If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
There was a lack of understanding among the Corinthians of all that the resurrection of Jesus from death to life implied. They seemed to believe that his resurrection was an exception or an outlier and that the resurrection of others besides him was an impossibility. Maybe the physicality and seeming impossibility of raising to life people the Corinthians themselves knew to be dead, whose bodies they knew to be decaying in the dirt, was a harder thing to believe than the distantly pleasant image of the resurrection of Jesus. We can imagine rationalists in our own day that would regard the resurrection of Jesus as a lovely symbol and yet still insist that bodies once corrupted by death could not be reassembled. But Paul insisted that the resurrection of Christ could not be separated from that of the members of his mystical body, those who were in Christ. It was exactly the sort of difficult to believe return to life in the body that happened to Jesus himself that we are meant to expect on the last day for those united to him. The resurrection of Jesus is more than a distant symbol. And the corollary is that the resurrection of his followers is not only possible, but guaranteed.
And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching;
empty, too, your faith.
Without the true and physical raising of Christ to life nothing else in Christianity holds or has value. It was his resurrection that proved that everything he said was true. It was by his resurrection that he defeated the power of decay and death that were among his chief opponents. If he was not raised then we are all still facing down the inevitability of death. The world, without the resurrection, has not been saved, and is still on the path to destruction that it appears to be to those without the eyes of faith.
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.
It was not only the atoning death of Christ that freed us from our sins. He was also "raised for our justification" (see Romans 4:25). It was not merely that the sacrifice of Jesus won a courtroom acquittal for those known to be still guilty. His death put our sins to death. His rising raised us to life again, first spiritually. But it will also do so physically, if we remain in him.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
Those who can take Christianity to be only pious stories or myths or the clever teachings of a philosopher and still think it has value have not sufficiently contended with the fallen condition in which the world, if that were true, would still be in. They would have to pretend that there was nothing wrong or broken about the fact that those who had fallen asleep in Christ had perished. They would have to vastly overestimate what was possible to attain in this life alone by hoping in Christ. It is true that our hope in Christ ought to make our lives here below more bearable, more meaningful, and more purposeful. But all of that would disappear in a moment if we knew it was a house of cards built on a false premise.
Fortunately, one thing about which Paul was absolutely clear, and about which he was entirely certain, was the resurrection itself. It was the basis of everything that he became, all that he did, his writings, his missions, and his ministry.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
The good news of the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus was only fully revealed in the light of his resurrection. That is the reason why the Twelve, some women, and others spent time with him leading up to his Passion. They were being prepared so that after he rose and ascended into heaven they might have the same certainty as Paul and so become both transformed themselves and witnesses to the world.
But I in justice shall behold your face;
on waking, I shall be content in your presence.
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