328 I. CORINTHIANS 15, 24.

should be explained by what is clearly taught in the latter. Secondly, it is clearly taught in the gospels and epistles that the resurrection of the righteous and of the wicked is to be contemporaneous. At least, that is the mode in which the subject is always presented. The element of time (i. e. the chronological succession of the events) may indeed in these representations be omitted, as is so often the case in the pro- phecies of the Old Testament. But unless it can be proved from other sources, that events which are foretold as contem- poraneous, or as following the one the other in immediate suc- cession, are in fact separated by indefinite periods of time, no such separation can properly be assumed. In the evangelists and epistles the resurrection of the righteous and that of the wicked are spoken of as contemporaneous, and since their sep- aration in time is nowhere else revealed, the only proper in- ference is that they are to occur together. In Matt. 24, 3, the coming of Christ and the end of the world are coupled to- gether as contemporaneous. And throughout that chapter our Lord foretells what is to happen before that event, and adds, " Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven . . . and he shall send his angels with the sound of a great trumpet, and they shall gather together the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other," vs. 30. 31. In John 5, 28. 29 it is said, "The hour is coming when all (good and bad) who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." In 2 Thess. 1, 7-10, Christ is said to come to take vengeance on those who obey not the gospel, and to be glorified in the saints. These events go together. Besides, our Lord repeatedly says that he will raise up his people " at the last day," John 6, 39. 40. 11, 24, and therefore not an indefinitely long period before the last day. According to the uniform representations of the Scrip- tures, when Christ comes he is to raise all the dead and sepa- rate the wicked from among the just as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Or, according to another figure, he is to send forth his angels and separate the tares from the wheat. It has therefore been the constant faith of the church that the second advent of Christ, the resurrection of the just and of the unjust, the final judgment and end of the world — are parts of one great transaction, and not events which are to succeed each other at long intervals of time. All this, however, is said