Colossians 1:13–20

And more than that: "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." This is not a gradual deliverance, but a deliverance accomplished. Both the deliverance and the move into His kingdom happen when we believe on Christ. There is a power of darkness. Satan is the ruler of darkness, and the unsaved sinner belongs to this power of darkness.

We are not only made fit for the share of the saints in light. The Father has also delivered us from the authority of darkness. Satan and his agents are "the rulers of the darkness of this world". Blinded by Satan, the world is in "darkness" — ignorance of God — despite all its civilization, discoveries, and inventions.

The power of darkness is the rule of Satan over this world. By vanity, money, even knowledge — by everything going on around them — he blinds the eyes of men and keeps his power over them. He uses all these different things to keep man without God.

It is a total taking us out of the place we were in. The blood has put away my sins, and I truly am born of God. But there is more. I have been moved out of the kingdom of Satan, who rules the darkness of this world, and into the kingdom of the Son of God's love. This is the only place where the kingdom is given this name, set in contrast with the kingdom of Satan. I was a slave of Satan, and I have been taken right out of it all.

"And has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." So we have not only light but love, the two essential names of God. I have both according to Christ. I have been delivered from the power of darkness, and I am brought not simply into the light, but also into the kingdom where all God's love displays itself in the Son of His love. That is where I live.

The very thought of "kingdom" brings in the idea of rule. We are not saved to be lawless, of course, but to come under the rule of the Son. The full height of the Sonship glory of Jesus governs everything in this realm, including the lives of those brought into it. But behind all His authority and dignity is His Father's love. He is the Son of the Father's love.

The believer is no longer in darkness. He does not walk in darkness, but in the light. How much room he gives the light in his heart and life is another matter altogether. Even so, he is completely delivered from the authority of darkness. Satanic power no longer has authority over him. Satan remains his cunning enemy, but not his master. His Master now is the Son of the Father's love. This part of the kingdom of God includes only true believers.

The point is, how has this been reached? The answer is, by redemption… we were under "the authority of darkness." So we belonged to the kingdom of Satan. Escape by any power or cleverness of our own was impossible. Our sins shut us out from God and at the same time made us the hopeless captives of Satan.

Third, this verse reminds us of the righteous ground on which God made us fit for light and moved us into the kingdom of love. Christ's work on the cross cleared away everything that stood between us and the blessing. So we can say, "In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

These blessings are not a matter for prayer but a theme for praise. They set out the position and relationships the Father's grace gives the believer through the work of Christ. That position and those relationships come from Christ's work, so they must be as perfect as that work. We may grow in our grasp of them, but in the blessings themselves there can be no growth.

The common text added "Through His blood" here, and our version followed it, but the phrase really belongs to Ephesians. There is greater fullness in Ephesians than in Colossians. So Ephesians shows us how we can be blessed in this way despite our sins, since they enter into the account there. But here Paul is just summing up the blessing.

Every believer has this redemption and forgiveness now. Redemption is the total release of a person from bondage by a price paid — the price of the blood of Christ. Forgiveness of sins is a complete discharge of the things by which we had offended our Creator. Nothing is held against us, for the blood of Christ has answered for it all.

A slave may be bought and still be a slave. But to be redeemed is to be not only bought, but actually brought out of slavery into freedom.

It is not just a price paid, which might as yet have no answer in those purchased. Redemption is a state you enter, not merely a title Christ claims. No one is redeemed unless there is an effect produced — present deliverance from the enemy and the forgiveness of sins, though it goes further than that.

In Ephesians it is put in a more general way. In Colossians it seems connected above all with cleansing us from evil — the evil of the kingdom of Satan. Here the forgiveness mentioned first has more to do with bringing us out of the dark kingdom of Satan, under the power of the kingdom of God's dear Son.

I take verse 14 as the very starting-point — the forgiveness of sins. We get the blessed truth here, the first truth, if you like: grace, joy, and peace, with complete forgiveness through Christ. He has come down to us and redeemed us out of the condition we were in.

The more we go on from day to day, the more we see how important it is to get hold of this, elementary truth though it is. There is so much seeking after an unfinished forgiveness now. When people think of the sins they have not yet committed, the question comes up: "What about the future?" Then various ways of getting rid of them come into their minds.

The first chapter of Colossians sets out a rich array of the glories of the Son of the Father's love. These glories are introduced with "In whom we have redemption — the forgiveness of sins." We must first enjoy the forgiveness of sins before we can know the glories of the Son, and the grace, power and glory of God.

But Colossians 1 calls Him not only the "Image of God" but the "Firstborn of all creation." Even if He had been the last to be born, He would still hold the Firstborn's place. Here is the reason: He created all! And when the Creator-Son comes into His creation, He must have the first place.

In this detailed description of the Son's creative work, the Spirit leaves no loophole for unbelieving man to suggest an exception that might seem to disprove His claim: the Son of the Father's love is the Creator of the whole creation. He created all things Himself, in His own right, and as the instrument of God's purpose and glory. So, according to the Spirit's teaching, nothing can cross the fixed barrier between the Son, the Creator, on one side, and the created things He produced on the other.

Verse 16 states this great fact in a threefold way, using three different prepositions: in, by and for. In our Authorized Version the first preposition is "by," just like the second. Word for word, though, it is "in." Look this passage up in Darby's New Translation and you will find footnotes. They tell us that "in" means "characteristic power": "He was the One whose intrinsic power characterized the creation. It exists as His creature." They also tell us that "by" means He was "the active Instrument," and that "for" means He is "the End" for which creation exists.

He created the whole creation, the "all things," including thrones and so on, to bear some mark of His glory — each detail in its own measure. Suppose we knew the language of the heavens above our heads, or of the earth beneath our feet, as He created them. Then every form of life, every atom, every colour, every shape, every sound and every authority would tell us something of the wisdom and glory of Christ.

Whether they are thrones, the highest officials; or dominions, rulers over parts of God's vast universe; or principalities, lesser authorities; or powers, every angelic being glorying in its strength, fallen and unfallen — though all were unfallen when He created them.

What may be the real distinction between thrones, dominions, principalities and powers we do not know, but we do know that they all owe their very existence to our Lord Jesus. Twice over in this one verse is it stated that He is the Creator of "all things."

He is not a lesser workman creating for the glory of a higher Master, for a God above Himself, as Arianism later pretended. He is the End of created things as well as their immediate Source. When a creature lives for Him, it finds there both the explanation and the rule of its own being.

He is Creator, not created, and all created things are not only by but for Him. Did He, a creature, create all things for Himself? What is left then for God?

The Colossian heresy turned on a subtle error, a false mysticism that only a privileged few could enter. It set out to explain evil and creation. God is good and matter is evil, so a descending series of angelic orders (principalities and powers) must connect God with the universe. The result was that the Son of God lost His throne and angels received worship.

In the end, someone who represents Christ will fill every throne in the universe. All will be conformed to His image and represent Him. And every place of lordship will be held for the glory of Christ.

Some men claim to believe in His pre-eminence over creation, and yet say that He Himself had a beginning. We are guarded against such mistaken thoughts, for we are clearly told, "He is before all things." This statement tells us in no uncertain terms of the divine and eternal glory of the Son. We are carried back to a time before anything created existed. There we learn not merely "He was," but "He is." These words forbid the thought that "He began" or that "He was made." They tell us clearly of His eternal existence as the Son.

The verb establishes His existence before all created things: "He is," not was, "before all things" and beings. It is the scriptural phrase signifying absolute, timeless existence. The Holy Spirit uses it here of the Son. Jesus used it of Himself when He said to the Jews, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). God said the same of Himself when He sent Moses to the children of Israel: "I am has sent me to you" (Ex. 3:14).

The special force of the pronoun may be lost to the English reader, but the original Greek uses the emphatic pronoun autos, which means "very self." So the verse declares that "He Himself," or "His very self" is "before all things." It is He (that is, the Son) and no other. The Person of the Son preceded the universe, and He is also the universal Cause.

"And He is before all things and by Him all things consist." Everything depends upon Him; all things are held together by Him. Without Him all would cease to be. Four times in these two verses we read of "all things." All things created by Him; all things for Him; He is before all things; all things consist by Him.

"And by [or, in virtue of] him all things consist." In virtue of Him gives a clearer and more intimate idea. The object here is to take away all vagueness in exalting Christ.

Created things do not only continue to exist; they continue together. The Son sustains the vast creation in all its parts as one harmonious whole. Men would use what they call the laws of nature to shut the Creator out of His universe. But without the sustaining power of the Son, all would collapse into ruin.

Our sun and other suns may all revolve around some great central point, and astronomers have tried in vain to discover it. But the simple Christian is after all wiser than the astronomers, for he can say, "By Him all things hang together." He is the central Pivot, the glorious Person in whom every part of the universe is concentrated, and He holds everything for God.

All things subsist together "by Him," and in what relation does this wonderful Person of such glorious pre-eminence stand to us? "He is the Head of the body—the assembly." Oh! to think that we are so closely united to such a One! He is our Head, and we are the members of His body! He gave Himself for the assembly.

It is interesting to see two very distinct firstborns. He is firstborn of all creation, because He is the Creator. And He is firstborn from the dead — a new, plain and weighty fact. So Christ is not only the Head of creation as man, but He is firstborn from the dead as risen. It is in connection with this that He is Head of the Church. He was not in this relationship on earth. He was not Head simply by becoming man. Becoming man is a completely different truth from His headship of the Church, which brings in the further truth of union. Many confuse union with His becoming man. Union is not His taking flesh and blood here below. It is our being made members of His body, now that He is risen and glorified. There could have been no union with Him until death and resurrection, and the Holy Spirit was given to unite us with Him in that risen condition. Then, and not before, we have the body, the Church.

It is God's new start, after the failure of the first man and his end under judgment in the cross of Christ. When He was on earth, Christ was the Second Man from heaven. But in God's purpose He was not in the condition of the Second Man until after He was risen and glorified. So it is as the Firstborn from among the dead that He is the beginning of the new order of things. God is working to that pattern now, and He will bring all His redeemed into it, made fully like Him who is glorified at God's right hand.

He is "the firstborn from the dead," and so He is "the beginning." Everything that forms part of that new creation finds its origin in Him and takes its character from Him.

As the apostle comes to speak of Christ as the Head it becomes clear that death was needed in order for Him to become the Head. This was not the case with the first series of glories: He did not need to die in order to be the Creator, but He could only be the Head of the body if there was a body, and this could only be formed when the Holy Spirit came to dwell on the earth which, in turn, could only happen after Christ had died.

Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18), and He is head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:22; Colossians 2:10). As head of the church, Christ completely removes every other controlling or guiding authority. As the head of a man guides and controls his body, so Christ has complete control over His church.

If the Creator Himself steps into His own creation, He must take the first place. This is one of the glories of His supremacy. Then the apostle brings us into the new circle of the Church, and reminds us that He has the first place there too. He who is the head of His body, the Church, is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead. So wherever Christ is, in the first creation or the new, He is first. He holds absolute pre-eminence in His personal and acquired glories.

Is it not striking that the only other reference in Scripture to this word "pre-eminence" is in 3 John 9? Diotrephes sought the place for himself, and wanted to cast his brothers "out of the church."

The young believers at Colosse were led astray because they were "not holding the Head." That left them open to false teaching: the worship of angels, ritualism, and philosophy or rationalism. To hold the teaching of the Headship of Christ is one thing. To hold the Head Himself, in the faith and affection of our hearts, and so be in communion with Him, is another.

The passage has an unusual wording. It may have led the English translators to put in "Father" in verse 19. If that guess is right, the reason was not this verse so much as the next one, verse 20 — "to reconcile … to himself." They could not see how it could be to Him unless it were the Father. But I think the context is framed on purpose to show us that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ. No one Person of that divine fulness acts to the exclusion of the rest. They all had one counsel — not merely similar counsels, as so many creatures might have, but one and the same.

"Dwelling" and "reconciling" are both personal acts. The verse states plainly that all the fullness is pleased to dwell in Him, and also to reconcile all things by Him to Himself. Notice how the run of pronouns in verses 19 and 20 keeps pointing to the same Person: "in Him"; "His cross"; "by Him"; "to Himself"; "by Him."

It sums up first all the varied glory of verses 15-18. But the words "All the fulness" go beyond even that expression of His glory. So we can think of nothing in the Godhead as revealed that did not find its revelation in Christ Himself. For instance, Christ revealed the Father so fully that He could say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." … Again, besides creatorship and redemption glories, the Father dwelt in Him, John 14:10, and He was in the Father, verse 11.

There is a strong likeness between Colossians 1:19 and chapter 2:9. Only 1:19 refers to what was true of Him in the days He lived on earth, while 2:9 states it as true of Him today. It is hard to imagine a stronger statement of His deity. Yet the word "bodily" plainly implies that He is still Man.

The question is no longer how to create a world, or how to form a sphere for the display of glory. It is how to reconcile, where sin has entered and defiled. The creation must be cleared of the defilement of sin, so that God can have rest in His own creation. And man must be brought back to God, in keeping with the righteousness as well as the holy love of His own blessed nature. None could do this but that One in whom the Godhead fulness was pleased to dwell. There lay the value of that work of expiation, and the blood of His cross was its witness.

Verse 19 tells us that all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in the Son when He came to do His mighty work… And we may safely add that what the Godhead aims at, the Godhead always accomplishes.

Here then is the grand antidote! The fullness of the Infinite One dwells in Him, and in Him we are complete. He came down beneath all for our salvation. He is now above all in exaltation. He is the glorified Man who glorified God on earth and is now crowned on high. In Him the Godhead fullness dwells bodily, and we too are filled full in Him.