Page 241 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition
second coming of Christ, but it says nothing of either resurrec­
tion or translation, though for some resurrection may be in­
volved.7
In 1 Corinthians 15, the “last trumpet” relates to believ­
ers only and is a trumpet of God that the context says results
immediately and instantaneously in the resurrection and
translation of the church. Inasmuch as the trumpet is used in
the Old Testament in so many different situations as a signal
of an impending event and was also used by the Roman army
to signal its maneuvers, to make the term “last trumpet” a
technical term, including all the end-time trumpets, has to be
based on an assumption rather than on solid evidence. Details
of the trumpet in 1 Corinthians 15 and its results are entirely
different from the other trumpets with which some post-
tribulationists attempt to equate it.
Another area of controversy with posttribulationists in
I Corinthians 15 is the fact that there is a resurrection at the
time of the rapture of the church. All agree that the doctrine
of resurrection is a truth revealed in the Old Testament as well
as the New. The singular fact in 1 Corinthians 15 is that this is
the only case where a resurrection is connected with the
translation of the living. The point of Pauline revelation is that
at the Rapture those living will be translated, that is, given
new bodies that are exactly the same as the new bodies given
those raised from the dead. These bodies, according to the
text, will have the major characteristics of being imperishable
and immortal; that is, they will never decay and grow old, and
they will never die. Other Scriptures support the idea that the
bodies will also be sinless, and those raised and translated will
never sin again (1 John 3:2).
Paul claimed that this will fulfill prophecy insofar as it
relates to the resurrection of the dead. He stated, “When the
perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the
mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will
come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’” This
250