1 Corinthians 15:51

But how shall it be changed, if it shall have no real existence? If, however, this is only said of those who shall be found in the flesh at the advent of God, and who shall have to be changed," what shall they do who will rise first? They will have no substance from which to undergo a change.

For when he adds, "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality," this will assuredly be that house from heaven, with which we so earnestly desire to be clothed upon, whilst groaning in this our present body,-meaning, of course, over this flesh in which we shall be surprised at last; because he says that we are burdened whilst in this tabernacle, which we do not wish indeed to be stripped of, but rather to be in it clothed over, in such a way that mortality may be swallowed up of life, that is, by putting on over us whilst we are transformed that vestiture which is from heaven.

"Behold, I tell you a mystery."

It is something awful and ineffable and which all know not, which he is about to speak of: which also indicates the greatness of the honor he confers on them; I mean, his speaking mysteries to them. But what is this?

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." He means as follows: "we shall not all die, 'but we shall all be changed,'" even those who die not. For they too are mortal. "Do not thou therefore because thou diest, on this account fear," saith he, "as if thou shouldest not rise again: for there are, there are some who shall even escape this, and yet this suffices them not for that resurrection, but even those bodies which die not must be changed and be transformed into incorruption."

You ask in what sense it was said, and how it should be read in the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: "We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:5). Or according to some examples: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all indeed be changed," for both are found in Greek manuscripts. Concerning this, Theodore Heracleotes, who was from the city once called Perinthus, spoke in the Apostle's little commentaries: "We shall all indeed not sleep, but we shall all be changed." For Enoch and Elijah, having overcome the necessity of death, were translated from earthly conversation to heavenly kingdoms as they were in their bodies. Thus, also, the holy ones who are to be found in their bodies on the day of consummation and judgment, together with the other saints who are to rise again from the dead, shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and shall not die; and they shall ever be with the Lord, the bitter necessity of death overcome. Hence the Apostle says: "In fact, we will not all sleep, but all will be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." For there will be such a quick resurrection of the dead, that living people who are present at the time of the consummation in their own bodies, will not be able to anticipate the dead who rise again from the underworld. For Paul, plainly interpreting the matter, says: "For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:52), that it may be able to remain permanently in either punishment or in the kingdom of heaven.

Bishop Diodorus of Tarsus, passing over this chapter, briefly noted in the following: in that which is written, 'And the dead shall rise incorruptible. And we shall be changed.' 'If,' he says, 'the dead shall rise incorruptible, it is beyond doubt that they too shall have been changed for the better: what was the need to say, 'And we shall be changed'? Did he wish to imply that incorruption is common to all, but change is peculiar to the just? since they follow not only incorruption and immortality, but also glory.

Apollinarius, though in different words, asserts the same as Theodore: that some will not die, but will be taken from this present life into the future, so that with changed and glorified bodies, they may be with Christ. This we now believe regarding Enoch and Elijah.

Didymus walks the opposite way, not in steps, but in words, departing from the opinion of Origen. Behold, I speak a mystery to you: We shall all indeed sleep, but we will not all be changed. He spoke thus: "If the resurrection needed no interpreter, nor were it obscure in concept, Paul would not have said after much he spoke of resurrection, 'Behold, I speak a mystery to you: We shall all indeed sleep,' that is, die, 'but we will not all be changed,' except the holy alone." I know that in some codices it is written: Not everyone will sleep, but everyone will be changed. But it must be considered whether that which is premised, everyone will be changed, can be reconciled with what follows: The dead will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed. For if everyone will be changed, and this is common to all, it was pointless to say, and we will be changed. Therefore, it should be read as follows: All indeed will sleep, but not all will be changed. For if in Adam all die, and in death there is sleep; therefore, we will all sleep or die. But sleep, according to the idiom of the Scriptures, refers to those who have died in the hope of future resurrection. Everyone who sleeps will certainly wake up, unless sudden death has overtaken him and death has been associated with sleep. And when all have slept according to the law of nature, only the saints will be changed for the better both in body and soul, so that the resurrection of all may be incorruptible; but the glory and transformation will belong exclusively to the saints. And what follows in Greek, 'in an atom, in a twinkling, or in a flicker of an eye' (for both are read) and our interpreters have translated it, 'in a moment and in a sudden,' or, in the movement of the eye: Didymus explained it in the same way: 'Together with the resurrection of everyone, they will be snatched up to meet Christ: but those whom death has dissolved, which the present speech indicates.' For when He speaks of the resurrection of all, at a certain moment in time, in the twinkling of an eye or in a moment, He excludes all the fables of the first and second resurrection, so that some will be believed to be resurrected first, and others last.

The pious people will be raised as they transform the remnants of the “old man” that cling to them into the “new man.” The impious people who have kept the “old man” from the beginning to the end will be raised in order to be precipitated into the second death. Those who read diligently can make out the divisions of the ages. They have no horror of tares or chaff.

Paul calls this a mystery because it is not clear to everyone but is believed only by the beloved.

The radiance of the saints refers to when they will gleam at the resurrection like the angels of God. They will be so cleansed and radiant that they can gaze on the Majesty with the heart’s eyes. They cannot gaze on that Light unless they are changed for the better. In Paul’s words: “We shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed.”

Anyone who is not changed in this world cannot experience change in the next.

The second class of miracles, on this view, foretell what God has not yet done, but will do, universally. He raised one man (the man who was Himself) from the dead because He will one day raise all men from the dead. Perhaps not only men, for there are hints in the New Testament that all creation will eventually be rescued from decay, restored to shape and subserve the splendour of re-made humanity. The Transfiguration and the walking on the water are glimpses of the beauty and the effortless power over all matter which will belong to men when they are really waked by God. Now resurrection certainly involves “reversal” of natural process in the sense that it involves a series of changes moving in the opposite direction to those we see. At death, matter which has been organic, falls back gradually into the inorganic, to be finally scattered and used perhaps in other organisms. Resurrection would be the reverse process. It would not of course mean the restoration to each personality of those very atoms, numerically the same, which had made its first or “natural” body. There would not be enough to go round, for one thing; and for another, the unity of the body even in this life was consistent with a slow but perplexed change of its actual ingredients. But it certainly does mean matter of some kind rushing towards organism as now we see it rushing away. It means, in fact, playing backwards a film we have already seen played forwards. In that sense it is a reversal of Nature. But, of course, it is a further question whether reversal in this sense is necessarily contradiction. Do we know that the film cannot be played backwards?

Well, in one sense, it is precisely the teaching of modern physics that the film never works backwards. For modern physics, as you have heard before, the universe is “running down.” Disorganization and chance is continually increasing. There will come a time, not infinitely remote, when it will be wholly run down or wholly disorganized, and science knows of no possible return from that state. There must have been a time, not infinitely remote, in the past when it was wound up, though science knows of no winding-up process. The point is that for our ancestors the universe was a picture: for modern physics it is a story. If the universe is a picture these things either appear in that picture or not; and if they don’t, since it is an infinite picture, one may suspect that they are contrary to the nature of things. But a story is a different matter; specially if it is an incomplete story. And the story told by modern physics might be told briefly in the words “Humpty Dumpty was falling.” That is, it proclaims itself an incomplete story. There must have been a time before he fell, when he was sitting on the wall; there must be a time after he had reached the ground. It is quite true that science knows of no horses and men who can put him together again once he has reached the ground and broken. But then she also knows of no means by which he could originally have been put on the wall. You wouldn’t expect her to. All science rests on observation: all our observations are taken during Humpty Dumpty’s fall, because we were born after he lost his seat on the wall and shall be extinct long before he reaches the ground. But to assume from observations taken while the clock is running down that the unimaginable winding-up which must have preceded this process cannot occur when the process is over is the merest dogmatism. From the very nature of the case the laws of degradation and disorganization which we find in matter at present, cannot be the ultimate and eternal nature of things. If they were, there would have been nothing to degrade and disorganize. Humpty Dumpty can’t fall off a wall that never existed.