Colossians 2:13-15
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
If you are reading this as a born-again Christian, then you probably understand that spiritually speaking, you were “dead as a doornail” before Christ saved you. But what is a doornail, anyway? Door nails were long used to strengthen the door during its construction. The person building or installing the door would hammer the nail all the way through the boards. On the other side, he would hammer the end flat, bending it so that the nail would be more secure in a process called “clenching.” In doing so, the nail was rendered unusable for any other purpose. It would be difficult to remove and even more difficult to use again elsewhere. Thus, the bent nail was commonly called “dead.” It wasn’t sick or in bad condition…it was dead. A sick person may need a doctor—but a dead person needs a Savior.
Too many people, if not most, simply have no understanding of their condition before a just and holy God. For example, how many times a day does the average person sin? Five? Ten? Thirty? Let’s be really conservative and say 15 (in word, thought, or deed). The average American lives to be 79-years old and we start to willfully sin by 6 or 7 (I’m being nice). That’s 72 years x 365 days a year x 15 sins per day. Your grand total would come in at 394,200 sins against a perfectly just and holy God. That’s a problem. I actually think the total is higher by a factor of 10 or so which would get you into the 4,000,000 range. That’s quite a record of debt you owe, friend! How are you going to pay that off? Looks like it may take you…well…forever.
This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
He didn’t have to set your pile aside, but he chose to. How could he do that? If God is just then every single crime needs to be accounted for…the legal demands of a perfect Judge…so he nailed them to the cross. He nailed them to His Son. He took your vast crime sheet and transferred it to Jesus’ account, which His Son then paid for with his own life…his perfect and sinless life. The perfect exchanged for the damned. The incorruptible for the hopelessly corrupted. You were dead and needed a savior…and God sent one for you.
…and put them to open shame.
The Roman Empire. The Jewish Leaders. Legions of Demons. Satan himself. They all must have thought they had won when they beheld Jesus nailed to that bloody cross. We can only imagine how Satan and every dark gleeful demon attacked Jesus as He hung on the cross on our behalf, as if He were a guilty sinner. “As he was suspended there, bound hand and foot to the wood in apparent weakness, they imagined they had him at their mercy, and flung themselves on him with hostile intent. But, far from suffering their attack without resistance, he grappled with them and mastered them, stripping them of the armor in which they trusted, and held them aloft in his outstretched hands, displaying to the universe their helplessness and his own unvanquished strength.” (Bruce)
David Guzik comments, “Paul wrote in another place that if the rulers of this age—by which he meant both the spiritual powers of darkness and their earthly representatives—had known what would happen on the cross, they would have never crucified Jesus (1 Corinthians 2:8). They were defeating themselves and they didn’t even know it.” I love that thought. Every empire…every king…every president…every despot…every corporate titan…every billionaire…they will all come to nothing before King Jesus. But even beyond those puppets is the ultimate puppet master himself, that great fallen angel we know as Satan. God triumphs over all of them in His Son…our Savior.
Amen and Amen.
