Nailed it!

Colossians 2:13-14
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, 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.

It’s always important to take scripture in its context before interpreting what it says. As I read this verse the other day in my Bible, I noticed in the side margin a little note, placed there by the publishing company, next to the word “requirements”. It says, “Ceremonial Law/Ceremonialism”. The reason I thought this was interesting was because of the context of the verses.

In this little section, the writer is specifically writing about Jesus and His finished work at the cross. He’s writing about the total and complete forgiveness of sins through the blood and sacrifice of Christ. He’s saying that Christ’s finished work has wiped out the requirements against us, meaning the law and our inability to completely live into it. Somewhere along the way, however, those requirements became the 613 ceremonial laws that were given to the Hebrews and didn’t remain the actual Ten Commandments that were written by God Himself.

In order to understand scripture, sometimes you have to look back to the original text, rather than assume the writers, translators, or publishers actually put the right information in the margins. The word “handwriting” in verse 14 is the Greek work “cheirographon” which actually means “a handwriting, what one has written with his own hand”

The key to understanding is found in the definition of the word used. The “handwriting” in this verse is what the subject of the statement (Jesus) wrote with His own hands. I can only think of ten things that God (who is Jesus and the Holy Spirit) wrote with His own hand: The Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12).

All too often we’re taught that Jesus died to fulfill the ceremonial laws, but that as “good Christians” we must try our best to fulfill the Ten Commandments. But the Bible says otherwise. The Bible, which we believe is the inspired word of God Himself, is very specific in stating that the Ten Commandments were nailed to the cross with Christ. It goes even further to say that they have been blotted out, erased, translated from the Greek word meaning obliterated!

If you follow the passage it goes on to explain that in nailing the Ten Commandments to the cross as part of Christ’s finished work for us all, the devil was disarmed. It is Satan who has manipulated God’s perfect law into a tool of condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:9), rather than its original intended purpose: to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). While Christ walked the earth in human form He used the Law as He intended it, to show everyone (especially the Pharisees) that they were in desperate need of Savior. He never used the Law to condemn people, to guilt people, or to shame people into living a right life.

Satan is the one who manipulates the Law and the teachers of the Law into a weapon of mass destruction. By using the Ten Commandments to “show you where you need work” or “convict you of a sin,” preachers, teachers, and misguided Christians around the world are in essence working for the Devil. They are not using the Law to point people to Jesus. Instead they are wielding it like a club, making people feel insignificant and unworthy. The Law is being used to point people to themselves. It’s being used as a tool for “self-examination”.

This is why the Law was fulfilled in Christ and nailed to the cross with Him: so that we could have freedom from the condemnation that it can bring when improperly used (that is to say, when used by anyone but God). The Law (Ten Commandments) and our inability to fully follow it is what separates us from God. This is why, through the cross, it has been taken out of the way.

Christ died on the cross for so much more than just our eternal destiny in heaven. He died so that we could live. He died so that we could be free. He bore our sickness, curses, diseases, hardships, hurts, habits, and hang-ups, so that we could live a prosperous, blessed, loved, and highly favored life here and now and forevermore with Him. Hallelujah!!