1 Corinthians 15:12–20
In this passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, by logical syllogism, to combat the belief that there would be no general resurrection of the dead. For Paul, the resurrection of Christ points to the resurrection of all; to the promise of life beyond death, the vindication of those denied justice in life, and the renewal of the creation.
Of course, Paul’s insistence on resurrection here is about victory over death and life beyond our deaths in this world. But — as in Daniel 12:2 and Jürgen Moltmann’s interpretation of that passage in The Crucified God — resurrection also points to justice and vindication. The resurrection is also the resurrection to judgment: not the criminal legal system of punishment that passes for “justice” in this world, but God’s true judgment of accountability. Belief in the resurrection of the dead is hope that justice can be done — that is one reason why, as Paul writes, if there is not resurrection “we are of all people most to be pitied” (15:19).
Resurrection of the dead is victory for those who have perished (and vindication for those who have perished due to injustice and oppression). Resurrection of the dead is also what frees us from remaining “still in our sins” (15:17). The divine judgment at the resurrection of the dead is linked by faith, in 15:17 to our freedom from our sins, to the transformative possibilities of real accountability and divine compassion.
Lee Griffith, in The Fall of the Prison, also reminds us that prisons in the Bible are identified with the powers of death — so resurrection is opposition to the power of the prison, and abolition is an act of resurrection. Resurrection is the freedom of those bound by death and the grave. Resurrection empowers the promise of freedom for those subject to the civil death of incarceration, too.
And this resurrection is not only a promise for the world to come but a present reality. As Paul writes in 15:20: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” While the resurrection of all, victory over death, hasn’t come about yet, it has started. Paul’s faith in the resurrection of the dead is based on the reality of the vindicated Jesus who lives. And for us, living in the presence of the living risen Christ, in a world where the resurrection of the dead has already begun, abolition becomes a sacramental act of making-present the living Jesus. The risen Christ comes close to us in every act of liberation that resists the powers of death and brings forth transformative and creative community and accountability. Abolition flourishes in the already-risen presence of the living Christ and anticipates the promise of the divine judgment of real accountability — for in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.