For a great many believers Paul’s resurrection revelation is the ultimate pie-in-the-sky lure.  There is a general feeling that baptism wraps up the divine intervention, but a great surprise is on the way.  The mysteries we hold are never under our thumbs.  God’s sovereignty – in power, grace, and the unique attributes of his person – demands that success is up to him, for the future in the hands of any human is clearly at risk.  The future that the resurrection ushers in is the swallowing up of death, at which the taunt goes up.  Things to ponder: (1) the impossibilities attached to kingdom access, (2) the certainty of the essential change, (3) the precision and rapidity of the change, and (4) the certainty of change (asleep or wake, = dead or alive).

Two impossibilities

1. … flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

2.  nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Corinthians 15:50b)

The traditions in which we wrap ourselves may allow us to flip back and forth from our essence as flesh and blood to spiritual beings.  On the one hand, flesh and blood needs a change – a makeover – to have access to God’s kingdom. The church is not that kingdom. Humanity needs a transformation.  On the other hand, the perishable – all we can bring to God – is not in this era inheriting the imperishable.  No miracle or revelation changes this fact.  We are flesh and blood and perishable until resurrection morning.

The certainty of change, asleep or awake

The mystery under the microscope is the necessary change that comes at the end of the age.  It is so deeply central to God’s agenda that it does not matter if a person is deceased or alive.   God changes every believer whether he is asleep, that means “dead” or alive. The dead are secure in their faith. There is no sense in which the faithful dead – those who died as believers – are anything but safe and fully approved. Christ has marked – as he does the falling of the sparrows – the death of those to whom he has givine his Spirit, and will change all without ritual or process. Christ will change the whole body of dead and the living believers from mortal to immortal.

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, (1 Corinthians 15:51)

The precision of the change event

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 will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:52)

The change happens with rapidity, and this gives no one time to evaluate and comment.  This is how God acts sovereignly to give his people the final touch.  He defines it in three ways. 

• In a moment, in the smallest unit of time, how quickly
• In the twinkling of an eye, one stroke, not many
• At the last trump, when, the place of the change on the divine schedule.

The timing of the change is such that it is over before one can think “Wow” and it is not a number of steps.

The inevitable chant

No-one can speak to this experience, and as far as we know, the Nazarene alone has come back from the dead with a body such as can fully experience God’s rulership. How could it be otherwise than the Pioneer of salvation to have the preeminence, in being the first human to be received into the glory? Even with his victory over death the combat is not over or complete. That achievement awaits the resurrection of all the faithful, when the perishable puts on the imperishable.

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:54) “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

The “so-what” of the mystery

The people in line for resurrection are approved by God, sealed for the day of bodily redemption, and their security is never in question.  God does not give the Holy Spirit as a test.  It is an eternal appointment kept.  The people marked for resurrection are either safely asleep – dead – or alive.  Christ is the indispensable anchor of holy being, identity, and endurance.  How can anyone ever “stand” without Christ? We have, remarkably, the example of the choice of the twelve persons to be with him, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with believers “forever”, and this presence has pervading results.

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; (John 14:16)

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

The mystery in current and pervasive motion

We will not idolize that critical work of the mystery in us with trivialities and temporary instructions, observances of days, weeks, months, years, and empty sacrifices and offerings. The environment in which the mystery is at work is not hidden to the believer, and it is not easily missed or misidentified because it comes from God’s Spirit. It is happening all the time. The command to be steadfast and immovable is not a call for change. Paul wrote ginesthe, meaning “continue to be”. There is no fiat associated with this command. The problem with the traditional understanding of steadfastness and immovability is that it departs from permanence. The believer is prone to see himself as a tree planted by the waters that changes location, as as saved persons who are not safe. Many believers are addicted to contradicting the Lord’s description of those who trust in the Lord as being like Mount Zion. Discarding the status of steadfast and immovable is a fatal error which shows the darkness of Christlesness.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

None of the apostles can by fiat, command or prayer make people steadfast or removable. The hope of resurrection and change will have the certainty of established abundance. It is empty talk to expound on the change resurrection bings while disavowing the realities of resurrection power manifest in daily life.