I. These words describe the part of our Lord's work which was not to be confined to His own personal agency; and this invites us to consider that other parts of His work were to be confined to His own personal agency. This is so; the work of a perfect righteousness wrought by man in absolute conformity to all the requirements of the law of God, and justifying righteousness which can stand the scrutiny of the Divine judgment this was His work, and His alone. We never find Him telling His followers to go and offer a sacrifice for sin; but we do find Him telling them to go and preach the glad tidings. The preparation was His, and His alone; the proclamation was His, but not His alone. We cannot work deliverance; we can but preach it. He wrought it, finished it, and left it for us to preach. It is a daring invasion of His office to presume to add to the preparation; and it is disobedience to His orders not to proclaim what He has prepared.
II. "Captives." This captivity commenced in the fountain of the human family before any stream had flowed forth from it. The first man, before he had any offspring, had become the slave and captive to sin; he had incurred the consequences, the fatal consequences, of slavery. The great slave-holder is Satan, the enemy of God and man. He uses the world and the flesh, and see how he drags the captives through the mire. And in proportion as a man's conscience is awakened, and his sin known to be unpardoned, he is a slave.
III. Where is deliverance? This is our glorious message; Jesus Christ alone has deliverance. And mark how it is applied. Captivity began by the violation of the law of God, which is sin. He that committeth sin becomes a slave. The deliverance commences by obedience to the law of God. A man disobeyed, and all men fell. God Himself must obey, or no man can rise again. Deliverance commences thus in perfect obedience by a man to the law of the living God. Now, this is just what our blessed Redeemer and Saviour did. As man, He perfectly obeyed the law of God. There is a righteousness, a perfect righteousness, wrought by Him that can stand the scrutiny of the judgment of Almighty God. That is the beginning of deliverance. The captivity had become fatal by reason of the penalty incurred by disobedience; there was a curse, and the deliverance must therefore proceed by the removal of the curse. The curse must be inflicted, for God is true; the penalty must be endured, for the truth of God endureth for ever. Here, again, Jesus Christ is the Deliverer. He took it upon Himself. This is the deliverance we have to preach. Preached, it is the testimony of God's love to the world; believed, it is the renewal of every man that receives it; disbelieved, it is a witness against the man that he rejects the counsel of God.
H. McNeile, Penny Pulpit,No. 290.