Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians John Calvin
Commentary on the Corinthians and that this renovation is not inconsistent with the fact, that Christ's advent will find some still alive.
We must, however, unravel the difficulty — that it is appointed unto all men once to die; and certainly, it is not difficult to unravel it in this way — that as a change cannot take place without doing away with the previous system, that change is reckoned, with good reason, a kind of death; but, as it is not a separation of the soul from the body, it is not looked upon as an ordinary death. It will then be death, inasmuch as it will be the destruction of corruptible nature: it will not be a sleep, inasmuch as the soul will not quit the body; but there will be a sudden transition from corruptible nature into a blessed immortality.
52. In a moment This is still of a general nature; that is, it includes all. For in all the change will be sudden and instantaneous, because Christ's advent will be sudden. And to convey the idea of a moment, he afterwards makes use of the phrase twinkling (or jerk) of the eye, for in the Greek manuscripts there is a twofold, reading — {ῥοπὣ} (jerk,) or {ῥιπὣ} (twinkling.) 1025 It matters nothing, however, as to the sense. Paul has selected a movement of the body, that surpasses all others in quickness; for nothing is more rapid than a movement of the eye, though at the same time he has made an allusion to sleep, with which twinkling of the eye is contrasted. 1026
With the last trump. Though the repetition of the term might seem to place it beyond a doubt, that the word trumpet is here taken in its proper acceptation, yet I prefer to understand the expression as metaphorical. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, he connects together the voice of the archangel and the trump of God: As therefore a commander, with the sound of a trumpet, summons his army to battle, so Christ, by his far sounding proclamation, which will be heard throughout the whole world, will summon all the dead. Moses tells us, (Exodus 19:16,) what loud and terrible sounds were uttered on occasion of the promulgation of the law. Far different will be the commotion then, when not one people merely, but the whole world will be summoned to the tribunal of God. Nor will the living only be convoked, but even the dead will be called forth from their graves. 1027 Nay more, a commandment
1025It is stated by Semlr, that some in the times of Jerome preferred {ῥοπὟ}, but Jerome himself preferred {ῥιπὟ} is derived from {ῥέπω}, to tend or incline to. It means force or impetus. It is used by Thucydides (v. 103) to mean the preponderance of a scale. In connection with {ὀφθαλμοῦ}, (the eye,) it would probably mean, a cast or inclination of the eye. {̔ΡιπὟ}, (the common reading,) is derived from {ῥίπτω}, to throw. {̔ριπὟ} {ὀφθαλμοῦ} is explained by Nyssenus, (as stated by Parkhurst,) to mean --- {επιμύσις}--- the shutting or twinkling of the eyelids.
1026"Pour ce que quand on se resueille, on cleigne ainsi des yeux;" — "Because, when persons awake, they twinkle in this way with their eyes."
1027"The trumpet shall sound, (1 Corinthians 15:52,) says the prophetic teacher. And how startling, how stupendous the summons! Nothing equal to it, nothing like it, was ever heard through all the regions of the universe, or all the revolutions of time. When conflicting armies have discharged the bellowing artillery of war, or when victorious armies have shouted for joy of the conquest, the seas and shores have rung, the mountains and plains have echoed. But the shout of the archangel, and the trump of God, will resound from pole to poles — will pierce the center and shake the pillars of heaven. Stronger — stronger still — it will penetrate even the deepest recesses of the tomb! It will pour its amazing thunder into all those abodes of silence. The dead, the very dead, shall hear." — Hervey's Theron and