I. IN THE MOVE OF CHRIST DURING HIS BURIAL
A. The Crucifixion of Christ
Having Put Christ to Death
Only in His Flesh and Not in His Spirit
The crucifixion of Christ put Christ to death only in His flesh, in His body, and not in His spirit. His spirit was committed into the hands of the Father at His expiration (Luke 23:46). On the one hand, men killed Christ’s body; on the other hand, Christ committed His spirit into the hands of God. God renewed and empowered His spirit. Then Christ entered into Hades to proclaim God’s victory in Him on the cross to the imprisoned, rebellious angels. Before you and I heard about the crucifixion of Christ, those imprisoned angels had already heard it. The proclamation of Christ, of His victory for God on the cross, was proclaimed to those rebellious angels as a shame to them.
B. His Spirit Having Been Made Alive,
Enlivened, with New Power of Life
As we have seen, Christ’s spirit was made alive, enlivened, with new power of life, so that in this empowered spirit He made a proclamation to the fallen angels after His death in the flesh and before His resurrection (1 Pet. 3:19-20a). He was put to death in the flesh, but His spirit never died. This is a part of the history of God’s move in humanity.
We cannot fully understand these things because they are a mystery. Even the things related to our physical body are mysterious and not able to be fully understood. In light of this, consider how much more difficult it is to understand the mysterious death and burial of Christ. Christ died in the flesh but still lives in His spirit. In this renewed, empowered, and strengthened spirit He went down to Hades, where the rebellious angels at Noah’s time were imprisoned, to proclaim to them how God had achieved the victory through Him in His death.
(The Move of God in Man, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee)
