15:12
Greek thought was that there was no resurrection of the dead, only immortality of the soul. See what Paul is doing here. The resurrection of Christ, which Paul has just shown to be central to the gospel, blows apart Greek thought. Some of the Corinthians, having accepted the gospel, were sinking back into a Greek way of thinking. We all need to beware of thinking like our culture. All human cultures will have something of value, but all human cultures are also seriously flawed. Yet, time and time again we find so-called theologians choosing to go with the culture rather go with the Bible. “There is no resurrection of the dead”, note the universal implication of Christ’s resurrection. His bodily resurrection means bodily resurrection for all who believe.
15:13
So Christ’s resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. The converse is also true. If we are not going to be raised from the dead, then neither was Christ raised from the dead. How can Paul draw such a conclusion? It is because Christ was fully human, He died as our representative.
15:14
There are many so-called liberal Christians who seek to have a Christianity without the resurrection, or demote the resurrection to a mere “spiritual” phenomenon. This verse states in the clearest terms the futility of such an approach. If there is no resurrection, if Christ was not raised, then there is no point at all the gospel, it is completely empty. It is a waste of time preaching the gospel, and it is a waste of time believing. Indeed, quite what one would preach, and what one would believe, I don’t know. One might say it is worth preaching good moral behaviour. Well it might be, but then we are still under judgement and hell-bound, and so are the people we preach to. So the message is, “be good for a few years before you go to burn in hell”. How is that good news?
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