THE RESCUE
Colossians 1:13-14
In the previous verses Paul told the Colossians he had been praying for them to have a spirit of gratitude. In picturesque language, these verses remind them of one reason why they should be thankful.
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The plot-summary is worthy of a Hollywood movie out of the Forties or Fifties. You know the story: the courageous prince, gleaming sword in hand, storms the villain’s kingdom in order to rescue the beautiful, virtuous maiden.
That, at least, is how Hollywood might do the story.
In the spiritual realm, the story had some stranger twists, beginning with the facts that the courageous Prince was armed, not with a gleaming sword, but a cross and that the object of his rescue effort was hardly beautiful and far from virtuous.
And, of course, not even Hollywood could truly depict the terror of the Kingdom of Darkness.
In the New Testament, “Darkness” represents evil. As a consequence, when Paul refers to “the dominion of darkness” is referring to a realm where evil has its sway over the hearts and minds of men and women.
Although it promises freedom, this kingdom is, in fact, one of slavery and bondage. Those trapped in this kingdom are trapped by sin. When darkness reigns our tastes become perverse. As John writes, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19) When darkness reigns men and women pursue self-destructive life-styles, convincing themselves they are pursuing fulfillment.
This kingdom is one of lies and confusion. When darkness reigns our thinking may become so distorted we commit the worst of crimes in the name of God. When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane he addressed the mob before he was taken into custody:
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour--when darkness reigns." (Luke 22:52-53)
The kingdom of darkness is one of distorted and broken relationships. Again, John speaks of the nature of life in the dark kingdom when he warns, “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.” (1JN 2:9)
The kingdom of darkness is one of fear. In the first-century world, when Jewish people went to bed they sometimes left a small lamp burning. They believed the light would ward off the evil spirits in the dark. Don’t laugh at them. Most of us went though a period when we were afraid of the dark, we may have needed some type of “night light” before we could get to sleep.
Most of us outgrow our fear of the darkness caused by the setting of the sun. But the fears of those trapped in the spiritual kingdom of darkness are multiplied because they fear there will never be a sunrise.
As Paul wrote to the Colossians he probably had in mind one of the major themes of the false teachers who were threatening the peace of mind of the church. They had caused the crisis of confidence by teaching that it was necessary to placate the rulers of the darkness. Elsewhere, Paul called them “principalities and powers of this dark world”. Paul writes to challenge this notion. He writes to tell them they no longer had to live under the dominion of the dark.
He wrote to tell them of a spiritual sunrise which had bathed the world in light. In fact, this message was part of his commission. When the Risen Christ confronted Saul the persecutor on the road to Damascus, he told this former unbeliever who would become Paul the Apostle:
I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' (Acts 26:17-18)
With this call in mind, Paul tells the Colossians that God himself had mounted an invasion into the very heart of the kingdom of darkness. It’s clear from the rest of the epistle that the Agent in that invasion was Christ Jesus, the Prince in our drama.
Who was this Prince? Paul tells us he is “God’s dearly-loved Son”.
Why did Paul stress God’s love for the Son?
· Perhaps Paul simply wanted to underscore the relationship between the Father and the Son. (Jesus Christ was the Son of God as no one else could ever claim to be.)
· Perhaps Paul wanted to undermine any teaching which would call into question Jesus’ significance. Anyone taking a position which sought to dispute the role of Christ in God’s plan was questioning the work of the one who knew God’s special love.
· Perhaps, in light of the emphasis upon the cross (which would come in later verses), Paul wanted to show the depth of God’s commitment to provide redemption: It required sending the Son whom he loved to the cross.
In any case, Paul wanted his readers to know what God had done for them through what Christ had done for them.
He says that God had “rescued them from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Listen to some of the other ways that phrase is translated: He “transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,” He “brought us away into the kingdom of his dear son,” He “created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son….” The imagery behind this statement comes from the world of military conquest.
It translates a term which refers to the practice of taking whole groups of people from one place and taking them to another to form a colony. As Lohse comments, “Much like a mighty king who is able to remove whole peoples from their ancestral homes and to transplant them to another realm, so God is described as taking the community from the power of darkness and transferring it ‘to the dominion of his beloved Son’” But God’s motivation was not that of those ancient kings, nor that of some modern conquerors.
When Adolph Hitler attacked the Soviet Union he planned to capture the peoples of the Ukraine and deport them as slave labor to Germany. What a contrast to what God has done for us: He rescued us from a realm in which we were slaves and transported us to a place of freedom.
I sometimes picture Paul’s mind racing to find adequate language to describe what God had done for us. His thought races at such a pace we move from one figure of speech to another so quickly that we are left wondering what happened. At this point, Paul switches metaphors: With a mere flick of his pen he takes us from the world of warring kingdoms to the worlds of the slave market and the temple. He says, God “brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
He hasn’t changed the subject. He is still defining what God through Christ had done for us, still exploring the liberation we have through Christ. The centrality of Christ to what God had done is still clear. So, too, is the sufficiency of Christ’s work in securing our salvation.
Every one of Paul’s readers would have seen a slave market. Hundreds of thousands of slaves were part of the Roman Empire. Slaves were slaves for life, they could be listed as property in wills. Yet, there were ways out of slavery. A generous master could choose to free a slave, perhaps upon the master’s death. An industrious slave could save enough money to purchase freedom. Or, loving relatives or friends could pay the price to purchase a slave’s freedom.
As slaves to sin, we could not expect our “master” to generously free us. Nor could we ever supply the price to purchase our own freedom. Our only hope of freedom rested on the action of another on our behalf.
Jesus paid the ransom price for our freedom. In some translations the words of verse 14 say, “in him we have redemption through his blood.” The words, “through his blood,” are found in some of the later New Testament manuscripts but probably weren’t in the original. Still, Paul seldom mentions redemption without having the Cross in mind. He certainly did when he wrote to the Ephesians in what almost seems a parallel statement to this in Colossians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins…”
The Colossians, familiar as they were with Christian preaching, would have probably linked the reference to redemption to the death of Christ on the cross. To bring up the subject of the cross was to bring up an issue which may have been being debated among the Colossians. Some of the false teachers had evidently been saying that his death on the cross proved Christ’s inferior status. Paul was determined to challenge that thinking.
So, in Colossians, Paul depicts the cross in some startling and thought-provoking ways. Anyone thinking of the Cross as a place of shame and defeat would have to think again.
* In these verses, by implication at least, the cross becomes the base of operations for a rescue mission into the very stronghold of Satan.
* In 1:20 it become the bridge which spans the gulf between God and humanity, allowing reconciliation.
* In 2:14 it becomes a court of appeals where the indictment against us is vacated.
* In 2:15, using language as vivid at that in these verses, the cross becomes the victor’s chariot of triumph.
In time, whether here in Colossae or elsewhere, there would be those who were ashamed of the cross, who could not imagine God stooping so low as to allow himself to be crucified; Paul wanted the Colossians—and us—to have a clearer understanding of the Cross and its role in our redemption.
The cross secured our forgiveness. It was part of the redeeming work of Christ. In the beautiful imagery of the Bible, forgiveness imagines our sins being sent away from us. As Curtis Vaughn puts it, our sins are sent so far away that they can no longer form a barrier between us and God. Forgiveness, as McDonald observes, is an experience in which “man’s deepest and realest need” is met.
If you recall, I said at the outset that this story of rescue was just a little different from what Hollywood might tell. The object of Christ’s dramatic rescue was not a beautiful, virtuous princess, but a defiled band of sinful rebels against God’s rule. Some would have looked at that undeserving crew for whom Christ died and said, “Let them stay in the dark, they’re not worth it.”
Perhaps, but the Son whom God loves, is one who loves the unworthy. And this Son whom God loves continues to bring light and liberty to those who trust him.
CONCLUSION
Concerned about their crisis of confidence, Paul wanted the Colossians know something: God, having rescued them from the power of Satan’s kingdom, had brought them into the kingdom of his Son—where they could know freedom and forgiveness.
And Paul would want us to know that we can still experience spiritual freedom and forgiveness through the work of Christ. He would want to know this because there is still great darkness in our world.
Darkness is a frightening experience, but we can become used to it. In time, we can even learn to move about in the dark, to function reasonably well. Any burst of light startles and unnerves us at first, we may even throw up a hand to shade our eyes. Then, gradually, we come to realize how much we had been missing in the world around us.
A few years ago Pat and I flew to Albuquerque. We arrived late at night. In the distance we could see some great shadowy shapes but not even the lights of the city could illuminate them enough for us to really make them out. The next morning, when the sun had risen, we could see the majestic mountains and the beautiful desert which surround the city.
Despite Jesus rescue mission many still live in the dark. If you’re one of them, he continues to invite you to enjoy the light of his kingdom, to experience the liberty of his kingdom, to rest in the love of his kingdom.
If you already know the joy of liberation, join in calling others to know Christ the great Liberator.
