'For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then will come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.'
Indeed he accentuates that fact. All is changed, and death ceases. God's people will no longer live in decaying bodies, they will have been clothed with incorruptible bodies. They will no longer be mortal, they will have become immortal. Elsewhere Paul tells us that God alone has immortality (1 Timothy 6:16). Now this will be changed. He will give it also to His people.
And this is the time when death is swallowed up for ever (Isaiah 25:8) in victory. This surely indicates God's final victory, when death ceases and we have the introduction of eternity. It describes the end of corruption and decay, the end of mortality, and this fact is doubly emphasised. For then death ceases, it is swallowed up in victory. Surely this is the end of all things old, and the beginning of all things new. It is what all has been leading up to (1 Corinthians 15:23-26). There is no room for further earthly events.
In Revelation 20 John describes all this in terms of a great white throne of judgment with the righteous whose names were written in the book of life going into eternity and the unrighteous being destroyed, along with death and the grave. The picture of victory is the same as here. The death of death and salvation for His own.
(Some may ask, but what of the thousand years in Revelation 20:4? Our reply is that it refers to the period between the resurrection of Christ and His final coming as a period of completeness and perfection. Compare 2 Peter 3:8. For the New Testament knows nothing of any other millennium).
But from where does Paul obtain the thought of victory? In Isaiah 25:8 the word translated ‘for ever' can also (as repointed without changing the letters) be translated ‘in victory', which is elsewhere in LXX used as a synonym for ‘for ever'. Thus Paul draws the idea of victory out to indicate that the triumph over death is not only permanent but a symbol of victory. It is everlasting victory.