1 Corinthians 15:17-19 AMP
…and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless and powerless [mere delusion]; you are still in your sins [and under the control and penalty of sin]. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hoped only in this life [and this is all there is], then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied.
This one thing is for sure, Christ was raised from the dead and that is why Easter is marked on the Christian calendar remembering his death burial and resurrection.
As the scripture says, if we who are abiding in Christ have hoped only in this life and this is all there is, then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied. That is not the case, in fact the exact opposite is true. Our hope is not just in this life for we have the assurance that we have eternal life and as the bible says, to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord.
We have the assurance that there is more to life than what we see in the natural we know that our after life is secure in Christ because he already defeated death.
But even in this life, we are not to be pitied but to be most envied because greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Think about the early church and how united they were, having all things in common so that none among them was in need. Think about their faith that was so strong that even death and persecution could not deter them from following after Jesus, in fact it just made them stronger. Think about the power an authority the exercised and the signs and wonders that accompanied them wherever they went to preach the Gospel. Are those people to be pitied or are they to be envied? We have the same Spirit of God that was working through them and in them.
Christ is not dead, he is alive and because he lives in us, people should see a manifestation of him who is alive and not a dead Christ.
