01.06. If Not Resurrection, Then Translation

Chapter 6 - If Not Resurrection, Then Translation

"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

"Behold I show 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 trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).

"The kingdom of God" here does not mean that which some day will be established in the earth, and in which Israel and the Gentile nations converted to God will be the subjects; but as another says, "the kingdom in glory," "the kingdom on the other side of death." To "inherit" it is the same as entering into it and partaking of its glory and its endless life.

"Flesh and blood" cannot inherit it, because that is just another name for our human nature as it is, and Paul has already taught us that a change is necessary.

Some of the early heretics made so much of this expression "flesh and blood" as to jump at the conclusion that it disposed of a material resurrection altogether. As if Paul would so flatly contradict himself almost in the same breath! But the early fathers of the Church opposed them, and cited as an argument the words of Jesus in Luke 24:39, where He attested His own resurrection by saying to His disciples, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."

Evidently "flesh and bones" and "flesh and blood" are not identical terms. Quoting the Numerical Bible, "the blood applies to the present life. It is the vehicle of change. It is that which implies the need of continual sustenance and renewal. A body which needs no renewal cannot need blood to renew it." Was it for this reason that Jesus spake of Himself not as having "flesh and blood," but "flesh and bones"? He had poured out His blood, and left it with the earthly life that He had lived. But now He had entered on a new sphere, retaining all that made Him truly man, but not the conditions of the old earthly life. Is this what Paul means? May we say that "flesh and blood" shall not inherit the kingdom of God in this sense of it? But now comes the "mystery." The Scofield Bible on Matthew 13:11 defines a mystery in Scripture as "a previously hidden truth now divinely revealed, but in which a supernatural element still remains despite the revelation."

There are eleven of these mysteries in the New Testament, but perhaps the most "spectacular" of them all is this: "We shall not all sleep," i. e., there is one generation of believers who shall never see death. And this same apostle, in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, tells us who they will be. "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

We recall his words about the order of the resurrection. The second cohort of the resurrection army will consist of them "that are Christ’s at His coming." But with them will be another band not of raised ones, but of changed ones. "The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." The "we" identifies those believers who will be alive and remaining on the earth in the flesh when Jesus comes. They shall be caught up.

Paul expected to be one of these, hence the "we." "In a moment." The literal meaning is "that which is so small as to be actually indivisible." "Changed." Not entirely destroyed and created again, but receiving an addition of qualities which were not possessed before. "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." In his second epistle to this church (2 Corinthians 5:4), Paul furnishes an interesting comment on this last statement. He says, "We that are in this tabernacle (this bodily frame) do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." And Murdock’s Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshitto Version renders it, "We groan under its burden; yet ye desire, not to throw it off, but to be clothed over it, so that its mortality may be absorbed in life." The idea is that the Christian is groaning not with the desire for death, but the glory of translation when the Lord comes. It is a picture of the saint ascending in his body of humiliation, and as he enters the clouds, being " clothed over " with his body of glory. Thus that part of him which is mortal is "swallowed up" in that which is immortal. What a blessed and glorious hope!

"O, joy! O, delight! should we go without dying, No sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying, Caught up through the clouds with our Lord into glory, When Jesus receives His own!"