In a Moment

“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 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 15:51-52

This is one of the greatest promises in the Bible, assuring us that “we” (i.e., all believers, whether dead or living when Christ returns) shall suddenly be changed, with our dead or dying bodies instantly transformed into incorruptible, immortal bodies, which can never die again.

This great change, when it finally occurs, will take place “in a moment.” The Greek here is “en atomo” (“in an atom of time”). This word, implying the smallest entity conceivable by the Greeks, is used only this one time in the New Testament. It is further described by “the twinkling of an eye,” where “twinkling” is the Greek “rhipe,” also used only this once.

Evidently there is nothing else in this present world comparable in rapidity to this miraculous change which will be called forth when “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

The great shout (probably uttered by Christ Himself as at the tomb of Lazarus) will instantly create new bodies for both dead and living believers. “The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).   

Our new bodies will be like Christ’s resurrection body. He “will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21).

Christ is able, thus, to create new bodies for us in a moment, just as when He created all things in the beginning: “For He spoke, and it was done” (Psalm 33:9).