Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire
Colossians 1:13–14 (ESV) — 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Twice Saved By The Father
It’s important you are tuned in here, because I’m about to make a statement that some of you may not agree with. Yet, if it’s true, then it is massively important that we grasp this—not only for our own assurance and joy, but for our efforts in reaching lost people with the gospel.
Your understanding of the gospel is deficient if it only deals with an escape plan from hell. Hell is only half the story.
My goal is to shake your gospel foundations a little—a lot if needed—but not so as to unsettle you. I want you to grow a deeper conviction, a deeper confidence, and a deeper joy in what God has accomplished for your salvation. But not only for your sake, I want this confident joy in the gospel to spring up in you so abundantly that it flows from you into the lives of those around you who don’t yet know Jesus.
I finished my statement by saying that, “Hell is only half the story” — there is another side to this truth, but we’ll get to that a little later.
QUALIFIED
These two verses condense one of the most expansive and glorious truths in all human history—they give us, in just a few short words, a summary of all that God has done, is doing, and will do, to form a people for himself for his own glory. In these couple of verses, we can see the DNA of the Bible, and from these truths spring the entirety of God’s purpose and plan for humanity.
But it’s important to not see them as something new, so I want to set them back into the context of Paul’s larger prayer.
Colossians 1:9–14 (ESV) — 9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, — Content— asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, —Purpose— 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; —Goal— 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
In verse 12 Paul says that ‘the Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light’ — can you see that? That is a massive statement. The Father qualified us. So, just by means of simple logic, that must mean that at some stage we were dis-qualified, right? Do you agree with that? At some point in history, we had no right to be included in the inheritance of the saints of light, no right to be counted as one of the privileged children of God, no right to call him Father, no right to expect anything but condemnation from God, no right to expect a secure eternity beyond death, no right at all. We were disqualified.
But God. Paul asserts that the Father qualified us, and that this is, in fact, the grounds of our thankfulness as a Christian. So this is hugely important. The question is, how did God qualify us? Which is exactly what verses 13-14 boil down for us. These two verses are the ground that your joyful thankfulness can grow out of as you see what God has done for you in qualifying you for the fulness of the inheritance he has in store.
So let’s just dissect these two verses for a while and marvel at what God has done.
RESCUED (DELIVERED)
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness (13a)
It is good and right to celebrate the action of God here: He has delivered — praise God! God rescued us. And look what he rescued us from—because he has—he has rescued us from something. What is that something? ‘The domain of darkness’. Sounds terrible, right? And it is, and traditionally we’ve usually focussed on the horror of hell here, and rightly so.
Hell is definitely something that Paul has in mind. Hell—that final destination of Satan and his demons, that place of eternal torment, that place described as being filled with sulphur and flame, that place of eternal separation from the light of God’s glory, that place of divine wrath and retribution for all sin and rebellion. Far from being a place to ‘party with your mates’ as Satan watches over his kingdom with glee, hell is a place of never-ending regret and longing that will never be alleviated. There will be no comfort and no relief.
But I want you to notice that hell isn’t all that Paul has in mind when he uses the term ‘domain of darkness’ — Paul has a much more expansive view of just how lost we are without God. In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul has in mind that we are rescued by Jesus ‘from the wrath to come’ (1 Thess 1:10), but elsewhere he gives us a fuller picture of just how lost the lost actually are.
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12 ESV)
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (Ephesians 4:18 ESV)
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. (Galatians 4:8 ESV)
Or more comprehensibly, Paul dealing with the lost in his letter to the Romans:
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32 ESV)
When Paul talks about us being enslaved in the domain of darkness and in need of deliverance, he isn’t just talking about the horror of Hell, he’s also talking about the hopelessness of life.
But God. But God. Amen!
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness!
TRANSFERRED
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son (13b)
What an incredible exchange—rescued from darkness, and transferred into light. God did that, more specifically, the Father did that. God saw our helpless estate and acted to rescue and bring us into the promised land. This is the character of our God. Even from times gone by, God is a God who hears the cry of his people in slavery, rescues, and provides.
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. (Exodus 2:23-25 ESV)
Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, (Exodus 3:7-8 ESV)
Like the Israelites, we too were enslaved and in desperate need of rescue. Then God stepped in.
Just as Hell isn’t the only thing Paul had in mind about darkness, Heaven isn’t the only thing he has in mind when he talks about the kingdom of light.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God… (Galatians 4:8-9 ESV)
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:12-13 ESV)
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, (Ephesians 2:19 ESV)
Isn’t this truth glorious! We have been rescued from darkness, and transferred into light. Astounding! And even if we stopped there, that should be enough to sing a thousand songs of praise, right? Well, not so fast.
That’s where many Christians are prone to stop. For some, it’s reduced even more, “I’ve been saved from hell”, for others, “I’ve been saved from hell, and now I’m going to heaven” — but we still have a massive problem.
REDEEMED
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (14)
Let me remind you of my statement made at the beginning of this message:
Your understanding of the gospel is deficient if it only deals with an escape plan from hell. Hell is only half the story.
You see, this view is really like the old saying, do you know it? ”Out of the frying pan and into the fire”. It is usually said when someone escapes one dangerous situation only to find themselves in another. And that is exactly what is happening if we think of the gospel as being just a ticket out of hell, or even simply a free pass into heaven.
Here’s the remaining part of my first statement:
You don’t only require being saved from hell, you need to be saved from God!
That’s not something we think about much, right? We like to think of God in terms that suit us, but here is the reality, without divine intervention of a miraculous nature, we are (as Jonathan Edwards once famously preached) ‘Sinners in the hand of an angry God’.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (Romans 5:12 ESV)
…and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:22 ESV)
For the wages of sin is death… (Romans 6:23 ESV)
To be rescued from darkness, transferred into the presence of God, withoutthe sin issue being dealt with is to escape darkness only to be faced with death.
This is a matter for all of us to come to terms with:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23 ESV)
Not only did we require rescuing from the domain or darkness, we required a God who was able to fix our sin problem. Enter Jesus, the snake crusher!
Jesus would overcome the curse that was meant to fall on us.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:4-12 ESV)
Jesus is the promised one that Isaiah pointed to, and the one who Paul lifts up as the one who redeems the sinner.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 ESV)
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:9 ESV)
We have redemption, which is the forgiveness of our sins. In Christ, God has saved us from himself. Delivering us from darkness, transferring us into the kingdom of his own Son, he has brought us near to himself.
And now? Well, now:
Romans 8:1 (ESV) — 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Conclusion
Do you remember where this started? All this started with a prayer Paul gives in thankfulness for the Colossians.
Colossians 1:9–14 (ESV) — 9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
I said that my goal was to shake your gospel foundations a little—a lot if needed—but not so as to unsettle you. I want you to walk away with a deeper conviction, a deeper confidence, and a deeper joy in what God has accomplished for your salvation. But not only for your sake, I want this confident joy in the gospel to spring up in you so abundantly that it flows from you into the lives of those around you who don’t yet know Jesus.
Has that happened?
