I. CORINTHIANS 15, 51. 355

Comp. 1 Thess. 4, 15-17. The modern commentators, both German and Enghsh, understand the apostle as expressing the confident expectation that he and others of that generation should survive the coming of Christ. * Though we (who are now alive) shall not all die, we shall all be changed.' But 1. This is altogether unnecessary. The we all includes all be- lievers who had lived, were living, or ever should live. There is nothing either in the form of expression or in the context to limit it to the men of that generation. In the same way Paul says in 1 Thess. 4, 15, " We that are alive at the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them that are asleep." This does not imply that he expected to be alive when Christ came. In his second Epistle to the Thessalonians he warns them against the expectation of the speedy advent of Christ, telling them that a great apostasy and the revelation of the Man of Sin were to occur before that event. 2. The plenary inspiration of the sacred writers rendered them infallible in all they taught ; but it did not render them omniscient. They could not err in what they communicated, but they might err, and doubtless did err, as to things not included in the communica- tions of the Spirit. The time of the second advent was not revealed to them. They profess their ignorance on that point. They were, therefore, as to that matter, on a level with other men, and may have differed in regard to their private conjec- tures on the subject just as others differ. It would not, in the least, therefore, encroach on their authority as infallible teach- ers, if it should be apparent that they cherished erroneous expectations with regard to that about which they professed to know nothing. * Knowing that Christ was to come, and not knowing when he was to come, it was perfectly natural that they should look on his advent as constantly imminent, until it was revealed that certain events not yet accomplished, were to occur before Christ came. But all this is very different from any didactic statement that he was to come withiu a cer- tain period. Paul might exhort Christians to wait and long for the coming of the Lord ; but he could not tell them by the word of the Lord that he and others then living would be aUve when he came. This would not only be teaching error, but it would be claiming divine authority, or a special revelation, for that error. It is, therefore, only at the expense of all confi- dence in the inspiration of the apostle that the exposition above mentioned can be adopted.