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It is only at this point in Paul’s discussion of the Resurrection that we learn what occasioned it. Some Corinthians were saying, There is no resurrection (v.12). His approach to this denial is first to detail the consequences if this were true (vv.12-19). Second, he considers the consequences of the fact that Christ has been resurrected (vv.20-28). Third, he notes the personal contradictions that are suggested by the Corinthians' and his own practice if there is no Resurrection (vv.29-32). He concludes with three exhortations (vv.33-34).
Although the Corinthians take for granted the universal Christian faith in Christ’s resurrection, some of them deny the resurrection of the dead (v.12). Paul challenges the logic of their belief with a series of seven hypothetical constructions, stating the awful consequences that would follow if there actually were no Resurrection.
Paul reasons from the general to the specific. If there is no general resurrection, then there can have been none in the specific instance of Christ (vv.13, 15b, 16). If the Corinthians are right, then he and the other apostles are wrong. Then Paul’s preaching is not only futile, it is false, and he is a liar (vv.13-15). Their faith is not only worthless and empty; they are still hopeless sinners (vv.14, 17). To deny their future deliverance from death is to deny their own present experience of deliverance from sin. If there is no Resurrection, Christian believers who have died are lost (v.18). Their fate is no different from that of unbelievers. To deny the resurrection of the dead is not merely to nitpick about indifferent, esoteric theological opinions. It is to undermine the very basis of the Christian faith. Christ’s death is without saving significance if God did not raise him the from the dead (vv.17-19).
Denial of the Resurrection undermines moral urgency, but not because Christians do good in order to be rewarded and avoid evil so as not to be punished. Nevertheless, if the dead are not raised, there is no moral accountability (see Ro 14:9-12), in which case the tranquilizing pursuit of pleasure in the face of despair—Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (15:32; citing Isa 22:13)—becomes attractive. Only a fool would pursue a painful mission in the cause of a gospel predicated on a fraud and possessing neither help in the present nor hope for the future (see vv.12-19).