Bible Study from June 8, 2020 - Colossians 2:13-14

We begin our study with a brief review of Colossians 2:11-12, where we heard that Old Testament circumcision is now replaced by baptism, the “circumcision made without hands,” “the circumcision of Christ.” In baptism, God put off, stripped off our “uncircumcised flesh," our old sinful nature (v.11), and we died to our old life and were buried with Christ, and as He was raised from the dead, we too were raised to new life, through the gift of faith in Jesus. This was “the powerful working of God” through the Word and the water connected with the Word, in baptism, as we heard a lot about last week (v.12).

This had to be God’s doing and His work, Paul reminds us in v.13 because, he says, “You were dead in your trespasses”(missteps, going where we don’t belong, wandering away from what is the right way and path for our lives) and your “uncircumcised flesh,” your sinful nature, in which you and I were born. (See Ephesians 2:1-5 for a similar description.) As spiritually dead people, we could not give ourselves spiritual life; and in Ephesians 2:2-3, Paul makes it clear that this is the spiritual condition of everyone in the world at birth, including all of us. But “God made us alive, together with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses” (Colossians 2:13).

Our new spiritual life depends upon the death and rising of Jesus to forgive us our trespasses. The Greek word here for “forgiveness” means “to show mercy and favor and to pardon people who are definitely guilty,” as when a political figure “pardons” someone who has done wrong. We don’t deserve it, but we are pardoned too - and all of our sins are forgiven! All this was done by Christ, and we receive the personal benefit of all this, through our connection now with Christ through the Word of God and baptism and the faith we receive as a gift of God.

In verse 14 of Colossians 2, Paul continues to pile up the words describing what Christ Jesus has done for us. He “canceled the record of debt that stood against us.” The Greek word “cancel” here means “to blot out, to wipe away, to erase.” (See this word used also in Acts 3:19 and in Isaiah 43: 24-25.) Our messy sins are blotted out and remembered no more, through Christ. Those old enough to remember fountain pens and ink blotters, or typewriters and white-out, etc., can get this picture image.

And what specifically is blotted out? “The record of debt that stood against us” (v.14). This was a legal business term that was used in the ancient world. When people sometimes had debts, they had to write up in their own handwriting a list of all their debts; and this paper was kept until the debt was paid. It is similar to paperwork for a loan or mortgage today. We have to sign for the loan and are legally obligated until the debt is paid. And what joy when all the mortgage payments are finally made!

In the Bible, our sins are sometimes described as a debt we owe to God. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In both Matthew 6:12-15 and Luke 11:4, the Greek sometimes uses the word “debts” and “debtors” rather than “trespasses” - and some churches pray the Lord’s Prayer that way. We do owe a debt to God that we cannot ever pay on our own, because we fail to keep His laws and rules. His “legal demands” stand against us and condemn us, left on our own (Romans 3:19-20 and Colossians 2:14). But in Christ “the record of debt” and the “legal demands” are blotted out, wiped away, canceled for us. (See Ephesians 2:13-18, especially v. 15. Note that this is the only real way to peace with God and among people. See also Romans 7:4, along with Romans 5:1 and 8:1-4.)

As Colossians 2:14 ends, Paul says that all this record of the debts of sin and the Law’s legal demands are “set aside” by Christ. Literally, this means that all that condemns us has been picked up and taken away “from the midst” of us and “nailed to the cross“ along with Jesus, as he was nailed to the cross, carrying and paying the penalty for all our sins. (See more Scriptures, including 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 3:13, and 1 Peter 2:24.)

This is the miracle of all that God did for us through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross and then His mighty resurrection - eternal blessings received by faith in Jesus as a gift, through the Word and baptism. And there is still more that is very helpful and comforting for us that we will hear about next week in Colossians 2:15. Why then, Paul is saying, should the Colossians or any of us listen to false teachers who tell us that Jesus did not do enough and that we need to be doing more that they tell us to do?