Scripture Daily

Context No. 3436 of 4322 · 1 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

1 Corinthians 15:12-19: in context

12Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised. 14If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain. 15Yes, we are also found false witnesses of God, because we testified about God that he raised up Christ, whom he didn’t raise up if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead aren’t raised, neither has Christ been raised. 17If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. 18Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.

Paul presses a stark logical chain to defend the resurrection. If the dead are not raised, then Christ himself is not raised; and if Christ is not raised, then our preaching is empty, our faith is empty, we are still in our sins, and those who have died in Christ have simply perished. Everything hangs on the resurrection.

Paul is saying that the whole Christian faith stands or falls on whether Jesus really rose from the dead. If it is not true, we are, he says, to be pitied above all people, having staked everything on a lie. But the point of laying out that grim alternative is to throw the glorious reality into sharp relief: Christ has in fact been raised. Because he lives, our faith is not empty, our sins are truly forgiven, and our hope reaches beyond this life into the life to come. The resurrection is not one doctrine among many but the very foundation on which everything else in the faith rests.

Do I grasp that my whole hope rests on the reality of Christ's resurrection, and does that assurance make my faith and my forgiveness certain rather than empty?

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