Isaiah 61:1
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
THE EDICT OF EMANCIPATION
‘To proclaim liberty to the captives.’
It is a blessed name of Jesus, and as true as it is blessed—the Liberator.
I. As in Him there was no sin, He never indeed could know the worst of all bondage—the bondage of the spirit to the flesh.
II. And all Christ did, and all Christ was, upon this earth—His whole mission—was essentially either to teach or to give liberty.—His preaching was, for the most part, to change the constraint of law into the largeness of love.
III. When Christ burst through all the tombs—the moral tombs and the physical tombs in which we all lay buried—and when He went out into life and glory, He was not Himself alone; He was at that moment the covenanted Head of a mystical body, and all that body rose with Him.