I. The principle upon which the Apostle proceeds is the same when he reasons on the assumption of Christ's resurrection being admitted, as when he argues on the hypothesis of its being denied. That principle is the substantial oneness of Christ and His believing people. Your faith unites you to Christ and identifies you with Him. It commits you to share His fortune. It involves you in His destiny, whatever that may be. Your union with Christ, which would be your destruction if Christ were not risen, now that He is risen is your life and glory. Your union with Christ therefore is the explanation of the connection between His resurrection and yours. You are yourself in Him, and your resurrection, consequently, is also in Him His resurrection is yours.
II. The two economies, the original and the remedial, the original economy of nature, or a law working death, and the remedial economy of grace, with its resurrection of the dead, have several features in common for those who have experience of both. (1) In both economies there is representation. It is by or through a representative man that death reaches you. It is by or through a representative man that the resurrection of life awaits you. Christ in His resurrection represents you, precisely as Adam, when he incurred death, represented you. (2) In both economies there is union. You are in the man Adam, by whom comes death. You are in the man Christ Jesus, by whom comes the resurrection of the dead. It is as being in Adam by nature that you all die the death which comes by him, and it is as by life in Christ by grace that you shall all be made alive with the life, the resurrection of the dead, which comes by Him. (3) Subordination. "Every man in his own order." Christ is Himself alone the firstfruits. That is His position, His rank, and His order. Most gladly and cheerfully do we concede it to Him.
R. S. Candlish, Life in a Risen Saviour,p. 63.