K20.11.85.htm

"WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED".
HOW, AND WHEN?

"Look! I tell you a sacred secret: We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, during the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised up incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this which is corruptible must put on incorruption, and this which is mortal must put on immortality." (1 Cor 15:51-53).

The "change" described in verse 51 is a promised gift to all faithful anointed sons of God alive on earth, after those who died in union with Christ have risen. On this point, the Scriptures have been misunderstood by many. This "changed" existence is the gift of incorruptible life from Almighty God, His promised reward to all holy ones, and referred to as immortality. (Rev 11:18). This promise will be fulfilled for all anointed holy ones: "...and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first. Afterward we the living who are surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air". (1 Thess 4:16,17).

According to the foregoing, this gift of "change" will take place during the period of the seventh (last) "trumpet" warning of Revelation 11:15. This last "trumpet" and "third woe" comes quickly after the 'sounding' (or 'voicing') of spiritual events leading up to it, described on Pages (2/11/85A) and (2/11/85B). Those still living in the flesh will receive spirit notification in their spirits of this promised gift of "change". But although their spirits are thereby invested with future immortality, they continue to live on in their corruptible bodies of flesh inherited from the first Adam until their spiritual work on earth is finished and Almighty God disposes of their physical "tent". This "tent" of each of the holy ones is for the creating and sealing of their spirits while they reside in it for God to inhabit by Spirit in connection with His progressive Will regarding all mankind.

The meaning of "...we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, during the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised up incorruptible, and we shall be changed" can now be understood. Faithful anointed ones who have died in union with Christ will be permitted to put on incorruption in their new spirit bodies in heaven, when those of their brothers who are "sealed" while in the flesh await future life in heaven. (1 Cor 15:44).

THE TWO WAYS OF GOD FOR SPIRIT IMMORTALITY.
The following verses of Job chapter 33 make clear the ways Jehovah God has approved by which men may gain immortality:

(1) By "a ransom", saving him from the everlasting "pit". (V.24).
(2) By speaking to them in dreams, in visions of the night. (V.15,16).

After these exhortations from God, immortality becomes the glorious end of their faith, whether in a new heavenly spirit body as God pleases (1 Cor 15:38) or by the promised gift of spirit immortality while awaiting release by ransom from their physical body. For it says: "Yet if an angel, one of thousands, stands by him, a mediator between him and God, to expound what he has done right and to secure mortal man his due; if he speaks in the man's favour and says, 'Reprieve him, let him not go down to the pit, I have the price of his release'", then the spirit of that man can then be invested with incorruptible immortal life. (Job 33:23,24 NEB).

The reader may wonder how those still alive in the flesh could inherit God's Kingdom, if as it says in 1 Corinthians 15:50 "...flesh and blood cannot inherit God's Kingdom, neither does corruption inherit incorruption." As God's Kingdom is one of indestructible spirit life, it is in the spirit that an anointed son of God is "changed", even though for a while his spirit remains within a corrupt physical body handed down from his forefathers.

20/11/85.