Greek: Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ·
After pointing out that τάγματι (1 Cor 15:23) is a military term, H.L. Goudge notes that "The Captain (Heb 2:10) is first [in the resurrection], and His company afterwards" (See 1 Corinthians, Goudge, p. 148).
Moffatt likewise addresses the issue of what τὸ τέλος might mean in 1 Cor 15:24. He asks whether it applies to "the rest" of humankind "redeemed from the powers of death and evil and made alive in Christ" (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Moffatt, p. 247) or to the apocalyptic End.
He concludes that the meaning, "the rest of humankind" for τὸ τέλος here is "too remote and ambiguous" to support the idea. Moffatt believes that τὸ τέλος simply denotes the End in view of how it's used at 1 Cor 1:8 and since the construction bears the apocalyptic sense elsewhere in the GNT.
Anthony Thistleton agrees with Moffatt's analysis. He observes that εἶτα "indicates a firmly marked sequence" denoting either "then, afterward" or "thereafter" (First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 1229).
He argues that τὸ τέλος does not apply to a third group of individuals for the following reasons:
(a) The lexical scope of τέλος suggests that it does not refer to people remaining over.
(b) The syntax and use of εἶτα in 1 Corinthians is far from decisive in affixing the referent as remaining ones.
(c) Jewish apocalyptic expectation concerns the final resurrection of the righteous only and not the unrighteous.
Concerning Thiselton's last point, I am aware that a number of objections could be raised to subvert his claim; nevertheless, his commentary is one of the most thorough that I've seen on 1 Corinthians. Maybe some of these observations will at least give you food for thought.
3 comments:
I had never considered that "telos" here could mean anything else than the final consumation/eschaton. Did not know there were other options :), well, the more you know, that being said, I haven't spent much time with scholarship on 1 Corinthians (my main interest in Paul has been the apocalyptic school).
I like to explore different options, even if the answer seems pretty obvious. Telos likely refers to the eschaton in this case; however, it's good to know what others think about the word in a certain context. And there is plenty of scholarship out there on 1 Corinthians, but the one book I would recommend for a good overview of the book is Anthony Thiselton's huge commentary.
Sometimes things that seem obvious are a lot more complex, so I absolutely agree it's always fascinating to look at the options. Thanks for your tip on the commentary.
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