Behold, I show you a mystery
Or a secret, which could never have been discovered by reason, or
the light of nature, and what is of pure revelation; and which
perhaps the apostle became acquainted with, when he was caught up
into the third heaven; and is what is never made mention of by
any prophet, or apostle, but himself: he prefaces the account of
it in this manner, partly to show the great respect he had for
these Corinthians, that he treated them as his bosom friends, to
whom he communicated his secrets; and partly to excite their
curiosity and attention:
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed;
some copies read, "we shall all rise again, but we shall not all
be changed", and so the Vulgate Latin version; according to which
the sense is, all will rise again, both just and unjust, but all
will not be changed into a state of glory; but the apostle is
only speaking of the saints, of whom it is true, not only that
they shall rise again, but shall be changed from corruption to
incorruption; wherefore this cannot be a true reading: others
read the words thus, "we shall all die, but we shall not all be
changed"; and so the Ethiopic version and the Alexandrian copy
seem to have read; which is just the reverse of the text, and
arises from a wrong sense of ( Hebrews 9:27
) where it is not said, it is "appointed unto all men", but "unto
men once to die"; from which rule there has been some exceptions,
as the instances of Enoch and Elijah show; and there will be more
at the time of Christ's coming, for all will not sleep in their
graves, or die, for death is meant by sleeping; they will not die
as men ordinarily do, and continue under the power of death, but
they will be changed at once from corruption to incorruption,
from dishonour to glory, from weakness to power, from being
natural to be spiritual bodies; this change all the saints will
undergo, whether dead or alive, at Christ's coming; the dead by a
resurrection from the dead, and the living by a secret and sudden
power, which will at once render their bodies, without separating
them from their souls, immortal and glorious: and this reading
and sense are confirmed by the Syriac and Arabic versions.