If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
The resurrection of Jesus was not merely a unique exception to the finality of death. Rather, it was the first instance of what some of the Jews already believed would happen to everyone, the resurrection of the dead. But, surprisingly, Jesus was raised before the rest of humanity. This was certainly not what groups like the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection, were expecting. There were other groups who didn't believe in a resurrection at all for various reasons. The Sadducees were limited by the preconceptions. The Greeks didn't even think a resurrection would be a good idea since they tended to view the body as a prison. But for all of these groups, it would be difficult to see how the resurrection of Jesus in the past would relate to a future resurrection, much less require it. But that is just the case that Paul made, that there was an inextricable link between the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of those who were united with him, and that only that link could make sense of the present life of Christians.
If there is no resurrection of the dead,
then neither has Christ been raised.
The resurrection of Christ was thus a special case of a more general phenomenon. It could only be understood in terms of the Jewish appreciation of the goodness of the created body, and the hope that death would not have the final word, not only over disembodied spirits, but even over material bodies themselves. This was the context of the resurrection of Christ, but it did not in itself explain everything about it. He was not merely one among many who would be raised with a timing that merely happened to be different. He was rather "the firstfruits", the initial acceptable offering that, in a sense, represented and sanctified the entire harvest.
And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching;
empty, too, your faith.
The resurrection of Christ was something so essential that the entire Christian faith would be vain without it. This contradicts a misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when he said that "It is finished!" from the cross (see John 19:30). Without delving into what precisely he did mean we can see clearly that it was not the work of salvation itself, for that required the resurrection as well. Instead, it was as though his death destroyed sin, that it cut away all obstacles in an utter emptying of self, and that his resurrection was the reception of a new life in the Spirit that all of those who believed in him were to share. As we used to pray in the mass, "Dying you destroyed our death. Rising you restored our life". As Paul reminded his readers in Rome, he was "raised for our justification" (see Romans 4:25).
For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
We begin reap the fruits of the resurrection of Jesus even here and now in our mortal bodies. We already begin to participate by faith in the resurrected life of Jesus. This is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to walk in the newness of life. It begins in baptism which draws its power from the resurrection of Jesus himself. If there were no resurrection, or if Jesus was an exception to the rule, baptism would be among those things which would be emptied out as a consequence, mere theater and wishful thinking rather than a genuine source of life.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.
Paul insisted that the Christian hope required an eventual resurrection of ourselves as united with Christ. For however much the power of the resurrection is given to Christians in this life, which indeed immense, it only makes sense in the long run if it is leading to something beyond the limitations of this life. The resurrection power that is in us now is helping us to live by faith in the 'not yet' that we know will come. But it is only that 'not yet' that can fully account for it. Without it our lives would indeed be ultimately pitiable, as though we were insisting on living lives of make believe.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
The resurrection of Christ is therefore the proof of our own hope. Its very reality is what gives vitality to the lives of faith we live in the present time even as it draws us toward the fulfillment of that hope at the end of time. Christianity was not merely some adapted Platonism that taught contentment in a higher spiritual order apart from the material world. No, Christianity was the proclamation that God said that the creation was good, that the body was very good, and that he hadn't changed his mind. His plan was not merely to provide an escape hatch, but rather a renewal and a restoration of all things.
Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another,
preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.
The women who followed Jesus were among the first to experience the full truth of the good news when they saw him risen from the dead. But we too are meant to be transformed by our own experience of Christ risen from the dead so that the power of his resurrection might become the source of our own life and strength as well.
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