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In
the Twinkling of an Eye
Perhaps the best place to
discover what will happen at the time of the resurrection lies in Paul’s first
letter to the church at Corinth.
In the entire 15th chapter of
1 Corinthians, Paul talks about the importance of Christ’s resurrection and how
it alone makes possible the future resurrection of all believers.
Paul even goes so far as to
say that if it were not for God having raised Jesus from the dead, the
Christian faith itself would be utter foolishness!
That’s how crucial the
resurrection is in terms of what the Bible is really all about. Without the
hope of our being raised from the dead at the return of Christ, the entire
Bible would be meaningless!
Paul even predicts that the
actual event of the resurrection will occur in the twinkling of an eye.
Obviously, with such a great promise of life after death, the
people Paul wrote to were curious as to just what the resurrection would be
like.
When would it occur? How
would it happen? What would the new bodies be like? Paul sought to answer these
questions in the latter half of the 15th chapter.
The new resurrected bodies,
he said, would be far different than anything they had ever imagined.
He explained that just as
there is a great difference between an earthly existence and the heavenly
angelic type of life, so shall there be a significant difference between our
present mortal bodies and the future immortal ones.
This is how he put it:
“And as we have borne
the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
“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.
“For this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1 Corinthians 15:49-53
Most people outside the
Christian faith really don’t understand the resurrection. The American view and
perhaps even the world’s view of the Bible relates solely to the concept of
going to some kind of a heaven or hell when a person dies.
They think that if an
individual lives a good life and tries to do what is right they will go to
heaven, whereas an evil person will end up in a fiery hell.
And that’s it — that’s the
totality of most people’s impression of the Bible.
In their minds there is
nothing else which comes after that point; no real ending to this present world
or to the Bible.
Even many of the movies and
books written about the Bible have perpetuated this false view of mankind’s
future.
However, the real story of the ultimate destiny of man is quite
different than the popular belief perpetuated by Hollywood.
According to Paul’s prophecy,
our current physical existence is completely incompatible with the coming
kingdom of God; however, a bodiless spiritual life is not our fate, either.
The Bible says in no
uncertain terms that only with new, incorruptible, and immortal bodies can the
promises of salvation and eternal life possibly come true.
Paul also indicates that the actual process of being raised from
the dead will happen almost instantly.
The words translated “in the twinkling of an eye” in our
Bibles appear in the original language as “in an atomos of time”.
The word atomos is a Greek
word which has reference to the smallest entity imaginable and is the root or
source for the word atom.
When the atom was first
named, it was thought to be the smallest particle of matter that in itself is
indivisible.
In the case of the
resurrection, atomos means that it will happen in the shortest possible segment
of time.
Paul is trying to say that it
will occur so fast that for all intents and purposes it will appear to be
instantaneous.
In other words, Paul predicts
that when the Lord returns, He will instantly change the rotted corpses and bones
of all dead believers into shining new bodies which will never be able to die
again.
Paul also reveals one important fact which prior to this
prophecy remained a mystery: namely, what will happen to the followers of
Christ if they should still be alive when he returns.
This was always a mystery
because living people obviously don’t need to be raised from the dead.
Even Old Testament believers
had a basic knowledge that there would be a resurrection of the dead at the end
of the age.
Job had hinted that there
would be a future resurrection, as did both Isaiah and Daniel.
In addition, long before Paul
taught of these things, Martha told Jesus that she knew her brother Lazarus
would be raised at the resurrection of the last day (John 11:24).
However, no one really
understood what would happen to living believers when the resurrection
occurred.
The Apostle explains this mystery by revealing that not all
Christians will experience death (“sleep”, in the words of the prophecy).
He says that when Jesus
returns, the dead believers will be resurrected and the living ones will be
instantly changed into immortal bodies at the very same time.
This means that there will be
a group of people at the end of the age who will never have to die, but will be
immediately delivered from their mortal bodies and given new immortal ones to
live forever in the kingdom of God.
Notice, however, the prophecy does not say that the entire
process of the rapture will take place instantaneously.
It only indicates that the
resurrection and the transformation of living believers will occur in an atomos
of time (from Latin atomus, from Greek atomos).
Remember, the rapture not
only includes the raising of believers from the dead and the changing of living
ones, but also consists of the gathering together of those same Christians by
angels.
The latter part of the
process will take much longer than the former. This is because the angels will
literally have to go and gather each person to the Lord.
Also, Jesus previously
indicated that the entire world would have plenty of time to see His coming and
the angels being sent forth (Matthew 24).
This certainly implies that
the subsequent process of gathering His people will take much longer than the
incredibly quick resurrection and transformation.
A misunderstanding of this single prophecy has perpetuated the
incorrect notion that the entire rapture process, including the assembling of
the believers together with Christ, is going to take place instantly.
This is precisely how the
misleading concept of the rapture as being a “disappearance” of Christians got
started.
Probably the most common view
along this line involves the sudden return of Christ into the air and the
instantaneous resurrection and transportation of each believer to His side.
Some actually say that this
transportation will involve the instantaneous travel outside the dimensions of
our universe, which would indicate a distance of at least 40 billion light
years to God’s realm.
Thus, to someone who may be
left behind, each Christian would simply seem to disappear with no indication
of where everyone went.
However, as is quite evident from these prophecies, the Biblical
description of this event is considerably different from the view often
popularized by some churches and preachers.
Rather than being a
disappearance or a “beam me up Scottie” type of phenomenon, the rapture will be
an instantaneous physical transformation into new bodies followed by an angelic
gathering of believers which will be seen by every person alive.
No one will be able to deny
the truth of the Bible after this event occurs!
Final aspects of this prophecy that are extremely important to
understand, is the mention again that a trumpet will be associated with the
Return of Christ was well as the overall process of the resurrection and
rapture.
Paul not only correlates his
description with the other passages when he speaks of a trumpet sounding, but
he also gives us another indication of precisely when the rapture will occur.
He plainly says that the
rapture will happen at the same time as the last trumpet sounds.
Though a number of the other
scriptures we considered also mentioned the fact of a trumpet being involved,
none of them included this one important detail.
End Times Truth is about warning people
that the Coming of Christ is near and that we are living in the last days just
before His Return. During our lifetime, Bible predictions concerning the Second
Coming have been fulfilled exactly as they were described thousands of years
ago. Jesus said that we could know that his coming was near if we watched
world events and compared them to what was predicted. As the prophecies
come true before our eyes, we know that we are getting closer to the end.
While it is true that the world is heading toward a judgment day, individuals
can escape through knowledge of the truth combined with repentance and faith in
Christ (see Escape to Safety).
