Colossians 2:14

{14} Blotting out the {t} handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; (14) He speaks now more generally against the whole service of the Law, and shows by two reasons, that it is abolished. First, to what purpose would he that has obtained remission of all his sins in Christ, require those helps of the Law? Secondly, because if a man rightly considers those rites, he will find that they were so many testimonies of our guiltiness, by which we manifestly witnessed as it were by our own handwritings, that we deserved damnation. Therefore Christ put out that handwriting by his coming, and fastening it to the cross, triumphed over all our enemies, were they ever so mighty. Therefore to what end and purpose should we now use those ceremonies, as though we were still guilty of sin, and subject to the tyranny of our enemies? (t) Abolishing the rites and ceremonies.

Jeremiah SIN’S WRITING AND ITS ERASUREJeremiah 17:1 . - 2 Corinthians 3:3 . - Colossians 2:14 . I have put these verses together because they all deal with substantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet’s solemn appeal. It describes the sin of the nation as indelible. It is written in two places. First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the promise of the new covenant to be written on the heart. The ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ are like waxen tables on which an iron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar. So Judah’s sin is, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say, tattooed on it. It is also written on the stone horns of the altar, with a diamond which can cut the rock {an illustration of ancient knowledge of the properties of the diamond}. That sounds a strange place for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound meaning, as we shall see presently. Then the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the same metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the hearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away ‘the handwriting contrary to us.’ The general thought drawn from all is that sin’s writing on men’s hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription substituted. I. The handwriting of sin. Sin committed is indelibly written on the heart of the doer. ‘The heart,’ of course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections.

It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural. Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are ‘the issues of life,’ the whole outgoings of the being. It is the fountain and source of all the activity of the man, the central unity from which all comes. Taken in this wide sense it is really the whole inner self that is meant, or, as is said in one place, ‘the hidden man of the heart.’ And so the thought in this vigorous metaphor may be otherwise put, that all sin makes indelible marks on the whole inward nature of the man who does it. Now to begin with, think for a moment of that truth that everything which we do reacts on us the doers. We seldom think of this. Deeds are done, and we fancy that when done, they are done with . They pass, as far as outward seeming goes, and their distinguishable consequences in the outward world, in the vast majority of cases, soon apparently pass. All seems evanescent and irrecoverable as last year’s snows, or the water that flowed over the cataract a century ago. But there is nothing more certain than that all which we do leaves indelible traces on ourselves. The mightiest effect of a man’s actions is on his own inward life. The recoil of the gun is more powerful than the blow from its shot. Our actions strike inwards and there produce their most important effects.

Colossians 2:14 . Ἐξαλείψας , having blotted out ) A word appropriate in regard to writing: join it with ἦρκεν , took away .— καθʼ ἡμῶν , against us ) This verse brings in the Jews speaking. [ Not only was the law against us, καθʼ ἡμῶν , by its demands, but also an adversary to us, ὑπενάντιον ἡμῖν (Engl. Vers. contrary to us ), by its accusation .—V. g.]— χειρόγραφον , handwriting ) When a debt has been contracted, it generally follows, that the debtor by his handwriting acknowledges himself to be bound. The debt is forgiven: and then, and not till then, the handwriting is blotted out . Our sins were debts: our sins themselves were not the handwriting, but that which flowed from them as a consequence, the undeniable stain, the remembrance, the outcry (see Jeremiah 17:1-2 ), not so much in our conscience, as in the presence of God, while the law in various ways accuses and condemns us. [All this constitutes the handwriting.] Hebrews 10:3 ; Hebrews 10:17 ; 1 Corinthians 15:56 . To be against ( καθʼ ἡμῶν ), and to be our adversary or inimical ( ὑπενάντιον ἡμῖν ), differ, as a state of war and an actual engagement. The handwriting was against us, but God blotted it out. The handwriting was an enemy to us, but God took it out of the way, Ephesians 2:15 , seq.— τοῖς δόγμασιν , by the decrees ) the determinations of His good pleasure . These are the decrees of grace.[But Engl.