and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 15. The devil, by exciting men to sin, made them liable to a temporal and eternal death? he was, therefore, the prince of death, both as to soul and body. Jesus Christ, the life and source of life, has by his death destroyed sin and vanquished the devil; he has, at once, triumphed over the prince of death, and death itself; and by the assurance which he has given us of eternal life, has delivered us from the terrible apprehensions of dying. To a good Christian, death is the termination of misery and the beginning of eternal happiness; why, therefore, should we be afraid to die? We ought rather, with Saint Paul, to say: I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.