Protected From the World

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Colossians 1:13

There is a principle of physics that says that two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time (it’s called the Pauli exclusion principle). Conversely, we can also say that one object cannot be in two different places at the same time. If we are in Milwaukee, we can’t simultaneously be in New York City. But is that true spiritually as well? Paul says that our spiritual rebirth transfers us from the “power of darkness” and moves us into the Kingdom of God’s light. Yet we still live with the effects of the kingdom of darkness all around us. We feel the world every day. Positionally, our transference was immediate upon our rebirth. Practically, we are still putting off the darkness and walking more and more in the light.

In a sense, we are in two places at the same time, practically speaking. But we are protected. There is darkness around us, but we have been set free from its power over us. We are in the world but not of the world.

The Christian has to live in the world, but he must draw all his resources from outside of the world. Donald Grey Barnhouse