Verse 19
If the Christian’s hope in Christ is just what he or she can expect this side of the grave, that one deserves pity. Of course there are some benefits to trusting Christ as we live here and now (cf. 1 Timothy 4:8). However, we have to place these things in the balance with what we lose in this life for taking a stand for Him (cf. Philippians 3:8; 1 Corinthians 4:4-5; 1 Corinthians 9:25). If we have nothing to hope for the other side of the grave, the Christian life would not be worth living.
To summarize his argument, Paul claimed that if believers have no future, specifically resurrected bodies like Christ’s, we have no past or present as well. That is, we have no forgiveness of our sins in the past, and we have no advantage over unbelievers in the present.
"It is a point of very great importance to remember that the Corinthians were not denying the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; what they were denying is the resurrection of the body; and what Paul is insistent upon is that if a man denies the possibility of the resurrection of the body he has thereby denied the possibility of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and has therefore emptied the Christian message of its truth and the Christian life of its reality." [Note: Barclay, The Letter . . ., p. 153.]
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