Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
It not my logic. It's Paul's expectation that the resurrection/change was to happen in his/their lifetime. Then, you are right, it would happen to all living believers of Paul's generation, not just Paul and the Corinthians.
"We shall not all sleep," did not mean that 20 centuries, or more, of believers shall sleep. "WE, that is WE, shall not all sleep."
It is your logic, or lack thereof, that is stretching WE to mean 20 or more centuries of WE's sleeping. We were not the we Paul was speaking about. Clearly Paul expected the resurrection/change would happen in the lifetime of some he was writing to.
He was wrong.
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I have always taken Paul's comment here to simply mean that there will be some believers who are alive when Jesus returns bodily to this earth as He promised us, and as the angels also promised in Acts 1.9-11.
Neither Paul nor the other apostles knew when Jesus would come again. They were only warned to be always prepared for His return. None of us knows the time of His return, nor the number of our own days, that is when we too will "sleep." One reason we can trust God unreservedly is that He alone in the entire universe knows the future.
What we can be sure is that Paul's word will be fulfilled, "
we shall not all sleep."