AELW 5:150-151
"This is how one should also regard this fraud on the part of Jacob; for when the saints perpetrate a fraud and have a command of God in regard to it, then, although it is a fraud in the sight of men, yet it is a saintly, legitimate, and pious fraud. Therefore there is no need to ask and debate in what way and whether Jacob sinned, but one must consider that what he took away from his brother by fraud had previously been granted to him by divine authority. Thus in their wars the saints frequently deceived their enemies, but those are lies one is permitted to use in the service of God against the devil and the enemies of God.
Thus a fisherman deceives a fish by enticing it with bait, and it was not unreasonable on the part of the fathers to apply this to Christ. For He came into the world clothed in flesh and was cast into the water like a hook. After biting Him, the devil was suddenly pulled back out of the water by God, thrown on dry land, and crushed. This means that Christ presented to the devil His weak humanity, which covered that eternal and unconquerable majesty. Then the devil struck at the hook of His divinity, and by it all his power as well as the power of death and hell was overcome, as is stated in Col. 2:15: “He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in Him.” But Satan could rightly have complained that he had been shamefully deluded and deceived, since he had thought that he would kill a man and was himself being killed after being decoyed by Him into a trick. But by God’s wonderful counsel the same thing happened to him that is commonly said:“That cunning might deceive cunning.”
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