What does the apostle Paul mean when he says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:50)?

By “flesh and blood,” he means not the body in itself, but whatever is mortal and corrupt in it, whatever bears the trace of sin. Being our corrupt body, it is unable to enjoy the divine kingdom so long as it remains in this condition.

St. John Chrysostom says, “for by flesh he here denotes men’s evil deeds … wherefore also he adds, ‘neither does corruption inherit incorruption,’ i.e., neither shall wickedness inherit that glory and the enjoyment of the things incorruptible … For he nowhere calls the body ‘corruption,’ since neither is it corruption, but a thing corruptible.”¹³²⁹

St. Jerome says, “Let us by no means scorn the flesh, but let us reject its works. Let us not despise the body that will reign in heaven with Christ. ‘Flesh and blood can obtain no part in the kingdom of God’ (1 Cor. 15:50); no, not flesh and blood of themselves, but the works of the flesh.”¹³³⁰

1327 Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons 117 (FOTC 17:201–202).

1328 Origen of Alexandria, The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies Prologue 2 (ACW 26:29).

1329

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 42.2 (NPNF I/12:256) amended.

1330 St. Jerome, The Homilies of Saint Jerome, Volume 1 (1–59 on the Psalms) 54 (FOTC 48:381).

St. Gregory of Nazianzus says, “Then shall I see Cæsarius himself, no longer in exile, no longer laid upon a bier, no longer the object of mourning and pity, but brilliant, glorious, heavenly.”¹³³¹

The apostle Paul says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—” (1 Cor. 15:51). He reveals here a mystery of which they were previously ignorant: that not all humanity die, but all change. Of this, the Jews were not aware.

St. Augustine says, “Since, then, there can be no resurrection unless death has preceded, and since we can in this passage understand by sleep nothing else than death, how shall all either sleep or rise again if so many persons whom Christ shall find in the body shall neither sleep nor rise again? If, then, we believe that the saints who shall be found alive at Christ’s coming, and shall be caught up to meet Him, shall in that same ascent pass from mortal to immortal bodies, we shall find no difficulty in the words of the apostle, either when he says, ‘That which you sow is not quickened, except it die,’ or when he says, ‘We shall all rise,’ or ‘all sleep,’ for not even the saints shall be quickened to immortality unless they first die, however briefly; and consequently they shall not be exempt from resurrection which is preceded by sleep, however brief. And why should it seem to us incredible that that multitude of bodies should be, as it were, sown in the air, and should in the air forthwith revive immortal and incorruptible, when we believe, on the testimony of the same apostle, that the resurrection shall take place in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of bodies long dead shall return with incomprehensible facility and swiftness to those members that are now to live endlessly?”¹³³²

And St. John Chrysostom says, “they too [who are still alive at the Coming of the Lord] are mortal. ‘Do not therefore, because you die, on this account fear,’ says he, ‘as if you should not rise again: for there are, there are some who shall even escape this, and yet this suffices them not for that resurrection, but even those bodies which do not die must be changed and be transformed into incorruption’ … The expression, ‘we,’ he uses not of himself, but of them that are then found alive.”¹³³³