The Certainty of the Resurrection Demonstrated.
There are two propositions furnished by the Apostle in our text each is comprehensive of many truths, and may be divided into more. The first is, that if there be no resurrection from the dead then Christ is not risen a proposition which assumes or affirms that the resurrection of all men is a necessary consequence of the resurrection of Christ; so that to prove the one is to establish the other. The second, that if Christ be not risen "our preaching is vain and your faith is vain," a proposition which clearly makes Christianity nothing better than a worthless delusion if you take it from the article of the Redeemer's resurrection.
I. Consider first the necessary connection between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of all men. If Christ rose, He rose not as an individual, but as head of the whole race; His was the resurrection of human nature, and therefore must all men eventually rise. If, on the other hand, the dead are to rise, Christ must have risen; they can rise only through human nature having been redeemed from its own dark image by the resurrection of Christ. All would agree in the statement that if men are not to die then is Adam not dead. They are bound by the same reasoning to assent to the proposition of our text, that if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.
II. Consider the indispensableness of the truth of the resurrection to the worth of Christianity. If Christ be not risen, we shall not rise. But if we shall not rise, our nature is still unredeemed, and the Mediator must have failed in the great work which He came to achieve. If Christ have not secured a resurrection for the body, He cannot have secured eternal happiness for the soul. If He succeeded He threw life into human dust, as well as ransomed the human spirit; if He failed He has as much left the soul in hell as the body in the grave. In pleading for the truth of the resurrection we are pleading for the whole Christian system.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1502.