Colossians 1:12-14
Well, we are in the opening chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and I invite you to turn there. Open, there, in your Bibles as we consider just a few verses this morning along this same theme of redemption. Colossians 1:12 to 14 will be our text and that will prepare our hearts to celebrate the Lord’s table. The theme this morning is redemption, or we could say gratitude for our redemption, just as we heard in Psalm 107 a few moments ago.
And that’s really Paul’s theme here in these three verses of Colossians 1:12, 13 and 14. He’s given thanks for the Colossians church. He’s prayed for them, petitioned God for their continued growth in the faith. And now Paul returns to this theme of thanksgiving, in Colossians 1:12 to 14. The few verses here may seem at first glance simply to be more reasons for giving thanks that are kind of tacked on to the end of his prayer report.
They are more reasons to give thanks, for sure, but Paul is doing something more strategic here. He’s doing something more profound. Paul is calling their attention to the redemptive will of God. He’s calling their attention to what God has accomplished for them in Christ and though he doesn’t state it in the formal terms of later theological development in the church, the rudiments are all here and in place of what we call the covenant of redemption.
The covenant of redemption, also known as the pactum salutis, that’s a Latin term that means, agreement of salvation. It’s referring to an agreement of salvation or a covenant of redemption between the father and the son and this is a pretemporal or pre-time, before time began; a precreation decree of the divine will that’s revealed to us in scripture, but was made prior to any created thing being in existence.
It’s an expression, this covenant of redemption is an expression of intra trinitarian love as the father loves the son and the son loves the father, and the Spirit rejoices to do the will of the father and the son. The father from eternity has chosen to give a redeemed people to his son as a gift of his eternal love and for his part, the son has agreed to redeem those whom the father gave him, and then by the Spirit to sanctify them and beautify them and glorify them, and then give them back to his father as a glorified, redeemed people.
17th century theologian Francis Turretin says this about the pactum salutis. He says, “The pact between the father and the son contains the will of the father giving his son as a lytroten. lytroten is a Greek word that means Redeemer and the will of the son in offering himself as a sponsor for his members to work out that redemption and redemption is tied to that word lytroten, which is apolytrosin. So redemption, Redeemer, redemption, sharing the same term. He then says this Francis Turretin says, “All these things are plainly gathered from the scriptures.”
Some scriptures that give clear evidence of this pactum salutis, this covenant of redemption, in 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul writes of God, “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling… according to His own purpose and grace.” Listen, “which was granted to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,” pro chronon aionion; before the ages. It’s using the word ages to refer to time and matter created at once, time and space, matter, immaterial things, all creation. Prior to that God chose to grant us, in Christ Jesus, salvation, made us part of a holy calling.
That exact same Greek expression is also in Titus 1 verse 2, where Paul writes about, “the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth in the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised from all eternity.” There’s the same phrase again pro chronon aionion, before the ages, from all eternity.
So who existed then from all eternity? Who existed before time began? Well, God did, God in three persons. To whom then did God promise? Who is there to hear a promise, receive a promise, respond to a promise? Well, the father promised the son, and the son promised the father. That’s basically the pactum salutis. Other scriptures allude to this concept, they rely on it, they depend on it. They give testimony to it.
You can write down Isaiah 53:10 to 12, John 17, 1 Corinthians 15:20 to 28, that whole section on the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, Ephesians 1:3 through 14, which is really a parallel to what we read here in Colossians, Philippians 2:5 through 11, all about Christ’s incarnational work, his humiliation and then his exaltation. All those allude to, rely on, depend on, give testimony to, the pactum salutis.
It’s also our text, Colossians 1:12 to 14, and what Paul wants the Colossians to know, as they’re facing those who are causing trouble within the church, as they have to deal with those who are disturbing their faith with false doctrine and bad influences, as they live in difficult days and live through uncertain and unstable times, they need to know that the foundation of their salvation is rock solid. Better than that, it rests on the unchanging word of him who made the rocks solid.
Our salvation rests on what God has willed, on what God has done, the only sure foundation for our assurance. You’ve heard of the doctrine of eternal security. You need to understand the doctrine of eternal security. This is really a matter of divine will, not human will. It’s a matter of the eternal decree of the creator, not the shifting will of the creature. We rest in the promise between the father and the son and this is why Paul begins his prayer in verse 9, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge, the full knowledge of his will.
The more you understand the will of God, the decree of God, what God has determined from before time began, and what he has executed ever since creation onward; that’s everything. Knowing what God has willed, knowing what he’s done, seeing it testified to in the Scriptures, explained and unveiled in the Scriptures, it gives the Colossians and us deep, deep assurance of their salvation. It instills a deep, abiding confidence before the father to come to him. It fills them with a deep gratitude to God. It drives them into deeper fellowship through Christ.
And this is going to secure the Colossians beyond the need of the moment, to protect them from those who are troubling their Church. It looks beyond this need, beyond the present trouble, and it points to any need in the future. It inoculates them against every deceptive teaching, shields them from every false promise, being led astray by any enticing influence of every false gospel.
So notice then the eternal will of the father revealed in what he has done in our redemption, and the eternal will of the son revealed in what he did to accomplish our redemption and what he has yet to do; which is really what has been prayed for already. But let’s start reading, in verse 12, Paul writes, that “the Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Who rescued us from the authority of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
We’ll work through those three verses using three points, one per verse, to set forth what God has done, how he’s done it, and what it means for us. So first point: What he’s done, number one, what he’s done and, you just write down the father has qualified us. Number one, what he’s done, the father has qualified us. Verse 12, the father’s qualified us or better qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Some translations read correctly, who has qualified you, instead of us. And that’s technically correct based on Greek translations I have. It’s a variation, a variant in the text. It’s of little consequence. But if you have a question about that, you can feel free to come up and ask me about that after the service. I have a little footnote that I can share with you if you’re curious about that. Why the change from you to us or us to you?
But what I’d like to focus on first, is that verb qualified, qualified, hikanoo, hikanoo. It’s a term that has to do with sufficiency or adequacy, even competency. There’s a related adjective to that verb hikanos, and that’s far more common in the New Testament. It’s used quite a bit, but Paul uses the verb hikanoo only here and then in one other place in the New Testament, which is 2 Corinthians 3:6, in that text where we find the second use of hikanoo, the verb.
Paul is in that context revealing the lack of sufficiency or the lack of adequacy that he, is a mere man, possesses in himself to be a minister of the new covenant. And you might remember the question he asked in 2 Corinthians 2:16, he says, who is sufficient for these things? Who is adequate for these things? What? What man is competent to be a minister of the new covenant? That’s where he uses the adjective hikanos. He’s questioning his fitness. He’s questioning his sufficiency.
He is, am I, is a man really worthy to take up such a high calling and to be a minister of this eternal gospel and serve Christ, as a chosen Apostle, sent to these specially chosen people for whom Christ died? So who’s sufficient for that? I suppose every true servant of Christ, when he considers himself, he asked that same question.
I know entering into ministry, I certainly asked it a lot. I still ask that, who is sufficient for these things? Certainly not I. And any man asking that question would be left in despair if he didn’t find hope where Paul found it, as he answered his own question. In 2 Corinthians 3:4 through 6, he says, “such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves.” There he’s using the adjective hikanos.
“Not that we’re sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but, our sufficiency,” there he uses the noun hikanotes, “our sufficiency is from God. God who,” and here’s the verb, “who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant.” So Paul is calling into apostleship, the calling of his ministry partners into their ministry of the gospel.
It’s on the same basis by which they were called into salvation in the first place. Who is made sufficient? How is it that we’re competent? How is that we can ever be counted adequate, worthy? God qualified them. He did it from the moment of his salvation all through his ministry. Paul looked back to that truth, God qualified me. He did that work, he made that pronouncement, and he’s done everything to make it so.
So this verb hikanoo means to cause someone to be made adequate, to make him sufficient, or to qualify him. It could mean making sure someone is sufficiently equipped so that he’s adequate to perform his duties, so he’s up to the task. And in that sense, it could mean empower or authorize. But considering how the adjective is used in the New Testament, as we go through and see that adjective hikanos it sheds further light on the use of the verb and it kind of draws about this verb, an older sense from classical times that’s really being brought up to the present in Paul’s day.
The sense of the adjective hikanos, that’s used in the New Testament, is of a measurement that reaches a certain goal. So what is measured, is measured out to be enough or sufficient or adequate. So, for example, you go to buy a car, and because you’ve measured or counted out your money, with a sufficient amount of money, you can make that exchange, this money for that car. So you measure out money for a car or for a house or for furniture or for groceries, sufficient amount of money, because it’s adequate to get this.
We measure days, months, years, and see sufficient time has passed for us to do or accomplish some certain thing. We measure people, we count to make sure we have sufficient numbers to win a vote in an election and on and on. The term is used and that leads to really a nuance of this adjective hikanos, which has to do then with worthiness, with measuring not just quantity, but measuring in quality.
And that has to do with value or worthiness, measuring to see if someone is worthy or fit, if they’re appropriate for the task, not just quantified in terms of, of gifts and abilities and accomplishments or experience, but really, are they the quality of the person? Do they measure up to this honor? Are they worthy? John the Baptist was called to be a prophet, a forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, he was, as Jesus said, the greatest of all Old Testament prophets. He was widely acknowledged.
Paul found on his missionary journeys, found some of, some of John’s disciples in Asia Minor thousands of miles away. This guy had an effect his, his ministry is pre-Internet, had an influence way beyond the desert that he grew up in. Let’s just put it that way, way beyond Jerusalem where he came to. But John the Baptist himself acknowledged in Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16, he says to the people, he says, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit….” That’s the adjective, hikanos. “I’m not worthy even to untie the thong of his sandals.” I can’t even stoop down and touch the dust near his feet. He’s measured himself, and he’s found himself to be unfit, wanting, therefore unworthy.
Who am I? The humble centurion? Matthew 8:8, Luke 7:6. You remember the humble centurion had a servant that he loved who was dying, and he sent his friends out to intercept Jesus on, who was on the way to the man’s house coming to heal the servant. And he sent his friends out to intercept Jesus, and through them said to the Lord, “Lord, do not trouble yourself further, for I am not worthy.” Not worthy, hikanos, “I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof.”
It just seems unfitting that you, Jewish Messiah, Lord, would come under the roof of a Gentile dog like me. Where we could stand a little bit more of that humility in our day, couldn’t we? We bring this, though, back to Colossians 1 and remember in verse 9 that Paul asked God that they would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. It’s a different term there. It’s the term, axios.
But the idea, as we mentioned when we went through that section, is to kind of balance out the scales, so that their life and their walk would come into parity with the walk and the life of the Lord; so that the two were in balance. The two are equalized, that’s axios. And the implication in verse 9 is that their lives are not yet at parity, but they needed to be.
And every Christian wants his life, every Christian wants her walk to mirror that of the Lord, right? Everybody wants that. We thank God that in glorification that parody will be achieved. But still why we lack it, we want it. We desire it. That’s what Paul desires for the Colossians. As he prays for, so we pray for, for you, as we’ve said often. We came down to verse 12, and the good news we find here is this: God has qualified us. He’s made us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. And the tense of the verb that’s used there means God has already accomplished that for us, it’s been done.
That which we strive for, that which we long for, it’s finished. You see that there? Look, we know ourselves, don’t we? It just takes the slightest spiritual sensitivity in our hearts to know we’re not worthy to share in anything good. Paul said of himself as a Christian, he said, look, “I know that in me dwelleth no good thing.” We agree with him. We agree with him. We’re like that too.
So what business do we have of sharing any inheritance in anything good with any of the saints? Consider some of the saints such as Enoch, a man who walked with God and he was no more. Genesis 5:24 says, “because God took him,” He walked, he walked, he walked and God just transported him into heaven. Or Noah, the Bible says in Genesis 6:3, “he was a righteous man,” blameless in his time, and it also says, “he walked with God.”
Or Moses, “the man who was very humble, more than any man on the earth.” Numbers 12:3, who honored God, and God honored him in his death, burying his body where no one could find it, that place of his death where his body lay, the knowledge of that place is shared by God and God alone. Or Elijah. Elijah, “whom God took to heaven and Chariots of burning fire, caught him up in a whirlwind,” 2 Kings 2:11 says.
Who are we to share in the inheritance of any of those saints, even to bask in the afterglow of their life? Who are we to stand with them, or even crouch at their feet in transcendent realms of light? To say nothing, really, of the holy angels who attend the throne of the Ancient of Days. Those who are pictured in Isaiah 6, the bright seraphim, burning ones who have the sense to use four of their six wings to cover face and feet.
The creaturely features that distinguish them from their creator. The one who sits on the throne as they cry, “Holy, holy, holy, as Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.” What are we doing here? Who are we to share in that glory and that inheritance? The fact is, we’re no one. We’re nothing, and we don’t deserve to be there. And yet the gospel of divine grace says the father has qualified us to share the inheritance of the saints in light.
Thought is paralleled in Ephesians 1:3 to 6, “Blessed be the God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us,” it’s just a picture of the inheritance, ”with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him, in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, and to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed on us in the beloved.”
That’s the inheritance, to have grace bestowed on us as a gift, to be caught up in the good pleasure of the father to the son and the son to the father, to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ. To be holy before God, who is holy, holy, holy. To be blameless and have no sin against us, credited to our account, chosen from before the foundation of the world, having every spiritual blessing, right now, in Christ Jesus.
Who are we? The fact is, whether we’re Speaking of ourselves or whether we’re speaking of men such as Enoch and Noah and Moses or Elijah, the Apostle Paul, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Anna at the temple, Simeon, you could fill in the list with anybody that is a remarkable saint. They are not the explanations of themselves, are they? God explains them.
James reminds us, believe it’s James 5:17. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.” He’s a man with a nature like ours. He’s one of us and that goes for the rest of them, all with natures like ours, but it’s by grace and by grace alone. God qualified them too, and saved and sanctified them too. Tense of the participle, there in verse 12 is an aorist, and that aorist, portrays that act as a completed whole. So this is a done deal. This is a finished task. It’s set in stone.
It’s never to be undone, never to be withdrawn, qualified permanently. Similar to Romans 8:29 to 30, how that reads, where Paul uses again aorist, tense verbs to show certainty through completedness and even about things that are future. Romans 8:29, “For whom he foreknew,” aorist, tense, past completed action. “Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren whom he predestined. These,” he called, “whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.”
All those verbs again, aorist tense, they portray the action of God, on behalf of those many brethren, which were named among that action of God is complete. And some of that action refers to past time, foreknew, predestined. Some of that action is ongoing through the time in history, called, justified. Each of us had a time when we were called, a time when we were justified, and that work is ongoing among the many brethren to bring the whole number into the fold.
God is working through time in history, calling us, converting us, until he reaches the full number “of those whom he foreknew and predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.” But the final of those actions glorified. That’s clearly future, isn’t it? It awaits the resurrection that Paul referred to a few verses earlier in Romans 8, as the revealing of the sons of God.
So from God’s point of view, from his perspective, even glorification, which is future to us, that’s a done deal. So salvation is here, a sweeping, comprehensive perspective, and that’s how Paul speaks here from that same perspective in Colossians 1:12, to assure us that the father has qualified us already. All of this, even this current life, even our ambition to walk worthy and our desire to please him in all respects, even though we know that we don’t day-to-day, we want to.
All of this from start to finish. God has already accomplished it all, in Christ Jesus, in us. What God has willed cannot be unwilled. What God has done cannot be undone. “He’s not a man that he should lie or change his mind.” He says, “I am God, there is none like me. I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying my purpose will be established, I will accomplish all my good pleasure.” Isaiah 46 says.
So he’s been pleased to qualify us. He’s done the saving already from start to finish everything comprehensive view of salvation. He’s counted us worthy in Jesus Christ. And that is said from before time began. That was declared and announced and determined before time began. And if there is anything that troubles your assurance or your confidence, it shouldn’t be what God has determined.
He’s unchanging, he’s immutable, he’s good, his will is loving, his purpose is kind to us in Christ. And I guess the only question is, are you in Christ? Maybe some of these other points will help us clarify that. Come to point two, number two: How he’s done it. How he’s done it; the father has rescued us. How he’s done it and then you can write the father has rescued us.
The father has rescued us, verse 13, it says, “from the authority of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the son of his love.” Again, aorist tense verbs portray this massive rescue operation as a completed divine action. But here Paul is kind of shifting the focus a bit from that comprehensive perspective of verse 12, so we can see how it actually happened in verse 13 to us in real time, how God did what he has done.
Paul brings us kind of into the action using first person plural, us, as the object of those two verbs. He rescued us. He transferred us. Many translations render the first verb there as delivered. Delivered, that’s fine, that’s a good, that’s a good translation. It’s not wrong, but I actually prefer the more vivid term to translate the verb rhyomai. Rhyomai is the verb there.
I like to translate it as rescued, either are appropriate, delivered, rescued. Push comes to shove. I’m trying to make a distinction without a difference here, but I really like the verb rescued. The verb rhyomai, most often in the New Testament, refers to a physical temporal deliverance from grave peril and physical danger.
So Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:8 to 10, that he was so desperately afflicted in Asia, he was burdened excessively beyond strength, so that he despaired even of life. Now that’s a saved man talking about despairing even of life. He’s not concerned about losing his salvation there. This isn’t a spiritual life he’s talking about. He’s talking about his physical life.
He said, we despaired even of life and he entrusted himself to God who raises the dead. And God in fact came through on this moment. He delivered Paul, rhyomai. He rescued him from this deadly peril. Paul testified of God’s faithfulness in rescuing him, when he told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:10 to 11, told him about his persecutions and his sufferings in a number of places, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra. Out of them all, Paul says the Lord rescued me, rhyomai.
The danger was so grave that he’s describing the deliverance, meant that the Lord had to snatch him out of the lion’s teeth. Again, the verb rhyomai is used there. He rescued me out of the lion’s mouth and then the Lord will rescue me, using a future tense of rhyomai, from every evil deed.
He’s talking about grave peril, physical danger in this time in his ministry. He will bring me then safely into his heavenly kingdom. So Paul is wanting us to understand the implications of what God has done. And so he portrays our salvation as kind of like the greatest, most consequential rescue operation that was ever envisioned, planned, resource coordinated and executed, all done by God.
You ask any military man who’s participated in various kinds of military operations, reconnaissance missions, direct action, kill or capture missions, peacekeeping operations, humanitarian missions, any other kind. When you talk to a man who gets to them to do what’s called an NEO a noncombatant evacuation operation, rescuing noncombatants out of conflict zones, out of combat, rescuing them, that’s got to be at the top of the list. And it’s because there’s a, a redeeming value to that mission immediately apparent.
In taking someone, extracting innocent people out of danger and rescuing them from the fear of death at the hands of some very bad men with guns and sharp things, who want to sever off heads and blow people up. You remove them out of harm’s way and you secure them because you bring in a greater, more powerful force and you bring them safely home to be reunited with loved ones, to participate in peace, removing all anxiety. That’s what God has done for us.
He’s perfectly executed the greatest rescue operation ever. He has delivered the most vulnerable victims in the direst of circumstances, from the most fearsome foe into the greatest of all situations. Break that down a little bit. First, God rescued us, the most vulnerable of all victims. I like how the hymn writer put it “guilty, vile, and helpless, we.”
That’s us, vulnerable. Paul said in Ephesians 2:1, “We’re dead in our trespasses and sins.” In Romans 5:6, we’re helpless; we’re ungodly, we’re sinners, verse 8; Romans 5:10, We’re even enemies of God; But God, Paul says in Romans 5, demonstrated his fatherly love toward us, in that while we were all that, dead in trespasses and sins, helpless, ungodly sinners, enemies of God, when we were furthest from God, “Christ died for us.”
Second, he rescued us while we were in the direst of all circumstances. We were under the authority of darkness, it says here. We were walking according to the course of the vile and evil world. We were held fast under the dominion of the Prince of the power of the air. We were imprisoned by him who wielded the power of death, that is the devil. We were enslaved to various lusts of the flesh and of the mind. We’re by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
And as bad as our situation was, our circumstances were even more dire because we were, odd as it may sound, we were sympathetic with our jailer. We shared his wicked view of God. We were actively involved in furthering his cosmic rebellion, strangely complicit with our captor, soft and affectionate toward the most diabolical of all criminals, the greatest mass murderer ever. We’re complicit in our own demise and destruction.
It’s kind of the worst example of Stockholm Syndrome ever is total insanity, Suicidal, homicidal, genocidal, that’s what we were. We were in the direst of all circumstances. But third, he rescued us from the most fearsome foe, the one whom Jesus identified as the father of all the unbelieving. “He was a murderer from the beginning,” John 8:44, “And he doesn’t stand in the truth, because there’s no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. For he’s a liar and the father of lies.”
He’s a liar, he’s a murderer, and he’s the most wicked, vile, powerful tyrant ever. “But the Son of God,” 1 John 3:8, “was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil by sharing in flesh and blood.” Hebrews 2:14, “The Son of God assumed true humanity in the incarnation, so that through his death for sins He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death,” that’s us. “Were subject to slavery all of our lives.”
So the father rescued us, the most vulnerable of all victims, and we were in the direst of circumstances, subdued, saturated, blinded by our own sins. He delivered us from the most fearsome of all foes, the devil with whom we were oddly complicit and then he brought us into the greatest of all situations, the greatest situation ever. Fourth, it says, “Having rescued us from the authority of darkness, the father then transferred us into the kingdom of the son of his love.”
Paul is portraying this operation as a single operation, using both verbs to portray it. One action is accomplished in both of those objectives, rescuing and transferring. It’s as if we’re bound in prison. God broke into the prison walls, extracted us from the devil’s prison, killing all the guards, and he set us free from the enslavement to sin, which means an immediate change of situation for us and an instant transfer to the kingdom of the beloved son.
The verb transferred is methistemi which is constructed from two words. The verb histami which means to place or to stand, and then a prefix tacked onto the front of it, meta and meta indicates a change or a movement from one place to another. So literally it’s moving something from one place to another, which is us.
In ancient times, this verb was often used to refer to deportation operations, removing a people from one place and transplanting them in another place. Josephus uses this exact verb to write of the conquest of the Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser after his successful expedition against the northern tribes of Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel. “He made the inhabitants,” Josephus says, “He made the inhabitants prisoners and transplanted them.”
That’s the verb, mephistemi, transplanted them into his own kingdom. Well, God is greater than Tiglath believes, and every other sovereign on earth. He’s the greatest sovereign. He does the greatest conquering and the greatest transplanting work. In an instant, at the moment of justification, having saved us by his grace, by means of the exercise of our faith, this is what happens from chaotic tyranny of the authority of darkness and that’s in contrast to the kingdom.
Think about that authority and kingdom imagery there. There’s a chaotic tyranny of dark authority, which only destroys and never builds up, which is all evil and never good, which only defiles and never purifies, which only digresses and never improves, which only shames and never ennobles, which only hurts and never heals, which only darkens and never gives light, which only enslaves and never sets free.
God removes us from that situation, transporting us then into the wise and orderly and dignified and beneficent rule of the kingdom of the son and this is not any son, this is the son of the father’s perfect, eternal love. His is a kingdom of wisdom, he who is wisdom personified. His is a kingdom of wisdom with no place for folly. His is a kingdom of treasure, that is, a treasure that’s never lost and never grows old and never fades away and no thief can break in and steal.
His is a kingdom of excellence with no mediocrity, nothing unworthy, nothing halfway done. His is the kingdom of purity with no hint of sin. His is the kingdom of pleasure with no guilt. His is the kingdom of enjoyment without regret and not an ounce of shame. There’s a kingdom that’s not temporary, but eternal, and it never changes. When he transplants us, we’re never to be removed.
The father has qualified us, delivering us, resulting in our redemption, which is our third point. This is, what it means the father has redeemed us, number three: What it means the father has redeemed us. The father, verse 14, united us to his son. It says in whom, in his son, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
You’ve been a Christian for any time. You’re probably familiar with the word picture that is provided by that word redemption. It meant buying back a slave from the slave market, or even making a deal to purchase one of your fellow soldiers who’d been taken captive in battle, buying him back. That’s the concrete reality that painted the picture for us of this spiritual redemption.
God has bought us back. Christ has bought us back using the purchase price of his own blood and the, the one from whom we’re redeemed is not, as it’s pictured in CS Lewis’s Narnian Chronicles, buying us back from the devil. No, the one we’re bought back from is God. In his vindicating justice and the wrath of God, which is brought on by our sin, our cosmic rebellion, our participation with the devil and his rebellion against God, Christ offers his own blood to buy us back.
So that we don’t share in that fate and Paul makes his meaning plain here when he adds the phrase there, the forgiveness of sins, which is a redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The father has redeemed us, so to speak, from the tyranny of the devil, from enslavement to sin and setting us free from sinning. He sets us free to walk in the light of truth and to walk in the freedom of righteousness and to enjoy the goodness of God and manifest in our lives, the beauty of his holiness.
And this is kind of how you know if this has been done for you, if the father has qualified you, if you really are rescued, transplanted, redeemed, are you aiming more and more to be free from sinning? Do you love walking in the light of truth to pursue freedom of righteousness? Do you count righteousness of God as freedom for you? Do you enjoy the goodness of God? Do you manifest the beauty of his holiness? Is all that true of you? Is that what you’re pursuing? Because if there’s not even a modicum of that in your heart, you really do have to question whether any of this has happened to you.
All of that, light, freedom, goodness, beauty, other words we can add in there, all of that is on perfect display in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now that he is risen from the dead by his resurrection, now that he’s ascended into heaven, now that he’s seated at the father’s right hand, his ministry to us by the Holy Spirit is much improved, to what it was here on earth. So that we share in the freedom of his redemption such that what was manifest in his life and so evident in his life and so perfect in his life, starts to shape ours, increasingly bearing fruit in us, growing in the knowledge of God, living in wisdom.
This is why Paul is using the first-person plural in verse 14 and the present tense, in that verb there echo, which is, we have or to have. So it’s not simply, we have redemption as if that’s done, it’s better than that. We are having redemption. There’s an ongoing present reality for us is living out this redemption, the Spirit applying the redemption of Christ to us. And Paul has added that, a positive to redemption, it’s redemption, the forgiveness of sins and so forgiveness of sins too.
We fall out of a relational closeness to the Lord because our sin separates us from him. God doesn’t separate us himself from us. We separate ourselves from him when we bring sin into our hearts, when there’s guilt on our conscience. And so God offers in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins and he’s faithful, he’s righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”
That’s a relational forgiveness to restore us, not because God needs it; no, he looks on the finished work of Christ. We’re kind of righteous in Christ. We’re forgiven. He sees our redemption. He sees the forgiveness that we live in, that we abide in, that we have, and yet we need to be restored. It’s for our sake, so kind, such gracious condescension to us.
This redemption, this forgiveness of sins is an ongoing present tense reality. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Instead, we have as a present and continuing experience this increasing experience, the reality of walking, Romans 8:21, “in the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
By what follows here, we find that there are two little words that will increase in their significance as Paul proceeds through the text in Colossians 1, starting at verse 15 that great paeon of praise to Jesus Christ. The two little words are a pivot point here, profoundly important that become for us inestimably crucial, beginning of verse 14, the two words, in whom.
In whom: The closest reference for that pronoun is in the previous verse. We’re not talking about the father, we’re talking about the son by, in whom, Paul is talking about the son of the father’s love, our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re united to God in him. It’s in him and only in him that we are qualified, that we’re made worthy to stand before God.
It’s in him and in him alone that we’re redeemed and forgiven and restored into the father’s love. It’s in him and him alone that we’ve been rescued and transported, transmigrated into this kingdom of the son of the father’s love, that comes by double imputation; as our sins are imputed to Christ and counted to him, even though he committed not one of them, but all of our sin is counted to Christ, and God punishes him instead of us, as if he were us.
He meets out all the punishment that we deserve in Christ, in Jesus on the cross, and then in Christ being risen from the dead, conquering death, he takes the righteous life of Christ and imputes that to us, those who believe. He looks upon us counted righteous in Christ, and we put our faith in him. And God justifies us by faith. He declares us not just forgiven, but much more than that, redeemed, justified, declared righteous in Christ, never to be undone, it’s all in him.
Those two words, so important to be having then redemption, the forgiveness of sins, to be having as an ongoing condition, to be possessing as an ever changing, always present reality. Redemption, the forgiveness of sins means there’s several things that are true. We’re qualified by the father, made worthy by God to receive a share in the inheritance of the saints. The share of our inheritance is not diminished in the sharing either.
Our treasure comes from an infinite treasury, and the more it’s enjoyed, the more it’s supplied. The infinite treasury is stored safely in the kingdom of God’s beloved son, the son of his love. And we have been removed from the conquered smoldering ground of a defeated tyrant and transplanted forever into a heavenly kingdom and ours is a heavenly city. And get this, we’re not just mere subjects in this kingdom, we’re full-fledged citizens.
But more than that, more than being citizens, since we are in him, we have the closest union ever, being in the son of the father’s love, that brings us into the fatherly affection of God for us. To be joined to the fatherly affection of God, united to the son of his love, that’s called adoption. We’re therefore related to the King and therefore loved by the father of the King, which means we’re not mere citizens, we’re royalty.
We’re members of the royal family and so there is no lock, locked to us, there’s no gate barred for us. There’s no room kept closed to us. Everything is wide open, thrown open, and we’re invited in and served, as we’re in there. We’re adopted sons and daughters of the King’s father and so dearly loved by the King himself that he left his throne in heaven to come and die for us, to bring us to his home, to enjoy immense wealth and the riches of the kingdom treasury, to enjoy the largess of his affections, the deep, deep love of the members of the Trinity now poured out upon those who are redeemed and restored and forgiven.
Listen, I just have to say, if that’s not you, beloved, go back and reflect on that Psalm we read earlier, Psalm 107, because that is a Psalm of redemption. It’s a Psalm that pictures and portrays deliverance from dire situations and certain death. And all that’s needful is for that imprisoned one, that darkened one, that ignorant one, that enslaved one to look upon his condition and say, oh me, oh my, what have I done? I’ve got myself here, I can’t do anything to extract myself and therefore the only place to look is up.
Every time they called out. You know what God did, brought them out. He rescued them. Biggest rescue operation ever, to the greatest place, the greatest condition, the greatest situation ever. If that’s not you, beloved, today can be the day. Now could be the time of your salvation. And for those of you who know this deliverance, doesn’t your heart warm with joy? Aren’t your affections stirred? For the God who’s loved you from eternity past and sent his son to do this great work of redemption, well, this is what we remember and celebrate as we come to the Lord’s Table.
Our Father, we thank you so much for this blessed, glorious redemption. We thank you for how it puts on display your power, your wisdom, your goodness and we can all wrap that up into one affection of yours, love. This intertrinitarian love between father and son and son and father, shared in by the Holy Spirit, as he actuates and effects all that you have willed and decreed to be. We are the blessed recipients, the beneficiaries of this love. We’re brought in to share in this love relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit and made partakers of the divine nature.
We thank you so much for this kindness you’ve shown to us in Christ. We thank you for delivering us, qualifying us, rescuing us, and redeeming, and forgiving us. We pray that we would live worthy lives, worthy of our calling, and walk worthy and pleasing before you. As we come to this table, please fill our hearts with joyful remembrance to ponder, reflect on the truths of what we’ve just heard, so that every Christian heart would be stirred, and their affections deepened, and their love strengthened, and their devotion deepened, as well, so that we walk in greater faithfulness and obedience to you. For any here who do not yet know you, we ask that you would help them to use this time not to partake, but to reflect. And if by your grace, they would turn their eyes upward to see the one who will break them out of the prison in which they’ve lived, set them free to walk in newness of life. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.