Ques. 16.-Could the Lord Jesus be said to have been in the power of the devil during the three days and nights of His burial, or ever at any time ? Would not such a doctrine destroy the truth itself and deny His words to the converted thief, "To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise ? " In this connection, what is the meaning of Psalm 22:21, " Save me from the lion's mouth" ?

Ans.-We do not think it scriptural to say that our blessed Lord was ever in the power of the devil. We was, notably at His temptation and at the cross, subjected to the assaults of Satan; but this is very far from saying He was in his power. When He was delivered into the hands of wicked men to be crucified and slain, all the malice and hatred of hell were concentrated against Him. But all was in vain. The very death in which evil seemed to triumph was the victory over the devil; "that through death He might destroy (annul, Gk.) him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14). A vanquished foe can have no more power. The strong man is bound. " Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15). The preceding verse shows that the cross was the subject. By that He made a spoil of principalities and powers, as by that He took away the law of commandments contained in ordinances. But if the cross was the victory over Satan, how could the grave be said to be in his power ?

Again, after the cry, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," at the close of the three hours of darkness, our Lord "yielded up the ghost," or, as more correctly rendered, " dismissed His Spirit" (Matt. 27:46, 50). As a result of His forsaking, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. How absolutely impossible to think of the way into the holiest being opened, and of the body of Him who opened it being afterwards under the power of the devil! Then, as has been noticed in the question, He says to the thief, "To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise." How impossible to think of His being with the Father during those three days, and His body in the power of Satan! Or to hear Him commend His spirit into the Father's hands, while His body was to be in the devil's power! (Luke 23:46). Or, after He had declared the accomplishment of redemption in the words, "It is finished" (John 19:30), to pass, as to His body, under the dominion of the devil!

True He laid down His life, and His spotless body lay for three days in the grave. But it was not because there remained aught to be done, but to prove the reality of what had been accomplished. But while He lay in the grave, He saw no corruption. " It was not possible that He should be holden of death" (Acts 2:24). His body lay there, in His grace-as all that He did was in grace-to show how completely and entirely He had accomplished the work the Father gave Him to do. The devil had nothing to do with that holy body.

At the cross our Lord did not have to do with Satan nor with man, though both were there, but with God! about sin. The accompanying jeers and evil treatment and satanic hatred are as nothing compared with the bearing of wrath. He suffered without the gate-the hiding of God's face.

True He cried "Save me from the lion's mouth"-the malice and power of Satan, and man too – but the cry is not for the danger so much as for the absence of God. He, our adorable Lord, could at any moment have delivered Himself; the point of the cry all through the first part of Psalm 22:was that what God had always done for the righteous, He now fails to do for His spotless Son. The blessed reason we know. But the lion's mouth was before, not after death, and even before death the anguish seems to pass, the worst is over, and calmly into His Father's hands He commends His Spirit.

We believe, then, it would be most foreign to the Scripture to speak of our Lord's body after redemption was accomplished, being in the devil's power.