If these things are not so, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?
29. Else what shall they do He resumes his enumeration of the absurdities, which follow from the error under which the Corinthians labored. He had set himself in the outset to do this, but he introduced instruction and consolation, by means of which he interrupted in some degree the thread of his discourse. To this he now returns.
In this passage the apostle establishes the truth of the resurrection of the dead, the holy dead, the dead in Christ, I. On the resurrection of Christ. 1. Because he is indeed the first-fruits of those that slept, Co1 15:20. He has truly risen himself, and he has risen in this very quality and character, as the first-fruits of those who sleep in him.
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:20-34
If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,.... This is one of the particulars of the jeopardy and danger of life he had been in: some understand this in a figurative sense, and think that by "beasts" are meant Satan, the roaring lion, and his principalities and powers; or men of savage dispositions, persecuting principles, and cruel practices; as Herod...