1 Corinthians 15:12-19 - Homiletics

Terrible conclusions resulting from the denial of two great gospel facts.

"Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, it so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in rids life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." In this paragraph the apostle refers to two great facts fundamental to Christianity, and peculiar to it as a system of religion. The one is the general resurrection from the dead, and the other is the resurrection, of Christ himself. In order to make clear Paul's process of reasoning here, I see no better way than to exhibit the conclusions which he draws from the denial of these facts.

I. Conclusions resulting from the denial of the GENERAL RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD . These conclusions are threefold.

1. The non resurrection of Christ. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen." If you can demonstrate the impossibility of men coming to life again after they have been buried, then you prove, of course, that Christ has not risen. What is true of the whole is true of all the parts. If no man can rise from the dead, then Christ is still numbered amongst the dead. There were evidently men in the Church at Corinth who, like the Sadducees, denied the doctrine of a future resurrection. Hence Paul informs them that doing so is tantamount to the denial of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, which fact he had proclaimed amongst them.

2. That departed Christians are no more. "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." They also, as well as others. If dead men do not rise, then our fellow disciples who have departed this life, and who believed in a risen Christ, are no more. Those thousands who from the day of Pentecost accepted Christ, lived according to his teaching, and who quitted this world, have perished. Can you believe it? Are they quenched in eternal midnight?

3. That there is no more pitiable condition in this life than that of Christians. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." How many things are implied in this language! It is implied that there are men in a pitiable condition on this earth; it is implied that the pitiable condition exists in different degrees; it is implied that the degrees of pitiableness are regulated by hope. Man is always hoping; man is always, therefore, enduring one of the greatest elements of suffering, viz. disappointment. It is implied that the hope of a Christian, if false, will make him of all men the most to be pitied. Of course it is not intended to teach that, apart from the resurrection of Christ, man has no evidence of a future state, nor that, on the supposition that there is no future life, the practice of virtue is not to be preferred to that of vice. It is implied that the higher the object of our hope, and the more of the soul that goes into it, the more overwhelmingly crushing will be the disappointment. The man who has thrown his whole soul into Christianity, and who reaches a point where he is convinced of its imposture, is at that moment "of all men the most miserable."

II. Conclusions resulting from the denial of CHRIST 'S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD . There are three conclusions here resulting from the denial of this fact.

1. That apostolic Christianity is vain. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." It is vain, void, an empty phantom, a worthless fiction. The resurrection of Christ was the foundation stone in the temple of Paul's teaching. Take that stone away, then it falls and becomes worthless rubbish. But not only is preaching vain, and your faith vain, we ourselves are "false witnesses." We are impostors. Can you believe this? What motives have we to impose? The supposition either that they taught falsehood, that the disciples believed falsehood, or that they were "false witnesses," is eternally inadmissible. Hence Christ did rise from the dead.

2. That the faith of the disciples was vain. "Your faith is also vain." What a wreck of faith is involved in the denial of Christ's resurrection! Then

3. That the followers of Christ are still in their sins. It is here implied that faith in Christ can alone take men out of their sins. This is a fact grounded on history, consciousness, and the gospel. But the Christians at Corinth were conscious that they had got out of their sins, to a certain degree at least. "Such were some of you; but ye are washed," etc. Consciousness the highest ultimate argument, protested against Paul's hypothesis that they were still in their sins; hence it goes to verify the fact of the resurrection of Christ.