1. Their application immediately followed, and was no doubt suggested by a statement made by our Lord, in reply to a question from Peter. Upon occasion of the sorrowful turning away of the young ruler, Peter said to Jesus, “Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”—Matt. xix, 27, 28. Here are several indications of the time of enthronement. (1.) It is the time “when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory.” This phrase, “the throne of his glory,” is not used in the Scriptures to designate the invisible throne of majesty and power in the heavens, now occupied by the Son of man; but that revelation to men of his glory, of which he said to his disciples, “the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels.”—Matt. xvi, 27. To this time he expressly refers that throne. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.”—Matt. xxv, 31. So Paul declares that the Lord Jesus “shall judge the quick and the dead at his _appearing_ and his _kingdom_;” and in view of his own finished course, exults in the fact that, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a _crown_ of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me _at that day_; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love _his appearing_.”—2 Tim. iv, 1, 8. (2.) It is the time of the judgment. The apostles shall sit with him, judging the tribes of Israel. (3.) It is the period of “the regeneration.” Some expositors, indeed, refer this word to the preceding clause, which they read, “Ye which, in the regeneration, have followed me.” According to this reading, the regeneration means, the introduction of the gospel, as being the beginning of a new life to the world. But others understand, by it, the resurrection of the saints which precedes the final judgment of the world. According to this, which I take to be the true interpretation, the resurrection is called the regeneration, because, in it, the quickening power of the Holy Spirit, first experienced, in the renewing of the souls of believers, and in making their bodies his temples, will then take full possession of the whole man, quickening and transforming our vile bodies into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body, and reuniting soul and body in glory. In like manner, and at the same time, the work of “restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts iii, 21), will be accomplished. Beginning, as it does in the spiritual world, in the preaching and triumphs of the gospel, it will be consummate in the regeneration of the physical system, in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth.