again the third day'.  How, therefore, could anyone say, 'there is no

resurrection of the dead', for if resurrection is proved to have taken place

once it may take place again.

'If the species be conceded, how is it that some among you deny the

genus?' (Alford in loco).

Verse 13 takes up the other position and shows its disastrous results:

'But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not

If it is absurd and unphilosophical to give credence to the idea that

there shall be a resurrection of the dead, it renders also faith in the

resurrection of Christ absurd and vain too.  Pursuing this aspect, Paul with

relentless logic shows that they who deny the doctrine of the resurrection

deny the whole scheme of salvation.  The preaching of the gospel would be

vain.  The word literally means 'empty'.  Their proclamation would be like

sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.  So also would be the faith of those who

had put their trust in the Christ they had preached.  Then for a moment Paul

pauses to consider the position in which this denial placed the apostles

themselves, men who had hazarded their lives for the truth they believed; men

who had all to lose and nothing to gain in this life by their testimony.

These must be branded as false witnesses of God if Christ rose not from the

dead, for they declared that God had raised Him from the dead as the very

basis of their evangel.

Notice further the way in which the impersonal doctrine of the

resurrection is used interchangeably with the historic fact of the

resurrection of Christ.  He does not say 'Whom He raised not up, if so be

that Christ rose not', but, 'Whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead

rise not', and that this is the thought verses 16 and 17 show:

'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'.

Surely the apostle perceives and would have us realize that Christ took

no empty title when He called Himself, 'The Son of Man'.  His resurrection is

the pledge of the resurrection of the dead.  We shall see that this thought

lies here when we come to the central passages which speak of Adam.  The

apostle's final exposure is given in verse 18:

'Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished'.

Words could not more strongly plead for the absolute necessity of the

resurrection.  Paul had no place in his teaching for 'a never dying soul';

immortality was part of his gospel, but it did not pertain to the human soul

by nature, it was found only in Christ.  This gift of immortality, however,

has not yet been given to any believer.  Further on in this chapter he shows

that this mortal puts on immortality at the time of the resurrection.  With

one sweep he disposes of the idea of a conscious intermediate state, or that

at death the believer passes straight away to heaven or to paradise.  If

there be no resurrection, and if Christ be not raised, there is not even a

state of hopeless despair or unclothed waiting, but all will have perished.

John 3:16, so often quoted and so little studied, places perishing as an

alternative to everlasting life.  In 1 Thessalonians 4, when the apostle

would comfort the mourners, he does not adopt the language of our hymn books