“We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound ... and we will be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15:51
[We continue during the last days of this month to set our thoughts on heaven along with several previous Anchor authors whose lives drew to a close during or after their writing.]
In an essay published in 1947, J. R. R. Tolkien coined a new word: eucatastrophe. It means “a sudden, joyous turn of events.” He said that the incarnation of Jesus Christ was the greatest eucatastrophe of human history. He called it an “unexpected but not unpredictable conclusion” of a great drama.
The apostle Paul explains in detail a sudden, joyous turn of events—a eucatastrophe!—that will come at the end of this world to those of us who have believed in Jesus. In the twinkling of an eye, we will all be changed. Our human minds cannot begin to comprehend what those changes will be.
A little boy I know who is legally blind was excited to hear that in heaven he wouldn’t need his glasses but then lamented that without them he wouldn’t be able to see! How like him we are in our thoughts—limited about the magnitude of the joyous changes God will work in us in the last.
In an essay published in 1947, J. R. R. Tolkien coined a new word: eucatastrophe. It means “a sudden, joyous turn of events.” He said that the incarnation of Jesus Christ was the greatest eucatastrophe of human history. He called it an “unexpected but not unpredictable conclusion” of a great drama.
The apostle Paul explains in detail a sudden, joyous turn of events—a eucatastrophe!—that will come at the end of this world to those of us who have believed in Jesus. In the twinkling of an eye, we will all be changed. Our human minds cannot begin to comprehend what those changes will be.
A little boy I know who is legally blind was excited to hear that in heaven he wouldn’t need his glasses but then lamented that without them he wouldn’t be able to see! How like him we are in our thoughts—limited about the magnitude of the joyous changes God will work in us in the last.
Scripture Focus
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
Insight
Lauren Beyenhof wrote this for the October 2009 Anchor. She died four weeks later at age 29, instantly changed in the arms of her Savior.
Bible In A Year
- Judges 12-13
- Psalm 115
- 1 Corinthians 7