Colossians 2:14 14having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and he has taken it out of the midst, by having nailed it to the cross.
This verse gives further definition of the forgiveness mentioned at the end of verse 13. Forgiveness is essentially the cancelation of a debt. The participle having canceled (exaleipsas) is a powerful word that means to remove, obliterate, or destroy something completely. This participle has an instrumental sense to it since God removed our debt of sin by canceling the penalty. The certificate of debt, the I-O-U we have with God, is our very life. Our disobedience and rebellion deserves the wrath of God because every human being has shaken his or her fist at God in pride, selfishness, and fleshly living. We are so bound up with ourselves that we have blinded ourselves to our problem. We owe our life to God who created us. We can glorify ourselves and face the penalty of death, or we can glorify God by giving ourselves totally to him in consecration. We do not realize that the problem of sin is actually hostile to us. It destroys us. This is the goal of our adversary, the devil.
Paul restates the gospel in the main clause of this verse: he has taken the debt out of the midst of our life. It is no longer at the center. The old self bound to sin has been replaced by a new self. We can have a new lease on life, a new birth certificate because we have been adopted into God’s family. We have been forgiven. As Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has he removed our wrongdoings from us.” The verb taken (ērken) is in the perfect tense, meaning that this debt of sin has been forgiven and removed and there remains no trace of it. It is gone and remains gone to this moment. This indeed is good news.
Finally, the way this has been done is by having nailed this debt of sin to the cross. Paul uses another instrumental participle to show how our problem of sin was forgiven. The cross here is a clear reference to Jesus’ sacrificial death. He died the death we deserve. This was at the heart of early Christian preaching and a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, as Peter shows in 1 Peter 2:21-25, building on Isaiah 53. This clear statement of the gospel should renew our faltering faith and refocus our devotion to the glory of God.
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