“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 [empty]” (1 Corinthians 15:12-14).
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the resurrection of those believers who have died, are most important truths. Yet some in the city of Corinth were trying to say that there was no resurrection of the dead. They were saying that when people die, they die just like an animal, and that is the end of them forever.
The Apostle Paul points out clearly that if this is true, then the resurrection of the Lord Jesus must not be true either. But we know that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is definitely a fact. At the beginning of this same chapter (1st Corinthians 15), Paul points out how that many people saw the Lord Jesus after He rose from the dead, including over 500 believers at once. There were certainly plenty of witnesses of His resurrection. But there is a most important truth connected with our Lord’s resurrection, and Paul explains it here.
If the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead (and He is!), then every believer that has died must also rise from the dead at the Lord’s coming. Why is this? It is because we are so closely united to the Lord Jesus that we have the same life as He has. That is why it says, “Even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). This is referring to believers, who will all be raised from the dead when the Lord comes. Then we will instantly be given bodies fit for heaven.
But if this will not happen, as some were teaching, then the Lord Jesus must not have risen from the dead, and if He did not rise from the dead, then no one is saved. Why is this? It is because our Lord’s resurrection was the sign that God had accepted His work on the cross, and that He had fully satisfied His God and Father in doing it. If the Lord Jesus had not risen from the dead, it would have meant that the work was not done, and that God was not happy with it. But all that work was done in perfection; Christ is risen, and every believer who has died in Christ will rise too, when the Lord comes.