NOTES for Co1 15:51-52

Paul is sure that the final victory over death is impossible without the complete transformation of the human being, without a qualitative change of human nature itself. This change must make it possible for the person to live in that transfigured world which will become reality after the Savior's return at the end of time. The transfigured person will no longer remain under the power of sin; his nature, damaged by the fall, will be completely healed.

More than that: renewed human nature will change even in comparison with what the human being had before the fall, becoming like the human nature of the risen Christ. But this is impossible if a person does not become a living Torah. The point, of course, is not to memorize the text of the Pentateuch. Nor is it even only that the Torah should become for a person an absolute inner imperative, spiritual and moral; that is still only the inner Torah, whose existence every believing Jew in Gospel times knew.

The living Torah is a state of a person in which his every thought, every word, and every action are determined only by the inner Torah and by nothing else. For this to become possible, the person must be completely free from the power over himself of the sin that entered our life after the fall. It is no accident that the first and second generations of Christians saw the only example of the living Torah in the person of Jesus Christ Himself: apart from Him, no one was free from sin.

But for the first Christians, imitation of Christ was connected with the necessity of becoming oneself, with Christ's help and in Christ, the same living Torah; and this is possible only at the end of the path, at the end of time, with the complete transformation of human nature. Until then, the striving to become a living Torah will inevitably call forth in fallen human nature the resistance of the sin that rules it after the fall, and the more clearly the inner Torah manifests itself in a person, the more strongly the damaged condition of that human nature is revealed.

Thus the Torah gives strength to sin: as long as a person rolls along by inertia, not trying to live according to the inner Torah, the power of sin in him is scarcely revealed. But as soon as he tries to change the spiritual vector of his life, it manifests itself more strongly the more he strives to follow the inner Torah. The Torah reveals in a person the energy of sin, and the Savior helps overcome the sin thus revealed, transfiguring the person's nature together with him so that at the end of time the person is completely freed from the power of sin. Such is the dynamic of Christian life described by the apostle.

As he concludes the discussion of transformation and resurrection, Paul draws a clear line between those who have chosen the Kingdom and those who have not (vv. 51-52). By "we" the apostle here undoubtedly means Christians, and by Christians he means the Church, which for him is nothing other than a community of people living in the Kingdom. It is no surprise that in this case Paul speaks not of death but of change or transformation: for those who have already chosen the Kingdom now, the last day will be something expected and more or less predictable, as it is for anyone who, after a long journey, has finally reached the intended and long-desired goal. Of course, the goal may turn out not to be exactly as those walking from far away imagined it, but in any case they will not be mistaken or disappointed in what matters most.

It is different for those who, for one reason or another, did not choose the Kingdom during their earthly journey. In itself this is not fatal, since a choice can be made even at the very last moment, and if it is sincere and the reasons for the earlier delay are weighty enough, the one who makes the choice will receive the Kingdom, like the workers of the eleventh hour in the Savior's parable. But for them the last day will be precisely the day of Judgment in the full sense of the word, because for them it will not be the completion of a path begun in advance, but the unexpected beginning of an entirely new life, and therefore one previously unknown to them. It is no accident that Paul speaks of them specifically in terms of resurrection, not of change or transformation: those who have become partakers of the Kingdom thereby already become, to a certain degree, partakers of the process that is completed at the end of time in the universal resurrection and transformation of human nature.

In a certain sense one could say that those who live in the Kingdom, even in the measure of fullness possible in our world, which has not yet been fully transformed, are already rising even now, though their resurrection will be completed at the end of time with the Savior's return. As for everyone else, for them everything will begin and end then, on the last day, though of course until the Last Judgment their destiny in eternity remains undefined. Only after each person's destiny has been determined and the process of universal transformation has been completed will the victory over death be complete (vv. 54-55). And that victory, in turn, will open the way to the fullness of that life and that breath of God with which the Kingdom is permeated.