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p424 DEAR BROTHER, - I must answer Yes, and No. The Lord by His death has annulled his power (Heb. 2), but death is not yet formally abolished: it is the last enemy that will be. The church and the Christian ought to be out of Satan's power: Christ has so gotten the victory that those who are His when He comes will not die at all. Still in himself Satan remains, having the power of death, and death itself is not gone. Hence we read of delivering to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord; but the Christian is not properly under his power at all. Death belongs to him: Paul, Apollos, life, death, things present and things to come, But if he gets out of christian walk he may be subjected to it, yet not so as to be out of the control and reach of God's hand. We see the connection of God's chastening and Satan's power in Job. He is not yet bruised under our feet. When allowed he may have this power. "Satan shall cast some of you into prison." "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." . . . Hence, so far as we are not walking in the power of that life we may come under it, but not without God's hand who uses it for chastening.

November 26th, 1873.

[53312E]

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