1 Corinthians 15:51

We shall not all sleep (πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα) Not, there is not one of us now living who shall die before the Lord's coming, but, we shall not all die. There will be some of us Christians living when the Lord comes, but we shall be changed. The other rendering would commit the apostle to the extent of believing that not one Christian would die before the coming of Christ.

{29} Behold, I shew you a {d} mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (29) He goes further, declaring that it will come to pass that those who will be found alive in the latter day will not descend into that corruption of the grave, but will be renewed with a sudden change, which change is very necessary. And he further states that the certain enjoying of the benefit and victory of Christ, is deferred to that latter time. (d) A thing that has been hid, and never known before now, and therefore worthy that you give good care to it.

51 . Behold, I shew you a mystery ] See note on ch. 1 Corinthians 2:7 , 1 Corinthians 4:1 . Human reason unaided is of course incapable of arriving at the truth on a point like this. We shall not all sleep ] There are two other very important readings of this passage. The first, that of the Vulgate and of Tertullian, is omnes quidem resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur ( alle we schulen rise aghen, but not alle we schullen be chaungid . Wiclif). The other is, we shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed , which is found in some important MSS. and versions. There seems little reason to doubt that the reading of our version is the true one. The others have probably arisen from the fact that St Paul and his contemporaries did sleep. But he was obviously under the impression (see 1 Thessalonians 4:17 )—an impression in no way surprising, even in an inspired Apostle, when we remember St Mark 13:33 —that the coming of Christ would take place during his life-time, or that of some at least of those whom he addressed. Estius gives six reasons against the received reading of the Vulgate, of which two appear by themselves to be conclusive.

First, that the reading ‘we shall not all be changed,’ is not suited to the words ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye’ which follow; and next, that this reading is in direct contradiction to the words ‘we shall be changed’ in the next verse. but we shall all be changed ] “For we who have gone to rest in faith towards Christ, and have received the earnest of the Spirit in the time of our corporeal life, shall receive the most perfect favour and shall be changed into the glory which is of God.” Cyril of Alexandria (on St John 10:10 ). The Apostle explains that this change shall also take place in those who ‘are alive and remain’ until the coming of the Lord. See Php 3:21 .

(51) Behold, I shew you a mystery. —It is better to take these words as referring to what follows rather than (as some have done) to the preceding statement. A mystery means something which up to this time has been kept concealed, but is now made manifest ( Romans 11:25 ; Ephesians 3:3-5 ). We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be Changed.—There are here a considerable variety of readings in the Greek, but the text from which our English version is taken is probably correct. The Apostle believed that the end of the world might come in the lifetime of some then living. We shall not all, he says, necessarily sleep, but we shall all be changed. The change from the earthly to the spiritual body is absolutely necessary. To some it will come through the ordinary process of death; to those who are alive at Christ’s advent it will come suddenly, and in a moment. The dead shall be raised, but we (the living) shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:51 . Ὑμῖν , you ) Do not suppose, that you know all things.— λέγω , I say ) prophetically: 1 Corinthians 13:2 : 1 Thessalonians 4:15 .— πάντες μἐν οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα , πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγημσόμεθα , we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed ) The Latins read with general consent; “Omnes quidem resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur,” We shall indeed all rise, but we shall not all be changed , and Tertullian and Rufinus and others besides follow this reading. And yet the Latin translator does not seem to have read the Greek different from our Greek copies, but to have expressed the sense, as he indeed understood it, rather than the words. For this is his common practice in this epistle, as when 1 Corinthians 12:10 ; 1 Corinthians 12:28 , he translated γλωσσῶν , words , and on the other hand 1 Corinthians 14:10 φωνῶν , tongues , he seems therefore to have translated οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα , as if it had been οὐ μενοῦμεν κοιμηθέντες , that is, we shall rise again . Hence it followed, that he presently after supplied not , for the sake of the antithesis, as he had suppressed not , chap. 1 Corinthians 9:6 : and here also Tertullian follows his footsteps. Moreover from the Latin the word ἀναβιώσομεν has been fabricated in the Veles . and ἀναστησόμεθα (a word which Paul does not use in this whole chapter) is a correction by the first interpolator of the Clar . MS.

Some of the Greeks have πάντες μὲν οὖν κοιμηθησόμεθα , ἀλλʼ οὐ πάντες ἀλλαγησόμεθα ; whence from μὲν οὐ , μὲν οὖν was easily produced. Indeed in this verse the apostle wished to deny nothing whatever concerning the change, but to affirm it, and to bring forward the mystery. The reading of the text remains, which is not unknown even to the Latin copies, quoted by Jerome from Didymus.[149] Moreover each of the two clauses is universal. All indeed , namely we, from whom the dead are presently after contradistinguished, shall not sleep; but all , even we the same persons, shall be changed; the subject of each of the two enunciations is the same: comp. πᾶς οὐκ , taken universally, 1 Corinthians 16:12 ; Romans 9:33 ; Ephesians 5:5 ; Revelation 22:3 ; Acts 11:8 . The expression does not so much refer to the very persons, who were then alive, and were waiting for the consummation of the world, but to those, who are to be then alive in their place, 1 Corinthians 15:52 at the end, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 , note.— ἈΛΛΑΓΗΣΌΜΕΘΑ , we shall be changed ) While the soul remains in the body, the body from being animal [natural] will become spiritual. [149] Tisch. reads πἀντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα , πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησομεθα , with B (from its silence), some Greek MSS. mentioned in Jerome 1,794 c , 810 c , also MSS. of Acacius and Didymus in Jerome 1,795 e , 799 b , both Syr. and Memph. Versions, Orig. 1,589 f , and quoted in Jerome 1,804 c .

Verse 51. - I show you a mystery. I make known to you a truth now made known to me by revelation. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. There is a great diversity of readings in this verse, noticed even by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. St. Jerome says that all the Latin manuscripts had "we shall all rise," and that the Greek manuscripts wavered between "we shall all sleep" and "we shall not all sleep." Some Greek manuscripts had "we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed." This reading cannot be right, for it contradicts the next verse. There is little doubt that the reading of the Authorized version is right. It accounts for all the variations. They arose from a desire to shelter St. Paul from an apparent mistake, since he and his readers did all sleep. But (1) St. Paul may have written under that conception of the imminence of Christ's personal return which he expresses in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 , where he evidently imagines that the majority of those to whom he was writing would be of those who would be "alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord;" or (2) even if he no longer entertained that expectation, the "we" may naturally apply to the continuity of the Christian Church. For in 2 Corinthians 4:14 he uses "us" of those who shall die and be raised.

The universal expectation of the immediate return of Christ in the first century rose (1) from their non apprehension of the truth that the close of the old dispensation was the "coming" to which our Lord had primarily referred in his great eschatological discourse ( Matthew 24:34 ), and (2) from the fact that watchfulness was intended to be the attitude of the Church, and the day and hour of Christ's coming were kept absolutely unrevealed ( Matthew 24:36 ; Matthew 25:13 ). 1 Corinthians 15:51

51. Behold—Calling attention to the "mystery" heretofore hidden in God's purposes, but now revealed. you—emphatical in the Greek; I show (Greek, "tell," namely, by the word of the Lord, 1Th 4:15) YOU, who think you have so much knowledge, "a mystery" (compare Ro 11:25) which your reason could never have discovered. Many of the old manuscripts and Fathers read, "We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed"; but this is plainly a corrupt reading, inconsistent with 1Th 4:15, 17, and with the apostle's argument here, which is that a change is necessary (1Co 15:53). English Version is supported by some of the oldest manuscripts and Fathers. The Greek is literally "We all shall not sleep, but," &c. The putting off of the corruptible body for an incorruptible by an instantaneous change will, in the case of "the quick," stand as equivalent to death, appointed to all men (Heb 9:27); of this Enoch and Elijah are types and forerunners. The "we" implies that Christians in that age and every successive age since and hereafter were designed to stand waiting, as if Christ might come again in their time, and as if they might be found among "the quick."

They might object: How can this be? There will be many saints alive in the world at the day when Christ shall come to judge the world, they will have natural bodies, such as they were born with, and grew up with in the world until that time. Saith the apostle: I now tell you a secret thing; for so the term mystery signifieth, Romans 11:25 16:25 , and in many other texts. We shall not all sleep any long sleep: some think all shall die, but some for a very short time, and then they shall revive. But we shall all be changed, either dying for time, or by some other work of God, their natural, corruptible bodies shall be turned into spiritual bodies, not capable of corruption.