All of us have experienced some form of debt in this physical world: debt on a car, house, school loan, and the list could go on. Some debts can seem never-ending for those stuck on a high-interest credit card. As I was preparing to write this article, I found a story about a young boy who lost the key to his father’s house. His father had to change all the locks on the house and told his son he would need to pay his dad back. The boy was only 10 or 11 years old, so there was no job to provide income to pay it back: he would have to settle the debt through chores. With a ledger on the house door, the young boy worked, and his father would access its value, marking it off on the ledger. To the young boy, it seemed he would never get it paid off. Then one day, the boy checked the ledger, only to find it marked “Paid in Full.” When he asked his father about it, his father said, “I forgive you of your debt.” At its very core, the word of God is a message about a profound debt owed by sinful man. A debt that was impossible to be paid by the debtor, yet still given a chance to become debt-free. Here, we pick up as Paul seeks to remind the young Christians in Colosse about their debt that Christ paid IN FULL.
“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses….”
Colossians 2:13
Do you think the following is true, “You can’t truly cherish what you have without remembering where you once were”? This idea is Paul’s point as he continues encouraging these believers about what they have in Christ. They were once DEAD! Not physically, of course, but spiritually. It was all caused by a false step, which is what the word translated trespasses means. The idea of “the uncircumcision of your flesh” indicates that these are likely Gentiles. The Jews around them made them think they needed to be physically circumcised. The fact was, before Christ, they “were spiritually and morally dead in your earlier pagan days” (F.F. Bruce). This spiritual truth crosses all boundaries. To the church in Ephesus, Paul spoke of how they were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). All are guilty of it (Romans 3:23). All deserve punishment (Romans 6:23). Physical circumcision will not change any of this. What will? Christ! For it is He who has made you alive again. Galatians 6:15, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” The ETRV reads in part, “The only thing that matters is this new life we have from God.” Those trespasses that shackled them, “God has overcome this barrier” through Christ by ushering in the chance of forgiveness. You are pardoned!
“.…having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which
was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:14
What is the “handwriting of requirements,” or as the NIV says, “…the written code, with its regulations”? Think of it as an I.O.U. Most believe this is referring to the Mosaic Law. Yet Paul clarifies to the Gentiles that this “was against us”; that is, Jew and Gentile alike. The law’s intention was not to solve the sin problem but to “bring us to Christ” (Galatians 3:24). Christ had taken it out of the way when He went to the cross. Christ “bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed” (1st Peter 2:24).
I end this article with v15, and for a good reason. Paul writes, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). The debt that held them prisoner and the law that proved impossible to pay resolved itself with Christ’s death on the cross. He has made you alive! He has forgiven you of ALL your trespasses! The cross that seemed weak and defeated enables us to confidently walk with the only One to triumph over it all, Christ.
Dennis
Biddeford Church of Christ 