Canceling the Code (Colossians 2:13-15)

Big Idea: Everyone has a spiritual debt to God from their sins, but Jesus' death on the cross forgives this debt, granting believers a clean slate.

As of this morning, we have 273 days left before the next millennium.

I'm sure that you've heard of all the things that could go wrong with Y2K, but this morning for a minute I'd like to give you the bright side. Wouldn't it be great if on January 1, 2000, Revenue Canada could not figure out how much tax you owed them? Wouldn't it be great if Visa and MasterCard were aware of your debt but somehow misplaced your address? For those of us with mortgages and car loans that exceed our wealth, wouldn't it be great if a computer glitch erased all of them?

I've noticed how easy it is to get into debt. It's too easy to get into debt with quick loans approved in 10 minutes, no payments, and no interest, allowing you to buy almost anything without having the money. And many times this debt accumulates until it is absolutely out of control.

There is a debt that is owed by every single person in this room – no exceptions. It is a debt that you might have thought about recently; it might have been very much on your mind. On the other hand, it is possible that you haven't considered this debt. It doesn't really matter; it's there anyway.

Colossians 2:14 describes this debt as a written decree, a record of charges against us, or a handwritten IOU. What Paul is referring to actually comes from two words. It refers to a handwritten acknowledgement of a debt that became a legal obligation. And this IOU was personally signed by the debtor and placed in a public location for all to see.

Times have changed, but not too much. When you take out a loan, you sign a legal document acknowledging the amount you owe. As a child, I dreamed of signing an IOU in invisible ink, so my acknowledgement of the debt would vanish. Sometimes, banks or lending companies will take out a lien against your property to secure that debt. You are in debt, regardless of your awareness, because there is a record of your obligations.

Put Paul makes another point about this debt that is owed by everyone. He says in Colossians 2:14 that this debt is against us; it is contrary to us. The King James Version says that it is a "handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us."

You and I know that there is good debt, and there is bad debt. We have all been in the position of borrowing money when it is in the interests of everyone. There is such a thing as good debt, although it is very rare. In the early 1980s, many homeowners had mortgage rates of five or six percent, while investment rates were in the high teens. In that case, it was great to have debt at the lower rate, so you could invest the money at a much higher rate of return.

But we also know what it means to have bad debt. Many of us know what it is to be house-poor, or to have more bills coming in than we can possibly pay. Paul describes the debt that we owe as being against us, hostile to us, directly opposed to us. It is a promissory note that is definitely not in our best interests.

If you've ever faced a loan call due to inability to pay or received threats from creditors, you understand the situation I'm describing. But even if you've never been in that position, imagine it. Imagine being carrying a debt that was so onerous that it consumed all your thoughts. The creditor is calling, and you have no way of paying. You're on the brink of disaster. There appears to be little hope. There is nothing you can do to avoid collapse.

Now, don't just imagine it, because this passage says that you currently are in this position, or have been at some point in the past. What is this debt?

This passage refers to the debt every person must recognize before God. For the Jew of that day, there would have been no argument. They had the Old Testament law. They understood their responsibilities to God. They had the written law, which told them that without question, "There is no one righteous, not even one."

But what about those who don't have the law? What about those who haven't gone to church, read the Bible, or learned about his standards? Well, the answer is that they are indebted too. Every person, regardless of religious beliefs, has an inner voice of conscience that reflects God's law.

As Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Every single person bears within their conscience the acknowledgement that they have failed to obey God. Every person is guilty of the same willful disobedience. Every single person has, in one sense, signed a note of bankruptcy acknowledging their debt to God.

I've known people who have owed tremendous amounts of money, and yet had the most casual attitude about it. The Bible states that everyone owes a debt to God for breaking His law. The key difference lies not in being debtors, but in whether we care about it. Whether or not we are blinded to our indebtedness. Everyone owes a debt to God that can be hostile and lead to our destruction.

So what's to be done with this debt? You can't pay it off – the debt is too oppressive. No matter how much you try, you will be incapable of working hard enough to pay off this debt. You can't even make the minimum monthly payments on it – it is going to kill you, and you can't do anything about it.

You could always try begging for mercy from the debt-holder. You could beg God to unilaterally forgive your debt. There is one problem with this: someone has to pay for it.

Picture your brand new car sitting in your driveway. One night, your neighbor comes home drunk and accidentally drives into your driveway, crashing into your car. You can forgive him, but somebody still has to pay for the damages. It's either going to be you or him. Even God cannot forgive without a payment to settle the significant debt you owe him.

Which leads me back to the passage. Colossians 2 reveals the significance of Good Friday, explaining the debt we owe and what transpired on the day Jesus died. Rather than tell us what happened in the foreground, Paul describes what was going on behind the scenes as Jesus died two thousand years ago.

Read with me what Colossians 2:13-15 says:

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. 

God did three things behind the scenes that first Good Friday.

He Made You Alive (2:13)

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.

Your indebtedness had led to your death. Your sinfulness had led to a spiritual condition of death. The Bible doesn't say that you were spiritually sick – it says you were dead. There was absolutely no way that you could respond to God. There was nothing as a spiritually dead person that you could offer God. You didn't even have a few redeeming qualities that God could work with. It wasn't a case of you doing something and God making up the difference. The Bible says that you were dead in your sins and in your sinful nature. But God made us alive. Jesus' death in the cross led to the forgiveness of our sins. And we were made alive.

But secondly, and in the most graphic way:

He Cancelled the Charges Against You (2:14)

He cancelled the decree of indebtedness; the record containing charges against us; the handwritten IOU.

Colossians 2:14 (KJV) says: "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."

The word that Paul used is a beautiful one. The word means "to wash over, to wipe out." It refers to the wiping out of a memory of an experience. Of canceling a vote, annulling a law, or canceling a charge or a debt. It is a word that was also used for washing out the writing on a papyrus in that day. It is a word that has completeness in its meaning.

And what Paul says is that all our indebtedness was completely wiped out. The charges have been completely struck. As one person expands on this verse, "All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled."

What happened to it? Paul says that it was nailed to the cross. When Jesus died on that cross, he was settling the debts of every single believer in Jesus Christ. If you were there watching Jesus on the cross, you would have observed the suffering of Jesus. You would have observed the way that he suffered. You would have observed the sign that Pilate ordered. But you would not have observed what was happening behind the scenes.

Every single debt owed by every single believer was being nailed on the cross at that time. God was pouring out the fullness of his wrath on Jesus. And Jesus Christ was paying in full the penalty of our sins. Our debtor's obligation was finally and decisively removed.

Think of it: God nailed the incriminating list of unpaid debts to the cross. The IOU that we owed spelled out a penalty for nonpayment – death. God didn't just tear up that note and throw it away. The full penalty was exacted in Christ's death. Christ stood in our place, taking our sin upon himself and taking away our guilt. In exchange, we received his righteousness.

This morning, if you come to know Jesus Christ and have believed in him, your debt has been paid in full. There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. It's gone.

In those days, another way a bond could be cancelled was to put a giant X through it. The charges beneath the mark, however, would have remained readable. What God has done is that he has completely obliterated your debts. They're gone. Jesus obliterated and canceled them on the cross.

There's a third thing that God did that day:

God Conquered All Powers Opposing Him and Us

The third unseen event at Golgotha is described in Colossians 2:15: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."

The third thing that God did is that he disarmed and triumphed over every power that stands opposed to God and to us.

After World War II, war criminals were tried at the Nuremberg Tribunal and revealed to be weak and pitiful. In Paul's days, a Roman emperor celebrated a victory by leading a parade of vanquished enemies. It is possible that Paul is referring to this. Ironically, at the cross filled with suffering, Jesus demonstrated his greatest triumph, publicly shaming his enemies through his victory.

That's what was going on behind the scenes that first Good Friday. As one song says:

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them his very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
and suffered and died alone.

This morning, you're here and you're in one of two conditions. You're here, and if you have come to know Christ as your Savior, have confessed him as your Lord, then you are here as someone who has a clean slate before God. Your debt has been cancelled. You are completely righteous and just in God's eyes this morning. In which case, I think an appropriate response would be to sing, "Hallelujah! What a Savior!" Isn't it incredible that all your sins have been completely erased at the cross because of what Jesus did?

You might be in that condition this morning. Or you could still be a debtor. You might not have known it, but you owe God a tremendous debt for every wrong thing you've ever done. Today there's a decree of indebtedness; a record containing charges against you; a handwritten IOU. And you need to get that debt taken care of. If that's the case with you, then you can today have "all sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant cancelled and nailed to Christ's Cross."

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for the wonderful salvation that you've purchased for us. We're amazed at what it cost you. And we thank you this morning that for as many as know you as Savior, our sins are forgiven. The record of our debts has been obliterated. We are clean in your eyes. And we thank you for this.

And I realize, Father, that there might be somebody here who has realized for the first time that they have this debt. I pray that they might come to you today, speak to someone before they leave, or even turn to you from where they are seated right now. In Jesus' name, Amen.