1 Corinthians 15:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Moreover, brethren, &c.— After St. Paul had left the Corinthians, some among them denied the resurrection of the dead, though he had strongly inculcated that doctrine. He therefore confutes their objections by Christ's resurrection, which the number of witnesses yet remaining who had seen him, put past all question; besides the constant inculcating of it by all the Apostles every where. From the resurrection of Christ thus established, he infers the resurrection of the dead; shews the order they shall rise in, and what sort of bodies they shall have. It is well known, that the primitive Christians were often insulted by the heathen philosophers for their hope of a resurrection, which one of them ridiculously enough calls "the hope of worms." See 2 Timothy 2:18. Others taught that virtue was its own necessary reward, in such a manner as tended to overthrow the strongest of all natural arguments for a future state; namely, that which is taken from such an unequal distribution of rewards and punishments here below. If, biassed by these vain pretences of the heathen philosophers, or seduced by any Jewish teachers of Sadducean principles, the Christians were tempted so to refine on the doctrine of the resurrection, as in effect to explain it away, it shews the propriety of this Apostle's setting himself to prove the resurrection of the faithful principally, and a resurrection in general only, or chiefly, by implication.