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19. It is not then difficult to see that the devil was conquered,
when he who was slain by Him rose again. It is something more, and
more profound of comprehension, to see that the devil was conquered
when he thought himself to have conquered, that is, when Christ was
slain. For then that blood, since it was His who had no sin at all,
was poured out for the remission of our sins; that, because the devil
deservedly held those whom, as guilty of sin, he bound by the
condition of death,he might deservedly loose them through Him, whom,
as guilty of no sin, the punishment of death undeservedly affected.
The strong man was conquered by this righteousness, and bound with
this chain, that his vessels might be spoiled, which with himself and
his angels had been vessels of wrath while with him, and might be
turned into vessels of mercy. For the Apostle Paul tells us, that
these words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself were spoken from heaven
to him when he was first called. For among the other things which he
heard, he speaks also of this as said to him thus: "For I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a
witness both of these things which thou hast seen from me, and of those
things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the
people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,to open
the eyes of the blind, and to turn them from darkness [to light],
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified,
and faith that is in me." And hence the same apostle also, exhorting
believers to the giving of thanks to God the Father, says: "Who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into
the kingdom of His dear Son: in whom we have redemption, even the
forgiveness of sins." In this redemption, the blood of Christ was
given, as it were, as a price for us, by accepting which the devil
was not enriched, but bound: that we might be loosened from his
bonds, and that he might not with himself involve in the meshes of
sins, and so deliver to the destruction of the second and eternal
death, any one of those whom Christ, free from all debt, had
redeemed by pouring out His own blood unindebtedly; but that they who
belong to the grace of Christ, foreknown, and predestinated, and
elected before the foundation of the world? should only so far die as
Christ Himself died for them, i.e. only by the death of the flesh,
not of the spirit.
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