The admission of the resurrection of Christ is inconsistent with the denial of the resurrection of the dead. What has happened, may happen. The actual is surely possible. This mode of arguing shows that the objections urged in Corinth bore equally against the resurrection of Christ, and against the general doctrine of the resurrection. They, therefore, could not have been founded on the peculiar difficulties at- tending the latter doctrine. They must have been derived from the assumption that the restoration to life of a body once dead, is either an impossibility, or an absurdity. Most probably, these objectors thought, that to reunite the soul with the body was to shut it up again in prison ; and that it was as much a degradation and retrocession, as if a man should again become an unborn infant. ' No,' these philosophers said, ' the hope of the resurrection " is the hope of swine." The soul having once been emancipated from the defiling en- cumbrance of the body, it is never to be re-imprisoned.'
The argument of the apostle does not imply that the ob- jectors admitted the resurrection of Chnst. He is not argu- ing with them, but against them. His design is to show that their objections to the resurrection proved too much. If they proved any thing, they proved what no Christian could admit, viz., that Christ did not rise from the dead. The denial of the resurrection of the dead involves the denial of the resur- rection of Christ. The question discussed throughout this chapter is not the continued existence of the soul after death, but the restoration of the body to life. This is the constant meaning of the expression " resurrection of the dead," for which the more definite expression " resurrection of the body " is often substituted. Whether the false teachers in Corinth, who denied the doctrine of the resurrection, also denied the immortality of the soul, is .uncertain. The probability is that they did not. For how could any one pretend to be a Chris- tian, and yet not believe in an hereafter ? All that is certain is, that they objected to the doctrine of the resurrection on grounds which logically involved the denial of the resurrection of Christ.
14. And if Christ be not risen, then (is) our preach- ing vain, and your faith (is) also vain.
This is the first consequence of denying the resurrection of Christ. The whole gospel is subverted. The reason why