The King Who Went into the Prison

So it is with no loss or lessening of his divine nature that Christ suffers in the flesh. His divine nature went down through the flesh into death, so that by the weakness of the flesh he might bring about salvation. It was not so that he might be held by death under the law of mortality, but so that by himself, in his resurrection, he might open the gates of death. It is as if a king were to go to a prison, go in and open the doors, undo the shackles, break the chains, the bars and the bolts to pieces, bring out the prisoners and set them free, and restore those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to light and life. The king, then, is indeed said to have been in prison, but not on the same terms as the prisoners held there. They were in prison to be punished; he was there to free them from punishment. [a]