1 Corinthians 15:2

Note

Verse 1 spoke of the gospel the Corinthians received and the ground on which they stand. This verse says what that gospel is doing for them now: through it they are being saved. A condition follows: that they hold fast to the word as it was preached to them.

Before he answers those who deny the resurrection, Paul sets the Corinthians back on the gospel they received (1 Corinthians 15:1). This verse says how much rests on it; verses 3 and 4 give its content; verses 5 to 8 name the witnesses who saw the risen Lord. Later Paul shows what would make faith vain: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:14). But "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20), and so faith in Him is not in vain.

There is no separate noun "gospel" in the Greek of this verse. A relative pronoun, hou, ‘through which’, points back to the gospel of verse 1, and the verb euangelizomai (εὐαγγελίζομαι) returns: tini logō euēngelisamēn humin, ‘in what word I preached the gospel to you’. Paul asks them to hold not only to the message in general but to the logos (λόγος), the very words in which it reached them. "You are saved" is sōzō (σῴζω) in the present passive, sōzesthe: a salvation now under way. "Hold firmly" is katechō (κατέχω), and "in vain" is eikē (εἰκῇ), to no purpose, or without good ground.

The KJV has "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." Its "keep in memory" is one sense of katechō, to hold something in the mind; the BSB's "hold firmly" and the LSV's "hold fast" give its more usual sense. The LSV brings out the continuing present, "you are also being saved," and renders the verb "what I proclaimed as good news to you," so that the gospel's own word is heard in the clause.

Wesley reads the promise this way: "Your salvation is begun, and will be perfected, if ye continue in the faith" Wesley. On the last clause he adds: "Unless indeed your faith was only a delusion" Wesley. Matthew Henry puts the condition simply: "We believe in vain, unless we keep in the faith of the gospel" Matthew Henry.

The word Paul told the Corinthians to hold fast was kept in the church's confession. The Nicene Creed, in the old English wording, says of Christ: "And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures" The Nicene Creed. The phrase is Paul's own, from the gospel he delivers in the next two verses.

Salvation in this verse is not news heard once and finished with; it goes on as long as the news is held. And what is held is not a vague feeling but a definite word: Christ who died and rose again.