1 Corinthians 15:16 MEANING

(16) For if the dead rise not.--Better, if the dead be not raised. The Apostle has in the previous verse completed the argument as to the historical fact of Christ's resurrection, which proves that the denial of the doctrine of the resurrection cannot be maintained unless it can be shown that the Apostles are wilfully bearing false testimony, and that their preaching, and the faith of those who accepted it, is vain. He now turns to a different line of argument--a reductio ad absurdum. He maintains the doctrine of the resurrection by showing the incredible absurdities to which a belief in the contrary must lead. If you do not believe in a resurrection, you must believe--(1) That Christ is not raised, and that your faith, therefore, being false, has no result--that you are still slaves of sin. This you know by personal experience to be false. As well might a living man try to believe that he is a corpse. (2) That all who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished; that is, that the noblest and most unselfish perish like brutes. (3) That God gives men a good hope in Christ, and that it, not being fulfilled here, is never to be fulfilled. In other words, if there be no resurrection, the only alternative is atheism, for otherwise you have to believe that, though there is a God who is wise and just, yet that the purest and greatest life ever lived is no better in the end than the life of a dog; that those who have lived the most unselfish lives have perished like beasts; and that God aroused a hunger and thirst of the purest kind in some souls, only that the hunger should never be satisfied, and the thirst never be quenched.

Verse 16. - This verse is a repetition of Ver. 13, to emphasize the argument that the Christian faith in the Resurrection rests not on philosophic theory, but on an historic fact.

15:12-19 Having shown that Christ was risen, the apostle answers those who said there would be no resurrection. There had been no justification, or salvation, if Christ had not risen. And must not faith in Christ be vain, and of no use, if he is still among the dead? The proof of the resurrection of the body is the resurrection of our Lord. Even those who died in the faith, had perished in their sins, if Christ had not risen. All who believe in Christ, have hope in him, as a Redeemer; hope for redemption and salvation by him; but if there is no resurrection, or future recompence, their hope in him can only be as to this life. And they must be in a worse condition than the rest of mankind, especially at the time, and under the circumstances, in which the apostles wrote; for then Christians were hated and persecuted by all men. But it is not so; they, of all men, enjoy solid comforts amidst all their difficulties and trials, even in the times of the sharpest persecution.For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. This is a repetition of the argument in 1 Corinthians 15:13 made partly to show the importance of it, and partly to observe other absurdities, following upon the conclusion of it.