Behold, I tell you a mystery We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed,
Paul has spent the whole chapter proving that the dead in Christ will rise. That leaves one question open: what happens to believers who are still alive when the Lord comes? He answers with a secret, and the claim is startling. Not every Christian will die, but not one will enter glory unchanged.
The word "mystery" here does not mean a puzzle. It points to something new that God has now made known.
The resurrection of just and unjust was a well-known Old Testament truth... People knew about the raising of the dead saints, and even about the raising of the wicked dead. But the change of the living saints was a truth God had never revealed. Up to this point He had not made it known. It was a New Testament truth, and this is exactly what a "mystery" means. It was one of those truths God kept secret in the Old Testament and has now revealed. It is not so much a thing that is hard to understand once stated, as a thing that was never made known before.
The previous verse says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That is the pressure behind this one. Dying is not what disqualifies us; our present bodily condition is.
Flesh and blood, not merely sin, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Corruption (for such we are) cannot inherit that which is incorruptible... Death is conquered. Death does not have to come to everyone, and still less does everyone have to pass through decay. But flesh and blood cannot possibly inherit the kingdom of glory... and we shall be changed (a change equivalent to resurrection)... We see that this relates to the body; it is in his body that man is mortal, even when he has eternal life.
So the change is no lesser substitute for resurrection.
In Scripture, "sleep" is said of the body, not of the soul.
Scripture connects the thought of "sleep" with the body... Death has now lost its terrors for the Christian, so that Scripture can call it "sleep."
That some believers will never sleep at all says something about the death of Christ.
The Old Testament saints, like Job, did know of the resurrection of the dead. But they knew nothing of this great secret: that God will change the natural bodies of the living saints into spiritual bodies, without those saints going through death. What a proof of the mighty power of the death of Christ! It has so fully met the penalty of death for the believer that he can be changed into the image of the heavenly without going through death.
The verse divides believers into two groups over dying, then puts them back into one over changing. Writers press the word "all" against any idea that some believers go first and others later.
We shall not all "sleep" (i.e. die) but we shall all be changed, whether alive or dead at the moment when the Lord comes for His saints... We shall "all be changed," you notice, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — not in many, or at least several, different moments. That is what would happen if the church entered its glory by a partial rapture, or by a series of partial raptures.
This verse is not the whole picture.
If we only had this Scripture we should not know into what likeness we are changed, nor what would happen to us when we are changed. This then is the first step in the great event that leads to our being with Christ.
Paul writes "we," placing himself and his readers among those who might never sleep.
Grant that "we" is a representative word. It does not mean only the people he wrote to, but everyone standing in the same privileges. Still, will anyone say that the apostle or the Corinthian saints knew the moment would be put off until they had fallen asleep? Was it not meant, beyond all doubt, to keep them in simple, constant expectancy of the Lord?
- Secret. "Mystery" means a truth God kept hidden and has now revealed. Resurrection was already known. The change of living believers was not.
- Sleep. In Scripture "sleep" is said of the believer's body, and this secret says some will never sleep at all.
- Change. No one escapes the change, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. What resurrection does for the dead, the change does for the living.
- All. One moment, one company: dead and living reach the same point together, not in stages.
- Soon. Paul says "we." That word keeps every generation of readers watching for the Lord, instead of counting on death.
in an instant, in [the] twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and *we* shall be changed.
Paul has been writing about the resurrection of the body. Verse 52 tells how fast the change happens, what signal starts it, and what the raised body will be like.
The word behind "moment" is not a vague word for "soon." One writer traces it back to its parts and sets it against the slow farming picture Paul used earlier in the chapter.
The Greek word for moment is the word from which we get the English word atom. The first letter, a, means "not", and temnō means "cut", so it's a division of time that cannot be further divided. It is a tiny piece of time, and that is how long this change will take. It might be helpful to put it alongside verses 35 to 38 where we get the sowing of the body. What is sown is bare grain, but what comes up is different. That is a process, and it takes quite a while between sowing and harvesting. Here we get the other side of the picture: the whole process fits into the shortest time possible.
The size of the work makes the speed more startling, not less. The wording also draws a line between the dead and the living.
The saints will be glorified sooner than the mind can count or the eye can see. The work is immense in itself, and it reaches every spot on the globe. It happens when the final call goes out to the heavenly host to leave the place where it has camped... Notice: the verse does not say that we shall rise then, nor that they alone are in view — "we" too shall be changed.
Paul writes to people living inside the Roman empire, where trumpet calls were an everyday sound. Several commentators read the phrase as a picture borrowed from army life.
The "last trump" is but a military allusion, neither more nor less. There were three trumpets for breaking up the camp among the Romans. At the first, they folded the baggage; at the second, they fell into rank; at the third, they started all together.
If that is the picture, the "last" trumpet is the one that says march. It marks a departure, not an ending.
The last trump was that which in its military sense stood for departure. It was the signal to march, and that is the thought here. God is taking us into another place, and at the last trump, which sounds for this, we shall be changed into a condition corresponding with that which is implied in it.
Because "last" sounds final, readers often tie this trumpet to the seventh trumpet of Revelation. One writer keeps three trumpets apart and gives the rule for doing it.
The trumpets in Revelation are a symbolic series that belongs to that book alone. They are judgments — the last three are even called "woes" — and the last of all brings in the closing scene of God's judgment... In 1 Corinthians 15 the reference is only to the saints raised or changed. The picture comes from army life: the final signal when the legion marches out of its old camp. It would be a mistake to mix either of these up with the blowing of the great trumpet in Isaiah 27, which gathers the chosen people of Israel into the land that is their inheritance. Each one must be read in its own context.
Commentators differ over what the trumpet covers. Darby held that this one is "simply that of the resurrection of the dead, not that of the change of the living." Others tie the one blast to both events.
The change takes one moment. That detail weighs against the idea that some believers go up ahead of others.
Notice that we shall "all be changed," "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — not in many different moments, or even in several. That is what it would be if the church were to enter its glory by a partial rapture, or by a series of partial raptures.
"Incorruptible" describes a body that can no longer decay — and the same person who was buried is the person who rises.
Scripture is careful to show that resurrection is a real thing. It stresses that what is sown is what is raised, though it is raised in new conditions... Decay is the end of man in his natural state, and that is the condition of the body when it goes into the grave. How different the Christian's body will be when it is raised, for then it will be incorruptible. People who are alive now have bodies that can decay. But when the dead are raised and the living are changed, their bodies will no longer be able to decay. They are of another order.
If the trumpet calls a camp to march, then the Christian's posture now is that of someone already packed.
The Christian is to be standing ready for the final trumpet call. He has already heard the call of the gospel. If he has truly answered it, he has separated himself from the world, packed his baggage, and is looking for the Saviour.
- Signal. The last trumpet is the blast that sends an army out of camp — a call to march, and not one of the judgment trumpets of Revelation.
- Speed. "Moment" means a slice of time that cannot be cut smaller; the slow sowing of verses 35–38 is compressed into an instant.
- Scope. From every spot on the globe, believers rise or are changed together — not in stages, not in groups.
- Substance. What is sown is what is raised: the same person, in a body of another order, no longer subject to decay.
- Stance. Baggage packed, separated from the world, listening for a call that could sound before you finish reading this sentence.
For this corruptible must needs put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality.
The verse states a necessity: the body we have now cannot enter glory as it is. Everything hangs on the little word "this" — the body that decays and dies is the very body that puts on what death cannot touch.
One writer defines the term, then shows how it lands on the dead and on the living:
The word immortality means not being liable to death, and in 1 Corinthians 15:53 it refers to the body. At the coming of the Lord the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible, while the living Christians will put on immortality. It is the body that in death goes to corruption, and in resurrection puts on incorruptibility.
The word appears only three times in Scripture. Two of those are in this chapter. The third speaks of God Himself:
First, as to God Himself. He only has immortality, in the sense that it is inherent in Him, not bestowed, not acquired, but His, as in His own nature and being (1 Timothy 6:16). The other two cases (1 Corinthians 15:53-54) have to do with the saints alive on this earth when the Lord comes. They have mortal bodies, able to die and liable to death. Yet if the Lord comes, they will bypass death altogether, and mortality will put on immortality.
The need goes back to the previous verse. The problem is not just sin in us, but our whole present condition:
Flesh and blood, not merely sin, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Corruption (for that is what we are) cannot inherit what is incorruptible. So the apostle now reveals plainly what will happen: all the saints will enjoy incorruptibility. Death is conquered. Death does not have to come upon all. Still less does everyone have to decay. But flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of glory.
A change of heart is not the same as a change of body:
To have a right to God's kingdom, we must ourselves be born of God. To inherit it, we must in fact change in form as well as in nature… So God's saints, whether dead or living, need more than the conversion of their hearts to Him. They must undergo a further change.
Paul does not say we drop the perishable body. He says it puts on something more. One writer draws out that contrast, using the older wording "corruptible" and "incorruption" where the ESV reads "perishable" and "the imperishable":
"For this corruptible must" — not just put off corruption, but "put on incorruption, and this mortal" must not just slip out of this mortal life, as people say, but "put on immortality."
This is why the desire of the believer is not simply to die. Death removes the body; the hope here adds to it:
He did not merely want to be unclothed and so escape present trials, blessed as that will be. He longed for the full blessing of having the new body. He was looking for the rapture. Then the bodies of living believers will become bodies of glory, without passing through death.
Commentators differ on whether the verse's two halves point to two groups. One writer takes them that way:
Verse 53 insists that it is "this corruptible" that must "put on incorruption"! That is, our present body is the one that must take on an altered condition. This no doubt refers primarily to those who have died, while "this mortal" refers to those still living, though subject to death. Putting on immortality means being clothed with what death cannot touch.
Others hold that both phrases describe the one unfit body from two angles:
I do not believe that 1 Corinthians 15:53 speaks of two classes. "This mortal" speaks of the body as joined in life to the soul. "Corruptible" is its nature when it is not kept alive. Neither state is fit for glory, where only an undying and incorruptible body belongs.
The change is not something a believer receives at death. It waits for one event:
Death is not swallowed up in victory when a Christian dies and goes to be with Christ; but when He comes, and the dead are raised, and the living changed. What was done individually in the case of Enoch and Elijah, will be done on a grand scale at His coming. All the living saints then will be changed, and will go to be with the Lord, without passing through death.
- Must — the need is not only moral but physical. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, so conversion of heart is not enough.
- This — the same body is in view. Our present body takes on a new condition; it is not swapped for another.
- Put on — the language is of clothing, not discarding. Believers long not to be unclothed by death but to be clothed with a body death cannot touch.
- Body — immortality here means not being liable to death, and it applies to the body. God alone has it in Himself; to us He gives it.
- When — at the coming of the Lord, the dead raised and the living changed. Commentators differ. Do the verse's two halves name those two groups, or describe one unfit body twice?
But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word written Death has been swallowed up in victory.
This verse names a moment. It is the point where an old prophecy finally comes true. Two questions follow. When is death swallowed up? And who is covered by the words "the perishable" and "the mortal"?
The word "then" fixes an event. Commentators say it is not the moment a Christian dies. It is the moment of resurrection and change at Christ's coming. They also stress that the verse says put on, not merely put off.
"For this perishable body must" — not merely put off corruption, but — "put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must" not merely shed this mortal life, as people say, but "put on immortality." So "when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality" — clearly the glorified state — "then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" Death is not swallowed up in victory when a Christian dies and goes to be with Christ. It happens when He comes, when the dead are raised, and when the living are changed.
One writer separates what is better for us from what is victory for Him.
To depart and be with Him, with the soul apart from the body, is "far better" than the present life. Yet that is not His victory. For the body it is the last experience of what sin brought in. His victory comes "when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality" — then, and not before, "shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'"
The two phrases are not repetition. Commentators read them as covering believers who have died and believers still alive when Christ comes.
Verse 53 insists that it is "this perishable body" that must "put on the imperishable"! That is, our present body is the one that must be brought into a changed condition. This no doubt refers first of all to those who have died, while "this mortal body" refers to those still living, though still subject to death. To put on immortality is to be clothed with what death cannot touch.
Why two words? Because a body can be in two states.
A living body is mortal, subject to death. A dead body is subject to corruption.
The saying Paul quotes comes from one place only. (Older translations of Isaiah 25:8 read "in victory"; the ESV has "He will swallow up death forever.")
Where is this saying written? In only one other place in Scripture. In Isaiah 25:8 you will find the passage that the apostle quotes: "He will swallow up death in victory."
In Isaiah the words stand beside Israel's deliverance. That setting fixes the timing.
The resurrection coincides with the deliverance of Israel, which itself will be "life from the dead" for the world (Rom. 11:15). So the first open stroke at death will be at this very time... It is when His reign over the earth is to begin, not when it ends.
Does death itself then stop existing? One writer answers with a picture.
The swallowing up of death in victory is not necessarily the destruction of death. Think of an enemy who has long been winning. He has laid his grim grip on the rightful subjects of some mighty prince. The prince's armies may swallow that enemy up in victory and set all his captives free — and yet the tyrant's life may be spared. He may even be spared to act as jailer to the prince's enemies. It is exactly so here. Death has held the bodies of God's beloved people in his grasp. At the coming of the Lord, the Prince of life, he will be forced to release every captive. Still death is not destroyed. For a thousand years longer it acts, so to speak, as the jailer of those unhappy ones who have lived and died in sin. They too will be raised in the resurrection of judgment, and then death itself will be destroyed.
The event is future, but the thanksgiving is not postponed.
Death itself, of course, is not yet swallowed up... But when "the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" Then Christ's place, beyond everything that could hinder us, will be ours, even as to our bodies. Yet before these things happen, we can already say: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
- Written — the words come from Isaiah 25:8, the only other place they appear. There they stand beside Israel's deliverance, at the start of Christ's reign.
- Then — the fulfilment waits for one moment. Not a believer's death, not the comfort of being with Christ, but resurrection and change at His coming.
- Put on — the body does not merely shed corruption. It puts on the imperishable, and death can never touch it again.
- Both — "this perishable body" covers those already in the grave, "this mortal body" those still living. Two conditions, one shared outcome.
- Not yet destroyed — Christ releases every captive, yet death survives as jailer until the end. Even now the thanks are ours through our Lord Jesus Christ.