1 Corinthians 15:17

Ye are yet in your sins.— The word sin is frequently used for the punishment due to sin; and in that sense it should be understood here: "Ye are yet liable to the punishment of your sins." It is the constant tenor of scripture, that atonement for the sins of the world was made by our great High-priest uponthe cross; that his death was our ransom, and his blood the price paid for it: so that when we consider the ransom, which includes our justification, with respect to Christ, the author of it, it must be ascribed to his death and passion;—but as to ourselves, our title and interest in this common salvation being grounded in faith, our justification, though purchased by the blood of Christ, must be appropriated to ourselves through faith in that blood. For the same Apostle who has told us that we are justified freely through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, has likewise told us, that God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. For this reason we are said to be justified by faith; not that our faith is the purchase of justification, which we owe to the blood of Christ alone; but because through faith we obtain the benefit of the redemption wrought by Jesus Christ. Now, though the death of Christ was the reconciling of the world to God, yet the resurrection of Christ is the crowning point of our hope and faith in him; even of our faith in his blood, by which he made a propitiation for our sins: and therefore, although Christ died for our offences, and made atonement for our sins, yet since our faith in his death, and our hope in his blood, (by which hope and faith we are justified,) are built upon the truth and credit of his resurrection, it is very properly said that he rose again for our justification. For the death of Christ would have been no justification to us, nor could we have had hope or faith in it, but for the power and glory of the resurrection, which has wiped awaythe scandal and ignominy of the cross, and made it both a divine and rational act of faith to hope for life and immortality from him, who himself once died upon the tree. Thus we learn from St. Paul, that if Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain; we are yet in our sins. Whence we gather that faith in the death of Christ, not grounded on the assurance of his resurrection, is a vain faith, and such a one as cannot deliver us from our sins: nay, that the death of Christ could not have been a propitiation for sin without his resurrection, he expressly teaches in the next verse:—Then they also, which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished.