"And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (1 Cor. 15:17).
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ represent two parts of His redemptive work. The first part, His death, is the penalty paid for our sins; and the second, His rising from the dead, is a confirmation that His sacrifice was accepted by God and effective for the salvation of His people. When it comes to salvation, you cannot have one part without the other. Both are essential. So any denial of the general resurrection is a subversion of the Gospel because it denies the resurrection of Christ, “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
Paul’s argument in this passage is that if it is impossible for the body to be raised to newness of life, then Christ is still dead. If Christ is not risen, then any preaching about salvation in Him is in vain and our faith in Him as our advocate at the throne of God is in vain. “If Christ did rise, then He is truly the Son of God and Savior of the world,” Hodge wrote. “His sacrifice has been accepted, and God is propitious [appeased]. If He did not rise, then none of these things are true. He was not what He claimed to be, and His blood is not a ransom for sinners.”
If it is true that Christ is not risen, the testimony of the apostles is not true. Their claims to have seen Him, to have touched Him, and to have received a commission from Him to preach the Gospel are all lies. Sinners, therefore, would be left without any hope, without any Gospel, without a risen Savior to intercede on their behalf at the judgment seat of God. When they die, they have no hope beyond the grave.
If this were the case, our Christian faith would be in vain. “As Christ’s resurrection is necessary to our justification, Romans 4:25, if He did not rise, we are not justified,” Hodge wrote. “To teach, therefore, that there is no resurrection, is to teach that there is no atonement and no pardon.” We then remain in our sins, possessing no hope of salvation. This, indeed, would leave us miserable creatures whose only hope is in this life, which is really no hope at all. In the end, all we have is perdition because we have no Savior, no Advocate, no Victor over the bondage of death.
Why is it necessary when you present the Gospel to proclaim that we have a risen Savior? What does it mean personally to you to have a Savior who is alive and interceding for you (if you believe in Him) at the right hand of God the Father? Spend some quiet time today, meditating on 1 Peter 1:3–12.