A THREEFOLD BLESSING
A THREEFOLD BLESSING
“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son (the Son of love); in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sine”. — Colossians 1: 12 - 14.
These verses do not belong to everybody. They are the private property of the children of God — part of the title — deeds of their inheritance. I open these precious records which declare the blessings of the children of God that there may arise in your heart a desire to be one of them. Thank God! His house and His heart are thrown open, and by His grace you may be one of His children, and may have the full assurance that the children’s birthright is yours. How great is this grace! I trust you will not be indifferent to it.
The children of God are a people — (1) Whose sins are forgiven, and who are redeemed from all the power of the enemy;
(2) Who are delivered from the world; and (3) Who are made meet for glory.
What a wealth of blessing! And observe, it is all in connection with a Person. “The Son of his love; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”. It is through and in a Person that we have all these things; and that Person is the Son of the Father’s love, the Creator of all things, the mighty Victor of Calvary, the Saviour of sinners. It is He who has stooped to secure, at an infinite cost, glory for God, and a boundless wealth of divine blessing for all who believe on His name. There is a Person who can meet all your need, and bring the brightness of divine love [p. 85] into your heart. If you knew that Person you could not help trusting Him. He loves to be trusted by the sinners for whom He died.
1. “Redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”. Sins. Let us not hurry over that Word. Let us give time for its echoes to be heard in our consciences. Sins. Unconverted friend, that word covers the Whole of your history as seen by God, and when everything else is gone — friends, pleasures, business, all gone — sins will remain. You cannot deny you have sins; your conscience has its own solemn tale to tell about them. I daresay some sins blaze like beacon-fires in your memory; every backward glance brings them to view. It may be you have sins which you would give anything to blot out, but no regrets, or religious deeds, or penitential tears will remove the scarlet stains. There is but one door of hope — but one avenue of escape available for you. Thank God! that way is wide open and free. Your sins, which are many, may be forgiven, and that in divine righteousness, through His blood. Satan’s object is to defame the Saviour, and to belittle the value of His blood, by turning souls to their own Works, or to sacraments, as a ground or means of pardon. But God has only one solution of the question of sin — only one ground on which He can forgive sins, and that is the death of Christ. It is “through his blood” alone that remission of sins may be had. When a sinner trusts in God he puts himself under shelter of the blood of Jesus; he takes his stand before God on the ground of that which has perfectly satisfied God; nay, more than that, he is on the ground of God’s own way of settling the tremendous questions of guilt and sin. And the moment he takes that ground he has “the forgiveness of sins”.
“IN WHOM we have redemption”. Redemption has to do with perfect deliverance from all the power of the enemy. The careless sinner is not troubled With doubts and fears;
[p. 86] the object of the enemy is not to harass him, but to keep him in a delusive peace. It is the anxious soul who is beset by all kinds of difficulties. He wonders whether he has repented sufficiently, whether he has believed in the right way, whether God has really accepted him, or whether, after all, he is not deceiving himself. The soul in this state needs the knowledge of redemption, for redemption takes us completely out of the power of the one who holds us in this bondage. We have redemption in a Person — the Son of the Father’s love. It is on the ground of the shedding of His blood that we have it, but it is in Him. Our sins are removed by His blood, but our standing with God is measured by the Person whose blood has cleansed us.
Where is our Saviour? He was once upon the cross; He felt there the unspeakable anguish of being forsaken by God; and He bowed His head in death. As to the expiation of sins, all was accomplished in that dark and solemn hour when He was lifted up. But He is risen and is now in glory. The diadems of victory are on His blessed brow as He sits at the right hand of God, and He is there for us. It is in that glory-crowned Person that we have redemption. Our Saviour lives, and we have redemption in Him.
The power of the enemy over you depends upon his ability to occupy you with yourself; and indeed your heart is so foolish that it may be turned aside by the smallest bit of sin or folly, and this gives the enemy occasion to assault you, and to question the reality of the work of God in your soul. But when you have looked at yourself long enough to discover that you are only fit for the lake of fire, you are glad to turn from yourself to your risen Saviour. While the everlasting ages roll there can be no change in Him, and our place and standing with God are measured by Him. You rest upon His blood, but you look up to where He is in heavenly glory, and you say, “Thank God! I have redemption in Him”.
2. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love”. The world is “the power of darkness”. It is a system of things which wraps itself with awful power round the hearts and consciences of sinners, and holds them in a terrible bondage as they speed on to the lake of fire. Alas! there are many who profess to be Christians who have never accepted God’s deliverance from the world. Fancy a novel-reader or a theatre-goer calling himself a Christian! Yet there are such people to be found. It is an awful thing for a Christian to be found enjoying the things which are only designed to lead souls to destruction. The world is the gilded and flower-bedecked cage in which Satan carries his victims to the lake of fire. It is dreadful to think of a worldly Christian! Let each one ask himself, “Am I going on with the things which led to the death of my Saviour?” How can we look for happiness in the pleasures of the world? The rejectors and murderers of Christ are trying to be happy without Him; indeed, in His presence they would be most miserable. Shall we join them in their ungodly mirth? Surely not. We look for our happiness in another scene, where our Saviour sits at the right hand of God.
God has revealed the Son of His love to our hearts, and the knowledge of that blessed Person carries our affections out of the world. The idols that once charmed us are forgotten, or only remembered with shame. We are translated “into the kingdom of the Son of his love”. There are only two companies on earth — one under the control of Satan, and the other under the control of the Son of the Father’s love. One of the greatest blessings of the gospel is that God puts the believer under the authority of the One who has saved him. We have now to please but One. In His known love He bears sway over our hearts.
3. “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light”.
[p. 88] The Father has made us meet for glory. Nothing would suit His heart but this. We shall ever be in the Father’s presence clothed in the beauty of Christ, and He has brought it all about for His own pleasure, and for the satisfaction of His own love. Christ has been made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. The Father would have the feeblest believer in Jesus to know the love that thus invests him with meetness for heavenly light. Stand still, thou returning prodigal, and see how love arrays thee! As the hymn says —
“Put them on me — robes of glory,
Spotless as the heavens above;
Not to meet my thoughts of fitness,
But His wondrous thoughts of love”.
It is in the Father’s heart to have “many sons” around Himself in heavenly glory in the unsullied light of His own holiness and love. For this He “hath made us meet”. We shall be in the Father’s house for ever, in company with the Son whose work has fitted us to be there in perfect suitability to the place. And while here on earth, we have the Spirit of sonship, crying, “Abba, Father”. Well may we say, in the words of olden time, “Happy is that people that is in such a case”.