What Does 1 Corinthians 15:51 Mean in the King James?
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Death does not happen to everyone, but transformation does.
THE MEANING
Some pass through death; some do not, but everyone within this “we” is changed. The verse holds open a future in which your present form is not your final form. The mystery is that transformation reaches all, whether or not death comes first.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death is the unavoidable passage for everyone.
THE ROOT
ἀλλαγησόμεθα
allagēsómetha
GROWS FROM
ἀλλάσσω
allassō
To change, alter, or make different.
The Greek verb is passive: the change happens to us; the verse does not describe us manufacturing it. Its root family also carries the sense of alteration and changed relations, opening “changed” beyond a mere outward adjustment.
ALSO GROWS
allagē: Change or alteration.
ἀλλαγή
This noun from the same word family makes the verse’s change a real alteration, not simply a new description of the same condition.
katallassō: Reconcile; bring into a changed relation.
καταλλάσσω
This compound shares the allassō stem and shows how change can reach a relationship as well as a person.
κοιμηθησόμεθα
koimēthēsómetha
GROWS FROM
κοιμάω
koimaō
To sleep or fall asleep; used here as a way of speaking about death.
The Greek keeps death joined to the ordinary word for sleep. That image does not make death unreal; it sets death apart from the change that reaches everyone, including those who do not pass through it.
ALSO GROWS
koimaō: To sleep or fall asleep.
κοιμάω
The same verb can describe ordinary sleep, keeping the image of death as sleep present in the verse.
koimēsis: Sleep or falling asleep; used of sleep in John 11:13.
κοίμησις
This related noun preserves the same sleep language, showing how the word family can describe both ordinary sleep and the figure used for death.
THE PATTERN
Death and mortality are not the final conditions; life and transformation have the last word.
He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.THE THREAD
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.“Changed” is the same Greek verb family as in this verse, now set beside the raising of the dead. The next line shows the mystery’s shape: the dead are raised incorruptible, and the living are changed too.
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