1st Corinthians Chapter 15 verse 51 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 51. - I show you a mystery. I make known to you a truth now made known to me by revelation. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. There is a great diversity of readings in this verse, noticed even by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. St. Jerome says that all the Latin manuscripts had "we shall all rise," and that the Greek manuscripts wavered between "we shall all sleep" and "we shall not all sleep." Some Greek manuscripts had "we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed." This reading cannot be right, for it contradicts the next verse. There is little doubt that the reading of the Authorized version is right. It accounts for all the variations. They arose from a desire to shelter St. Paul from an apparent mistake, since he and his readers did all sleep. But (1) St. Paul may have written under that conception of the imminence of Christ's personal return which he expresses in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, where he evidently imagines that the majority of those to whom he was writing would be of those who would be "alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord;" or (2) even if he no longer entertained that expectation, the "we" may naturally apply to the continuity of the Christian Church. For in 2 Corinthians 4:14 he uses "us" of those who shall die and be raised. The universal expectation of the immediate return of Christ in the first century rose (1) from their non apprehension of the truth that the close of the old dispensation was the "coming" to which our Lord had primarily referred in his great eschatological discourse (Matthew 24:34), and . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(51) Behold, I shew you a mystery.--It is better to take these words as referring to what follows rather than (as some have done) to the preceding statement. A mystery means something which up to this time has been kept concealed, but is now made manifest (Romans 11:25; Ephesians 3:3-5).We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be Changed.--There are here a considerable variety of readings in the Greek, but the text from which our English version is taken is probably correct. The Apostle believed that the end of the world might come in the lifetime of some then living. We shall not all, he says, necessarily sleep, but we shall all be changed. The change from the earthly to the spiritual body is absolutely necessary. To some it will come through the ordinary process of death; to those who are alive at Christ's advent it will come suddenly, and in a moment. The dead shall be raised, but we (the living) shall be changed.