📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 15:51
What does 1 Corinthians 15:51 mean?
"Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,"
— 1 Corinthians 15:51 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will 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 will be changed.
For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Explanation
1 Corinthians 15:51 comes in the middle of Paul's great chapter on the resurrection, where he addresses a genuine crisis of faith in the Corinthian church. Some believers there had begun doubting or denying the resurrection of the dead altogether, and Paul spends the whole chapter methodically defending it, first by grounding it in the resurrection of Christ himself, and then by explaining what the resurrection of believers will actually look like. Verse 51 comes as Paul moves into his conclusion, revealing something new that his readers had not previously understood: not everyone who belongs to Christ will die before the resurrection happens. Some will still be alive when it occurs, and they will be transformed without ever experiencing death.
The word "mystery" here doesn't mean something puzzling or mysterious in the modern sense, but rather a truth previously hidden that God is now disclosing through his apostle. Paul is saying, in effect, "pay attention, because I'm about to tell you something you couldn't have known apart from revelation." The content of that mystery is this: "we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed." Sleep here is a common New Testament euphemism for death, particularly the death of believers, emphasizing that it is temporary and will be followed by waking. Paul is clarifying that physical death is not a necessary step for every believer to receive their resurrection body. Some will be alive at Christ's return, and instead of dying, they will undergo an instantaneous transformation.
Theologically, this verse is significant because it universalizes the hope of resurrection
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