Daily Bible Reading 3rd June 2025 // Colossians 1:12b-14
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Rounding off his prayer of intercession by urging an attitude of joyful thanksgiving to God, the Father, Paul glides naturally into an exalted and joyful description of the wonderful salvation, the blessings of the Gospel, which, in Christ, the Father has bestowed, as a present possession, upon every believer. This is why we should give thanks to God, Paul says. This is what God has done for you; this is the reality of the remarkable change which God has effected in Christ and which was realised when the Colossians, when we, were converted. This is the salvation in which you stand. Notice the tense of the three main verbs (all Greek aorist): (v 12) has already qualified/fitted you (once and for all) to share in the inheritance of the saints; (v 13) has already rescued/ delivered us from the dominion of darkness, has already brought/transferred us into the kingdom of Christ. This is the reality for the Colossian believers, for every believer, no matter what anyone might say; and the present consequence/the continuing result is (v 14) that '...we have (present tense) redemption, the forgiveness of sins'.