1 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 15
Of the Resurrection of the Dead. 1 Cor. 15, 1-58.
The resurrection of Christ basic for the Christian's faith: V. 16. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; v. 17. and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. V. 18. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. V. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
The apostle now restates the contention of the misguided Corinthian Christians in order to show a second inevitable consequence of that position, namely, that the entire fabric of Christian faith and life is unreal and a mockery.
He starts out once more with the statement that, if there is no bodily resurrection, the fact of Christ's resurrection cannot be upheld.
What follows? If Christ is not raised, your faith is useless, vain, without beneficial results, a delusion. And since that faith is essentially trust in the forgiveness of sins made possible by the work of Christ and sealed by His resurrection, it follows that you are yet in your sins; the atonement is a mockery.
And so far as those are concerned that fell asleep in Jesus, trusting in His perfect redemption, they died in a vain hope; instead of obtaining the blessedness of a perfect salvation in the presence of God, their fate is that of perdition.
"If Christ did not rise for our justification, then those whose death seemed but a blessed sleep to a happy awaking in fellowship with their living and glorified Redeemer, so far from having been received into eternal life, were doomed still to abide under the wretched dominion of death." 75)
And to drive home the truth which he wishes to impress upon the Corinthians, the apostle adds: If in this life only we are hopers in Christ, if all hope for the future is vain and a foolish delusion, if there is no forgiveness of sins, no hope of a future inheritance in heaven, then indeed we Christians are of all men most in need of pity.
For to insist upon a hope that has no basis, that can never be realized, and for such a hope to deny all material good — that would give the unbelievers a right to consider us weak-minded fools that are to be pitied for their miserable delusion.
The argument of Paul is all the more effective as it practically forced every true Christian in the Corinthian congregation to draw the inference: I know that my faith is not a futile trust; the Christian doctrine is not based upon a delusion; I am sure of the forgiveness of my sins as assured to me in the Gospel; the apostles must be true witnesses ; Christ is risen from the dead; there must be a resurrection of the body.