Karl Barth saw Chapter 15 as the center of 1st Corinthians, arguing that a misunderstanding of the resurrection underlies all the problems in Corinth. In this volume, he develops his view of biblical eschatology, asserting that Chapter 15 is key to understanding the testimony of the New Testament. Barth understood the last things not as an end to history but as an end-history with which any period is faced."He only speaks of last things who would speak of the end of all things, of their end understood plainly and fundamentally, of a reality so radically superior to all things that the existence of all things would be utterly and entirely based upon it alone, and thus, in speaking of their end, he would in truth be speaking of nothing else than their beginning." Page 104

Karl Barth (1886-1968), the Swiss Reformed professor and pastor, was once described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. As principal author of 'The Barmen Declaration', he was the intellectual leader of the German Confessing Church - the Protestant group that resisted the Third Reich. Barth's teaching career spanned nearly five decades. Removed from his post at Bonn by the Nazis in late 1934, Barth moved to Basel where he taught until 1962. Among Barth's many books, sermons, and essays are the 'Epistle to the Romans', 'Humanity of God', 'Evangelical Theology', and 'Church Dogmatics'.

Dale Dawson holds a Th.D. in Systematic Theology from Wycliffe College/Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto. He has served in local church pastoral ministry for twenty years, and has taught at the Toronto Baptist Seminary, Bible College and Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada, as an adjunct lecturer. He is the author of 'The Resurrection in Karl Barth' (Ashgate, 2006).