The all-sufficient Christ gives freedom from human regulations
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
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In a genuine spirit of Christian jubilation, Paul expands upon the Colossians' baptism (better than circumsion!) in verse 13. In their natural spiritual state the Colossians, together with all human beings since the fall, were morally and spiritually dead. Their thoughts and desires, as well as their words and actions, were completely opposed to God and his Word and will. In this condition they were spiritually impotent and totally unable to help themselves. They deserved only God’s wrath and condemnation.
But God’s amazing grace did not leave the Colossians in their lost and helpless state. Ponder this, Paul encourages them. Continue to reflect on it. Upon you, the deeply fallen and utterly, hopelessly lost; upon you, Gentiles, no less than upon the Jews, his chosen people of Old Testament times, God’s grace has been bestowed. God, who raised Christ from the dead, has raised you from the death of spiritual ignorance and unbelief and made you spiritually alive with Christ.
If sinners are to be made spiritually alive, their sin and guilt must be removed in God’s sight. To do this, Paul says, “He forgave us all our sins.” Forgiveness is God’s bountiful, unmerited gift. Paul’s subtle change from the pronoun “you” in the first part of verse 13 to “us” in the last part of that same verse is worth noting. In Christ, God has forgiven the whole world of sinners, and Paul cannot talk about so great a subject without including himself. He too had experienced God’s forgiveness. He too had been made alive in Christ and rescued from eternal damnation. God’s forgiveness stood at the very center of his life. It stands at the center of every believer’s life. Every believer is included in the “us” of this sentence.
In forgiving sinners and making them alive, God canceled the written code, with its regulations that stood against us. The written code is the written law of God, the divine decrees, with their uncompromising “You shall” and “You shall not.” No doubt Paul is thinking here of the moral law, the unchangeable will of God for human behavior that applies to people of all times, as well as the Mosaic ceremonial laws, which included the laws God gave to the Old Testament Israelites concerning foods, festivals, and circumcision.
That written code, Paul says, was against us. In both its moral and ceremonial character, the law demanded a perfection that no human being could achieve. It set forth a way of salvation impossible for human beings to attain. So it stood as man’s accuser. But in Christ, God canceled that written code. He took away its demanding, curse-pronouncing character. He took it and nailed it with Christ to the cross.
When Christ died, the law as man’s accuser also died. The historical purpose of the Mosaic laws was fulfilled. Their very necessity was brought to an end. On the cross Christ paid the punishment that a world of sinners deserved because of their transgressions against God’s moral law: the curse of eternal death.
If the law had not died in the blood of his cross, Christ could not have risen. But he did rise, thereby guaranteeing forever that the law as our accuser is dead and gone and that spiritual quickening and resurrection are ours. Our debt of sin and guilt has been canceled. At the foot of the cross we find deliverance and life. This does not mean, of course, that God’s unchangeable moral law has lost all significance for believers or that believers can now forget about loving God and their neighbor. No, the moral law still serves as a perfect mirror, daily showing Christians their sins and their need for the Savior’s forgiveness.
In their Christian lives of service to their Savior, believers use the moral law as the perfect standard and guide, but the law as a code of rules and regulations that demands perfection and pronounces curses on imperfect sinners has been wiped out and removed by the power of Christ’s cross. All who are joined to Christ by faith no longer need to fear the law’s threats and curses. Nor can they be bullied by those who try to make the law their accuser again by making the keeping of a written code a condition for salvation.
When Christ, by his successful atoning work, brought about the death of the law as man’s accuser, he also disarmed “the powers and authorities,” the wicked spirits about whom the false teachers were so concerned. These evil hordes, led by Satan, brought sin into God’s perfect world. They plunged humanity into sin at the fall.
They still tempt man to sin, and then, when sinners have fallen, these evil spirits turn around and accuse those sinners before God. They are at war with God and believers and arrogantly try to usurp the powers that belong to God. These evil spirits are powerful and devious. The Colossians, who were being troubled by all sorts of strange and frightful teachings concerning the spirit world, needed to know that Jesus had disarmed all those evil powers and authorities.
As man’s substitute he overcame the devil’s temptations in the desert. He won victory upon victory over the hosts of demons throughout his ministry, and on Calvary, when the evil powers had their dark hour and did their worst, Christ administered the final blow, forever stripping the devil and his hosts of the power to accuse sinners before God.
Then “he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” In the days of the apostles, the Roman emperor or senate often granted a victorious general a grand triumphal entry upon his return to Rome. There would be a procession through the streets of the city. The general, together with his legions, marched proudly, and the captives and spoils they had taken were displayed. In the triumph of which the apostle speaks here, the defeated powers of hell are made to march as chained captives as a result of Christ’s victory on the cross.
We take this statement of the apostle as referring to Christ’s descent into hell. Here and in 1 Peter 3:18,19, Scripture indicates that after Christ had achieved salvation, he descended into hell and publicly proclaimed his absolute, complete, and final victory over the devil and the hellish hosts. He publicly put them to shame.
This, in turn, assures us believers that the devil and evil spirits have no real power over us. Yes, they are still our enemies. They are still powerful and dangerous, and we must daily beware of them and struggle against them. But Christ, our all-sufficient Savior, has defeated Satan and all his forces. Because we share in his victory by faith, we too have the power in him to defeat the devil’s hosts.