d obtain a crown of life in the
first resurrection at that day when Christ shall come in his kingdom
to destroy his enemies and to deliver and elevate Christians to honor.
We shall notice this more particularly in our next when we come to
comment on Philippians iii. Chap. Again he says--"Who concerning the
truth have erred, saying the resurrection is past already, and
overthrow the faith of some." That is, to make the Christians believe
that their promised deliverance was past, while they were yet in the
midst of their sufferings, was calculated to overthrow their faith. We
will notice the change of the living still further. Jesus says, that
those, who were in their graves, and had done good, should come forth
to the resurrection of life. And Daniel says, that many of them who
sleep in the dust of the earth should awake to everlasting life, and
those, who were wise, should shine as the brightness of the firmament,
and they that turned many to righteousness as the stars forever and
ever. Here Daniel and Jesus represent the low, suffering, and
distressed condition of the Christians previous to the destruction of
Jerusalem, and their final deliverance and exaltation at that period,
by sleeping in the dust, being dead in their graves, and suddenly
coming forth to life and shining like the brightness of the firmament
and the stars forever and ever. This is equivalent with being "caught
up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

The above changes are as great and as in instantaneous, as the apostle
represents in the context,--"We shall all be changed in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed."
As if he had said we shall suddenly enter into the full fruition of
that glorious gospel kingdom, whose trump shall then begin, and
continue to sound down to the remotest periods of that "_last day_"
proclaiming the incorruptible resurrection of all the dead, and at the
same time changing the living from the low, sorrowful, and groveling
thoughts of earth to the sublime and joyful contemplations of "life
and immortality brought to light through the gospel." So the _last
day_, in which the last trump sounds, and the dead are raised,
embraces the whole gospel reign of Christ. The _resurrection_ is
coeval in duration with the _judgment_ of the world; for both are
called the last day, and both are represented as involving all