p. 167 | CRITICAL NOTES by C. C. L.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 17, 1885

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 11

CRITICAL NOTES.

By C. C. L.

The remarks under the numbers following apply to the propositions and texts under the corresponding numbers in the “Analysis.”

The comments of Dean Alford upon this are so appropriate and so fully in accord with views of Seventh-day Adventists that they are quoted entire:—

The strong man is the adversary, Satan; who rules this present world. John 12:31; 16:11. His goods, or tools, or spoils, are the sons of men. 2 Tim. 2:26; 1 John 5:19 (margin). With these is he clothed and armed, i. e., with their evil capacities, which he furnishes and brightens for his own use. With this armor of the Devil compare by way of contrast the “whole armor of God.” Eph. 6:11–20. Without these arms and tools he would be powerless; for the evil one must have evil men—something positive of evil—to work upon. But these the stronger than he takes from him, and divides his spoils. Isa. 53:12. He divides his spoils—to his own use and that of his followers—all good which the enemy had corrupted into

The Stronger had already come into the strong man’s house—the Saviour, into the world—and was robbing him of his captives, and making them his own disciples; e. g., Mary Magdalene and others. But the work was not fully complete yet, till the Lord, by and in his death, overcame him that had the power of death, i. e., the Devil. And his great victory is still proceeding; he is still taking from him one and another, rescuing the sons of men by the power of His gospel, till the end, when He shall (Rev. 20:1 following) bind him in the abyss; and though loosed for the final conflict by his sufferance, be cast, him overthrown, into the lake of fire for ever. Rev. 20:14.”—Alford’s notes on Luke 11.

Thy seed and her seed.—“By the seed of the woman is to be understood all wicked men, who are called serpents, generation of vipers, children of their father, the Devil; and as the seed of the woman is set in opposition to these, it must necessarily follow, since Eve is the natural mother of good men and bad men, that it denotes a mixed portion of the human race, including first chiefly the Lord Jesus Christ, who in allusion to this promise is called by way of eminence the seed (Gal. 3:16, 19), who came ‘to destroy the works of the Devil’ (Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8); and secondly, all the members of Christ, his true people, the sincerely pious in every age and country. . . . The warfare between these contending parties now commenced, which has ever since been kept up, and will continue till a complete victory over the Devil and his angels shall be obtained by Christ and his people. It shall bruise thy head.—Hebrew, ‘He shall bruise, smite, or crush thee as to thy head,’ the masculine he denoting that Christ is more especially to be understood by the seed here spoken of. It was to be in consequence of his sufferings and death, and the power with which he was to be invested as Mediator, that the power of Satan was to be broken and a signal victory obtained over him.”—Prof. George Bush, vol. 1, p. 84.

3. The argument of which Heb. 2:14 is the climax begins with the fifth verse. If the reader will take his Bible, and carefully study the chapter as the points of the argument are stated, he may see more clearly its force and beauty. Verse 5 declares that the future world, the subject of discourse, is not put in subjection to angels. Verses 6–8 show that this dominion was predicated of man in the Old Testament. If all things were put under him, then there could be nothing which was not put under him. Verse 8. It was, therefore, God’s original design that man should have dominion over all things. Nevertheless, in the present state we do not see all things under him. To the future we must look, therefore, for the fulfillment of God’s plans in this respect. But we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels [as man was, ver. 7], because of his death crowned with glory and honor [as man was originally, and would have remained, had he not sinned, ver. 7].

In verses 10, 11, it is shown to be becoming that Christ, who died to bring many sons of God to the glory they had lost, should be perfected through sufferings, seeing that he must share with those whom he is to sanctify, in dependence on a common Father. Verses 12, 13 give Scriptural proof of this common dependence by presenting instances where Christ calls those who are sanctified, brethren, children, etc. Finally, in verse 14 we come to the proof that he who was to be the Leader of the salvation of these many sons by trusting and suffering like them, must himself become man like them, in order for his death to have any efficacy towards his purpose. “The death of Christ brought to naught the agency of the Devil in death, because Christ’s death, being not the penalty of his own sin, but the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, all those who by faith are united to him can now look on death no longer as the penalty for sin. . . . But for those who are not united to Him, death, retaining its character of a punishment for sin, retains also therewith all its manifold terrors.”—Dean Alford. The text also proves that the Devil himself will be destroyed through the death of Christ.

C. C. L.