Afterwords -- Transferred
"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (Colossians 1:13-14)
June 7, 2024
Dear friends,
The verse above is one my wife and I are memorizing together. (I hope you still commit Scripture to memory -- it's not just for children, it's for all the followers of Jesus!) The passage above tells us this wonderful truth, that through Christ we have been delivered from darkness, and all that it involves… ignorance, deception, bondage, sin, and guilt. And that we have been transferred into "the kingdom of his beloved Son," along with all that this involves… redemption, forgiveness, grace, truth, and an eternal relationship with God.
TRANSFERRED. I've been thinking about the word "transferred". Most of us, at one time or other, have experienced a transfer, say, from one job to another, from one school to another, from one airplane to another, or even from one country to another. There's a totality about it, that is, a complete removal and a new placement. The NET Bible notes that this word, μετέστησεν (metestēsen from μεθίστημι), means variously 1) to transpose, transfer, remove from one place to another 1a) of change of situation or place 1b) to remove from the office of a steward 1c) to depart from life, to die. It has the connotation of decisiveness, completeness, and finality.
A NEW KINGDOM. For believers, the Apostle Paul says, it means a change of authority and identity and realm of existence. It means placement into a new sphere of being, that is, into God's kingdom. And this transfer is not just from the dominion (rule) of darkness to light, it is placement into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. There’s a Personal focus. We are not only brought into the light, but we are also in a new and permanent place of beloved-ness. We are loved in the Beloved. As the Apostle Peter wrote, "...you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9)
CONFLICT OF KINGDOMS. This week we marked the 80th anniversary of D-day, and I marvel again at the great cost of human life it took in bringing liberation to Europe. Some 160,000 Allied troops were transferred from England to the beaches of Normandy. Though this landing was destined to bring about the end of the Third Reich, at any point the outcome seemed very uncertain. But D-day was in fact the beginning of the end for that totalitarian regime. Yet, the victory had to be won foot by foot, hedgerow by hedgerow, field by field, town by town. Like the two kingdoms that Paul described in Colossians, there could be no reconciliation between the Allies and Axis powers. The Allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, said to the troops, “We will accept nothing less than full Victory!”
LIVE UP TO IT. Like those soldiers we too are called to live up to our identity, and also to our mission. We are children of God living in the midst of hostile forces. The dominion of darkness was decisively vanquished at the Cross, but that enemy is still active in his death throes. The world, the flesh, and the devil fight us every inch of the way to the new creation. Yet victory is assured and our future secure (Rom 8:31-39), because we have already been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God's beloved Son.
So, in the present age we live in a kind of now-and-not-yet of the new creation. But despite all the confusion and darkness in the world today, we as Christians should be clear about who we are and whose kingdom we belong to.
READING AND WATCHING.
-- "The roughly 160,000 Allied troops who landed in Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944, not only successfully executed the largest air, land and sea invasion in history, they did so amid daunting obstacles, terrible bloodshed and stakes that couldn’t have been higher." Here’s a good review of D-day.
-- "Ideology is compelled to distort reality and so is inherently dishonest and distorting of truth, and it is therefore inherently violent. It also naturally tends toward totalitarianism." Read "What Is Ideology?" by Mark Shiffman.
-- "God's Revelation and Our Response," by Stanley Toussaint, one of my favorite seminary professors. Download PDF here.
-- "If you are going to be a person of genuine love then you must learn to 'abhor what is evil' and 'hold fast to what is good.'" (Tom Ascol on "Love Is Not Love")
-- I'm currently rereading Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis. We also enjoyed these two movies recently: The Boys in the Boat, and The Blue Angels. (Good for all ages.)
FINAL QUOTE.
"In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I’m treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' 'No,’ I answered, ‘but I served in a company of heroes.’” -- Sgt. Mike Ranney of the 101st, quoted in The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys, by Stephen Ambrose (Simon & Schuster, 1999).
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Photo below of Sacrifice pylon at the War Memorial of Virginia Tech by EpicV27 on Wikimedia. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
