THE JUDGE OF QUICK AND DEAD.
By Uriah Smith
PETER says in Acts 10:42, that Jesus was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. Again he says in his first epistle, 4:5, “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.” Do not these expressions show that the Judgment is to take place while the dead are still in their graves and there are people still living on the earth, and that it is consequently a definite event to take place in the future, and not one that has been taking place all along in the past history of the race? But how can this be if men are judged when they die and are not judged till they die? Would not the Judgment then be the Judgment of the dead alone? But he is the Judge of the quick or living at the same time that he is the Judge of the dead. In the Judgment with which the work in the Sanctuary closes, we have the place for the fulfillment of these texts. In this Judgment is involved the investigation of character, and the decision of cases, and it is one which must precede the coming of Christ.