| Geneva Study Bible And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; {7} ye are {e} yet in your sins. (7) First, seeing death is the punishment of sin, in vain should we believe that our sins were forgiven us, if they remain: but they do remain, if Christ did not rise from death. (e) They are yet in their sins who are not sanctified, nor have obtained remission of their sins. People's New Testament 15:17 If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain. In that case he is not the Savior. He is a dead man, who could not even save himself. Such a one has no power to pardon sins, and ye are yet in your sins. Wesley's Notes 15:17 Ye are still in your sins - That is, under the guilt of them. So that there needed something more than reformation, (which was plainly wrought,) in order to their being delivered from the guilt of sin even that atonement, the sufficiency of which God attested by raising our great Surety from the grave. Scofield Reference Notes Margin sins Sin. See Scofield Note: "Rom 3:23". Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 17. vain-Ye are, by the very fact (supposing the case to be as the skeptics maintained), frustrated of all which "your faith" appropriates: Ye are still under the everlasting condemnation of your sins (even in the disembodied state which is here referred to), from which Christ's resurrection is our justification (Ro 4:25): "saved by his life" (Ro 5:10). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 15:12-19 Having shown that Christ was risen, the apostle answers those who said there would be no resurrection. There had been no justification, or salvation, if Christ had not risen. And must not faith in Christ be vain, and of no use, if he is still among the dead? The proof of the resurrection of the body is the resurrection of our Lord. Even those who died in the faith, had perished in their sins, if Christ had not risen. All who believe in Christ, have hope in him, as a Redeemer; hope for redemption and salvation by him; but if there is no resurrection, or future recompence, their hope in him can only be as to this life. And they must be in a worse condition than the rest of mankind, especially at the time, and under the circumstances, in which the apostles wrote; for then Christians were hated and persecuted by all men. But it is not so; they, of all men, enjoy solid comforts amidst all their difficulties and trials, even in the times of the sharpest persecution. | 
