1 Corinthians 15:14-18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then is our preaching In consequence of a commission supposed to be given after his resurrection; vain Without any real foundation, and destitute of truth; and your faith In our preaching; is vain Is grounded on falsehood and deception; yea, and we are false witnesses of God Having testified that Jesus of Nazareth is his Son and the Messiah; that he hath atoned for sin; hath risen from the dead and ascended into heaven; hath obtained for his followers the Holy Spirit in his gifts and graces; a resurrection from the dead, and eternal life; and is constituted the final Judge of men and angels; all which things, depending on his resurrection, are absolutely false, if he be not risen; and, of consequence, ye are yet in your sins Unpardoned and unrenewed, without either a title to heaven or a meetness for it. So that there needed something more than reformation, (which was plainly wrought in them,) in order to their being delivered from the guilt of sin, and renewed after the divine image; even that atonement, the sufficiency of which God attested by raising our great Surety from the grave, and the influences of the Divine Spirit procured for us by that atonement. Then they who are fallen asleep in Christ Who have died for him, or believing in him; are perished Have lost their life and being together. This sentence shows, that in this discourse the apostle has the resurrection of the just principally in view, and that what he hath written concerning the excellent qualities of the bodies to be raised, is to be understood of the bodies of the saints only.