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I. The RESURRECTION.

1. Its subjects. All who are in their graves.

(1) The almost universal custom of preserving the remains of the departed bears witness to the truth of the text. No such custom obtains with reference to animals. The body was not formed to die, and men cherish the hope of its recovering its lost immortality.

(2) Our text, therefore, gratifies the most sacred feelings of the human heart. Our separation from our loved ones is only temporary.

(3) The same persons shall rise. Momentous changes, indeed, take place; but what changes take place between infancy and old age! Yet it is the same person in whom they transpire.

(4) The analogy by which Scripture illustrates this mystery is that of grain sown in the earth, which dies in order to live again.

2. The power by which it is accomplished. Christ's voice.

(1) Not the voice as heard through pastors, etc. The season for hearing, that for conversion, sanctification, comfort, etc., is over. This we can refuse to hear, but not that.

(2) The voice of the archangel and the trump of God, terrible, irresistible, dead awakening.

3. The time.

(1) It is determined in the counsels of God.

(2) It will be at the winding up of the affairs of time, "the last day." The day of world's first judgment came; so did that of Sodom, and Babylon, and Jerusalem; and just as surely shalt this.

II. The JUDGMENT. All shall come forth.

1. The righteous.

(1) They shall not taste of death.

(2) Their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body.

(3) They shall obtain everlasting blessedness.

2. They that have done evil.

(1) The unbelievers who are condemned already to have their condemnation confirmed.

(2) They shall rise to be everlastingly banished.

(A. Beith, D. D.)

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KJV: Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

WEB: Don't marvel at this, for the hour comes, in which all that are in the tombs will hear his voice,