IN the fifth chapter of Judges it is written, "Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive;" while in his letter to the Ephesians Paul says of Christ Jesus, "When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." Nothing more majestic than this statement can be found in the elder Scriptures, nothing more inspiring, save the words of Christ Jesus, has been uttered in all history.
To lead captivity captive compasses the full measure of salvation, completes the sum of individual ascension above all the discords of earth. Captivity led captive means all mental and moral servitude abolished, all temptations and torments quenched. It means the sick one raised from his helplessness, the sinner cleansed from his sin, the fearful and discouraged one loosed from his burden, the prisoner to self set free. It means the worldling chaining his appetites, the self-lover being transformed to an altruist, the tyrant becoming the servant of mankind. The binding of captivity means the direct reversal of all that makes for mourning, the ultimate conquest of all the asserted evil of the human mind, and such ascendency of good in personal and general affairs as shall cause God's will to be done, "in earth, as it is in heaven." As individuals and nations rise to lead their captivity captive, the vision of St. John, in which "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain," will come to possess active daily experience, and all things will indeed be made new.
The tear-stained history of the generations of mortals might lead to the belief that captivity to evil is inevitable, were it not for the clear line of escape from it evident in the lives of the prophets who preceded Christ Jesus, in the experiences of the disciples who followed him, and in the matchless victories of the Master himself. Under careful analysis, two reasons for the captivity of the mortal stand forth clearly: the one, an unwillingness to acknowledge the captivity as captivity, inasmuch as thought endeavors to believe that it is "all for some good purpose" and to encourage resignation to it; and the other, an actual ignorance of the hidden methods of the captor, and a consequent inability to cope with the situation in any satisfying way.
