The Lord spoke these words to the Jews.  They would not believe that he was the Son of God.  They sought to kill him, not only because he had broken the Sabbath by healing a man on that day, but also because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.  In his reply to them he uttered some of the most wonderful truths the world has ever heard.  He said:  “THE DEAD SHALL HEAR.”

In the ear of a Jew these words had an ominous ring.  They could not gainsay them in a direct way, because the Lord had, that very day, and before their eyes, wrought a miracle which was almost equal to that of making a dead man hear.  It appears strange to us that any class of people could harbor feelings of enmity toward one so kind and good as Jesus was.  But the Jews were a very proud people, and exceedingly vain in their imaginations.  And because the Lord would not flatter them, and give them credit for great knowledge and wisdom in divine things, they fell out with him and hated him.

Jesus does not say that all the dead shall hear.  But he does mean that all shall have a chance and the power to hear if they will.  But who are the DEAD of whom he speaks?  They are all who are not spiritually alive; Jews and Gentiles.  The Scriptures in many places speak of men as dead who are bodily alive.  They are dead in one way, and alive in another.  I will explain this.  In respect to faith in the Lord and love to him, the Jews were dead.  There was no spiritual life in them.  Jewish worship was all an outward, external thing.  But God regards a man’s spirit, his heart.  “For they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

There stands a tree.  It is just now in full bloom, and the sight is beautiful.  A few months ago that tree was dead in one sense and alive in another.  It was winter-dead.  There were neither leaves, blossoms nor fruit upon it.  Had it continued in that state, it would be cut down as a worthless thing.  But it had a receptacle of life, and that life is in the sun which imparts heat and light to everything.  The sun makes the earth warm; the watery vapors to ascend and form clouds which give rain; the sap to rise and form itself into leaves, blossoms and fruits.  Every unconverted man and woman, just like that tree in winter, is dead as to all divine or heavenly life in the soul.  Let us see:  He is dead as to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  He does not love him.  He lives just as if there were no God to love and obey; no hell to shun; no heaven to obtain.  He does not love the people of God as such.  But, notwithstanding all this, he has a capacity, such as God has given to every man, to be made alive in Christ Jesus.  Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness.  He is so called because he, like the sun in our sky, rises and shines upon the evil and the good; and whosoever opens his heart to the light of this Sun is filled with the light of truth and love, and made alive to walk in the way of righteousness before him.