Entrance Already
ENTRANCE ALREADY
COLOSSIANS 1:9-14
When you live in a kingdom flooded with light, in which God’s own Son is Ruler, joy and thankfulness are always possible.
The burden of Paul’s prayer was that his readers might know the riches they possessed through the gospel, and might wait with patience and joy until their life which is hidden with Christ appears with him (see 3:1). One by one the apostle touches on the beliefs that the false teachers had taken and used as a goad toward rigorism in the life of believers: “filled with the knowledge of his will,” “all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (1:9), “a life worthy of the Lord,” “fully pleasing to him,” “increasing in the knowledge of God” (1:10). Paul’s desire for the church is not less, but he also prayed that they might experience joy and thanksgiving (1:11-12), two emphases which were conspicuously absent from the negative restrictions the congregation had begun to accept. In contrast to submission to ascetic practices in order to qualify for visions (see 2:18), Paul urges joyful thanksgiving to the Father “who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (1:12; see also 1:5). In contrast to rigid self-discipline as the means of attaining perfection during one’s lifetime (see 2:17), Paul delights in the God who has already “transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (1:13). The apostle’s image is satisfying, for in the classical writers the verb signifies the removal of whole communities from one district to another.
Formerly the Colossians were enslaved in the land of darkness. But God rescued them and transplanted them into a kingdom which is flooded with light. The king is God’s dear Son who forgave their sins and confirmed their freedom (1:14). In this way, before coming to any explicit reference to the Colossian error, Paul indicates that Christians have already experienced what the false teachers had argued was available only through a life of rigorous self-denial. Believers do not have to struggle to gain entrance to their inheritance; God has already graciously provided that entrance through his Son.
Thought Do you have the courage to pray like this for other people?