of our infirmities, but was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.” Our judge is chosen, because he knows our frame, he understands sympathetically our temptations, is able to make allowances for all infirmities and weaknesses of humanity, and for all trials of life, and able, also, to measure at their true worth the false excuses with which we endeavor to excuse ourselves to ourselves and to our fellows. Other explanations, for which in detail see Meyer, as that judgment is a necessary part of redemption, or that it belongs to Christ as the Messiah, or that it is given to him as a reward for accepting the humility of human nature, seem to me to be inadmissible. Judgment is not a part of redemption; it is in no true sense redemptive; the phrase _a_ son of man never means the Messiah; and it would be no reward to a tender and loving nature to exercise judgment, except as it afforded an opportunity for the exercise of mercy in judgment. 28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29 And shall come forth; they[183] that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.[184] [183] Dan. 12:2. [184] Matt. 25:46. =28, 29. Marvel not at this.= Not only because the greater wonder absorbs the less (_Meyer_), but also because there is nothing strange in the declaration that he who is to be the final judge of all flesh should exercise judgment now on men, and he who is to be the final resurrection and the life should be the resurrection and the life in the spiritual realm now.--=For the hour is coming.= He does not add _and now is_, for now he is speaking not of a present resurrection, but of one to take place only in the future.--=All that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.= A voice like the sound of a trumpet (Rev. 1:10), and like the sound of many waters (Rev. 1:15), that is, like the roar of the ocean for fullness and power. Comp. 1 Thess. 4:16. The entire language is highly figurative. If literally interpreted it would seem to imply a bodily resurrection, and it is apparently so understood by some of the commentators, _e. g._, Alford and Olshausen; but it is evident that it cannot be literally interpreted. Thus the dead do not in a literal sense hear his voice; their arousing is not that of literal sleepers who have been awakened by a voice. The doctrine that death is a sleep, that the soul remains in an unconscious state till the resurrection, and that the life is then anew given to the soul simultaneously with the re-creation of the body from the dust, is so inconsistent with the plain teaching of Scripture in many passages (see 1 Cor. 15:36-38, 50, 51), that it cannot be sustained by doubtful interpretations of pictorial passages like the present one. How little ground there is