1 Corinthians 15:17

your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins Christ came, not only to make reconciliation for sin, but to free us from it. Cf. Romans 6:11-23; Romans 8:2. And this He did by proclaiming a Life. He first conquered sin Himself. Then He offered the acceptable Sacrifice of His pure and unpolluted life to God in the place of our corrupt and sinful lives. And then, having at once vindicated the righteousness of God's law and fulfilled it, He arose from the dead. Having thus led sin and death captive, He redeemed us from the power of both by imparting His own Life to all who would enter into covenant with Him. Thus the Resurrection of Christ was the triumph of humanity (see 1 Corinthians 15:21) over sin and death; the reversal of the sentence, -the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Had He not risen from the dead, humanity had not triumphed, the sentence had not been reversed, man had not been delivered from the yoke of sin, and therefore those who had -fallen asleep" could never wake again. "None of these things would have taken place, had He not emerged victor from the conflict by rising again." Calvin.