LET ME START with a trigger warning: I want to talk for a moment about someone I know who was physically abused as a child. That’s not to say that the abuse was constant; it was more a matter of her parents crossing a line when they disciplined her. Once, when her father was angry, he threw her down a flight of stairs. I doubt that he intended to do this, but his anger was out of control.

It was the mother, however, who was most often the culprit. As did many parents of that generation, she spanked using a stick that was designated for that purpose alone. If the girl tried to protect herself with her hands, her hands got battered too. And while parenting experts support the use of “time outs” as a form of discipline, this can be done in a way that terrifies a child. It’s one thing, for example, to have a child sit silently in a corner or stay quietly in their room. But it’s another to experience what this girl did, to have your mother banish you to the closet that held the water heater — a cramped and stuffy place with no light and no place to sit.

Can you imagine it? All you want is for that door to open.

All you want is to be free, to go where there’s light. And once freed, why would anyone want to go back?

. . .

LIGHT VERSUS DARKNESS, good versus evil, truth versus lies: these parallel contrasts are common in Scripture. John’s gospel, for example, begins by declaring Jesus to be the eternal Word and the “light of all mankind,” and Jesus will later call himself “the light of the world” (John 1:1-4, 8:12, NIV). But John also tells us that although the light had come, “people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (3:19).

The apostle Paul makes use of the contrast, too. In his letter to the Ephesians, he writes:

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. (Eph 5:8-10)

He says this in the context of warning them not to let anyone deceive them into being immoral people, for such people have no inheritance in God’s kingdom (vs. 5).

All of this may remind you of what Paul prays for the Colossians. Here’s the full prayer again:

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col 1:9-14)

Did you hear the similarities? Paul uses the contrast between darkness and light to describe who both the Ephesians and Colossians were and who they are now. He encourages the believers in both churches to live in a way that is pleasing to God. And he speaks in both letters of their inheritance.

The people to whom Paul writes, therefore, should take joy in what God has done for them in Christ to bring them into their new inheritance. As he puts it in Colossians, believers have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought instead into the kingdom of light. Later in the letter, Paul will sketch what a “life worthy of the Lord” might look like, as he does in his letter to the Ephesians. But at this point, still in the opening verses of his letter to the Colossians, the priority seems to be getting them to marvel at God’s gracious rescue.

The kingdom of light is the kingdom of the Son, the Son God loves. There may be a reference here to Jesus’ baptism as described in the gospel of Matthew; the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus, and a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). For Paul to refer back to that moment may be one way to help build his case for the supremacy of Christ.

And it is in Jesus that we have “redemption” and “the forgiveness of sins.” We hear a lot about the forgiveness of sins in the way the gospel is preached today, but not as much about redemption. The gospel message may sound like a good deal that anyone would be stupid to pass up: You mean all I have to do is pray this prayer and believe in Jesus, and heaven is guaranteed? Well, sure, okay, why not? What have I got to lose?

But the idea of redemption cuts more deeply. It reaches back into the Old Testament consciousness, even to the memory of Egypt and the Exodus. To be redeemed is to be freed, liberated, bought back, often from slavery, oppression, and bondage. We’d rather think of ourselves as choosing to believe in Jesus because it sounded like a good idea at the time; we’re basically good or at least okay people making a sensible decision. But the biblical picture is that we are enslaved to darkness and sin, whether we know it or not, whether we admit it or not. Without Jesus, we’d still be in darkness.

So there again is our reason for joy and gratitude. We’ve been rescued from darkness. We’ve been redeemed and forgiven. God has already done all of this for us in Jesus, and we should seek to live as children of the light, living in a way that pleases God. Our full inheritance isn’t yet complete; it’s being kept for us in heaven (Col 1:5; 1 Pet 1:4). But where the Father is concerned, we are already designated as co-heirs with Christ.

And just in case the Colossians weren’t already impressed enough with the one in whom they put their faith, Paul has much, much more to say about him.