What Does 1 Corinthians 15:15 Mean?
Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, for we have borne witness against God that he awakened the Anointed One, whom he did not awaken, if indeed the dead are not awakened.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.THE KEY
The verb translated “raised” also means “awaken”: resurrection is God rousing the dead, the hinge on which truthful testimony about God turns.
THE MEANING
This verse puts every claim about God’s action under a live truth test: if the dead do not rise, saying God raised Christ makes the speaker a false witness about God. Resurrection is the claim on which this testimony stands, not an ornament that can be removed while the message stays the same.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person can deny the raising and still be a truthful witness to what God has done.
THE ROOT
ἤγειρεν
ēgeiren
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
To rouse, awaken, or raise.
“awakened” in this verse is ēgeiren. The Greek verb translated “raised” also means “awaken.” The verse’s claim is that God rouses the dead; resurrection is an act, not merely a way of speaking about hope.
ALSO GROWS
egeire: Awake; rouse.
ἔγειρε
The same verb opens Ephesians 5:14 with “Awake,” letting the language of waking illuminate the raising of the dead.
egēgertai: Has been raised.
ἐγήγερται
This form of the same verb appears in 1 Corinthians 15:4, where Christ’s raising is stated as an accomplished act.
ψευδομάρτυρες
pseudomartyres
GROWS FROM
μάρτυς / μαρτυρ- (martys / martyr-)
A witness who bears testimony.
“borne witness against” in this verse is pseudomartyres. The verse names the speakers as witnesses about God, so a false claim about the raising is not a small mistake about an idea: it makes their testimony misrepresent God. The related words keep the focus on bearing witness, the act at the center of the verse.
ALSO GROWS
martys: Witness.
μάρτυς
The noun names the person who testifies, the role the speakers occupy in this verse.
martyria: Testimony; witness.
μαρτυρία
This related noun names the testimony itself, which stands or falls with the claim that God raised Christ.
THE PATTERN
Scripture binds the witness to God’s raising of the dead: the announced act is the hinge between promise and testimony.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground shall awake, some to the life of the ages, and some to exposure and contempt for the ages.God raised up this Jesus, and we are all witnesses to this.But now the Anointed One has been awakened from the dead, and has become the first portion of those who have lain down to sleep.THE THREAD
Therefore it says, Wake, sleeper, and stand up from the dead, and the Anointed One will shine upon you.“Awake” here uses the same Greek verb as “raised” in 1 Corinthians 15:15. The shared word lets resurrection be heard as God rousing the dead, not as a distant abstraction.
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