Chapter 12 (part 8)

2 "It is erroneous to suppose that the soul of Christ had left the body and had travelled down to hell, and that it had there, in divine power, attacked the devils and bound them with chains, and thus destroyed hell. It is rather to be understood that at the moment at which Christ laid off the kingdom of this world His soul entered into death and the wrath of God, and thus was the wrath reconciled in love. Thus the devils and all the godless souls in the wrath were imprisoned within themselves, and death was broken up; but the life sprang forth through death." ( Three Principles , xxv. 76.) "Death was wrestling with the external (life of) man, and thought that now the soul would have to remain in the Turba; but there was a stronger power within the soul, namely, the Word of God. This Word captured death and destroyed it, and extinguished the wrath. It was a great poison to hell when the light entered within it, and thus the Spirit of Christ imprisoned the devil, and led him out of the soul-fire into the darkness, and locked him up in the darkness, in wrathful harshness and bitterness." ( Forty Questions , xxxvii. 13–15.) p. 258 "By the power of the celestial tincture God ignited the fire that had become dark within the essence of the soul, so that henceforth that fire began to burn in white, clear, and majestic power, in light and glory, and thus the wrath of God became extinguished in the essence of the soul and was made into love." ( Tilk . ii. 259.) "The soul of Christ came with the light of God into the wrath, and then the devils trembled; for the light imprisoned the wrath, so that it became a paradise, while the wrath remained in hell. The light closed up the principle of hell, so that no devil is permitted to show himself in the light. He is also blind relatively to it, and the light is his terror and shame." ( Three Principles , xxv. 79.) Thus, in consequence of the bodily death of Christ, the holy ones of olden times who had longed for His coming attained resurrection. 1 "The holy ones, having put their faith into the Messiah, received now the pure element for a new body, according to the promise. For, as the promised hero entered through life into death, their souls clothed themselves in the body of Christ as in a new body, and lived in Him through His power. These were the holy fathers and prophets who in this world had been anointed in the power of the Word of God with the bruiser of the serpent's head, and who by its power had prophesied and performed miracles. They now became alive in the power of Christ." ( Three Principles , xxiv. 52.) "The fathers of the Jews had known Christ not in the flesh, but only in His prototype, and they had clothed themselves therein only in its power by means of the first p. 259 incorporated covenant and word; but now they clothed themselves in His substance, for all those who had put their faith in Him, and had clothed themselves in the covenant in spirit, in these the covenant was then filled with celestial substantiality. Thus there were many who were raised with Him after His resurrection, and they caused themselves to be seen at Jerusalem, in testimony that they had been raised up in Christ." ( Grace , x. 45.) This conquest of hell and death was accompanied by certain phenomena upon the earth, indicating the approaching destruction of the whole terrestrial world. 1 "As the prisons of the dark world were to be destroyed in the death of Christ, the earth trembled and the sun became darkened, which symbolised that, as now the eternal light had been born anew, the temporal light would have to cease to exist." ( Grace , vii.