It seems a mistake to think our bodies being transfigured like unto His body of glory will happen for everybody all at once (and, not to digress upon here, it is a mistake to think that it is the same thing that happens to all of us, not only what, but how.) The only scripture I've been able to find that has been used to say this actually doesn't when more closely examined. (In a very real sense, I have no personal investment in how all this takes place. How could I care for anything other than seeking to discover what God reveals about it?) "...we all shall be changed, in an instant, in the twinkle of an eye, IN the last trump..." 1 Cor 15:52 1.) "In an instant," or, "moment" (KJV) in Greek is in atomos, meaning "un-cut," or, "without division or separation." This is the only occurence I've yet found in the N.T.
About 300 years earlier, in classical (not Biblical) Greek, Plato used atomos to refer to what we in scientific terminology call the elements. Anything that was purified by "cutting" out everything mixed with it until there was nothing that could be separated from it any more was an element, such as gold, or sulfur, or iron, etc. In modern times we borrowed the term to apply to the similar "atoms" as in an "atomic" bomb. This is one possible meaning of the word here. The change coming is in the very foundation of our physical nature. The "elements" that make up our body, the very "atomic" structures will undergo a metamorphosis into an immortal body with incorruptible life.
Another consideration is provided in the use of the same word, in a positive rather than negative sense, prefixed with "rightly, or, correctly" as orthotomeo in 2 Tim 2:15 "erect-cut," "erect" meaning "upright," or, "'rightly' dividing" in the phrase "correctly cutting the word of truth." The word of the original Greek (as well as Hebrew) were written in a continuous string of letters. They put no divisions between the words. There was no punctuation. To cause the truth to rise one had to correctly cut it. Think of how this change will occur, with "negative-cutting," or, without interruption. Not only an inward peaceful transition, just taking the next step, a step over a threshold in a long journey leading up to it, without which you couldn't get there; but also, considered outwardly, it may imply that this would happen without the world observing a thing. There will be no discontinuity in the change He's talking about! (This bears some similarity to the next phrase to consider.)
An important thing is that this seems to be the only time this word occurs in the N. T. The word used everywhere else in the Scripture for "instantly, or, immediately" is parachrema, not of the same family. The other phrase is: "in the twinkle of an eye." This is r[h]ipe "the upward or downward motion of the eyelid." The change is in a "blink" of an eye; or, more literally it may be "'toss' of an eye," or, "'glance' of an eye," as when one looks from one place to another. Here is no inward disruption but continuity. The change is in looking from one place to another. It is not an indication of a length of time. We are changed "from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" as we behold Him. The presence of the Lord occurs by our being brought into beholding Him in increasing glory. You tend to believe what you see. "The Glory" is His manifest presence.
"...Not all of us will sleep in death; but, all of us will be changed into something else, in the very chemical elements and atomic structures of which our physical bodies consist, in looking away into another realm, and in the sound from God's prepared vessel through which His Spirit will blow (what prophetically was a trumpet in the "Feast of Tabernacles" which in reality is) the anointed word of a ministry which will cause those that hear to partake of the change of our vile bodies into a body like unto Jesus' body of glory..." -- 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, explained)
