having effaced the handwriting in ordinances which [stood out] against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;
Teachers at Colossae were urging Christians to take up religious rules. Paul answers them from the cross, where God dealt with a written record that stood against us.
The Language of a Cancelled Document
Older translations call that record "the handwriting of ordinances." One commentator explains the two key words:
The word translated "blotted out" is one "used for annulling a decree of law." "Handwriting" carries the idea of an "obligation to which a man is subject by his signature." Paul used a very graphic figure. We had bound ourselves by our signature to Jewish ordinances. Christ's death has cancelled that document. As far as we are concerned it was nailed to the cross when He was nailed to the cross.
Our Own Signature Against Us
The document was not forged by an enemy. The people bound by it had signed it themselves:
All the ordinances were blotted out too. They belonged to the basic principles of this world and applied to man in the flesh. They weighed on the Jews as an unbearable yoke, and the Jews tried to bring others under it as well. They kept the conscience always under the burden of a service man had never completed, and a righteousness that never satisfied God. In them the Jew had put his signature, so to speak, to his own guilt. But God destroyed that obligation and nailed it to the cross of Christ. We receive liberty as well as life and pardon.
Another writer traces the signing back to a specific moment in Israel's history:
"The handwriting of requirements that was against us" points to a legal document that binds a person by his own signature. Israel fully committed themselves to keep the law in Exodus 19:8: "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." Every honest conscience knows it should obey some standard of conduct, such as the ordinances of the law of Moses. But we find the law is against us because of our disobedience.
What Was Blotted Out, and What Was Not
Commentators are careful here. The verse does not say God erased His own law. He cancelled its claim on us:
So the "handwriting in ordinances" stood against us and was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the way. Paul is not speaking of the law itself, but of our obligation to it. That is what the "handwriting" means, and that is what the cross wipes out for us, since it was nailed there. The law is not dead, as we have seen in Romans, but we have died to it.
The cross did not push the law aside as worthless:
The cross blotted out our sins truly, but it did more than this: it also blotted out the whole system of legal ordinances which had been against us. The law was not blotted out — far from it, for it was vindicated and magnified in the death of Christ. We died from under the law in His death, and we are now under grace.
Why Paul Says "Us" and Not "You"
The change of pronoun matters. Paul had just told the Colossians what God had done for them. Now he speaks as one of a people who had lived under those rules:
He does not say "against you," because the Colossian believers had never been under the law and its ordinances. They had been Gentiles. He had said, "that you, being dead," were now raised; so now he says, "blotting it out against us." All that we, poor Jews, could boast in — the ordinances — were against us instead of being for us. And they are gone now.
The benefit is not locked inside one nation:
Their sins are discharged, like an account settled for ever. Christ has taken that record out of the way, "nailing it to His cross" (Col. 2:14). This is true of the Jew. It is just as true of every man who has put himself under law and then turned to Christ to have his debt to God discharged.
The Nail Through the Document
One writer points to the nail itself:
"Taken out of the way," with the nail run through it, so that it can never appear again against the believer.
The Practical Edge
Paul's aim is not history but freedom. One writer applies that to religious acts:
Christ has taken ordinances out of the way; it is the flesh that performs them. Let it be penance — it is the flesh that does it. But the flesh is dead. The same thing that put away sin put away ordinances. The man who had the sin and was to keep the ordinances is dead, because Christ has died. I do not need to gain a standing before God through any ordinance. Suppose I had to perform the smallest act to be complete before God. That would deny the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
- Signed — the "handwriting" is a written obligation that binds a person by his own signature. Israel signed it when they promised to do all the Lord had spoken.
- Against — that same signature became a record of guilt. It kept the conscience under a service never finished and a righteousness never satisfied.
- Cancelled — God did not blot out His law but our obligation to it. The law stands, and we have died to it.
- Nailed — the record was not filed away. The nail went through it, so it can never appear against the believer again.
- Free — the result is liberty along with life and pardon. Adding any religious act to complete your standing denies the perfection of Christ's work.