1Cor 15:51-55 - O Glory! Final Victory Comes

51-55 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

"Death is swallowed up in victory."
“O death, where is your victory? (verse55)
O death, where is your sting?”


Having dealt the doctrinal death blow to the heresy that denies resurrection, so that the true sheep will hear and be admonished unto repentance for entertaining such error - then it is that Paul produces a tremendous vision of encouragement for them. There is both rod and staff in Paul’s hand as he wields them faithfully as God’s instrument.

Paul reveals to them something that they need for a right view, for hope and for a prophylactic against further misrepresentations. He unveils something that had previously been hidden - something that was made manifest in Christ but which is expounded upon, clarified and applied to the church - to their very own selves - to every one for whom Christ died - who is found persevering to the end.

Not all the saints will go through physical death. Those who are alive at the moment that God rings down the curtain of history will be instantly changed, and given a glorified body in less time than it takes to blink. And, not knowing when this will take place, every generation of believers has this hope - that the Lord will return in their lifetime. They are both encouraged and commanded to watch and to hope for it.

But in any case, all the dead will eventually be bodily raised imperishable (both saints and reprobates). Paul’s focus here is upon the blessed hope of the saints, for whoever dies bodily in Christ will be raised in a spiritual body like His, and to be thus evermore with the Lord.

This is the final manifestation of Christ’s victory over death for His people. This is why we must die - so that the death of death itself can be manifested in us, to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, by our resurrection in eternal spiritual bodies. When we put on immortality the victory of Jesus is declared on our behalf for all creation to see. God’s love, His faithfulness, His power and His grace are manifested in the eyes of His whole creation (holy angels, demons, reprobates and saints) to the fullest, then and for eternity.

Notice once more the imperative language. The transition - the transformation must take place. There is a new order of existence laid up for the saints which absolutely requires new, spiritual, eternal, imperishable bodies. We shall not be disembodied spirits floating in the ether; we were made bodily creatures and that we shall be also in eternity. This is what happened to Christ and it is what must happen to us so that we may be like Him and be with Him where He is.

This is an existence that reaches its fullest with the resurrection of the body. But it has pleased God, for whatever reason, to regenerate our spirits in this life, by joining us to Christ in the Person of the Holy Spirit - making us alive unto God, and God alive to us in the here and now. Our bodies are still dying, even as we grow spiritually. It is a transitional state. It is a state which provides the medium in which faith does its work. We do not see what we shall be (and are more blessed than the Apostles because of it), but by faith we live in the sure and certain hope that God will finish the good work that He started in us. He will manifest the redemption/regeneration of our entire being in the fullness of time and we are privileged to trust Him for it, though we cannot yet see it.

For us right now, death has been vanquished and we take this on faith. We believe that we have been reborn spiritually and we perceive this through the fruit of growth that God produces in us. By faith in Him we change. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds because our hearts (fundamental natures) have been renewed. From our renewed hearts where the gift of faith comes in, we exercise that gift in the obedience of faith and so, are made partakers in what the Lord is doing in us.

But the day is coming for us all as believers when such hope will no longer be needed, for we shall walk by sight, knowing and being known, seeing Him as He is - and this will be when we have been resurrected bodily with attributes suited to fellowship in the presence of our glorified Saviour. This is the final blow to the enemy. It is the death of death for the redeemed, found in the death of Christ. And it is the time of the fullness of the living of life, found in the resurrection of Christ.

Though death itself is vanquished, we would do well to note that this only refers to the first death. The first death is that death which arose by decree of God upon the sin of Adam (in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die - or idiomatically, "dying you shall die") and upon us in Adam. It is death as we presently know and experience it. Separation from God (who is the light that is the life of all men), from each other, from ourselves and eventually - in a usually long slow process - separation from our bodies.

But this is not the end of all death, for there is a second death - the eternal death that is stored up for the devil and his angels, and for all who do not know Christ. This follows the judgement and is consummated in the lake of fire, where even hell itself is cast. This is a fire that is not quenched and where there is a worm that does not die. And we do well to realize that, though the human race was sentenced to death the very day that Adam rebelled, even our lives in these mortal bodies lasted many years individually and thousands of years as a race. How much more should we see that the eternal death in the lake of fire, from which the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever {Re 14:11} will be for everlasting. The first death knew an end because there was a Saviour to overcome death. The second death is one from which there is no Saviour - and so it can have no end. This is a sombre thought indeed.