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 historical 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 16,17 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 see, that Christ took

no empty title when He called Himself `The Son of man'.  His resurrection is

the pledge, not merely of the resurrection of some, but of `the dead'.  We

shall see that this thought is embodied here when we come to the central

passages which speak of Adam.  The apostle's final exposure is given in verse

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

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

resurrection.  The apostle had no place in his teaching for `a never dying

soul'; immortality was a part of his gospel, but it did not pertain to the

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 resurrection.

With one sweep the apostle 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 or of poets, and say to the sorrowing ones that their departed

friends were then with the Lord, and therefore they should rejoice; what he

does say is, that when the Lord comes all will be raised and reunited,

`Wherefore comfort one another with these words'.  If we do not feel that our

all hinges upon the fact of Christ's resurrection and our own, then we have

not the same faith as the apostle who penned 1 Corinthians 15:18.

One verse only now intervenes between this long argument and the

triumphant assertion of positive truth.  That verse just pauses to reflect

upon the hopeless state of the Christian in this life:

`If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most

miserable' (15:19).

Comment upon such a statement is unnecessary.  All who have sought to

live godly in Christ Jesus have realized that it involves in some degree loss

in this life, and a forfeiture of some of its advantages.

The apostle now opens up the great spiritual fulfilment of Israel's

feasts.  The great type which supplies the theme of this chapter is that of

Israel's Feast of the Firstfruits.  Let us see its setting: