Behold, 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 incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:51-52, NKJV
Paul wrote the Thessalonian letters from Corinth, but four years later while he was ministering in Ephesus, he received an inquiry from the Corinthian Christians that must have brought back some memories. Among many other questions they needed him to answer, one in particular hearkens back to the teachings he laid out in First and Second Thessalonians. The Corinthians were a philosophical bunch, and they were apparently wrestling with some skepticism regarding the resurrection concept. Is resurrection really possible? Did Jesus really come back from the dead? How can dead bodies be made to live again? Can we be sure that we will rise again after we have died?
I can imagine Paul now, sitting in the school of Tyrannus with his various disciples and co-workers-- including the evangelist Apollos and Sosthenes from Corinth (formerly the leader of the synagogue)-- along with three recent visitors from Corinth--Stephanas, Achaicus, and Fortunatus, who had presented the Corinthian questions to the Apostle. And after lengthy discourses regarding church discipline, marriage, matters of conscience, the Lord's Supper, and Spiritual gifts, he turns his attention in Chapter Fifteen to the question of the resurrection.
Yes, he says, Jesus really did rise from the dead, and we know this because of all the witnesses who saw him. Some of them had died already, but most were still living and could be questioned about it. Paul even includes himself as an eyewitness, though "out of time" because he encountered Christ much later than the others. And it's not so much that the dead bodies will come back to life, but rather the dead will be given new and glorious bodies in the resurrection, much like a dried up seed that is lifeless out of the soil produces wonderful fruit once it is sown. And we can indeed be assured of the resurrection, because Jesus promised it and God proved through Jesus that He could do it and take us to heaven.
And then Paul reiterates that wonderful revelation he delivered to the Thessalonians. The dead in Christ shall indeed rise again and receive new bodies and new life, but not everyone is going to heaven by way of the grave. Those who have trusted Jesus for their salvation and are still alive at the time of Christ's return won't have to die, but instead will be instantaneously and eternally changed.
This transformation, Paul says, will take place in a moment. That word moment means an uncut, indivisible atom of time. He compares to the blink of an eye, which has been measured as 1/100th of a second. Faster than one can blink, our change will come, mortal flesh being exchanged for immortality, corruptible flesh being exchanged for incorruption.
And it will happen at the Last Trump.
Through the next few posts, I will examine the meaning behind that phrase The Last Trump, and I promise you it will not be a dull read. Paul was giving his readership a glimpse of God's calendar, not dating Christ's return but very possibly giving us the timing of that event in relation to the Jewish Feasts that will all be fulfilled in the person of Christ Jesus.
There are lots of trumpets mentioned in the Bible that are connected to the end of days. In the Olivet Revelation, Jesus referred to the Great Trump at the end of the tribulation, when everyone in heaven and on earth will be gathered to Jerusalem to see the literal physical return of Jesus Christ in the same manner in which he went.
In John's Revelation, Jesus voice is said to sound like a loud trumpet, and in a parallel of the Rapture, John is called up to heaven by a voice like a trumpet. There is also a series of seven trumpets of judgment that are blown during the time when God is pouring out His tribulation wrath upon the earth.
But here in the Corinthian letter, Paul is talking about something quite different and very specific, something his primarily Jewish readership would have no problem understanding. Paul has already attached the Rapture and Resurrection of believers to the sounding of a trumpet and a shout, and emphasizes the point here again. The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and we shall be changed! And he calls that trumpet blast by a significant name--The Last Trump.
The Last Trump is not the 7th trumpet of Revelation 11:15.
The Last Trump is not even the final trumpet blast that will ever be heard.
The Last Trump is a reference to a specific day on the Jewish calendar, understood by the Jewish Apostle Paul and his Jewish Christian disciples. It is the name of a special holiday in Jewish culture, just like we use terms like Thanksgiving and Independence Day in our own culture. And those designations have no need for further explanation--unless you're not from here. Paul's original readers understood; it is us Gentile believers twenty centuries removed from Christ who need the explanation.
That day to which Paul was referring, that day of the Last Trump, is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which in the Old Testament was called the Feast of Trumpets.
I can imagine Paul now, sitting in the school of Tyrannus with his various disciples and co-workers-- including the evangelist Apollos and Sosthenes from Corinth (formerly the leader of the synagogue)-- along with three recent visitors from Corinth--Stephanas, Achaicus, and Fortunatus, who had presented the Corinthian questions to the Apostle. And after lengthy discourses regarding church discipline, marriage, matters of conscience, the Lord's Supper, and Spiritual gifts, he turns his attention in Chapter Fifteen to the question of the resurrection.
Yes, he says, Jesus really did rise from the dead, and we know this because of all the witnesses who saw him. Some of them had died already, but most were still living and could be questioned about it. Paul even includes himself as an eyewitness, though "out of time" because he encountered Christ much later than the others. And it's not so much that the dead bodies will come back to life, but rather the dead will be given new and glorious bodies in the resurrection, much like a dried up seed that is lifeless out of the soil produces wonderful fruit once it is sown. And we can indeed be assured of the resurrection, because Jesus promised it and God proved through Jesus that He could do it and take us to heaven.
And then Paul reiterates that wonderful revelation he delivered to the Thessalonians. The dead in Christ shall indeed rise again and receive new bodies and new life, but not everyone is going to heaven by way of the grave. Those who have trusted Jesus for their salvation and are still alive at the time of Christ's return won't have to die, but instead will be instantaneously and eternally changed.
This transformation, Paul says, will take place in a moment. That word moment means an uncut, indivisible atom of time. He compares to the blink of an eye, which has been measured as 1/100th of a second. Faster than one can blink, our change will come, mortal flesh being exchanged for immortality, corruptible flesh being exchanged for incorruption.
And it will happen at the Last Trump.
Through the next few posts, I will examine the meaning behind that phrase The Last Trump, and I promise you it will not be a dull read. Paul was giving his readership a glimpse of God's calendar, not dating Christ's return but very possibly giving us the timing of that event in relation to the Jewish Feasts that will all be fulfilled in the person of Christ Jesus.
There are lots of trumpets mentioned in the Bible that are connected to the end of days. In the Olivet Revelation, Jesus referred to the Great Trump at the end of the tribulation, when everyone in heaven and on earth will be gathered to Jerusalem to see the literal physical return of Jesus Christ in the same manner in which he went.
In John's Revelation, Jesus voice is said to sound like a loud trumpet, and in a parallel of the Rapture, John is called up to heaven by a voice like a trumpet. There is also a series of seven trumpets of judgment that are blown during the time when God is pouring out His tribulation wrath upon the earth.
But here in the Corinthian letter, Paul is talking about something quite different and very specific, something his primarily Jewish readership would have no problem understanding. Paul has already attached the Rapture and Resurrection of believers to the sounding of a trumpet and a shout, and emphasizes the point here again. The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and we shall be changed! And he calls that trumpet blast by a significant name--The Last Trump.
The Last Trump is not the 7th trumpet of Revelation 11:15.
The Last Trump is not even the final trumpet blast that will ever be heard.
The Last Trump is a reference to a specific day on the Jewish calendar, understood by the Jewish Apostle Paul and his Jewish Christian disciples. It is the name of a special holiday in Jewish culture, just like we use terms like Thanksgiving and Independence Day in our own culture. And those designations have no need for further explanation--unless you're not from here. Paul's original readers understood; it is us Gentile believers twenty centuries removed from Christ who need the explanation.
That day to which Paul was referring, that day of the Last Trump, is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which in the Old Testament was called the Feast of Trumpets.
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