1:13
We have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son. People in those days believed in various spirits and thought their lives were subject to these spirits in various ways. Things are not actually that much different today. The situation for most people is that they view life as being under the influence of dark forces, and indeed they are. These tend to be seen as economic, social, sexual, or whatever. Various situations seem to dominate life, and not in a good way. But we have been rescued from that and brought into the kingdom of Christ, the Son of God whom the Father loves. There is a whole different ethos to the kingdom of light. We tend to see non-Christians as sinners who need to be saved, and this is true, but we also need to see them as people who need to be rescued from darkness. We need both these perspectives, if we only have one we do not have a Biblical perspective. If we look at God’s attitude towards Israel in the Old Testament then we see that He takes both views in roughly equal measure. Israel is a sinful nation, and her sin is her biggest problem, her rebellion against God. But we also see her as a people who need to be rescued from darkness.
1:14
“In whom we have redemption”. It is in Christ that we are set free from the kingdom of darkness, and this comes through the forgiveness of sins. A mistake we can make is to think that setting people free from poverty, or drug addiction, or whatever will bring them into the kingdom of God.It won’t! We should, of course, to all we can to help the poor and needy, but it is only in Christ that a person is saved, brought into the kingdom of God. And it is only through the forgiveness of sins. Being poor or needy does not make someone any more virtuous. God having a special concern for the poor is not the same as saying they are in any way morally superior (or less bad).
No comments:
Post a Comment