Paul brought his revelation of the resurrection to a climax in this paragraph by clarifying what all this means for the believer in Christ. Here he also dealt with the exceptional case of living believers' transformation at the Rapture. Transformation is absolutely necessary to enter the spiritual mode of future existence. This transformation will happen when Christ returns.
15:50 The apostle's introductory words indicate a new departure in his thought. The phrase "flesh and blood"refers to the mortal body and living mortals in particular. It is impossible for us in our present physical forms to enter into, as an inheritance, the heavenly place in the kingdom of God that Christ said He was going to prepare for us (John 14:2-3). It is of the spiritual order. "The perishable"also describes us now but looks at the destruction of our present bodies through death.
15:51 "Behold"or "Listen"grabs the reader's attention and announces something important. Paul was about to explain something never before revealed, a mystery (Gr. mysterion; cf. Matt. 13:11; Rom. 11:25; 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; Eph. 1:9; 3:3-4, 9; 5:32; 6:19; et al.). He had previously written that at the Rapture dead Christians would rise before God will catch living Christians up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:15-17).392He had just revealed that resurrection bodies will be different from our present bodies, spiritual rather than natural (vv. 35-39). Now he revealed that living believers translated at the Rapture would also receive spiritual bodies.
Not every Christian will die before he or she receives a new body, but every one must experience this change, even the "spiritual"Corinthians. Whether we are alive or dead when the Rapture takes place we will all receive spiritual bodies at that moment.
15:52 This transformation will not be a gradual process but instantaneous. The Greek word translated "moment"or "flash"(atomos) refers to an indivisible fragment of time. The blinking of an eye takes only a fraction of a second.
This trumpet blast will summon Christians home to heaven (cf. 1 Thess. 4:16). It is the last trumpet that connects with ourdestiny, the one that signals the end of our present existence and the beginning of our future existence.393
"We need not suppose that St Paul believed that an actual trumpet would awaken and summon the dead. The language is symbolical in accordance with the apocalyptic ideas of the time. The point is that the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of the living will be simultaneous, as of two companies obeying the same signal."394
Some posttribulationists equate this trumpet with the seventh or last trumpet of Revelation 11:15-18.395This does not seem to me to be valid. Other trumpets will sound announcing various other events in the future (cf. Matt. 24:31; Rev. 8:2, 6, 13; 9:14; et al.). However, Christians, believers living in the church age, will not be on the earth, and those trumpets will not affect us.396The fact that Paul included himself in the group living at the time of the Rapture shows he expected that event to take place imminently (cf. 1 Thess. 4:15, 17). If he had believed the Tribulation precedes the Rapture, it would have been natural for him to mention that here.397
"Christ's return is always imminent; we must never cease to watch for it. The first Christians thought it so near that they faced the possibility of Jesus' return in their lifetime. Paul thinks he too may perhaps be alive when it happens."398
"The simple fact is that Paul did not know when Christ would return. He was in the exact position in which we are. All that he knew, and all that we know, is that Christ may come at any time."399
Paul did not answer the interesting questions of who will blow or who will hear this trumpet.
Throughout Israel's history God announced His working for the nation and He summoned His people to Himself with the blowing of trumpets (Exod. 19:16, 19; 20:18; Lev. 25:9; Num. 10:2, 8-10; et al.). He will use a trumpet for this purpose at the Rapture as well.
15:53 The dead will rise in bodies that are not subject to corruption, and the living will receive immortal bodies too. Paul may have wanted to contrast the dead and the living by the terms he chose for each in the first and second parts of this verse respectively.400Still the distinction is not strong enough to be significant. Both the dead and the living will receive imperishable immortal bodies.
15:54 This transformation will fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 25:8. What Paul just revealed harmonizes with prophetic Scripture. God will overcome death (cf. vv. 23-28).
15:55 Paul modified for his own purposes Hosea's defiant challenge for death to do its worst (Hos. 13:14) and used the passage to taunt death himself. Death is man's last enemy (cf. v. 25). God will defeat it when He raises His people to life.
15:56 The fatal sting of death touches humans through sin (Rom. 6:23). What makes sin sinful is the law of God (Rom. 7:7-11). Because Jesus Christ overcame sin and fulfilled the law, death cannot hold its prey (Rom. 5:12, 20). Death is still an enemy in the sense that it robs us of mortal life. Notwithstanding it is not a terror to the believer because it is the doorway into an immortal life of bliss.
15:57 The victory over the condemnation of the law, sin, and death comes to us through Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 8:2). For this Paul was very grateful to God, as every believer should be.
15:58 Paul concluded his discussion of the resurrection with an exhortation to be faithful in the present (cf. 4:16-17; 5:13; 6:20; 7:40; 10:31-33; 11:33-34; 12:31; 14:39-40).
"Despite the magnificent crescendo with which Paul brings the argument of chap. 15 to its climax, the last word is not the sure word of future hope and triumph of vv. 50-57; rather, in light of such realities, the last word is an exhortation to Christian living (v. 58). Thus, eschatological salvation, the great concern of the epistle, includes proper behavior or it simply is not the gospel Paul preaches."401
Specifically Paul's exhortation does not just call for ethical behavior (cf. vv. 33-34) but for continued involvement in fulfilling the Great Commission, the work of the gospel.
This chapter began with a review of the gospel message from which some in the church were in danger of departing by denying the resurrection. The charge to remain steadfast therefore probably means to remain steadfast in the gospel as the Lord and the apostles had handed it down to them. Paul's readers should not move away from it but should remain immovable in it. They should also increase their efforts to serve the Lord even as Paul had done (v. 10). Rather than living forthe present (v. 32) believers should live inthe present with the future clearly in view (cf. 1:9; 9:26). One day we will have to give an account of our stewardship (3:12-15).
No one except Jesus Christ has come back from the dead to tell us what is on the other side. However, His testimony through His apostles is sufficient to give us confidence that there is life and bodily resurrection after death. We will live that life in a changed body that will be incapable of perishing. It is therefore imperative that we make sure we and all around us enter that phase of our existence with our sins covered by the sacrifice of Christ.
