Scripture Daily

Context No. 1529 of 4322 · Colossians

Context · Reflection

Colossians 1:9-14: in context

9For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, 11strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy, 12giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, 13who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, 14in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.

Paul prays for the Colossians without ceasing, that they may be filled with the knowledge of God's will, walk worthily of the Lord, bear fruit in every good work, and be strengthened for endurance with joy. And he gives thanks to the Father, who has qualified them to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, who has delivered them from the domain of darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom they have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The heart of Paul's thanksgiving is a completed rescue and relocation: God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Notice the past tense; this is not something hoped for or being worked toward but something already done. For those who belong to Christ, a decisive transfer has already taken place. We have been delivered out of the domain of darkness, the realm and rule under which we once lived, and moved into the kingdom of the Son God loves, a different realm altogether, with a different ruler and a different citizenship. This is not merely an improvement of our old situation but a change of kingdoms; we have been carried out of one dominion and set down in another. There is great assurance in that already-accomplished transfer. Our belonging to Christ's kingdom does not depend on our achieving it; it has been done, God has transferred us, and we are now citizens of the kingdom of the Son he loves. When the darkness seems to reassert its claim, when we feel the pull of the old dominion, we can remember that we have been transferred out of it; it is no longer our realm, no longer where we belong. And in that new kingdom we have, Paul says, redemption, the forgiveness of sins, the marks of belonging to the Son. The Christian life begins from a transfer already made: delivered from darkness, moved into the kingdom of the beloved Son. We do not have to win our way in; we have been carried in, and our task now is to live as citizens of the kingdom we have already been brought into.

Do I live as one already delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son, an accomplished fact and not a distant hope, and when the old darkness reasserts its claim, can I remember that it is no longer the realm to which I belong?

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