Acts 26:8

No one dared to call in question the overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, which proclaimed Him to be the Christ, the Son of God; the only way of getting rid of it, therefore, was to pronounce it incredible. But why, asks the apostle, is it so judged?

CONCERNING the souls of our believing friends who have departed this life we suffer no distress, we feel sure that they are where Jesus is and behold His Glory according to our Lord's own memorable prayer. We know but very little of the disembodied state, but we know quite enough to rest certain beyond all doubt that— "They are supremely blest, Have done with sin, And care, and woe, And with their Savior rest." Our main trouble is about their bodies, which we have committed to the dark and lonesome grave. We cannot reconcile ourselves to the facts that their dear faces are being stripped of all their beauty by the fingers of decay and that all the insignia of their manhood should be fading into corruption. It seems hard that the hands and feet and all the goodly fabric of their noble forms should be dissolved into dust and broken into an utter ruin. We cannot stand at the grave without tears—even the perfect Man could not restrain His weeping at Lazarus' tomb. It is a sorrowful thought that our friends are dead, nor can we ever regard the grave with love. We cannot say that we take pleasure in the catacomb and the vault. We still regret, and feel it natural to do so, that so dreadful a ban has fallen upon our race as that it should be "appointed unto all men once to die." God sent it as a penalty and we cannot rejoice in it. The glorious doctrine of the resurrection is intended to take away this cause of sorrow! We need have no trouble about the body any more than we have concerning the soul. Faith being exercised upon immortality relieves us of all trembling as to the spirits of the just. And the same faith, if exercised upon resurrection, will, with equal certainty, efface all hopeless grief with regard to the body, for though apparently destroyed, the body will live again—it has not gone to annihilation.

CONCERNING the souls of our believing friends who have departed this life we suffer no distress, we feel sure that they are where Jesus is and behold His Glory according to our Lord's own memorable prayer. We know but very little of the disembodied state, but we know quite enough to rest certain beyond all doubt that— "They are supremely blest, Have done with sin, And care, and woe, And with their Savior rest." Our main trouble is about their bodies, which we have committed to the dark and lonesome grave.

Why should it be thought ... - The force of this question will be better seen by an exclamation point after why τί ti. “What! is it to be thought a thing incredible?” etc. It intimates surprise that it should be thought incredible, or implies that no reason could be given why such a doctrine should be unworthy of belief. A thing incredible - A doctrine which cannot be credited or believed. Why should it be regarded as absurd? With you - This is in the plural number, and it is evident that Paul here addressed, not Agrippa alone, but those who sat with him. There is no evidence that Agrippa doubled that the dead could be raised, but Festus, and those who were with him, probably did, and Paul, in the ardor of his speech, turned and addressed the entire assembly. It is very evident that we have only an outline of this argument, and there is every reason to suppose that Paul would dwell on each part of the subject at greater length than is here recorded. That God should raise the dead - Why should it be regarded as absurd that God - who has all power, who is the creator of all, who is the author of the human frame should again restore man to life and continue his future existence? The resurrection is no more incredible than the original creation of the body, and it is attended with no greater difficulties. And as the perfections of God will be illustrated by his raising up the dead; as the future state is necessary to the purposes of justice in vindicating the just and punishing the unjust, and as God is a righteous moral governor, it should not be regarded as an absurdity that he will raise up those who have died, and bring them to judgment.