" For as the just go before the unjust in name and dignity
and honor, so they shall, in the last day, go before them in the
resurrection.
Now then, when the saints have risen out of their graves, given up
their accounts, received their glory, and are set upon their
thrones--when they are all of them in their royal apparel, with
crowns of glory, every one presenting the person of a king, then
come the unjust out of their graves, to receive their judgment for
what they have done in the body. "We must all appear before the
judgment-seat of Christ, that every one," both saints and sinners,
"may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath
done, whether it be good or bad."
"And the windows," or floodgates, "of heaven were opened." This
opening of the floodgates of heaven was a type of the way that shall
be made for the justice of God upon ungodly men, when Christ has
laid aside his mediatorship; for he indeed is the sluice that stops
this justice of God from its dealing according to its infinite power
and severity with men. He stands like Moses, and as it were holdeth
the hands of God. Oh, but when he shall be taken away, when he shall
have finished his mediatorial work, then will the floodgates of
heaven be opened, and then will the justice and holiness of God deal
with men without stint or diminution, even till it has filled the
vessels of wrath with vengeance till they run over.
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