+I. The state contemplated.+--It is "an inheritance"; not a purchased
property, but the common heritage of the children of God. "Of the
saints," holy persons. "In light," knowledge, holiness, happiness.
+II. The meetness required.+--Adaptations in the natural world. In
social arrangement. In regard to the heavenly state. A change of
heart is necessary. Without it heaven would not be heaven to us. It
must be sought and obtained in the present world. It is here ascribed
to the Father.
+III. The thanks to be rendered.+--We thank our fellow-men for their
gifts. We thank God for His other gifts. We should thank Him for
meetness for heaven. This thanksgiving prepares us for
heaven.--_G. Brooks._
_Meetness for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light._--Life for
eternity is already begun. The business and the beatitude of heaven
must consist in conformity of the will to the will of God: this is
equally the law of earth.
+I. Faith is the realising power of this meetness.+
+II. Hope is the consoling and fortifying power.+
+III. Love is the uniting power, the consummation, and the perfection
of all.+--_A. Butler._
_The Inheritance of the Saints._
+I. An interesting view of the future world as it is inherited by
believers.+--1. _The saints are in light in respect to the place._
2. _As it respects purity._ 3. _In respect of the permanency of their
felicity._ 4. _As it respects knowledge._
+II. The meetness which is wrought by God in the hearts of all who
are raised to the enjoyment of this inheritance.+--1. _The relative
meetness is expressed by the word "inheritance."_ It is assigned to
heirs. 2. _The personal meetness is indicated by the term "saints."_
+Lessons.+--1. _Give thanks to God for those who are made meet._
2. _Give thanks to God if the work be begun in
yourselves.--R. Watson._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 13, 14.
_The Great Moral Translation._
These words amplify the truth unfolded in the preceding verse, and
describe the great change that must take place in order to obtain a
meetness for the saintly inheritance--_the translation of the soul
from the powerful dominion of darkness into the glorious kingdom of
the Son of God._
+I. This translation involves our enfranchisement from a state of
dark captivity.+--"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness"
(ver. 13).
1. _The unrenewed are in a realm of moral darkness._--This was the
condition of the Colossians and of the whole Gentile world before the
times of the Gospel. "Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness
the people." Darkness denotes _ignorance,_ moral blindness. Man is in
darkness about the great mysteries of being, the mystery of sin and
suffering, the deep significance of life, the distressing question of
human duty, the destiny of the universe, the character and operations
of God, and His relation to the race. It is possible to know much
_about_ religion, to hold religious ideas at second-hand as a group
of poetic conceptions--fancy pictures from the book of Revelation,
like the pictures of the poets from the book of Nature--and yet be
totally in the dark as to the religious experience of those ideas.
May be intellectually light, and spiritually dark. Darkness denotes
_danger_ and _misery._ Like a traveller in a strange country
overtaken by the night, stumbling along in uncertainty and fear,
until one fatal step--and he lies helpless in the rocky abyss, into
the bottom of which he falls.
2. _In this realm of moral darkness the unrenewed are held in
captivity._--They are slaves in the land of darkness, tyrannised over
by an arbitrary and capricious ruler. Slavery distorts and defaces
the illustrious image in which man was originally created, darkens
the understanding, paralyses the intellect, and stunts the growth of
intelligence; it robs him of his self-respect, poisons nature, and
brands him with unutterable infamy. The "power of darkness" is that
tyranny which sin exercises over its captives, filling their minds
with deadly errors or brutish ignorance, their consciences with
terror of indifference, and dragging them onwards under its dismal
yoke into all the horrors of eternal darkness. The tyrant of this
gloomy realm is Satan; and his domination is founded and conducted on
imposture, error, ignorance, and cruelty. He is the arch-deceiver.
3. _From this realm of moral darkness God graciously
liberates._--"Who hath delivered us." For the slaves of sin there is
no help but in God. It is the nature of sin to incapacitate its
victim for making efforts after self-enfranchisement. He is unwilling
to be free. To snap the fetters from a nation of slaves yearning for
liberty is a great and noble act. Our deliverance is mightier than
that. The word "deliver" in the text means to snatch or rescue from
danger, even though the person seized may at first be unwilling to
escape, as Lot from Sodom. God does not force the human will. The
method of deliverance was devised and executed independent of our
will; its personal benefits cannot be enjoyed without our will.
+II. This translation places us in a condition of highest moral
freedom and privilege.+--1. _We are transferred to a kingdom._ "Hath
translated us into the kingdom" (ver. 13). _Power_ detains captives;
a kingdom fosters willing citizens. Tyranny has no law but the
capricious will of a despot; a kingdom implies good government, based
on universally recognised and authoritative law. "The image is
presented of the wholesale transportation of a conquered people, of
which the history of Oriental monarchies furnishes many examples"
(Josephus, _Ant.,_ IX. xi.). They were translated from a bad to a
better ruling power. So, the believer is moved from the realm and
power of darkness and bondage to the kingdom of light and freedom.
The laws of this kingdom are prescribed by Christ, its honours and
privileges granted by Him, and its future history and triumphs will
ever be identified with His own transcendent glory.
2. _We are placed under the rule of a beneficent and glorious
King._--"The kingdom of God's dear Son," more accurately "the Son of
His love." As love is the essence of the Father, so is it also of the
Son. The manifestation of the Son to the world is manifestation by
Him of Divine love (1 John iv. 9). The kingdom into which believers
are translated is founded on love; its entire government is carried
on under the same beneficent principle. The acts of suffering and
death, by which Christ won His kingly dignity and power, were
revelations of love in its most heroic and self-sacrificing forms.
When we believe in Christ, we are translated from the tyranny and
darkness of sin into the kingdom of which the Son of God--the Son
infinitely beloved of the Father--is King. As willing subjects, we
share with Him the Father's love, and are being prepared for more
exalted service and sublimer experiences in the endless kingdom of
the future.
+III. The Divine method by which translation is effected.+--It is
effected by redemption.
1. _The means of redemption._--"Through His blood" (ver. 14). The
image of a captive and enslaved people is still continued. But the
metaphor is changed from the victor who rescues the captive by force
of arms to the philanthropist who releases him by the payment of a
ransom (_Lightfoot_). All men are under the condemnation of a
violated law and sink in the bondage of sin. There is no release but
by paying a ransom; this is involved in the idea of redemption. The
ransom-price paid for the enfranchisement of enslaved humanity was
"not corruptible things, as silver and gold, but the precious blood
of Christ." The _mode_ of redemption is to us a deep mystery; the
reasons influencing the Divine Mind in its adoption we cannot fathom.
But the fact is plainly revealed (1 Pet. iii. 18, ii. 24; Gal.
iii. 13). This was God's method of translating from bondage to
liberty.
2. _The effect of redemption._--"Even the forgiveness of sins" (ver.
14). The ransom-price is paid, and the slave is free. The first
blessing of redemption is pardon. It is this the penitent soul most
urgently needs; it does not exclude all other redemptive blessings
but opens and prepares the soul for their reception. Sin is the great
obstacle between the soul and God; the monster sluice that shuts off
the flow of Divine blessing. Redemption lifts the sluice, and the
stream of Divine goodness pours its tide of benediction into the
enraptured soul. An earthly king may forgive the felon, but he cannot
give him a better disposition. God never forgives without at the same
time giving a new heart. Pardon involves every other blessing--peace,
purity, glory; it is the pledge and foundation for the bestowal of
all we can need in time or in eternity.
3. _The Author of redemption._--"In whom we have redemption" (ver.
14). Christ, the Son of God's love, by the sacrifice of Himself,
accomplished our redemption; and it is only as we are _in_ Him by
faith that we actually partake of the freedom He purchased for us.
His blood is not merely the ransom paid for our deliverance, but He
is Himself the personal, living source of redemption. The deliverance
of humanity is not simply in the work of Christ, through what He did
and suffered, but in Himself--"the strong Son of God," the crucified,
risen, and living Saviour. It is not only a rescue from condemnation
and punishment, but a deliverance from the power and bondage of evil.
The words "in whom we have redemption" teach much and imply more.
They describe a continuous gift enjoyed, a continuous process
realised by all who have been translated into the kingdom of the
Saviour. In them the power of redemption is being carried on, so that
they die unto sin, and live unto God, and experience a growing
meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light (_Spence_).
Christ only could be the Redeemer of men; He combined in one person
the Divine and human natures: He could therefore meet the demands of
God and the necessities of man.
+Lessons.+--1. _Sin is a dark, enslaving power._ 2. _The kingdom of
the Redeemer is one of light and freedom._ 3. _Moral translation by
redemption is a Divine work._ 4. _The forgiveness of sin can be
obtained only by faith in the Son of God._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._