel that human weakness added strength to evil from the good law, because, in fulfilling the law, it relied on its own strength.

For death will be destroyed by the resurrection. Therefore the sinner, let us say hypothetically, gains nothing by not dying, if even after the resurrection he suffers punishment.

The Apostle makes this clear by another powerful example, saying: "The sting of death is sin." Therefore, just as no one fears a snake or scorpion that has no fangs or sting with which to inject poison, so death should have been received without fear if it had not been introduced by sin.

If death came on account of virtue, it would even be pleasant. Do you think this impossible? Receive as witnesses the martyrs, who loved death as the beginning of immortality.

The Apostle may have added the thought about the law partly in order to overthrow the Jews’ fabulous sayings about the eternity of the law. These sayings later entered the Talmud and other Hebrew books.

Victory over sin, death, and the devil will be fully accomplished at the end of the ages. Yet it has already begun through our Savior, and it is accomplished in us as we advance in the holiness of life granted to us through Jesus Christ.

Therefore we must always give thanks for it to God and to Christ the Savior. We must live as befits beloved children of God, boldly repelling every hostile snare and assault, such as the various opinions of unbelievers and those in error.

We must also advance in the struggles commanded by the Lord, knowing how great a reward the Lord has prepared for us in the glorious life to come. May God count us all worthy of it by His grace.

This is what happens when conscience, armed with the word of God that proclaims the law, finds a man to be a transgressor of the law.

At that time it acts like some corrosive and dissolving element. This is how sin proves so strong that it causes death.

The law clarifies conscience. Enlightened by it, conscience watches man's deeds more sharply and gives him no rest as soon as he appears as a transgressor of the law.

Through this it troubles the life of both soul and body, and by disorganizing it leads it toward death. God has ordained that this be so. Conscience fulfills the law of God's righteousness.

With what purpose did the Apostle add these words? Does he not continue the question: "O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?"

Where is the sting of death, that is, sin? And where is the strength of sin, the law? For then there will be neither sin nor law, because eternal righteousness and all-perfect holiness will reign.

Nothing prevents us from viewing the matter in this way. Yet perhaps it will be more direct to put it thus.

Transporting himself in thought to the contemplation of the most glorious state after the resurrection, when the joy of life will abound everywhere, he was enraptured by that state and cried out: "O death, where is thy sting?"

But immediately he remembered that this state still lies ahead, though it is certainly sure. We are still on the way to it and must fulfill the condition.

Then, having entered the realm of immortality, we will begin to taste blessedness and not torment.

At this thought, the sting of death led him to sin. From this arose the impulse to remind everyone: while triumphing over death, sing, "O death, where is thy sting?"

Yet do not forget that the sting of death is sin. For us, the present triumph over death is victory over sin in ourselves.

Be encouraged, then, toward such victory, so that afterward you may enter the state of triumph over death with joy, not terror.

The sting of death is sin. The destructive strength of sin comes from the fact that it is a violation of the law, for which God's righteousness punishes through conscience and takes away or diminishes life.

Therefore be guardians of the law and faithful doers of all its commandments. This is the direct path to triumph over death.

With this understanding of the connection of these words, both the following thanksgiving and the further exhortation in verse 58 stand in direct agreement.