Being Transferred Unto the Kingdom

Paul—in his epistle to the Colossians—made a very interesting statement.

The Colossian Church was a relatively new Church and Paul was very excited about the fact that they now had the knowledge of the Truth. But he was also concerned, because there were those who were troubling them. There were:

• false ministers
• false prophets
• many false doctrines

circulating in the first century

• as Satan attempted to destroy the Church
• as Satan attempted to take the people away from the knowledge of Jesus Christ
  • His life
  • His crucifixion
  • His resurrection

Many false doctrines were coming in!

So, Paul makes some very powerful statements to encourage the brethren, also. He addresses them by saying that he was praying for them. We can see that in Col. 1:9, because of their calling and because he was so excited about it.

Colossians 1:9: "For this cause we also, from the day that we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."

And that, of course, is the will of God through Jesus Christ.

Verse 10: "That you may walk worthily of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God."

And that's a very major part of our calling. As Jesus said in John 17 in His prayer when He was praying to the Father, that this is eternal life that you know the Father and that you know the Son!

Verse 11—here's part of Paul's prayer: "Being strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory…"

And you think of the glory of God as it's scattered throughout, or not scattered, but as we are able to perceive it even in the minute particle that we're able to see today, because it's far greater and grander than we can imagine.

Verse 11: "Being strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory…"

In other words, God's strength and God's power is there for us, we just need to call on it in faith:

• as we obey Him
• as we walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ

"…unto all endurance and long-suffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father, Who has made us qualifiedfor the share of the inheritance…" (vs 11-12).

Let's keep in mind that we have not yet received the inheritance. We have received:

• by our repentance
• by baptism
• by the laying on of hands

That minute particle of God's Spirit, which is a part of the very glory and power of God dwelling within us! It's by the indwelling of that Spirit:

• we are able to obey God
• we're able to keep His Commandments
• we're able to do what is pleasing in His sight

He makes it possible, as Paul says here:

"…Who has made us qualified—that is the Father— for the share of the inheritance of the saints in the Light" (v 12). No longer in darkness!

God has not only given us power, but also He's given us:

• His Truth
• His knowledge
• His wisdom

so that we may live the life he's called us to!

Verse 13: "Who… [talking about God the Father] …has personally rescued us from the power of darkness…"

What is the power of darkness? The power of Satan the devil who—as Jesus said—is the ruler of this world; whom Jesus Himself has qualified to replace Satan the devil. That's important to keep in mind.

Verse 13: "Who has personally rescued us from the power of darkness and has transferred us unto the Kingdom of the Son of His love; in Whom we have redemption through His own blood, even the remission of sins" (vs 13-14).

• What does it mean once we have been in that state that is called converted from this world into the very ways of God?

Here Paul is calling it "…has transferred us unto the Kingdom…" But:

• Are we in that Kingdom yet?

Just notice one word here in v 13: "Who has personally rescued us from the power of darkness and has transferred us … [a little word] …unto…"—not into, meaning that God has put us in a position where in His mind He considers us already a part of his Kingdom, but we're still in the flesh.

Being "…transferred into the Kingdom…" means that that is something that is only going to happen with the manifestation of Jesus Christ as we can read in 1-John 3. When He's manifested then we will see Him because we have already been resurrected from the dead. We'll be able to see Him as He is in all His power and in all his glory. We can't do that today. Not possible. This is talking about two phases or two points, two parts to our transference into the Kingdom of God!

Now, we know as Paul said in 1-Cor. 15:50 that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God!

• Are we still flesh and blood? Yes!
• How are we to understand what Paul is saying here?

Also, a little bit further down it talks about the inheritance. So, we have that inheritance made available to us; but:

• Have we been involved?
• Have we actually been given that inheritance, yet? No!

Because in this case, inheritance usually happens when a parent dies and they've said they've set an inheritance for their children. In this case we don't receive the inheritance until we die! That's something that we can look forward to.

We also know that we have not yet been transferred into the Kingdom because of what Jesus said:

Revelation 2:10—we know this is part of Christ's message to the seven Churches: "Do not fear any of the things that you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison… [maybe we're close to those days again as it was for this Church] …that you may be tried; and you shall have tribulation ten days…."

This is part of the history of the Church of God down through the ages, but it's also a prophecy for what is about to take place again here in the end time.

"…Be faithful unto death…" (v 10).

So, we can take that Scripture and go back to Col. 1:13; we can see it's the same terminology:

"…transferred us unto…" Now for the Church we are to be faithful unto death!

Are we dead now? or Are we still alive? So we see the terminology afterwards; we see the very first stage of what God is doing. However, we also have a problem and God is very aware of this and that can be seen in Gal. 5.

We know what Gal. 5 is all about because here we learn about the works of the flesh and the fruits of God's Holy Spirit! Verse 17 is very interesting because even though we know we have been transferred into the Kingdom of the Son of God, God's love, we are still in the flesh! While we are in the flesh we have this problem that Paul addresses here to the Galatians.

Galatians 5:17: "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit… [which God has placed in our mind and heart] …and the Spirit against the flesh…"—God's Spirit within us gives us:

• that power
• that willingness
• that knowledge

That we've got to fight the sin that dwells within that Paul tells us about and teaches us about in Rom. 7.

As we know, we go right back to Gen. 6:5 where God tells us, even though God destroyed that early age, except for Noah and his family, because man's deeds were only evil continuously!

That's our battle! That's fighting that flesh, because we still have that flesh within us from our first parents, Adam and Eve, when they sinned against the Word of God!

So these things are opposed to each other so that you cannot do those things that you wish to do, except we know that through the power of God's Spirit within us, we are able to do it. That God has planted His seed, the physical in our mind and in our heart so that we can do battle.

But you are led by the Spirit, because we either have God's Spirit with us if we have yet to be baptized or God's Spirit is now within us:

• it's dwelling within our mind
• it's dwelling within our heart
• it's actually dwelling within our body

fighting against the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pretentious pride of the physical life (1-John 2). We've got that power.

The reason we've got this struggle now, which those people, after Christ's return, will not have the struggle we have today. The school that we are in is the hardest of all times! Those being called this side of the resurrection of Christ, because the people coming up, or the people who will go through to the Millennium and those that come up in the second resurrection will not have to fight Satan the devil! He'll be removed!

They will not have to fight the world because the world is going to be living at this time under the rulership of God, because the Law is going to go out from Jerusalem and the Truth's going out from Zion. All nations will be brought into subjection to the Law of God.

Satan's not there to interfere. The world will be different. There'll still be sin; People will still sin, but not the same pressure. So, being qualified now, we are being called at a time where we are able to qualify as kings and priests in the very government and Kingdom of God!

A major step towards that is we have to learn to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. That means obedience and the humility that David talks about in his Psalms.

That talks of the humility that is mentioned throughout the Bible, which is the exact opposite of the mind and thinking of Satan the devil. His mind is one of total vanity and pride, which brings destruction to mankind, which brings mankind to doing all manners of evil! Christ's blood is what has rescued us from that!

Then you can read also in this chapter about the works of the flesh, what we are battling against. The Spirit of God is battling against these works of the flesh within us until we are able to overcome them through the very power that Paul mentions in Col. 1. So very important!

Then also we have the Fruits of the Spirit. All this is part of that first phase of our being transferred into the Kingdom!

The second phase is yet future! The second phase actually shows how that the doctrines of the immortality of the soul—particularly that we are born again now, and all you have to do is accept the name of Jesus and you are saved—and you will be in the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact you will be going to heaven, which is a total absolute lie!

That is really telling and teaching people that they are going to go to heaven, because Satan the devil—as we know when he was Lucifer—in his rebellion he wanted to go back to heaven to take over God's Throne, to set his throne above all the angels in heaven!

Now that also tells us he wanted to replace God as the ruler of the universe! Not going to happen! But that is his mind, his mindset! He is so deceived—self-deceived—he can't see the alternative!

He is committed to overthrowing God from His Throne and destroying:

• all of God's people
• all the teachings of Jesus

but he can't destroy the blood of Christ! That is set in spiritual concrete, there's nothing that can remove that. That was Satan's greatest defeat when Christ was crucified and then rose again from the dead with all power and all glory!

He is the one that created Lucifer and he is the One Who is going to see Lucifer's—or Satan's—demise!

1-Cor.—it's very important what we can understand here. This teaches us about the resurrection, and Paul, we know, shows us there are different types, different types/kinds of flesh on earth:

• the flesh of animals
• the flesh of human beings

and in the heavens

• different types of bodies

1-Corintians 15:41: "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead…." (vs 41-42).

So, we have to be dead before we can be resurrected. We know that, but so many people do not know that. They think they don't die. They think when they die their spirit goes back to heaven. That is, they go to heaven and they're going to be there with Jesus and with the Father playing, I suppose, reams of harp music.

Nothing about what we're really going to be doing in God's Kingdom.

Verse 42: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body…" (vs 42-44).

That's who we are; that's what we are, we are a natural body.

"…it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body… [that's you and me] … and there is a spiritual body" (v 44).

That's the state of God the Father and Jesus Christ and all of their billions upon billions of angels who are all around us all the time:

• doing the will of God
• reporting back to God the Father
• helping us
• delivering us from our problems, trials and troubles

Verse 45: "Accordingly, it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul… [that's what you and I are, living souls] …the last Adam became an ever-living Spirit.' However, the spiritual was not first… [the spiritual is phase two] …but the natural…[is first; phase one] …then the spiritual" (vs 45-46).

That puts 'paid' to all those false teachings about the spiritual nature that believe or that the churches, the mainstream Christianity, teaches today.

Verse 48: "As is the one made of dust…"

That's you and me; that was Christ also when God formed Him in the womb of Mary, when the seed was sown, He became a human being. Just like when we were conceived in our mother's womb, we became human beings made of the dust.

"…so also are all those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly One, so also are all those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the one made of dust… [Adam, and even Christ, we follow in His footsteps; here showing this is a future event] …we shall also bear the image of the heavenly One" (vs 48-49).

The man, as Paul wrote to Timothy, Jesus Christ partook of the flesh. And through His death and resurrection, He is now fully spirit and has been fully reinstated by God as His Son.

So we see that there are two phases to that transfer, being transferred into Kingdom of the Son of God, which means that we have some work to do with the help of God.

As we look forward to the resurrection, when we will really then at that time be transferred fully into the Kingdom of God. Right now, we have placed ourselves by the baptism covenant of death under the government of God!

So, we are waiting for that time when we will be transferred into… It's interesting if we think of a few things"

• What has God transferred us from in the flesh?
• What is He transferring us to?

Let's just have a look at some of these:

• He's transferring us from the old man to the new man; we are to put on the new man
• we are transferred from the errors of Satan to the Truth of God
• we are transferred from walking in the flesh to walking in the Spirit
• we are transferred from following our independent free moral agency to following the morality
  • the Laws
  • the Commandments
  • the teachings of God

That's what we've been called to! We've been called from the power of darkness into the very Light and the Truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God!

Did I mention walking in the Spirit? We've been transferred from walking in the flesh to now walking in the Spirit where we:

• study the Word of God
• read the Word of God
• put it into practice in our life
• through our communication with God through prayer

God is building that mind of Jesus Christ within us!

So we, right now, have been transferred unto the Kingdom of the Son of God's love, waiting for the time when we will be transferred into fully at the manifestation of Christ:

• fully spirit
• fully sons and daughters of God

What a glorious future!

Scriptural References:

• Colossians 1:9-14
• Revelation 2:10
• Galatians 5:17-18
• 1-Corinthians 15:41-49

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

• John 17
• 1-John 3
• 1-Corinthians 15:50
• Romans 7
• Genesis 6:5
• 1-John 2

LJ:bo/po
Transcribed:1/2/25

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