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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
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