Don't marvel at this, for the hour comes, in which all that are in the tombs will hear his voice,
      (1.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator's power to raise the dead and give life. See [1.] His authority to do it (John 5:21; John 5:21): As the Father raiseth up the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will. First, It is God's prerogative to raise the dead, and give life, even his who first breathed into man the breath of life, and so made him a living soul; see Deuteronomy 32:30; 1 Samuel 2:6; Psalms 68:20; Romans 4:17. This God had done by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and it was a confirmation of their mission. A resurrection from the dead never lay in the common road of nature, nor ever fell within the thought of those that studied only the compass of nature's power, one of whose received axioms was point blank against it: A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus--Existence, when once extinguished, cannot be rekindled. It was therefore ridiculed at Athens as an absurd thing, Acts 17:32. It is purely the work of a divine power, and the knowledge of it purely by divine revelation. This the Jews would own. Secondly, The Mediator is invested with this prerogative: He quickens whom he will; raises to life whom he pleases, and when he pleases. He does not enliven things by natural necessity, as the sun does, whose beams revive of course; but he acts as a free agent, has the dispensing of his power in his own hand, and is never either constrained, or restrained, in the use of it. As he has the power, so he has the wisdom and sovereignty, of a God; has the key of the grave and of death (Revelation 1:18), not as a servant, to open and shut as he is bidden, for he has it as the key of David, which he is master of, Revelation 3:7. An absolute prince is described by this (Daniel 5:19): Whom he would he slew or kept alive; it is true of Christ without hyperbole.