Jesus has promised to raise his followers, but because of the union between him and them. They are in him in such a sense as to be partakers of his life, so that his life of necessity- secures theirs. If he lives, they shall live also. Now as the fact of Christ's resurrection was no more doubted by the apostles, who had seen and heard and even handled him after he rose from the dead, than their own existence, we may see how assured was their confidence of their own resurrection to eternal life. And as to us no event in the history of the world is better authenticated than the fact that Christ rose from the dead, we too have the same ground of assurance of the resur- rection of those who are Christ's at his coming. Had we only the faith of the apostle, we should have his constancy and his joy even in the midst of the greatest afflictions.
15. For all things (are) for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
In the preceding verse Paul had expressed his confident hope of being delivered even from the grave and presented before God in glory with his Corinthian brethren, for all things are for your sakes. They were to be partakers of the salvation which he proclaimed and for which he suffered. All he did and all he suffered was for them. According to this interpretation the all things are limited to all things of Avhich he had been speaking, viz. his sufferings, his constancy, and his deliverance. In 1 Cor. 3, 21, however, he says in a much more comprehensive sense, 'AH things are yours, whether things present or things to come.' Hence some understand the expression with the same latitude in this passage : ' I ex- pect to be presented with you^ for all things are for your sakes.' But this does not agree with the latter part of the verse. He evidently means all that he did, and sufifered, and experienced. ' They are for your sake, that {ha, in order that) the abundant grace or favour manifested to me, might, through the thanksgi\dng of many, i. e. through your grati- tude, called forth by your experience of the blessings flowing from my labour and suff'erings, as well as from my deliverance, redound to the glory of God.' This is the sense of the pas- sage, according to the construction of the origmal, adopted by our translators. Paul says that the favour shown him re-