“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
Every Zorro or Robin Hood movie I’ve ever seen, and I think I’ve seen them all, contains at least one scene where a victim of the villain’s tyranny is either standing on a scaffold, rope around neck and about to be hanged, or about to have his or her head cut off, or about to be shot by a firing squad, and at the penultimate moment the hero swoops in, swinging on a rope or riding a horse or dropping from a nearby rooftop and literally plucks the poor victim from danger, removing him or her to a place of safety.
If the Greek terminology of Colossians 1:13 is understood, it is that sort of picture that will come to the mind of the hearer. God the Father, at the penultimate moment, symbolically speaking, swooped in and plucked us from the power of the dark one.
Of course, my analogy is far from perfect. In truth we were not innocent victims at all, and the word that is translated ‘power’ in some translations and ‘dominion’ in the NASB denotes authority, freedom to act, jurisdiction. In other words, the devil had a legitimate claim to us due to our rebellion against God.
So God the Father did not steal us from the grasp of the bad guy, we had to be redeemed; purchased back. Today we’re going to talk about the Hero who did that.
BELOVED SON
Now the first thing I want you to see here is that although Paul mentions giving thanks to the Father and in verse 13 says, ‘For He delivered us…”, that is not meant to say that the Father worked alone in all this.
That would be an impossibility. The triune God was significantly at work in the plan of salvation. The Father ordained it, the Son carried out the work and the Holy Spirit applies it to men.
Paul understood that, certainly. After all, he is the one who taught it to us. He gives thanks specifically to the Father here because it was Christ who purchased our access to the Father’s Throne and it is the Comforter given us Who has brought us life from above so that we might approach that Throne and receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16).
He also specifically mentions the Father at this point because it was God the Father who, through the atoning work of the cross, declares the one who responds to His call through faith to be justified and places the believer, as Paul says here, into the Kingdom of His beloved Son.
He could have just said, ‘…the Kingdom of His Son”, couldn’t he? He might even have said ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’ or ‘The Kingdom of Christ’. Any of those terms would have been correct and Biblical.
But he said ‘beloved Son’, and there is plenty of Scripture evidence to back up the claim that the Father loves the Son. It almost sounds silly to say that. Aren’t they one? From eternity to eternity has there not been the perfect unity of the Trinity? Yes, that is Christian theology. But I wonder how often people think deliberately about the love the Persons of the Godhead share.
It certainly is a love that transcends our understanding. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, now we see as though looking at a dim reflection in a mirror. We can only understand in part… a very small part… because that love is extended to us as His chosen ones.
And I just talked about this recently so I’ll be briefer here, but John tells us that God is love, and since love must have an object, and since we know that before time and before Creation there was only God, then saying that God is love actually supports the doctrine of the Trinity.
Of the Son, the Father says that He is pleasing, that He is loved, that He is to be attended to with the creature’s undivided attention. Let’s read three passages, all from Matthew’s gospel
3:17
“…and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (That was at the baptism of Jesus)
12:18
“Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen; My Beloved in whom My soul is well-pleased; I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles.” (There Matthew was identifying Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 42)
17:5
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” (You should recognize those words from the account of the Mount of Transfiguration)
People meaning to be polite and non-confrontational, rather than expressing outward rejection of Jesus Christ, will equate Him with great men of the ages, sometimes even with the prophets of the Bible. They will give Him a place of eminence among men. But He is preeminent, and that is what the Father wants us to know.
Peter, on the mount, blurted out his offer to build three tents of worship, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah, thus putting the prophets on even ground with Jesus. But of no one else does the Father say, ‘My beloved Son’, and He would not have His Messiah treated as anything less than the Beloved God of God.
And would a tent do; a tabernacle; when the Lord of the Sabbath Himself was among them?
No, this glorious figure before them was none other than the Beloved Son of the Father, and Christ-followers that is something each of us could spend much time reflecting and meditating upon. After His humility the Father exalted Him above all others, above all else, and He retook His rightful place at the Father’s right hand and the Father now calls His elect to worship and adore Him just for who He is.
He is the Christ; the beloved Son of God, anointed with the oil of joy and reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Come, let us adore Him.
IN HIM
“…in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”
Verse 14 of Colossians 1 is one of the most wonderful verses of the Bible. This says it all. When Paul says, ‘in whom’, he is referring, obviously, to the beloved Son of God just mentioned. In Jesus. In Christ. We are in Him.
Can you fathom what it means that we are ‘in Him’?
It means we are safe and secure for eternity. Although we are still in the world we are also in Him and cannot be taken from our place of acceptance with the Father and inheritance with Christ.
It means He has made us to be identified with Him. His mark is upon us. We are no longer of the world.
We are no longer branded as children of disobedience; and not because of any thing we did and not because we deserved this place, but because of what He did of His own determination and His own sacrifice to redeem us to Himself.
Jesus Christ, beloved Son of the Father who knew no sin, became sin for us and suffered all the fiery wrath of God in His body on the cross, as Romans 8 says, ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin’, so we could be eternally ‘in Him’.
Now Christian, you need to hear this clearly. Our being ‘in Him’, in Christ and under the protection of His divine power and authority is all His doing. He purchased us, which we will be talking more about in a minute, and we were transferred into His kingdom. He made us new creations in Him. That also is entirely His doing. He gave us His Holy Spirit. We were brought to life by Him spiritually. We are a new thing in Him.
Please do not tell me that those living their entire life and lifestyle in rebellion against Him, gladly identifying themselves with the world happily and without remorse or repentance are somehow also ‘in Him’.
These two existences are diametrically opposed in every way and it is an impossibility that they can be a reality in the same person. Either you is or you ain’t, my friend, and it is a simple fact that those who are in Christ are a radically new and different creature than when they were outside of Him and His kingdom, and they can no longer live like the sons of disobedience than a seahorse can live like a jungle gorilla.
They may have a head knowledge of the facts, but until by the grace and mercy of God that knowledge is moved to the heart and a new life begins they are quite simply not ‘in Him’. That’s what the Bible says.
Fellow Christ-followers, it is a sad fact that there are many of these people in our churches; not only outside. Pray for them that God will do His marvelous, supernatural work in them and transfer them into the Kingdom of His beloved Son.
REDEEMED & FORGIVEN
Now let’s talk about these two words, ‘redemption’ and ‘forgiveness’. To be more to the point, ‘forgiveness of sins’. The terms go together and must be seen together to get the fullness of what Paul is teaching.
This word for redemption has to do with paying a debt or a penalty for the purpose of freeing a slave or a prisoner. It is not the paying of a bail amount. When someone goes to jail and a friend goes to the court and pays a bail that is not payment for the crime, it is promise money that the accused will return for trial at a later date even though they will be free in society until then. They are still a ward of the court and face charges that may result in reincarceration.
Redemption here means full payment, either of a sum or of the penalty itself, in order to purchase not only the freedom of the guilty party but full forgiveness also.
You know I dislike the shallow definition of the doctrine of justification that says ‘It’s just as if I’d never sinned’, but here I will accept it as a fuller clarification of what has transpired with this redemption we have in Christ.
Remember, we are a new creation. The old things are passed away, all things have been made new 2 Cor 5:17.
How can there now be any guilt, any debt to pay whatsoever, now that He has paid it and recreated us?
How can any guilt cling to us when in fact that guilt was taken away with our old selves and was never a part, has never touched the new?
Now don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not teaching sinless perfection. We died to sin, sin did not die. We are a new creature in Him and now possess the Divine Nature, but the sin nature did not die. That is why we need progressive sanctification and daily feet-cleansing. It is why Jesus declared that anyone walking after Him would of necessity have to deny self daily, take up the cross, meaning die to the lure of self and the flesh and the world, and follow Him.
It is why Paul expressed to the Philippians his confidence that the Lord who had begun a work in them would continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus – because until then it will be necessary to continue that work.
Nonetheless, your redemption is full and complete and with it the absolute and everlasting forgiveness of sins. How? Because it is His work and it is a perfectly complete and everlasting work. Jesus paid it all.
Let’s look at some similar texts before we move on.
Eph 1:7
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace”
In Colossians 1 Paul says ‘redemption, the forgiveness of sins’. Here he gives a fuller explanation. The redemption is through His blood. That tells us what He paid with.
This tells us that His payment for us was the complete sacrifice of Himself, because the term ‘in His blood’ means He died to redeem. Then Paul says, ‘forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.’ It was out of the eternal abundance of God’s grace that the purchase price was paid and our forgiveness was provided.
Do you see it? We tend to attribute the grace of God to the things we assess as ‘good’, because they help us or benefited us in some way.
But we have to see that it was God’s grace that sent His beloved Son to the cross. It was His grace, not spikes, that held Him there until He died.
It is God’s grace that takes the sinner down to the lowest pit, the filthiest sty, the most painful physical circumstances, in order to raise him up to be seated in the heavenly places in Christ.
Remember our recent discussion about John Newton? He was in the hold of a ship he was certain would sink and drown him, bailing out water and fearful unto death, when God awakened him and saved him even in that most desperate moment.
Later he would write, “T’was grace that taught my heart to fear’, and we understand that he attributed his dire fear of imminent death to the very grace of God – because the next thing that happened in the wet darkness of that hold was that ‘T’was grace my fears relieved’. And we cannot move on without noting the next line and thinking about the conditions he was facing; “How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed”
Christian, this the world cannot give and the world can never take away. The same dangerous and perilous circumstances that virtually disembowel the child of disobedience can be seen by the true child of God as His act of grace for justification, for sanctification, for continuing the perfection of the work He has begun until the day we see the face of our Redeemer.
Next:
Titus 2:14
“…who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”
Here with Titus Paul goes beyond the thought of redemption and forgiveness of sins, or lawless deeds which means the same, and charges that the purpose of God in them is to set us apart for Himself a purified people and imbue us with a zeal for holiness and Godly living.
I remind you here of the things I said earlier pertaining to the empty professor of faith living for self and the world.
There is something else I feel we need to be clear on as we talk about guilt and forgiveness and indebtedness and redemption.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Let’s go to Galatians 3 and read verses 10-14.
“For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.” 11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” 12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM.”
Now listen carefully to verse 13.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”— 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
It was disbelief in the Word of God and dishonoring of His law that brought sin and death to mankind. The violation was against God, the offense was against God and God alone.
The redemptive work that Christ accomplished on Calvary’s tree appeased God’s rightful wrath and His alone. Christ did not purchase us back from Satan, as though the debt was owed to the devil. God has never owed Lucifer anything and never will. We were in his grasp, to be sure, and he was able to keep us bound and enslaved to the fear of death, as we read in Hebrews 2.
But the debt we owed that we could never pay even in the fires of Hell for eternity was owed to God alone, and Christ alone purchased us back with His own death, and so complete and efficacious was that death that the Father then declared us right with Him and made us citizens of the Kingdom of His Son, and not citizens only but heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.
Now I need to say one more thing and then I am done, but I am not done until this is said.
We did not deserve forgiveness nor can we earn it. The forgiveness of our sins, which is literally a having been set free of guilt and indebtedness, is entirely by His grace which He determined to lavish on us from eternity past.
He has the right as God our Redeemer, and He exercises that right, to command of us that we forgive with the same kind of forgiveness – free and extended even to the undeserving.
If a Christian says “I just cannot forgive that person, they do not deserve it”, they are either not a Christian or they have not understood grace at all.
If you and I are ‘in Him’, if the Comforter He sent dwells in us, then by that indwelling we have the very power of the resurrected Christ who brought us redemption, the forgiveness of sins, to exercise that same grace and forgive even the undeserving.
Remember, we also were undeserving. Not only did we not deserve Heaven, we did deserve Hell. But while we were helpless, sinful enemies of God, Christ died for us. God came all the way down to us in order to raise us all they way up to Him. He will not and cannot bless our life or our ministry or any other endeavor if we offend His grace by holding back forgiveness for those He died to save.
Listen to Colossians 3:12-13
“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
No one has yet nailed you and I to a cross, Christians. But the One we nailed there with our sin now expects that we will be ministers of His grace. How can we fail to follow in this regard, in the steps of the beloved Son of the Father, who Himself is our redemption and our forgiveness?
I encourage us all to ask Him by His gentle, searching Holy Spirit to examine our hearts deeply and reveal to us any dark spot of unforgiveness and exercise His purging grace in us today that our walk may not be hindered.
