Mormon's echo of Paul's phrase ("mortal must now put on immortality") is, like it's other occurrences in the Book of Mormon, centered on the judgment.
"They day soon cometh that your mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies which are now moldering in corruption must soon become incorruptible bodies; and then ye must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to be judged according to your works;" (v. 21)
Mormon's use of the phrase is the more poignant because he is literally surrounded by a scene of flesh returning to corruption
"their flesh, and bones, and blood lay upon the face of the earth, being left by the hands of those who slew them to molder upon the land, and to crumble and to return to their mother earth." (v. 15)
He has just witnessed the near total destruction of his people, men, women and children. And for very few of them can he hope that the judgment will be joyful. For a few perhaps - "if it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you." For the majority though, the lament is this: "oh that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you." (v. 22)
Interesting that of the four Book of Mormon references we have found that echo this Pauline phrase, three of them are integrally embedded in a concern with "the fathers." Whether Enos' testimony that begins with "the words which I had heard my father speak concerning eternal life, or the joy of the saints," or Alma's evocation of the deliverance, first temporal and then eternal, of his audience's "fathers," or Mormon's phrase "blessed with your fathers." In 1st Corinthians 15 itself, Paul's treatise on the resurrection has the mysterious reference to baptism for the dead in verse 29.
Might it be fruitful to search for the antecedents to Paul's phrasing? What text or tradition underlies both Paul's use of these phrase and the Book of Mormon prophet's use of it. Is there in the possible sources a juxtaposition of the resurrection/judgment and a concern with our fathers?
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