Ephesians; 1:4 – Elected to be blameless. The church presented blameless – Col 1:22.

Friday March 15, 2019

 

COL 1:9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

 

COL 1:10 so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

 

COL 1:11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously

 

COL 1:12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

 

COL 1:13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

 

COL 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 

COL 1:15-20: the Christ Hymn.

 

COL 1:15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos - priority and sovereignty] of all creation.

 

Jesus is presented as the preexistent, first-born before all creation, which makes Him heir of all things.

 

COL 1:16 For by [in] Him [the: definite article] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —  all things have been created by Him and for Him.

 

COL 1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

 

COL 1:18 He is also head of the body, the church;

 

He is the preeminent Creator of the universe and all it contains and the church. He is our King and His kingdom is our kingdom.

 

The mystery of His will has been made known to us so that we may know that all things are summed up in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

 

In the prayer that the Lord gave us, we have three petitions to God. Sanctify Your name in my heart. Establish the reality of Your kingdom in my heart. Let Your will be done in my heart as it is done in heaven. Shall we be found dropping these petitions from careless lips, as if the accomplishment of God’s will had little to do with us or the world we are in? Do I not have a part in His will? And if so, is it great and rewarding, and if so, should I know it fully and submit all my life to it?

 

PSA 139:16 Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Thy book they were all written,

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

 

PSA 139:17 How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

 

Every believer has a great part in His will, and His will is as loving as it is powerful. We are to keep His will in everything, and all of us struggle to do it, but all of us must know that we have but one King and one kingdom. There is no use pondering over our struggles, we might as well just get on with it. Simply, we are in the kingdom forever and we must obey Him, and with the comfort of knowing that His great love makes Him so very patient.

 

I must come to discover, that as His child, I cannot come thus before God without some strengthening sense of the dignity and responsibility of a life connected with God, and fulfilling His will. I come to Him as my Father and my King, as if bringing my life in my hand, desiring that He would take it, and give it back to me molded to His design.

 

All of this was conceived by God before time began and when Christ came it was finally accomplished, and the result of that accomplishment was graciously revealed and given to all men and women in this age who would believe in Him.

 

Some of the principalities and powers, fallen angels that are also called the “sons of God,” rebelled. Their leader, Satan, tempted man to rebel, which he did also. The powers, sons of God, fallen angels, demons, or principalities tempted man and his governments into demon worship of false gods, represented by carved images and given names to rally around. They even successfully tempted God’s nation of Israel into their worship.

 

DEU 32:17 “They sacrificed to demons who were not God,

To gods whom they have not known,

New gods who came lately,

Whom your fathers did not dread.

 

DEU 32:18 "You neglected the Rock who begot you,

And forgot the God who gave you birth.”

 

In Dan 10 it is indicated that nations like Persian and Greece have demonic rulers as well as human rulers, though we cannot be 100% sure, but such an arrangement seems to fit with the work of demons. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against them. The nations that worshipped false gods, much political power was contained in the men who were priests and ministers in the temples of those gods. The Catholic church held just as much power in the nations of Europe all through the Middle Ages.

 

EXO 12:12 'For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments —  I am the Lord.

 

Angels rebelled, mankind rebelled, and then, at the proper time, Jesus came. Against the heavenly creatures, against the men that were under their control, as the pressure of all of them would seem to crush Him, Jesus did what was foretold that He would do.

 

COL 2:13 And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

 

COL 2:14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

 

COL 2:15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

 

The principalities and powers used our sin and death as power over us. Jesus took that instrument and turned against them to defeat (apekduo = put off from Himself) them.

 

The dark forces, the domain of darkness used our sin and our death as the means of their power over us. How could they have known that Jesus would turn that very instrument into the instrument of their own defeat and disablement? As He was suspended there, bound hand and foot to the wood in apparent weakness, they imagined they had Him as their mercy, and flung themselves on Him with hostile intent. Apekduo means He put them off from Himself, indicating that they pressed on Him, likely against His own mind as well as using their agents around the cross who were jeering at Him and casting insults at Him. But, far from succumbing to them, as He hung there, He allowed Himself to be forsaken by His Father and judged for the sins of the world, crucifying in Himself the flesh of all who would believe in Him and in so doing, helplessly nailed to a cross, He disarmed them.

 

Against such forces, containing omnipotence as He did, one would expect Him to meet their force with a greater force, which He did, but not in the way we would have expected. He did not clobber them with fist or sword or spear. He entered Jerusalem to destroy all rebel powers on the back of a colt of a donkey. He would defeat them through His own death. He humbly went to the cross and allowed them to crucify Him. Rather than fight them, He took their judgement and died in their place. He reconciled them to God. He took their penalty upon Himself. His love defeated them. His physical might wasn’t used at all.

 

He was resurrected three days later and announced that all rule and authority on heaven and on earth had been given to Him. He was the King of kings and now was the undisputed ruler of the kingdom of God as a resurrected man and Son of God. And with that power, He gave us His very life to live. And when we live that life, which is always in subjection to the King, we experience His victory and His defeat of the principalities and powers.