Colossians 2:15

And having spoiled; some render it, seeing he hath stripped or made naked, as runners and racers used to put off their clothes. Principalities and powers; hence some of the ancients read putting off his flesh (possibly by the carelessness of some scribes, writing that which signifies flesh instead of that which signifies principalities, in all the authentic copies); but besides that Christ hath not put off the human nature, only the infirmities of the flesh, 2 Corinthians 5:16 Hebrews 5:7, it doth not agree with what follows. One conceits that by principalities and powers are meant the ceremonies of the law, because of the Divine authority they originally had; and that Christ unclothed or unveiled them, and showed them to be misty figures that were accomplished in his own person. But I see no reason thus to allegorize, for it is easy to discern the word is borrowed from conquering warriors having put to flight and disarmed their enemies, (as the word may well signify disarming, in opposition to arming, Romans 13:12 Ephesians 6:11,14), and signifies here, that Christ disarmed and despoiled the devil and his angels, with all the powers of darkness. We have seen that by principalities and powers are meant angels, Colossians 1:16, with Romans 8:37 Ephesians 1:21; and here he means evil ones, in regard of that power they exercise in this world under its present state of subjection to sin and vanity, Luke 4:6 1 Thessalonians 12:31 2 Corinthians 4:4 Ephesians 2:2, Ephesians 6:12 2 Timothy 2:26; whom Christ came to destroy, and effectually did on his cross defeat, Luke 11:22 1 Thessalonians 16:11 1 Corinthians 15:55 Hebrews 2:14 1 John 3:8; delivering his subjects from the power of darkness, Colossians 1:13, according to the first promise, Genesis 3:15. He made a show of them openly; yea, and Christ did, as an absolute conqueror, riding as it were in his triumphal chariot, publicly show that he had vanquished Satan and all the powers of darkness, in the view of heaven and earth, Luke 10:17,18. Triumphing over them; even then and there where Satan thought he should alone have had the day by the death of the innocent Jesus, was he and his adherents triumphed over by the Lord of life, to their everlasting shame and torment. What the papists would gather hence, that Christ did, in this triumphant show upon the cross, carry the souls of the patriarchs out of their Limbus, i.e. their appointment to hell, is a mere unscriptural fiction; for those that he made show of in his victorious chariot are the very same that he spoiled to their eternal ignominy and confusion. In it: some render this, (as in the margin), in himself, or by himself, i.e. by his own power and virtue and not by the help of any other; the prophet saith he trod the winepress alone, and had not any of the people with him, Isaiah 63:3: yet it seems here better to adhere to our own translation, in it, considering what went before of his cross, that he triumphed over Satan on it or by it, because the death that he there suffered was the true and only cause of his triumphs; there he trod Satan under his feet, there he set his seed at liberty, and they who go about to bereave them of it, and bring them into bondage, do no other than restore to Satan his spoils.