Raised Imperishable

Paul told the Corinthians, "I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed" (1Co 15:51-52). He told the Thessalonians, "the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord" (1Th 4:16-17). John said, "I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and seven trumpets were given to them" (Rev 8:2). Jesus said, "'He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect'" (Mt 24:31). "Blow the trumpet in Zion . . . for the day of the Lord is coming" (Joel 2:1). Everyone who "'believes in Him may have eternal life; and I myself will raise him up on the last day'" (Jn 6:40). "Every one who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself" (1Jn 3:3). He "shall appear a second time . . . to those who eagerly await Him" (Heb 9:28). "He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed" (2Th 1:10). "What will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord?" (Hosea 9:5).

Paul said "we will all be changed" (1Co 1:7). But "it has not appeared as yet what we will be" (1Jn 3:2). It means that "this mortal must put on immortality" (1Co 15:53). It is a "mystery which has been hidden from the past ages" (Col 1:26) that "has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" (Eph 3:5) and "manifested to His saints" (Col 1:26). Therefore he can "transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself" (Php 3:21). Jesus provides a logic for this translation when he says, "'If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also'" (Jn 14:3). "To be absent from the body [is] to be at home with the Lord" (2Co 5:8). Paul said he had "the desire to depart and be with Christ [which is] very much better" (Php 1:23). Jesus told the criminal "'today you shall be with Me in Paradise'" (Lk 23:43). "Enoch was taken up" (Heb 11:5) and "Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven" (2Ki 2:11). Paul was "caught up to the third heaven" (2Co 12:2) and didn't even know if it was in or out of the body (:3). "The Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away" (Ac 8:39). Snatching takes place faster than the blink of an eye. They are instantaneously "caught up together with them in the clouds" (1Th 4:17) in "our gathering together to Him" (2Th 2:1). Paul wanted to substantiate that his teaching in his first letter on "the day of the Lord" (:2) was accurate and that they shouldn't be "shaken from [their] composure" (:2).