He not only led captivity captive, but He carried up into heaven His own
4. His burial was the next step.—Death had taken up its abode upon earth, and every sepulcher on its surface was one of his strongholds. Till death then be overcome in his very fortress,—till he be dispossessed out of his dwelling,—there can be no hope for earth. Mortality would still reign. But Christ went down and fought the lion in his den. From his lair He drove him out; and in demonstration of His victory He compelled him to let go a company of saints, who, when He rose, rose with Him as an earnest of His final victory over death, and of the expulsion from earth of the last enemy which had hitherto wasted it. By death the Prince of life overcame death; and in His burial He was pursuing the routed foe, and compelling him to deliver up his prey. Thus did He commence the expulsion from earth of that mortality and corruption which had defaced it so sadly. 5. His resurrection was the next step.—Wresting His own body from the dominion of death, He showed how ere long He is to wrest, not only the bodies of His saints, but the whole creation, from the bondage of corruption. If He on whom sin was laid, and who on account of that load went down to the grave, thus threw off mortality, and shook Himself free from its fetters, brining life and immortality to light, how certainly may we conclude that He is able to do the same thing for that creation which was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who had subjected the same in hope! Christ's resurrection not only proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power, but also the Prince of the kings of the earth. 6. His ascension into heaven was the next step.—When He ascended, He not only led captivity captive, but He carried up into heaven His own body as the representative of earth. That body is now at the Father's right hand, the pledge of earth's security and final glory. An ascended Christ is earth's great pledge of restitution, and another step of the process towards the accomplishment of the purpose of God. That portion of earth which, in His body, He has carried up into heaven, proclaims to the inhabitants of