Often in our Western individualistic context our Gospel summary goes something like “Jesus, the Son of God, died in our place on the cross to bear God’s wrath against our sin”, or words to that effect. We’re so caught up with the notion of individual salvation that we forget what we are being saved too, and thus forgo Jesus’ resurrection. So why is it so important? 1 Corinthians 15 is a great help:

Jesus’ Resurrection is the cornerstone of the Gospel

At the heart of the Gospel message is that hope that one day Christians will be resurrected to new life (Jesus himself claimed to be the source of this resurrection life in John 11). If Jesus did not defeat death and rise again, then this claim is a nonsense; if Jesus has not been raised, then our faith is futile according to Paul in v17. Everything starts and ends with the resurrection – anyone seeking to disprove Christianity simply needs to produce the decaying corpse of Jesus and the whole game is up; it is the lynchpin that holds the whole story together.

Jesus’ Resurrection shows us what is to come

The resurrection of Christians in the future should be an obvious thing to expect given Jesus’ triumph over death – “how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead” says Paul in v12. Christians will be changed mysteriously in the twinkling of an eye (v52) and will bear the image of the man of heaven (v49), and so the resurrection of believers will be physical,imperishable, and glorious.Paul recalls seeing the risen Jesus (v8) (he was not an apparition or just a spiritual experience) in a transformed bodily form: there is a discontinuity from the old body to the new as it moves from being perishable to imperishable (v42), but this is more glorious than a mere resuscitation like Lazarus as we become clothed in immortality (v53). And unlike reincarnation, the resurrection body is the goal of the Christian life, not the exit point. It is the culmination: a perfect, eternal, physical existence.

Jesus’ Resurrection shows us how to live now

The coming resurrection rules out any justification for hedonism (v32). Because this life is not all there is we don’t have to worry about “making the most of it” before we die, so continuing to live selfishly is ruled out. In Paul’s eyes, this actually means that the reverse is true: we can afford to hold on to this life lightly and we should be prepared to risk it for the sake of the Gospel! (v31). The resurrection means that we no longer have to fear death because Jesus’ has won a decisive victory; death no longer has any sting (v55) which we need to be afraid of. The resurrection is all the motivation we need to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (v58) because the hope it gives us of an everlasting future liberates us from the fears and cares of this world now.