If Christ Has Not Been Raised…

Michael Fierro
Jul 2
3 min read

Christianity Rises or Falls With the Resurrection

In the first century, long before theologians debated the meaning of the Resurrection, St. Paul made it perfectly clear:

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”—1 Corinthians 15:17

There is no Christianity without the Resurrection.

This is not a secondary doctrine. It’s not an optional flourish on top of a moral philosophy. It is the foundation.

If the Resurrection is false—if it didn’t happen in time and space—then everything else collapses. Paul says so directly. And yet, this is precisely what many modern thinkers have tried to reinterpret.

What Some Theologians Get Wrong

In the 20th century, scholars like Rudolf Bultmann claimed that it didn’t matter whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead. What mattered, he said, was the faith of the early Christians—their experience of transformation and new hope.

Bultmann famously said that if the bones of Jesus were discovered tomorrow, the essentials of Christianity would remain intact.

But Paul says the opposite.

If Jesus has not risen, then:

Our proclamation is in vain.What are we even preaching?
Your faith is in vain.It's empty—built on a lie.
We misrepresent God.We claim God raised Jesus when He didn’t.
Your faith is futile.It can’t save you.
You are still in your sins.The Cross by itself was not enough—it is the Resurrection that confirms its power.
The dead in Christ have perished.There is no hope for the faithful departed.
We are the most pitiable of people.Because we have staked our lives on a lie.

This is not hyperbole. Paul is being deliberate and pastoral. If the Resurrection is a myth or metaphor, then Christianity is not Good News. It’s a tragic illusion.

Easter Faith Without Easter Reality?

Some modern approaches speak of “Easter faith” as a subjective experience: the disciples came to believe in the triumph of Jesus in their hearts, and that’s what really matters—not whether the tomb was empty.

But faith needs an object. You cannot have faith in something that did not happen.Faith is not a feeling—it is trust in a truth.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” —Hebrews 11:1

To say “I believe Jesus rose from the dead” without a real Resurrection is to say:

I believe in belief.
I trust in my own feelings.
I hope in hope.

That’s not Christianity. That’s circular self-reassurance.

What’s at Stake?

Paul isn’t arguing for the Resurrection as a nice encouragement.He is defending it as everything.

If Christ has not been raised:

There is no forgiveness.
There is no future.
There is no point.

But if He has been raised:

Sin is conquered.
Death is defeated.
And everything is changed.

Why This Matters

There is no Christianity without the Resurrection.

The early Church did not suffer and die for a metaphor.The apostles did not preach a symbolic resurrection to hostile crowds.And Paul did not risk his life for a poetic image of spiritual renewal.

They believed in a real event—something that had happened in time, in history, in flesh and blood.And they believed it because they had seen Him, touched Him, spoken with Him—and they never went back.