Christ's resurrection

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17
1 Corinthians 15 is known as the ‘resurrection chapter’. In it, Paul presents a number of different viewpoints commonly held about the resurrection of Christ, and shows which are true and which are false. We can learn a lot from this chapter.
There were those in the church in Corinth, just as there are people in churches today (even in the pulpit) who deny the notion of a bodily resurrection. The Sadducees had this problem and Jesus set the record very straight with them (Mark 12:18-27). Paul carries this idea of if there was no resurrection, to its logical conclusion. If there is no resurrection, then not even Christ has been raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our sins have not been removed and our faith is useless, because it is based in the work of Christ being sufficient to cleanse us of our sins.
The resurrection is profoundly important. It proves that Jesus has the power over death. He bore our sins, because death only comes through sin (Rom. 3:23). But since they were not His own, death could not hold Him. If Jesus had sinned just once – and if sin had been part of his nature, through Adam (hence the absolute necessity for His virgin birth) – He would have had to die for His own sin and could not have also paid for ours.
The resurrection is one of the foundational truths of Christianity. Without it, we have nothing. Jesus did indeed die, and He did indeed rise from the dead. I’ve heard somebody once say, ‘I am more certain in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ than I am of my own name.’ It took me a while to comprehend how someone could say something that dramatic. But now I can say the same thing. Jesus’ death and resurrection paid the complete price for my sin. It defines who I am – even more than my own name does. How can I deny that?