If Christ Is Not Raised: The Consequences of Denial (1 Corinthians 15:12–22)

“Having laid down the resurrection of our Saviour and God as a kind of foundation, the Apostle builds upon it the doctrine of the general resurrection, proving it with the most solid reasoning” (Theodoret).

The Apostle draws the first proof from showing how absurd it is, given faith in the resurrection of Christ, to think that there is no resurrection of the dead, and what disorder this idea introduces into the system of Christian belief (1 Cor. 15:12–19).

1 Cor. 15:12. Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Everywhere the resurrection of Christ is preached, confirmed by undeniable witnesses; everywhere it is believed, and you too believe it. So how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Look: Christ rose from the dead. For He, being God, was also man; as man, He died and was buried, and then rose; He rose with the same flesh in which He died; He rose bodily, with the very body He had as He walked among us, and in which He was crucified; and after the resurrection it bore the wounds received in the crucifixion. So here you have the resurrection of a dead man! How then do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? We must suppose their meaning was this: the resurrection of the dead is impossible. By pointing them to the actual resurrection, the Apostle completely refutes them: for if it is, if it has been accomplished, then it is possible; from actuality to possibility the reasoning has force.

The blessed Theodoret writes: “We preached, says the Apostle, that Christ is not only God but also man; for, ‘being in the form of God,’ He took on the form of a slave (Phil. 2:6–7); and we said that He both died and rose. But clearly the Godhead is impassible; suffering belongs to the body. It was His body that Christ delivered to the cross, and raised from the tomb. So how, the Apostle continues, can the resurrection of bodies be doubted by some, when we have believed in the resurrection of the Lord Christ?” Saint Chrysostom says: “He did not say, as you say, but: ‘some among you say’; he does not rebuke all, and those he rebukes he does not openly expose, so as not to harden them, yet he does not hide them entirely so as to correct them. For this reason, having set them apart from the rest, he turns against them, and in this way on one hand undermines and strikes them, while on the other he strengthens the others in the truth for the struggle against them, not allowing the believers to drift toward those who sought to corrupt them; against such people he has prepared to speak a strong word.”

1 Cor. 15:13. And if the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen.

Take your idea from another angle, he says. Let it be true. See now what must follow from it? If the resurrection of the dead is impossible, then the resurrection of Christ is also impossible; if impossible, then it did not happen. For from impossibility to non-occurrence the conclusion follows of itself. Or: what is an inalienable property of a kind applies to each individual. If according to you the resurrection of the dead is unthinkable, then it is unthinkable in Christ; therefore He did not rise. You cannot appeal to the fact that Christ was God. He was not God alone, but also man, and He had a real body, our body, with all its essential qualities. If according to you it is essential to bodies not to rise, then the same must apply to the body of Christ. The blessed Theodoret writes: “If one thing is impossible (that is, the resurrection of the dead), then the other did not happen either (that is, the resurrection of Christ), because the Master Christ had a body (the same as ours).”

1 Cor. 15:14. But if Christ did not rise, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is empty.

If Christ did not rise, then terrible conclusions follow from this. The first is that our preaching is therefore void, containing nothing true and real, and your faith is also void, giving you nothing substantial; we tell you dreams, and you have accepted dreams; everything with us is a kind of illusion. The Apostle stops at this point alone. It should have been added: one cannot think this way about either our preaching or your faith. But he regarded this as so obvious that he found it unnecessary even to mention it. The faith of the Corinthians was based not on words alone, but was confirmed by signs and wonders, through which they understood that before them were God’s messengers proclaiming God’s will to them, and their faith was not empty, but was accompanied by clear proofs that they had entered on the true, God’s path. Most tangibly this was demonstrated by the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. If faith is so clearly not empty, then neither is preaching. Both were so obvious that there was no need to clarify these points. Saint Chrysostom says: “He wishes to shake their souls. We, he says, have lost everything, everything is destroyed if Christ did not rise. Do you see the mystery of the economy? If Christ, having died, could not rise, then sin is not destroyed, death is not defeated, the curse is not broken, and not only did we preach in vain, but you also believed in vain.”

1 Cor. 15:15–16. And we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified concerning God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if indeed the dead do not rise; for if the dead do not rise, then Christ did not rise.

But it is not merely the futility of our preaching and your faith that follows from this, but something even greater: we are false witnesses, you are still in your sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. “We are found to be false witnesses of God,” that is, concerning God; “because we testified,” because we affirmed, assured; “concerning God,” – κατα του Θεου – against God. We testified as if for the glory of God, but it turned out against God, in blasphemy against Him, as if He raised when He did not raise. Theodoret writes: “We are subject to punishment for slander, having dared to affirm that God raised Christ, ‘whom He did not raise.’” He did not raise, as your reasoning requires, that is, “if the dead do not rise.” For this must necessarily follow, as I have said: “if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen.” The Apostle repeats this reasoning often with the intention of fixing it in the mind, for it is very striking and presents the idea of the non-resurrection of the dead in a form that is somewhat frightening, and even more absurd; because it sets itself in contradiction to the manifest fact of Christ’s resurrection, so incontrovertibly proved, of which he himself is a witness who established faith in the Corinthians and now writes these convictions.

1 Cor. 15:17. If Christ did not rise, your faith is empty, and you are still in your sins.

But see what follows for you if Christ did not rise: “your faith is empty, and you are still in your sins.” You believed in the hope of receiving forgiveness of sins and gaining strength to oppose sin and destroy it in yourselves through a new life. This hope of yours is empty. For on what is founded the hope that sins are forgiven to the believer? On this: that Christ, dying on the cross, offered a redemptive sacrifice for all of them: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn. 1:29). And how is it witnessed that this sacrifice was accepted? By the resurrection of the One who died for sins. If He did not rise, the sacrifice was not accepted. His death would be like the death of anyone. On the other hand, deliverance from sins has two aspects: the first is the forgiveness of sins, and the second is the seed of new life for the destruction of sin. The first is given by participation in the death of Christ, and the second by participation in His resurrection. Both are received by believers in the waters of baptism—they are washed from sins and return to a new life, so that after baptism they may walk in a new life, bright as the state of Christ after the resurrection is bright. But if Christ did not rise, there is no participation in His resurrection; and if there is no such thing, then there is no seed of new life in us; if that is lacking, then sin continues to possess us, and we are still in our sins. Sins that are upon us are washed away when sin within us is cut off. From this it follows that, even if the death of Christ had value, we would all remain in our sins, for we could not receive the new life on which the very forgiveness of sins stands. Therefore, “if Christ did not rise, you are still in your sins.”

1 Cor. 15:18. Therefore those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished.

Here is yet another terrible consequence of your thought, which leads to the conclusion that Christ did not rise. If Christ did not rise: “those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” Why have they perished? Because they died in their sins. If you, the living, are still in your sins without the resurrection of Christ, then they too, when they were living, remained in their sins; if that is how they were when living, then that is how they departed from here; if they departed thus, that is, existing in sins, what comfort awaits them there? They have perished, gone to destruction, to hell, to eternal torment. But in Christian faith the consolation lies in this: that it saves from hell and makes us heirs of the kingdom of heaven with Christ, after the resurrection and ascension, sitting at the right hand of the Father. One empty thought of yours about the non-resurrection of the dead throws into confusion the whole chain of comforting Christian truths and hopes.

By those who have fallen asleep in Christ the Apostle means not only believers, but also those who suffered for the faith—both alike. So Saint Chrysostom: “The expression ‘those who have fallen asleep in Christ’ means those who died either in faith, or who endured for Him many perils and great sufferings, who walked the narrow path.” Theodoret presents the whole idea of the text thus: “It appears that virtuous martyrs have been killed in vain for the confession of Christ; and although they eagerly undertook the contest, they did not receive crowns, because if there is no resurrection, then there is no proclamation of victory either.” Who will distribute the crowns when the very Author of the contest is not crowned? And He is not crowned if He did not rise.

1 Cor. 15:19. And if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Here two interpretations are possible. One is this: if all our hopes, which we nurture by clinging in faith to Christ, are limited only to this life, if only in this life we expect to receive something from Him, then plainly we are more miserable than all people; such hope cannot be formed, for we are all oppressed, persecuted, deprived of everything, and we ourselves subject ourselves to all kinds of deprivation for the sake of moral advancement. How could anyone come to expect something from Christ in this life? And if someone were to nurture such a hope, no one more foolish or pitiable could be imagined. Or another interpretation: if, living here, in this life, our whole hope is in Christ—εν Χριστω—in the belief that after this sorrowful life we shall receive consolation from Him in the future, and yet we too, like the dead already, shall die in our sins and perish, as was said before—that is, if Christ did not rise—then we are the most miserable of all people. Here we are deprived of everything, and there we shall receive nothing, and this is all the more bitter because we expect there to receive what is beyond all imagination. It is not so bitter not to receive what one did not expect as to not receive what one expects with certainty to receive. The blessed Theodoret writes: “We pass through life amid perils of every kind: tormented by hunger, enduring constant insults, going from prison to prison throughout the world, having no shelter, wandering, struggling against constant anxieties. Good hope sustains us (of rest in the future), and in the resurrection of our Saviour we have a pledge of our resurrection (and future glorification).” But if Christ did not rise, we might add to his words, then there will be no glorification in the future either, and we shall remain with nothing at all. What could be more bitter than such a fate?

The Apostle draws the second proof from the power of the resurrection of Christ, which is undoubtedly proved and believed by all those to whom he speaks. There he explained how that absurd thought (about the non-resurrection of the dead) is contrary to this manifest fact of the resurrection; now he unfolds how from this manifest fact of Christ’s resurrection flows a thought completely opposite to that absurdity, namely: inasmuch as Christ rose, so too shall all rise. He speaks as it were: there I explained what follows if one admits your thought; now I will show not only what follows, but what is and must be, if one accepts the true reality.

Verses 20–28.

1 Cor. 15:20. But now Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

“But now”—I was drawing conclusions from the supposition that Christ did not rise; now I take the truth that Christ rose, and I will show you what follows from it. Or “but now,” in fact, in present reality, here is what is. From your thought a dark picture emerges; but in reality that is not the case, and that does not follow according to the true confession of our faith. And he depicts α) a picture of the resurrection of all (1 Cor. 15:20–23) and β) the glorious change of everything after the restoration of all things (1 Cor. 15:24–28).

“Christ rose from the dead.” Take this truth which you have received and in which you stand. “Christ rose”—for Himself? No, for Himself alone. He is wholly not for Himself. The Only-begotten Son of God did not come to earth for Himself, He did not become incarnate for Himself, He did not suffer and die for Himself, and neither did He rise for Himself. For whom then? For those for whom He came—for the human race. Do not regard this resurrection as if it were accomplished in Him and limited to Him alone; but as His death abolished the death of all, so understand His resurrection—that it is the foundation of the resurrection of all. “In the resurrection of our Saviour we have a pledge of our resurrection. He first shattered the dominion of death, and after Him, as the firstfruits, all mixture (and all humanity) shall certainly follow” (Theodoret).

Having risen, He rose as the “firstfruits of the dead,” meaning those who are to rise, as “the firstborn of the dead” (Col. 1:18), after whom all others shall be born from the dead into endless life. As in the Old Testament, when the firstfruits were offered to God in the temple, for example the first sheaves of the harvest, thereby sanctifying all the sheaves and the whole harvest, so Christ the Lord, having risen, sanctified, blessed, and established the resurrection of all who shall rise from the earth as grain from seed. But the Apostle wanted to say something even greater by this, namely: that in the resurrection of Christ is laid the beginning and foundation of the resurrection of all, that its power is so great that from it shall come forth life for all, or that this resurrection is already in potentiality the resurrection of all. Therefore, as much as you do not doubt the resurrection of Christ the Lord, so much you ought not to doubt the resurrection of all.

1 Cor. 15:21–22. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

He explains why the risen Christ is the firstfruits of the dead, in whom the foundation of the resurrection of all is laid. To this end he sets forth two progenitors: the patriarch Adam, in whom all died, and Christ the Lord, in whom all shall be made alive. All who are from Adam die, because they have already died in him; and all in Christ shall be made alive, because all are already made alive in Him. The dying of all is the manifestation in actuality of what was accomplished in potentiality in Adam; and the being made alive of all will be the fulfillment in actuality of what is laid in potentiality in the risen Christ. Theodoret writes: “Look at the foundation of the race, and you will see that after the progenitor the descendants followed, and all became mortal, because he accepted mortality. Thus all human nature will follow the Master Christ and will share in the resurrection, because He too ‘is the firstborn of the dead’ (Col. 1:18), as Adam is the first-born. It is not without purpose that the Apostle here called Christ a man, knowing that He is God; but to show consubstantiality and confirm the teaching on the resurrection.”

These last words of the blessed Theodoret pertain to the first position: “by man came death and by man came the resurrection,” in its juxtaposition with the last: “in Adam all die, in Christ all shall be made alive.” To the former: “by man came the resurrection,” corresponds here: “in Christ all shall be made alive.” It comes out: in Christ the man they shall receive the resurrection, or shall be made alive. The thought underlying this is that the deified human nature had to traverse the entire path of restoration, to open the way for those being restored. For this reason Christ dies, to destroy the power of death; for this reason He rises, to lay for all the foundation of resurrection; for this reason He enters into glory, so that for all He might open the door to entering into this glory. The ancient saints did not enter paradise, but went down to a special place—sheol—and waited there until the Promised One would come and open for them the path there. He came, passed through, and led them into paradise, but only with the human soul, because even paradise is still preliminary. Thus the deified human nature passed everywhere, that through itself it might open the way to the restoration of all men. This is what the Apostle expresses when he says: by man came death, by man came the resurrection. By this resurrection the foundation is laid, the path to the resurrection of all is opened.