IT’S ONE THING to be the parent of young children. You’re there with them and for them during their formative years. You get to watch them grow and develop, and you have a hand — whether for good or for ill! — in shaping who they become.

But it’s another to be the parent of adult children. In the United States, the typical expectation is that your kids will grow up, leave, and make their own independent households, perhaps even having children of their own. That’s by no means a universal standard across cultures, and there’s even a great deal of variation within North American culture. The point, though, is that no matter how old your kids get, if you care about them, then to some extent you will always be a parent. You may not have the same influence you once had, but you don’t stop caring about their well-being and the choices they make.

Sadly, I know too many people who are estranged from their adult children. Sometimes, they’re aware of the mistakes they’ve made and have tried to apologize or make amends. Often, though, they’re confused, longing to reconnect but not understanding why their overtures are being rebuffed. And of course, it works the other way too; there are children who have been rejected by their parents for their choices, including children who have decided to follow Christ against their parents’ wishes. They, too, long to be reconciled, but don’t know what to do.

I hope that’s not your story. Even if it isn’t, you can probably imagine the feeling of loss that accompanies such estrangement. Hold onto that feeling for a few minutes, as we go back to what Paul wants to teach the Colossians.

. . .

IN RECENT POSTS, we’ve been exploring one of the most exalted descriptions of Jesus in all of Paul’s writing. We could think of it as a hymn to Jesus as the cosmic Christ, the firstborn over all creation, the firstborn from among the dead in resurrection. Paul wants the Colossians to recognize the absolute supremacy of Christ over everything, including any other beings they may be tempted to worship or follow. Jesus was the embodiment of God, and through his sacrifice, the entirety of a broken creation was reconciled to God:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:19-20, NIV)

But Paul isn’t done talking about reconciliation. The Colossians have already heard and received the gospel; Epaphras, it seems, has taught them well. But their attraction to other philosophies suggests that they still have much to learn. Thus, Paul continues:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. (Col 1:21-23)

In this post, we’ll focus on that first sentence: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” Paul has sometimes been criticized for reducing the gospel to something of a legal transaction: because of our sin, we incurred an unpayable debt, and Jesus paid the price on our behalf. The debt is therefore cancelled, and we are set free.

Paul does, of course, say this; indeed, it’s a cornerstone of his theology. But to me, the charge of being reductionistic is probably more appropriate to the way Paul is preached than the way he himself preaches.

Listen to that sentence again: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” “Alienated.” “Enemies.” These are relational terms. God is neither an impersonal judge nor a mere accountant keeping a ledger on our sin. The very idea of being alienated from God assumes that the norm is its opposite: we were not meant to be in a state of alienation.

The word itself is only used three times in the New Testament: once here, and twice in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Listen, for example, to this passage from Ephesians, in which the New International Version translates “alienated” as “excluded” instead:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:11-13)

Once, the Gentiles were separated from Christ and God, living without hope. They were, if you will, an “alien nation.” But through the cross, through the blood of Jesus, all that has changed. Those who were in the “out-group” are now part of the “in-group”; those who were excluded are now included; those who were foreigners are now part of the tribe and heir to the covenant promises; those who were far away have been brought near.

That’s a very different picture than merely paying off a debt.

. . .

I WOULD GUESS that many of us have known at some point in our lives what it means to be excluded, to feel unwanted and alone. Paul teaches that this was also our state with respect to God — and God doesn’t want us to be alienated. That’s an aspect of God’s character worth pondering until it deepens our appreciation for his love and grace.

But Paul takes it further: he says that we were once “enemies” of God because of our “evil behavior.” Maybe that sounds a little harsh? Let’s take a closer look at that next.