Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? (13) But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: (14) And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. (15) Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. (16) For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: (17) And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (18) Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. (19) If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
It appears very plain, from what the Apostle hath here said, that there were some among the Corinthians who denied the resurrection of the dead, for Paul saith, how say some among you, that there is no resurrection of the dead? So that it was not the men of Corinth; among the heathens of that city, neither of the Jews who might be living there, or the Sadducees of that place; but, evidently, some who professed a general belief in Christ, and mingled with the Lord's people, which constituted what was called the Church at Corinth. Reader! pause over it, and remark, how very early heresies sprung up in the Church, to disturb its peace. We read of many in the Apostolic writings, 2Ti_1:15; 2Ti_2:17-18; 1 John 2:18-19; Jude 1:18; Jude 1:18
What a beautiful chain of reasoning the Apostle makes use of, by way of preparing the minds of the Corinthians for the full and cordial reception of this glorious and foundation-article of our most holy faith. He adopts a well-known figure in rhetoric, of admitting what a man knows to be wrong, in order the more fully to prove from it, what a man knows to be right; and then by a climax riseth to the complete conviction of the truth, from shewing the folly of the opposite principles. The Corinthians were all well assured, by the most incontestible matter of fact, that Christ himself had arisen from the dead. This doctrine was uniformly preached among them, and as cordially believed. But, notwithstanding this, though the resurrection of Christ necessarily involved in it, the fullest assurance of the certain resurrection of his members, as the greater includes the less, and as the Head, the body; yet there were some, who, though they believed in the one, doubted the other.
The Apostle begins, therefore, with, taking the objection of those unbelievers upon their own ground, If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. The thing being admitted as impossible in one instance, implies an impossibility in the other. For Christ arose as a public head of his body the Church. And, therefore, the resurrection of the dead must bring up with it the resurrection of all his members. His is the exemplar of all that is to follow. His resurrection became an earnest of theirs. The very object of his resurrection became a proof and pledge of it. For he died in a public capacity for his people. And he arose in the same public capacity for them. The great object of his incarnation, sufferings, obedience, death, and resurrection, formed but one and the same complete act in reference to them. So that if one link in the chain be lost, the whole is lost. And, if Christ be not risen, all preaching is vain, and there can be no faith in Christ, but what is alike vain!
Neither is this all. For, worse consequences, if possible, arise. In the supposition, that Christ be not risen, those who were specially chosen to be the witnesses of his resurrection, become false witnesses: yea, false witnesses of God! For they assert what is not then true, that God raised him from the dead, and exalted him as a Prince and a Savior at his right hand on the majesty on high. And, yet he did not raise him, neither was Christ justified in the Spirit; if so be he arose not as the Head of his body the Church, and God brought him not from the dead, as the Great Shepherd of his sheep, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant! Reader! before you proceed further, pray turn to those sweet Scriptures, Romans 1:4; 1 Corinthians 6:14; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 13:20; Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 1:17-18
And to sum up the whole in this negative way of arguing, if, saith the Apostle, Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins, and they which have fallen asleep in Christ, that is, died triumphantly in Christ, in full assurance of rising again in Him, and by Him, at the last day, are sunk to rise no more. And, in this case, all our high hopes of immortality and glory, in the presence of God and, the Lamb, are done away forever.
Reader! pause over the solemn statement, as here drawn up by the Apostle, on the supposition of the possibility, that there was no resurrection of the dead. And, although you know from an infallible Teacher, and by infallible teaching, which can be liable to no error, that all the reasoning here used, and worked up to such an height, begins from false premises, and, consequently, could end but in false conclusions; yet learn from it, what God the Holy Ghost plainly intended from it, for the greater joy and comfort of his whole Church and people; how truly blessed it is to have such a chain, as we have, of impregnable evidences to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, and accompanied with all its blissful consequences to ourselves, that our faith might not be founded in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.