1 Corinthians 15:13-14

Belief in bodily resurrection is foundational to the Christian faith. If the resurrection of the body is impossible, then the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fiction. If He did not rise, the apostles’ preaching rested on a lie, and consequently the Corinthians’ faith would have been valueless and misplaced.

This is the first in a series of conditional statements that run through 1 Corinthians 15:19. They are first class conditions in the Greek text, which express the assumption of reality for the sake of the argument. In 1 Corinthians 15:13 Paul did not express disbelief in the resurrection from the dead. He assumed there is none to make a point. This was also his tactic in 1 Corinthians 15:14; 1 Corinthians 15:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:19.