Colossians 1:13-14 - How to Get Transferred from Darkness to Light (Session 4)

 This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 1:13–14, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith. 

Has your journey into understanding the gospel ever left you feeling lost, like wandering in a kingdom of darkness? Fear not, as we present an incisive exploration of Colossians 1:13-14 in this episode. The fascinating themes we uncover will alter your perspective on the Gospel as the word of truth and the path to walking worthy of the Lord. From discussions about being transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Christ through the work of Jesus Christ. We'll guide you through a deep dive into this scripture, peeling back its multi-layered meanings.

Imagine being presented with a road map to navigate the challenging concept of our existence chained in darkness. Does that sound intriguing? We'll challenge you to consider your understanding of redemption and salvation in Christ, tackling the doubts that sometime plague believers. Tune in as we dissect the eternal exchange - Christ's blood for our sins - and shed light on the absolute certainty of redemption. It's time to step into the light, with an understanding of your position in Christ, and bask in the assurance of salvation. Remember, you're no longer wandering in darkness, and a part of God's Kingdom, but only if you are in Christ.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:52

Steve, I have a question. Have you ever seen an ocean on the top of a mountain?

Speaker 1 1:00

No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 1:02

I haven't either, but today I think we're going to get close, simply because we're going to be in some very deep water. I hope you brought your life jacket, because we're going to be in some very deep theological waters and at the same time, we're going to be at some of the greatest heights that we've seen in the Word of God. In fact, we're going to be in what I would call rarefied air. This is going to be a very, very rich passage For our guests. We're in Colossians, chapter one, and we're going to be starting approximately verse 13. And this section is one of the greatest sections in all of Scripture. It's probably the most important ones that we've covered up to now. On our entire podcast At least.

Speaker 2 1:46

There's more teaching about our salvation and the Lord Jesus Christ crammed into the smallest space of anything that I've seen, at least up to now. This is as dense and as critical as anything in Scripture. It's as important as the book of Romans. It's as important as anything in the Gospels. Steve, I just find this to be, at the same time, very deep water. I've approached this with kind of fear and trepidation, but at the same time, as I said, rarefied air. This is going to be very, very critical and deep teachings about our Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 2:24

What I like in this too is a tasting of a fine chocolate glen. It's not like the normal chocolate that you find on the store shelf or the run-in-the-mill candy bar. Those you take, you eat and you savor that chocolate flavor. But then you get to a very, very fine, rich chocolate that has been put together with great, great care, taking the very best cocoa beans and put together. When you put that in your mouth, you savor it. You let it just melt in your mouth and savor that flavor of the chocolate. You don't just eat it up like you do a regular candy bar that you get off of the shelf. That's how I like in this. This is rich, rich chocolate that we should savor when we put it in our mouth and just taste it and let it melt over our tongue and the taste buds. That's how it hits me.

Speaker 2 3:16

And it's so rich that we have to take it in little bits at a time just because it would be too much for us. Again, there's more information packed into a smaller space than just about anywhere in the Scriptures. We're going to be going a little slowly and this will take us probably the next two, maybe three sessions to get through this. But the last part of the first chapter of Colossians and the first half of the second chapter of Colossians are some of the most meaty, most complex, most wonderful passages in all of Scripture. And we're there. So, again, hope you have your life jackets.

Speaker 2 3:52

A couple of things that I'd like to just review that we dealt with last time in the first parts of Colossians, chapter one, colossians one, verse five the gospel is the word of truth. We live in a world that is full of falsehoods. There's falsehoods and lies all around us, and Colossians one five calls the gospel of Jesus Christ the word of truth. It's good to know that we have something that we can hang on to. It's truth. And then, in verse 10, chapter one, verse 10, paul tells the Colossians to walk worthy of the Lord. To walk worthy of the Lord, and of course, the walk is our daily life, that we as we go through life, the things that we do on a daily basis. When he says walk worthy, he's talking about live our daily lives in a manner worthy of this great gift, the salvation that's been given us. Wouldn't you agree, steve?

Speaker 1 4:52

Yeah, and these are things that we get by being in Christ. So when we're in Christ, these are elements that we have through him. And it's just another area of where Paul is talking about the Christian life and the benefits that we get from the Christian life. You know, the truth of the gospel is here and it's so much better than what the world has to offer. So, again, it's just. This is just a great book and we're only a few verses into the first chapter.

Speaker 2 5:20

Oh, it is a great book. Then in verse 12, it says in verse 12 that God qualified us or some translations say enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints. God changes us after we're saved and he makes us able to share in the glorious royal inheritance of the King. All of us, common Christians, are called saints and in Colossians it says that when we're saved, god qualifies us to share in the inheritance of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the major themes in the book of Colossians is this transferring of lost people from a kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God, this moving of people from a lost state to a saved state. That's one of the themes, and he's gonna hit this over and over again, saying exactly what does it mean to move somebody from a state that's lost, apart from God, to a state that's saved in fellowship with God? He talks about this over and over again. It's one of the major themes. And another of the major themes is who is this person? Jesus Christ, who is he really? And those two ideas, this transferring of people into the kingdom of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ, is just a major, major theme in the book of Colossians Colossians, believer. We touched on this last time and, steve, I think we have a slide on this if we would. That talks about the people and what has happened to us in this transfer from this lost state to the saved state. And this is just a review of what we saw last time in the first 11 verses of the book of Colossians.

Speaker 2 7:24

What do we have? Once we are saved, we're given the ability to have love for the saints. We couldn't have love for the saints before, but now that we're saved, he empowers us to have love for the fellow Christians. We have hope in heaven. We're able to bring forth fruit verse six. Also in verse six, we know the grace of God. We have love in the spirit.

Speaker 2 7:49

Verse eight we're filled with the knowledge of God's will. I mean think of it. Now that we're Christians, we can know God's will. Verse nine we have wisdom and understanding that's been given to us by the Lord Jesus. We can walk worthy of the Lord. Verse 10, we can please God. Now we're given the ability to actually please God. We're given the ability to be fruitful in every good work he's mentioned that twice now and increasing in the knowledge of God. He mentions that twice. We're strengthened by the Holy Spirit and we're given patience, long suffering and joy. All of that is just in the verses that we went over in our last session. That is talking about what happens to the Christian when they're moved from this state of being a lost sinner into a state of being a saved member of the kingdom of Christ, and I just find that tremendous and he's just gonna keep going and going with these concepts. All of those things we just mentioned are just wonderful.

Speaker 1 8:52

And what you've just done here, Glenn, is I wanna point this out this is an area, a part of inductive studying, meaning that making lists and you can see here, I hopefully from the people that are listening, but also the people that are viewing by making this list, you take these items out of the text and list them down so that you can look at them and look them over and meditate on them. Sometimes they'll get lost maybe in the text and you just kind of read over the text and you name them off, but by taking them and making a list of them, you highlight them. This is a method that we encourage people to do when they study their Bible Write down the list of things that are coming about in whatever scripture reference that you might be looking at or studying.

Speaker 2 9:35

Whenever you study the Bible, look for repeated ideas, repeated concepts, things that happen on a theme, because these things are there for a reason. In these first few verses those ones that we just listed off Paul lists 15 things in about eight or nine verses that Christians will benefit when God saves us. And that's just the first part of the book. He keeps going and going with this. So that's in the first part. These next sections we're gonna read verses 13 and 14. And in these next sections, starting in verse 13, God lists these attributes about the Lord Jesus. So, starting in verse 13, he's talking about who is this person, Jesus. He described why he is worthy of our worship. So, Steve, can you read verses 13 and 14?

Speaker 1 10:25

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.

Speaker 2 10:35

So in those two verses, where does this say that we started out as people?

Speaker 1 10:41

We started out in the domain of darkness and that actual word there is authority. So that's where we're starting out. We're starting out in a place of darkness, and darkness, of course, is absence of light.

Speaker 2 10:53

And notice here he says he rescued us from the domain of darkness. So Paul is including himself. He's saying he rescued all of us. Jesus rescued all of us from the domain of darkness. That's where we start out. All people start out in the domain of darkness. Lost people start out under the power of darkness. Says all humans are like this. It is not the case that all humans are starting out life as all children of God. This contradicts that. This says all humans start out, apart from God, under the domain of darkness.

Rescue and Transfer to the Kingdom

Speaker 2 11:32

And again this theme that carries through this whole section. He's gonna talk about this many times where we were and how we got moved into the kingdom of light here or the kingdom of fellowship with God and that process, that moving. That is a major theme here. So this is one of those passages Humans in our unsaved state are under the power and domain of darkness. That's a power over us people who, without Christ, have a nature that is evil. That that's what it's saying here. I find that all people are not God's children. So, steve, do most people believe that today? Do most people start out thinking that, okay, yeah, we're in the domain of darkness, the power of evil?

Speaker 1 12:17

and the standard that we have is defined by God. When people think well, I'm not an evil person, you know, I take care of others, I'm cordial to others, I do, I go to work, I come back, I pay my taxes. Those are all things on the human level that people say are good things, and they are good things from a human perspective, but where is it in relation to God? So that no relation to God. It is described as evil or having evil thoughts, and that's something that people have to come to grips with.

Speaker 1 12:53

It's not a pleasant thing to think about, but yet those people that have become believers and have been transferred over From the domain of darkness, they understand. We understand what these verses are really talking about, because now we have a new reflection on how we were before. And that word rescued there in Greek it means to draw or snatch from danger, to rescue or to deliver. The word picture here is similar to like a fireman that's going into a building and Taking somebody that's in in danger and darkness and bringing them out and carrying them out, transferring them out to the outside and into the light. So that's the picture that we have here of what Christ has done, taking us from that domain and authority of darkness, transferring us over into the domain of light.

Speaker 2 13:46

That's such a great picture. One of the questions I always have is why is it that people don't really believe that they're in this state of darkness? And I think the answer is because we compare ourselves to the our neighbor, we Compare ourselves to the people down the street, we compare ourselves to the people in the news and say, well, look at all those horrible things there, they're doing it. I'm not that bad. Well, we're not comparing ourselves to true righteousness. If we compare ourselves to true righteousness, we realize that we really are in the dark. We we don't have a desire for righteous things, we don't have a desire for godly things, and that's really the standard is absolute, true holy perfection, and in that sense we really are under the power of darkness.

Speaker 2 14:32

I think most people think oh well, I can, I can ignore godly things, and then I can get to the end of my life and and get to heaven and I can Negotiate with God and see if I can get my way in. And I submit God doesn't negotiate with his enemies, and that's what we're presented here. We start out as God's enemies. People that are God's enemies don't want to get into heaven. They don't want to be around godly people or do godly things. That's the place we start from is, apart from God, god's enemy under the power of darkness and, as you said, steve, we are so helpless that we have to be rescued. That's what this verse is saying. He rescued us from the domain of darkness. Who is it that rescued us?

Speaker 1 15:16

Christ did, and later we're going to see how that happened. Through the blood on the cross Paul talks about.

Speaker 2 15:23

So I can't rescue myself, right? That's the. If I could get myself out of this mess, I wouldn't need to be rescued. Why did I have to be rescued?

Speaker 1 15:32

Well, because we're in this domain of darkness and we might not even realize that we're in this domain of darkness that we are and of course I don't think that this is a picture of necessarily being forced against your will. These are people who have come to believe in Jesus Christ, and when we come to belief in Jesus Christ, we're rescued from that domain of darkness.

Speaker 2 15:54

The Bible uses this theme throughout several books of darkness and light, that God is light and Jesus is light and men in their natural state, as it says here, are in darkness. The Bible says over in the Gospel of John men loved darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. It says that in John 319. So men loved the darkness. There are people that are in the dark and they like it there, and other people. The Holy Spirit's been working on us. We don't want to be in the dark anymore, but we can't get ourselves out because our natural state loves the evil deeds. Only when God works in us can he come and rescue us Again. Look at the verse he rescued us from the domain of darkness. I can't get myself out of there because my deeds are evil. I don't have the power. I'm incapable. We're under the power of darkness, unable to have any power to get ourselves out Again. We're not neutral, we're not basically good. We're in the darkness. We have a desire to sin and if we're all honest with ourselves, that's what we're going to admit is that I have this desire to be in the darkness and to stay there.

Speaker 2 17:08

The Bible also says quote the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. We're so captive to it and we're so used to the dark that we really don't even understand the light. We don't get it. We don't understand righteousness because we're so accustomed to the dark. We're so captive to darkness that we don't comprehend it. That's in John 1.5. The natural man is so much in the dark he doesn't even understand the light. I just find that amazing. We have to be rescued. Jesus says I am the light of the world and he who follows me shall not walk in darkness Says that in John 8.12.

Speaker 1 17:47

So one of the things to ask our listeners and our viewers are are you in darkness? Do you recognize that you're in darkness? And if you're not in Christ, then you're in Adam, as Paul talks about over in Romans. And if you're in Adam, you're in this dark place. If you know that wait a minute, I'm not in Christ, then you're in this dark place and you can be rescued from it through Christ, through belief in him and his blood on the cross and his death, burial and resurrection, so that we might have hope. That's something that maybe our listeners and our viewers can do in an evaluation when am I and have I been rescued and am I over in the kingdom of Christ now, or am I still in a state of darkness and again?

Speaker 2 18:36

John 8.12. The only way to get out of the dark and the light is to follow Christ. He has to rescue us. Colossians 1.13. He rescued us. He has to do the rescuing. And here's the next question, Steve when does he rescue us to? We're from the domain of darkness, but we are rescued to where?

Speaker 1 18:56

Well, we're transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son, which is Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 19:02

And notice here in the verse he rescued us, but he has to transfer us, he has to move us, he has to bring us out of darkness, transfer us to the kingdom of the sun. That's the picture, that theme just keeps playing out over and over again in this book of Colossians. We have to come out of darkness, be rescued from that, transferred into the kingdom of light. So the end of verse 13. Here's the question, steve From this verse does it seem like we are transferred into that kingdom now, or is this considered to be somewhat later? So is the kingdom now or is the kingdom later? And yes, it's a trick question.

Speaker 1 19:47

The answer is yes and no. There is a spiritual kingdom. I liken it much to whenever God gave instructions to Adam and Eve Out of any tree in this garden you may eat. Only don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. So what happens is they eat of it, they get the, he gets deceived, adam disobeys, they eat of it, but yet they're physically still there. They don't drop over dead whenever they actually eat that fruit, but they do experience a death, just like God had told them, it was a spiritual death a separation from God and a separation from God.

Speaker 1 20:32

So I liken it to this in that we have been transferred from this domain of darkness to the two light and to this kingdom of Jesus, to his beloved son. But this is something that is in a spiritual state. So physically we're still here on earth, physically we're still in this world where the evil exists, but spiritually we're in this kingdom and the physical part is going to come about when Jesus comes again and sets up his kingdom here on earth, and then we will physically, in our glorified bodies, be in that particular kingdom, in that what we call the millennial kingdom.

Speaker 2 21:14

Again, look at the verse he rescued us. That's an action that happened already. Rescued us and transferred us. That's an action that happened already. The transfer has been made. So the question is the kingdom now or is it future? And the answer is yes, in the sense that it is now. I mean the verse we just read said he has transferred us now. So there is a sense of the kingdom is now. We have been transferred. But that doesn't mean there's not going to be a future kingdom as well.

Speaker 2 21:51

And we covered this a lot, steve, when we were in the Gospel of Matthew. It talks a lot about these two kingdoms and we went through that in quite a bit of detail, especially around Matthew, chapters 24, 25 in that section. But there's a great deal of teaching in the Bible where it talks about yes, we are citizens of the kingdom right now, but that doesn't mean there's not going to be a future one on the earth later. So there's an earthly present tense to this kingdom, but there's also going to be a future one. But again, the passage here, the main point we were in darkness. He had to rescue us, he had to transfer us into the kingdom of his son. That's just the beautiful, beautiful part, so the next part, in whom we have redemption. So what is this word? Redemption being redeemed. What is that? What does it mean?

Speaker 1 22:44

We actually went through that a little bit when we went through Exodus. But to be redeemed in order to be redeemed, it's being purchased back, it's being taken back in our world. We might have a ticket that we can go and redeem something that we give them. The ticket, they give us what the item is for. It's that picture of being purchased back or redeemed back. Well, what was the purchase? Well, we all have a guilt debt that we owe Jesus. Through his death, burial and resurrection paid that debt. The redemption takes place by Christ, and we shouldn't overlook again the first two words in whom? This again is another thing that we're going to see over and over again, as you so aptly put it. Paul just hammers things over and over again. In whom, same thing as in Christ. We're either in Christ or we're in Adam. We're either in Christ or not in Christ. So it's in whom? It's in Christ, where we have this redemption and then the forgiveness of sins.

Speaker 2 23:50

Redemption and the root word is redeemed or redeemed. There's an exchange, that there's like a legal exchange, and the way I like to think of it is sometimes with restaurants. They'll have coupons at the restaurant.

Speaker 2 24:03

You have this coupon or some some store right. You can get a free purchase with the coupon. Having the coupon or the code for the coupon gives you the legal right to the free thing, the free meal. But you have to redeem it. You have to. Just because I have the coupon doesn't mean I have the meal yet I have the legal right to the meal. I have to actually have the exchange. I have to redeem the coupon to get the meal or get the free thing. But that's the picture here, is you make the exchange. The redemption is to redeem the coupon. Take the coupon to the restaurant, get the meal. The exchange has to happen. But it's a legal exchange because the right has been purchased already. So when it says here we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, it's because Jesus paid for us already. He redeemed us. We didn't redeem ourselves, we were not able to redeem ourselves. He had to rescue us. He redeemed us. And notice again, present tense we have redemption. So is the redemption happened already? Is it now? Is it present?

Speaker 1 25:14

Yes, absolutely. We still have some future states whenever he comes again and we have a future state of a glorified body. But once we express that belief, then we have that redemption through him.

Speaker 2 25:27

So it says right now we have redemption, the redeeming has happened. It's not future. He's not saying you will be redeemed. He's saying you have redemption Now. In Romans 8.23 says we are waiting for the redemption of our bodies. So there's a future sense to our bodily redemption. Our bodies are going to be exchanged and glorified for another one, but our souls are already redeemed. We're paid for. He already made the exchange. We were already rescued from darkness and brought into light. The redemption has happened. And in this verse, what does it connect? Steve? The redemption is connected with what in the last part of verse 14?

Speaker 1 26:09

The forgiveness of sins.

Speaker 2 26:11

The forgiveness of sins is the consequence of the redemption and it ties those together. When we are redeemed, our sins are forgiven. So already we have. Our sins are forgiven, we're redeemed. The exchange has happened for the redemption, which means he paid for us, he rescued us from darkness to light. There is this dramatic, dramatic transfer from one kingdom to the other and all that's packed into this tight little space.

Understanding Redemption and Salvation in Christ

Speaker 1 26:43

And I don't want our listeners to overlook this in whom this? In Christ? This is something that I think is overlooked. Glen, you and I talked about this earlier. In Christ is a state that settles so many things, and Paul and Colossians goes through what they are. We've gone through some of them. Now we're going to go through much, much more, but I want our listeners to continue to ask themselves am I in Christ or am I not in Christ? And, of course, once you are in Christ, then that's it. And all of these blessings, all of these attributes, all of these characteristics that Paul talks about of being in Christ, you have, we have.

Speaker 1 27:29

The reason why I'm stressing this is because people have doubts. Sometimes they try and make it more complicated. There are systems and theology out there that talk about different ones and people start having doubts. Well, am I really redeemed or I really have forgiveness? Am I really saved? The question is not that. The question is are you in Christ? Have you expressed your belief in Christ truly and asked him to forgive your sins and asked him to have that forgiveness and asked him to have that redemption, and you're truly sincere about it? And if the answer to that is yes, john tells us that we can know that we have salvation. He wrote that gospel so that we would know that we have salvation and eternal life. Once you know that you're in Christ, then it's everything after that is all things that you learn about what you get by being in Christ. But that's the key thing Are you in Christ or are you not in Christ?

Speaker 2 28:34

So we're in here, in these two verses that we read, steve, is there any room for me to move myself from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light? We're in here, where I have a responsibility to do some righteous work.

Speaker 1 28:53

No, that there is no righteous work, and I know that there's some theology that says faith is a work or repentance is a work. Those aren't works. That's expressions of desire and expressions of real wanting. But it's always. The salvation is always dependent on God. So those believing in faith and repentance, those things aren't works. Those things are expressions of desire, of wanting God, wanting to have a relationship, but yet it's still God that does the salvation, is still Christ that does the rescuing. It's still Christ that died on the cross. It's all the work by Christ and he paid the penalty, he paid the price and redeemed us. So everything is on him. It's not anything on us as far as works or anything like that, in order to have our own salvation.

Speaker 2 29:48

When we were studying Exodus, there were some commands in there about how the people had to be redeemed and some of the animals had to be redeemed, and what that meant was there was this exchange we had to sacrifice another animal in exchange for this one. Well, that theme plays out here. In this redemption, god requires a payment. He doesn't negotiate. You could say it this way he doesn't negotiate with terrorists and we're we are an enemy of God. That's what it's presenting here. By what means did he redeem us as his blood? He redeemed us by him dying on the cross.

Speaker 1 30:27

That was the payment for our redemption, and that's that's a great picture. I want to point out that when those people, though, whenever they sacrifice their lamb for that redemption, that wasn't a work. It was an expression of faith and belief that what God told him in order to have this redemption, you have to sacrifice a lamb and here's the conditions at the lamb. So they did that. When they did that, it was an expression of faith of what God said was true and accurate and would come about. But it wasn't a work. It wasn't a work on their part in order to sacrifice the lamb, it was an act of faith.

The Assurance of Redemption and Salvation

Speaker 2 31:09

One of the questions then arises is is this redemption permanent or can I get myself back out of the redemption? And I submit to you Hebrews 9 12. Hebrews 9 12 says that the redemption we have through Jesus blood is an eternal redemption says it specifically there and eternal redemption through Jesus blood. So once you're redeemed, you stay redeemed. He paid the price for past sins and future sins. If you think of it, whenever we sin, all of them were future at the time Christ died. So he paid for all of these sins, not just some of them. The exchange is very dramatic. We've come out from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, into the kingdom of the sun. He transferred us, he rescued us and he forgave our sins. He redeemed us. He did all of these things and we're the ones that are the beneficiary of it. Steve, what I would say is that we all of us need to understand our position in Christ. Where are we in Christ? Our position.

Speaker 1 32:16

That's exactly right and that's the thing that we keep talking about our position in Christ. Are we in Christ, yes or no? And he did the rescuing. He transferred us. There's nothing in scripture that talks about, once we're in Christ, that he's going to transfer us back out. It works both ways. We can't rescue ourselves. The same thing is we can't take ourselves back out of Christ and into and back into the world or back into Adam. So we have that assurance, by being in Christ, that we're going to be there.

Speaker 2 32:51

Again. Hebrews 9, 12,. Our redemption is an eternal redemption. Once we're redeemed, we stay there. So it is not the case that salvation is some sort of a process that we contribute something to that we have to make sure we are purified All of these passages in the entire book.

Speaker 2 33:12

He does all these things. He's the one that rescues us, he redeems us. There's no room anywhere, nor is there any description of anything that we would do to make ourselves righteous enough to get across the finish line. He's not saying, okay, he partially redeemed you or he partially qualified you. He's no, he said he qualified you, he redeemed you, he transferred you. He didn't go into the darkness and take you part of the way out and then I have to get myself the rest of the way. No, everything in here. He did all of it and he did all of it. We merely trust Christ and he does the work of transferring us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And that's just a tremendous, tremendous concept. And that was just the beginning of it. We got through two verses. We knew it was going to be deep water here, and so we'll be continuing to reason through these passages as we come back next time, and we trust that you'll be back here with us to do so as well.

Speaker 1 34:15

Thank you so much for watching and listening, and may God bless you.