1 Corinthians 15:17

Vain. Gr. mataios, “useless,” “aimless,” “to no purpose” (cf. on v. 14). Here attention is drawn to the absolute lack of any objective in Christian faith if Christ has not been raised from the dead. The members at Corinth were strong enough to reject the suggestion that their faith was “useless,” and would therefore be bound still more closely to belief in the resurrection.

Sins. In vs. 16, 17 Paul repeats the reasoning he gives in vs. 13, 14, but with a difference. Verses 13, 14 stress the emptiness of faith without the resurrection of Christ; vs. 16, 17 reveal the hopelessly lost condition of man apart from the resurrection. Although it is true that “Christ died for our sins” (v. 3), it is also true that He “was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25; see ch. 10:9). If Jesus was not raised from the dead, then He was an impostor; faith in Him would not bring pardon for sin, and the sinner would retain his guilt. Such an assumption could not be tolerated by anyone who had experienced the joy of having his sins forgiven. Furthermore, baptism, which is a type of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, would lose its significance if there were no resurrection, for the exhortation is given, to rise and “walk in newness of life,” even as Christ was raised from the dead (see Rom. 6:3, 4).