“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:”
King James Version (KJV)
15:14 Then is our preaching - From a commission supposed to be given after the resurrection. Vain - Without any real foundation.
15:15 If the dead rise not - If the very notion of a resurrection be, as they say, absurd and impossible.
15:17 Ye are still in your sins - That is, under the guilt of them. So that there needed something more than reformation, (which was plainly wrought,) in order to their being delivered from the guilt of sin even that atonement, the sufficiency of which God attested by raising our great Surety from the grave.
15:18 They who sleep in Christ - Who have died for him, or believing in him. Are perished - Have lost their life and being together.