Christ in obedience subjects Himself to the last and absolute putting forth of Satan's whole power over men and in death, a power sustained too by the pronounced judgment of God. But it is with the former we have to do here, though it were nothing without this latter. But the prince of this world was judged. By death Christ brought to naught the power of him who had the power of death. In the resurrection He comes up in that power of life which left no trace of Satan's power behind. Indeed, according to His trust in Jehovah, no corruption passed upon Him, no moment's trace of anything that was not the power of the Holy Ghost. He gave Himself up to death, His spirit to His Father, and never saw corruption. In Him, so to speak, resurrection and transmutation were united. In resurrection, according to divine righteousness, He took the condition to which power belonged in grace. He died and rose that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living, being competent and having the title to have all power in heaven and in earth.
In the passage we are considering, His ascension is not touched on, but His coming forth from the whole result of Satan's power through sin, through the work which gave Him the place and power of man in the new estate in which the power of God would place Him. He is the first-begotten from the dead, the Man who has made good, in this final and conclusive conflict, the title of God in spite of sin, and against sin; and baffled all Satan's apparent success, so that God is perfectly glorified in respect of that in which man has dishonored Him, and in which, so to speak, to the creature's view, all that God was, all His moral glory, was brought into question. Christ has taken thus the place divinely prepared for man, the headship of man according to God, the whole question of good and evil having been resolved by His subjugation to the whole power of evil in death (in life He had ever kept it at a distance in the power of the Holy Ghost), and, divine judgment being glorified, made it possible, yea necessary, for God to bring up Him (and, blessed be God! all in Him) into the perfect place of blessing, where divine goodness could have its absolute flow, and that in righteousness—yea as due to Christ, and so to others as redeemed. But here, we take it as the place of power and right, according to God's counsels, in man. The head of every man is Christ, and He will take all men out of the power of death, and Satan's power, though for the wicked it will be for judgment. He is the first-begotten from the dead. J. N. D.
N.B.—It is hoped that Scripture Imagery may be resumed soon, D.V.