Ephesians 4:8 “Captives” - OT Saints (WMB) or Christ’s enemies?
Ephesians 4:8 “Captives” - OT Saints (WMB) or Christ’s enemies? (Corresponding verses) Psalm 68:8 leading a host of captives in your train Col. 2:15 AMP When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities [those supernatural forces of evil operating against us], He made a public example of them [exhibiting them as captives in His triumphal procession], having triumphed over them through the cross.“He led His captives into captivity” (TCNT). “With captives in His train” (NEB). “Took prisoners” (Beck). “he took captivity captive” (ESV). “he led a host of prisoners captive” (Mounce).
“Jesus led captivity captive,” and here He comes, with the Old Testament saints. “Jesus, a Conqueror, led captive captive,” them that had believed on Him, and the Word had come to them. There, the OT saints laying in there, waiting, “He led captive captive; ascended on High,” took the OT saints and went in. There is one Rapture, already passed.” William Branham 1965-1204 - The Rapture
“Thou hast led captivity captive” - The meaning of this idiom seems simply to be-Thou hast mustered or reviewed Thy captives. Judges 5:12; Gesenius, sub voce. The allusion is to a triumphal procession in which marched the persons taken in war.” “The prisoners plainly belong to the enemy whom He had defeated, and by whom His people had long been subjugated. This is the natural order of ideas-having beaten His foes, He makes captives of them. The earlier fathers viewed the captives as persons who had been enslaved by Satan-as Satan's prisoners, whom Jesus restored to liberty. But such an idea is not in harmony with the imagery employed, nor can it be defended by any philological instances or analogies. On the contrary, Christ's subjugation of His enemies has a peculiar prominence in the Messianic oracles; Ps 110:1; Is 53:12; 1 Cor 15:25; Col 2:15; and in many other places.”— John Eadie's Commentary
“Ver. 8. He led captivity captive, &c.] As in the Roman triumphs, the victor ascended up to the Capitol in a chariot of state, the prisoners following on foot with their hands bound behind, and they threw certain pieces of coin abroad, to be picked up by the common people; so Christ in the day of his solemn inauguration into his heavenly kingdom, triumphed over sin, death, and hell, Colossians 2:15, and gave gifts to men.”--John Trapp Complete Commentary
“captivity — that is, a band of captives. In the Psalm, the captive foes of David. In the antitypical meaning, the foes of Christ the Son of David, the devil, death, the curse, and sin (Colossians 2:15; 2 Peter 2:4), led as it were in triumphal procession as a sign of the destruction of the foe.” —Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
“he led captivity captive; which is expressive of Christ's conquests and triumph over sin, Satan, the world, death, and the grave; and indeed, every spiritual enemy of his and his people, especially the devil, who leads men captive at his will, and is therefore called captivity, and his principalities and powers, whom Christ has spoiled and triumphed over; the allusion is to the public triumphs of the Romans, in which captives were led in chains, and exposed to open view.” --John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible
“Christ is represented as the mighty conqueror, leading in his train of captives "captivity" itself, a personification of all of the bondage which oppresses human life, such as "captivity to death," the imprisonment of our mortality, "the captivity to sin" (2 Timothy 2:26), etc.”
—Coffman Commentaries on the Bible