Q. 38.-"Can you give me some light on i Pet. 4:6?"

Ans.-It must be taken in connection with what immediately precedes it. The apostle has been speaking of the changed lives of the Christian converts, which exposed them to the reproaches of the Gentiles round; but they must give account to Him who was ready to judge both the living and the dead.

This leads him to speak, in the verse before us, of the uniform effect of the gospel wherever received, and in which they were one with all the saints departed. " For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead :" not, as some have strangely imagined, who were dead when they were preached to, but who are now dead,-"that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

The gospel had for its necessary result the bringing out of all the ways and thoughts of natural men (men in the flesh). And this exposed its converts to the false judgment' of such men. But according to God in the spirit they then really and for the first time lived:they had true, divine life, recognized and approved by Him. In this, the living saints only followed in the steps of those passed away ; and, in the nature of things, the opposition on the part of men must be,-it was only the expression of the opposition between their former and their present lives. F.W.G.