What Does 1 Corinthians 15:14 Mean in the King James?
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Both the preaching and the faith are called “vain”; the raised Christ is what keeps both from being empty.
THE MEANING
The verse places the substance of the message and of trust on Christ being raised. If he is not raised, the proclamation is empty and the trust has no living ground.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that Christian proclamation and trust can remain sound even if Christ has not been raised.
THE ROOT
ἐγήγερται
egēgertai
GROWS FROM
ἐγειρ-
egeir-
To wake or raise up.
“risen” in this verse is egēgertai. This perfect passive form presents the raising as accomplished with a continuing result: he has been raised and remains raised. The message’s substance is bound to this living result.
ALSO GROWS
egersis: Raising; resurrection.
ἔγερσις
Matthew 27:53 uses this related noun for “resurrection,” naming the raising as an event.
egeire: Wake up; rise.
ἔγειρε
In Ephesians 5:14, this form calls a sleeper to wake, showing how the same word family holds waking and raising together.
κενὸν
kenon
GROWS FROM
κεν-
ken-
Empty, without content.
The same Greek adjective describes both the proclamation and the trust. English repeats “vain,” while the shared word shows that both lose their substance together if Christ is not raised.
ALSO GROWS
kenoō: To empty or make void.
κενόω
In Philippians 2:7, the same word family appears in “made himself of no reputation,” extending the sense of being emptied.
kenodoxia: Empty glory; vainglory.
κενοδοξία
This compound uses the same “empty” seed for glory without substance, echoing the emptiness of proclamation and trust here.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πειθ-
peith-
To persuade, trust, or come to rely on.
The word translated “faith” is trust: leaning your full weight on what is trusted. Here that trust has its ground in the raised Christ; without him, it is empty.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade; trust.
πείθω
This related verb shows the movement from being persuaded to placing trust.
pistos: Firm, steady; trustworthy.
πιστός
This related word brings out the steadiness trust seeks in the one it leans on.
THE PATTERN
The raised one turns death into the threshold of living hope and new life.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.THE THREAD
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.The word translated “risen” here is a form of ἐγείρω (egeirō), “to raise”; Matthew’s “resurrection” is the related noun ἔγερσις (egersis), “raising.” The shared word family makes the raising Paul makes central to the message concrete as an event.
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