What Does 1 Corinthians 15:20 Mean in the King James?
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Christ’s rising is called the firstfruits: the beginning of a harvest, not a solitary exception.
THE MEANING
The verse calls those who have died “those who slept” and declares Christ raised as the firstfruits from among them. For the reader now, his rising opens a harvest that includes those sleepers; it is the first portion of what is still to come.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that Christ’s rising is a lone exception with no bearing on those who have died: “firstfruits” presents it as the beginning of a larger harvest.
THE ROOT
ἀπαρχή
aparchē
GROWS FROM
ἀρχ- (arch-), in ἀπαρχή (apo + archē)
ἀρχή means beginning, origin, or first place; with ἀπό (“from”), ἀπαρχή names a first portion taken from a larger whole.
“firstfruits” in this verse is aparchē. The word names more than being first in sequence: it is the first share of a whole harvest. Calling the risen Christ the ἀπαρχή presents his rising as the beginning of what follows.
ALSO GROWS
archō: begin; rule
ἄρχω
Its sense of beginning echoes the first portion that marks a harvest’s opening.
archēgos: leader, pioneer, originator
ἀρχηγός
This related word carries the sense of one who stands at the head of what follows, illuminating Christ as the first share of the coming harvest.
ἐγήγερται
egēgertai
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
To wake, rouse, or raise.
The Greek form means “has been raised”: a completed raising whose result stands now. English “risen” can leave that enduring state less visible.
ALSO GROWS
egeirō: wake; raise
ἐγείρω
The same verb can describe waking someone or raising the dead, holding awakening and resurrection in one word.
egersis: rising; resurrection
ἔγερσις
This related noun makes explicit the rising that the verb names here.
κεκοιμημένων
kekoimēmenōn
GROWS FROM
κοιμ-
koim-
To sleep or put to sleep.
“slept” in this verse is kekoimēmenōn. The verse uses a word for sleep to speak of those who have died. The image holds death honestly while placing it beside the possibility of waking.
ALSO GROWS
koimaō: sleep; fall asleep
κοιμάω
The same verb is used for ordinary sleep and for death described as sleep.
koimēsis: sleep; falling asleep
κοίμησις
This related noun is used when Jesus speaks of death as sleep, showing that the image in this verse belongs to a wider way of speaking.
THE PATTERN
The first portion marks the beginning of a larger harvest.
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.THE THREAD
But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.This verse uses the same word, ἀπαρχή, and makes the order explicit: Christ first, then those who belong to him. The image of the first portion here opens into the sequence named there.
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