1 Corinthians 15:50

1 Corinthians 15:50-52 . Now this I say, brethren — This I offer to your consideration as a great and important truth, that we must first undergo an entire change; for flesh and blood — Such as we are now clothed with; cannot inherit the kingdom of God — Cannot enter that happy place which Christ hath gone to prepare for the reception of his people, ( John 14:7 ,) cannot possess that kingdom which is wholly spiritual, because it affords no objects suited either to the senses or to the appetites of such a body. Neither doth corruption — This corruptible body; inherit incorruption — That incorruptible kingdom. Spirits, clothed with corruptible bodies like our present bodies, cannot enjoy objects that are incorruptible. They are not capable of enjoying the divine vision, nor of performing the exalted services, nor of relishing the pure pleasures, which constitute the glory and felicity of the kingdom of God. Behold, I show you a mystery — A truth hitherto unknown, and not yet fully revealed to any of the sons of men. We — Christians: the apostle considers them all as one in their succeeding generations; shall not die — Suffer a separation of soul and body; but we shall all — Who do not die; be changed — So that this animal body shall become spiritual; in a moment — Amazing work of omnipotence! in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump — Blown by the divine command.

For the trumpet shall sound, &c. — At the giving of the law from Sinai, there was heard a great noise, like the sounding of a trumpet, exceeding loud, which sounded long, and waxed louder and louder. In like manner, at the descent of Christ from heaven, a great noise called the trump of God, ( 1 Thessalonians 4:16 ,) will be made by the attending angels, as the signal for the righteous to come forth from their graves. And this noise being made at Christ’s command, it is called by himself, his voice, John 5:25 . After the righteous are raised, the trumpet shall sound a second time; on which account it is called here the last trumpet. And while it sounds, the righteous who are alive on the earth shall be changed. And the dead shall be raised incorruptible — Though this expression be general, yet, as appears from 1 Corinthians 15:51 , and indeed from the whole latter part of the chapter, it is evident it must be restricted to the dead in Christ, of whom alone the apostle is discoursing. Besides, as appears from 1 Thessalonians 4:16 , the wicked are not to be raised at the same time with the righteous.

1 Corinthians THE DEATH OF DEATH1 Corinthians 15:20 - 1 Corinthians 15:21 ; 1 Corinthians 15:50 - 1 Corinthians 15:58 . This passage begins with the triumphant ringing out of the great fact which changes all the darkness of an earthly life without a heavenly hope into a blaze of light. All the dreariness for humanity, and all the vanity for Christian faith and preaching, vanish, like ghosts at cock-crow, when the Resurrection of Jesus rises sun-like on the world’s night. It is a historical fact, established by the evidence proper for such,-namely, the credible testimony of eye-witnesses. They could attest His rising, but the knowledge of the worldwide significance of it comes, not from testimony, but from revelation. Those who saw Him risen join to declare: ‘Now is Christ risen from the dead,’ but it is a higher Voice that goes on to say, ‘and become the first-fruits of them that slept.’ That one Man risen from the grave was like the solitary sheaf of paschal first-fruits, prophesying of many more, a gathered harvest that will fill the great Husbandman’s barns. The Resurrection of Jesus is not only a prophecy, showing, as it and it alone does, that death is not the end of man, but that life persists through death and emerges from it, like a buried river coming again flashing into the light of day, but it is the source or cause of the Christian’s resurrection.

The oneness of the race necessitated the diffusion through all its members of sin and of its consequence-physical death. If the fountain is poisoned, all the stream will be tainted. If men are to be redeemed from the power of the grave, there must be a new personal centre of life; and union with Him, which can only be effected by faith, is the condition of receiving life from Him, which gradually conquers the death of sin now, and will triumph over bodily death in the final resurrection. It is the resurrection of Christians that Paul is dealing with. Others are to be raised, but on a different principle, and to sadly different issues. Since Christ’s Resurrection assures us of the future waking, it changes death into ‘sleep,’ and that sleep does not mean unconsciousness any more than natural sleep does, but only rest from toil, and cessation of intercourse with the external world. In the part of the passage, 1 Corinthians 15:50 - 1 Corinthians 15:58 , the Apostle becomes, not the witness or the reasoner, as in the earlier parts of the chapter, but the revealer of a ‘mystery.’ That word, so tragically misunderstood, has here its uniform scriptural sense of truth, otherwise unknown, made known by revelation. But before he unveils the mystery, Paul states with the utmost force a difficulty which might seem to crush all hope,-namely, that corporeity, as we know it, is clearly incapable of living in such a world as that future one must be.

{28} Now this I say, brethren, that {c} flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. (28) The conclusion: we cannot be partakers of the glory of God unless we put off all that gross and filthy nature of our bodies subject to corruption, that the same body may be adorned with incorruptible glory. (c) Flesh and blood are taken here for a living body, which cannot attain to incorruption, unless it puts off corruption.

50 . Now this I say, brethren ] We enter here upon a new phase of the argument. The Apostle now tells us how this great result shall be accomplished. We cannot inherit eternity as we are: a change is necessary. And this change will in the end be a sudden one, but will consist rather in the modification of the external conditions of the body than in any destruction of its essential properties. See note on 1 Corinthians 15:53 . that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ] It is not the material particles of our body which endure for ever. They are subject to corruption and dissolution. It is the spiritual principle of life which abides, and like the seed, attracts to itself such material particles as shall serve it for a suitable habitation. (See notes on 1 Corinthians 15:37-38 .) The early heretics mentioned above, 1 Corinthians 15:12 , caught eagerly at this verse as disposing of the idea of a material resurrection. But the early Fathers of the Church shewed conclusively that it was not to be so understood. They cited St Luke 24:39 to prove that Jesus Christ had ‘flesh and bones’ after His Resurrection. And we may observe, moreover, that in St Paul’s language ‘flesh and blood’ stood for our ordinary humanity, as distinguished from everything of a spiritual nature. See Romans 8:1-10 ; Galatians 1:16 ; Ephesians 6:12 . neither doth corruption inherit incorruption ] An additional proof of what has just been stated.