Instantaneous Transformation?

Many Christians (mainly, Protestants) believe that when Jesus comes back, we will experience an instantaneous transformation that will make us immortal, incorruptible, morally perfect, and spiritually mature--qualities that make us fit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven into God's presence. I think that this idea is based upon the following three passages, primarily:

"51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." (1 Corinthians 15:51-52a, NIV)

"16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NIV)

"2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2, NIV)

But what do the above passages explicitly teach? Surely the return of Christ will be a miraculous event, but should we expect that Jesus is going to fix all the problems in the members of His body in an instant when He's been working on us through His Spirit for a couple thousand years?

Well, I've opened up a large can of worms for us all to ponder, but for now, let's just consider the third passage listed above (1 John 3:2, in context) and try to understand what it is telling us about Christ's appearing and the transformation of God's children.

Before we begin, let's look at a raw interpretation of the Greek text:

Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and as of yet it was not manifested what we shall be, yet we are aware that if he ever may be appearing, like him we shall be, because we shall be seeing him according as he is. (Ref., Online Interlinear Greek New Testament: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/1jo3.pdf)

First, let's consider what the passage is saying about the children of God.

Paul says that we are now children of God. It is an established... not something in the future. Next, Paul says that it was [in the past] not yet manifested what we shall be. In other words, the fullness of what we shall be has not yet been demonstrated. This is reminiscent of another passage of Paul's, where he says,

"The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed [or, "for the manifestation of the sons of God"]." (Romans 8:19, NIV [KJV]).

Thus, we can gather that there is something that we are now that has not come into maturation (completion, perfection, etc.). Pause. Let's rephrase that: We are not looking forward to becoming a new creation, or a child of God -- that transformation took place when we made Jesus our Lord! -- but, instead, all of creation waits for the children of God to come into maturity and fullness of purpose, just as God intended.

The question, then, is this: HOW and WHEN will the sons of God be revealed? We'll come back to that very important question in just a moment.

Next, let's try to understand what the passage is saying about Christ's appearing.

I will now lay out two hypotheses based upon the 1 John 3 passage. My approach to this passage is different than many theologians and religious thinkers out there, but I think it is worth consideration.

Hypothesis 1: Christ (in His fullness) will become apparent to the world through the body of Christ on Earth as the body sees [recognizes] Christ in His fullness and becomes [lives] like Him.

Let's read the raw interpretation of 1 John 3:2 again:

Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and as of yet it was not manifested what we shall be, yet we are aware that if he ever may be appearing, like him we shall be, because we shall be seeing him according as he is. (Ref., Online Interlinear Greek New Testament: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/1jo3.pdf)

The underlined words are especially interesting: "if he [Christ] ever may be appearing, like him we shall be." We could take this to be saying that, if Christ is ever to appear in his fullness, glory, truth, and perfection to the world, then "we", as God's children, will be "like Him" in our witness to the world. In other words, Christ's appearance to the world depends upon how accurately we represent Him. (We are literally Christ to the world.) When we take into account the last phrase of the verse--"because we shall be seeing him according as he is"--the the whole thought flows together like this: "If Christ will ever appear [on a continual basis], then we will be like him because we are seeing Him as He is." Thus, on this interpretation, our seeing Christ as He is motivates us to be more like Him, which in turn allows the world to see Christ through us.

Hypothesis 2: Christ will physically return to Earth when the body of Christ sees [recognizes] Him as He is and becomes [lives] like Him.

Again, let's go back to the raw text:

Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and as of yet it was not manifested what we shall be, yet we are aware that if he ever may be appearing, like him we shall be, because we shall be seeing him according as he is.(Ref., Online Interlinear Greek New Testament: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/1jo3.pdf)

We can interpret the underlined words in this way: If we are ever to see Christ appear (as in, at His second coming upon the Mount of Olives), then we will be like Him! Essentially, "we" (as the corporate body of Christ) need to mirror the fullness of Christ before He will come to be joined with us at His glorious appearing. (In other words, we are the ones holding off Christ's second coming!) And, again, taking into account the last phrase of the verse, we have an explanation for why we become like Christ: we will be like him because we are seeing Him as He is (in His fullness)!

Now, we can come back to the question of HOW and WHEN the sons of God will be revealed.

On the interpretation given under Hypothesis 2, we can naturally make the connection that the sons of God will be revealed when they start reflecting the fullness of Christ. This answers both the "How" and the "When."

The sons of God will be revealed how? By reflecting the fullness of Christ.

The sons of God will be revealed when? When they start reflecting Christ's fullness!

What is included in the fullness of Christ? I believe that the fullness of Christ includes everything that Christ prophesied about His followers in Mark 16, along with Jesus's prayer that His followers would be one (as Jesus is One with the Father) and His command for His followers to be perfect (as the Father is perfect). Satan loves to disrupt God's purposes, and it's no wonder that these very things have been attacked the most in the body of Christ throughout history. Not only is the body not unified, but it is divided beyond recognition. Not only do Christians live with sin, but they accept it as an incurable condition that is unavoidable and to be expected. Not only do believers lack the power and signs that the Spirit uses to draw the world to God, but they believe that the gifts ceased with the early Church and attribute modern day gifts to Satan and his kingdom. Thankfully, not all Christians are bound by these beliefs... but we, as the body of Christ, still have a long way to go before we reflect Christ's example and fulfill His words that "they shall do even greater things than these [miracles]" (see John 14:11-14).

Both of the above hypotheses about the nature of Christ's appearing fit the verse directly following, in which Paul urges us to "be purifying ourselves" (see Greek), which is a process all of us are undergoing now as the children of God. We shouldn't be waiting for some day in the future when God will instantaneously purify us, bring us to maturity, and take away all our problems. There will be a lot of changes when Christ returns (including mainly a change in social/moral order and in our physical bodies), but we should be striving to preparing ourselves and the world for Him! We are to be continually working out our faith and seeking God.

I'm not entirely sure if it is possible for God to purify our hearts instantaneously (considering implications for free will) -- but even if it is, I don't see why God would be motivated to do so. Theoretically, it is possible that God could snap His fingers and reconcile all things to Himself in an instant (though I doubt that free will of His creatures could be preserved), but given that God has given humanity several thousand years to work by His side to redeem the goodness that was lost as a result of man's fall, I doubt that God wants to deprive us of that privilege anytime soon.