MY DEAR BROTHER:-I know it is asserted by some, and pretty strongly too, that the Lord Jesus, at His death, entered the unseen world and liberated the Old Testament saints, who were supposed to be the captives, and who had been imprisoned there till then, and thus He led captive "a multitude of captives " (Eph, 4).This and other strange ideas are held about this passage of Scripture, but I consider them all to be mistaken. If Old Testament saints are in view at all, they must have been in that blissful part of the unseen world described as " Abraham's bosom " (Luke 16). Where, then, did the Lord take these captives to ? for certainly they have not got resurrection bodies yet. What, then, did they get that they had not before ?Or, where could they have been before, and why captives ? And if captives to death, that could only be as to their bodies; and are they not still that till the first resurrection ? Indeed, the idea is simply absurd on the face of it, and bristles with insurmountable difficulties.

To me the passage simply means that " captivity " is death. Death held men in captivity; and when the blessed Lord died, and rose from the dead, He took captivity captive; He conquered death; and death is now His captive. He has "the keys of death and hades" (Rev. i). " Through death He has annulled him that had the power of death, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage " (Heb. 2). Ver. 9 of that chapter (Eph. 4) says, " He descended first into the lower parts of the earth," 1:e., He went down into death, and annulled death, so that even Christians can say, " Death is ours." Death is Christ's captive, and has no power. So that when He comes to claim His own, death will not be able to keep the bodies of His saints-"the dead in Christ shall rise first" (i Thess. 4).

I know we are referred to the marginal reading in our Bibles, which gives " a multitude of captives." But the New Translation does not give it so; and the manifest teaching of the passage, too, is against it. I think it is a blessed thought that the Lord has taken death captive and robbed it of its power, and given gifts to men, so as to minister to the needs of His own, and thus secure the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of His body," till we reach the end of the journey; and then, when He comes for His own, death is already conquered and captive, and must remain silent while He takes the bodies of His saints out from among the dead. It is not taking captives captive, but captivity captive. Yours affectionately in Christ. W. Easton