Colossians 2:11-15
Nailed It to the Cross
11In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.
12And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses,
14having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul has just told them they are complete. Now he goes back over what happened to make that true, and every saving verb in the passage belongs to God.
And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Buried, and then raised. Whatever else baptism is, Paul treats it here as the picture of a funeral and a resurrection that have already happened to these people, and he names the power that did it as the power that emptied Christ's tomb. Not a comparable power working along similar lines, but that one.
Then he says what they were before, and he does not make it gentle.
When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
Dead is a hard word and it settles an argument the letter has been circling. Somebody in Colossae seems to have been offering improvements. You cannot improve a dead man, and Paul says that is the condition God found them in and worked from. Made alive is not the same kind of verb as helped. Helping is what you do for a person who is struggling. Being made alive is what has to happen to a person who has stopped.
One small word keeps repeating through all of this, and it is easy to hear past. Buried with him, raised with him, made alive with Christ. Paul is not describing three separate favors granted to people standing at a distance. He is saying they were put inside what happened to Christ, so that his funeral counted as theirs and his rising counted as theirs too.
Then comes the sentence a family should slow down for. Three things happen to one document. It is canceled, it is taken away, and it is nailed up. The debt was written down and it stood against them, which is what a record does, and none of the three verbs is about the record being paid off in instalments or wiped by somebody deciding not to look. It was removed and fixed to a cross, in public, where the reason it no longer stands can be seen. A record only does its work while somebody can produce it, and Paul says this one cannot be produced.
The passage turns from the paperwork to the powers, and it keeps the cross in view while it does.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Chapter 1 said the rulers and authorities were created through him. Here the powers and authorities are disarmed by him, and the place both of those meet is an execution, and the humiliation lands on the ones nobody expected.
How We Know
The powers named here are the ones the letter has already accounted for.
Colossians 1:16 lists thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities among the things created through Christ and for Christ. Colossians 2:15 says he disarmed the powers and authorities and triumphed over them by the cross.
So the letter does not treat these powers as an open question. It says where they came from, and then it says what happened to them, and the same person is the answer both times. Whatever a Colossian was being told about consulting them, worshipping them or placating them, the letter has already filed them twice.
Questions
1 Paul says we were dead, not sick or lost. Why does the word matter here?
AnswerBecause a dead person cannot be improved. Somebody seems to have been offering the Colossians upgrades, and Paul says the condition God found them in was one where only being made alive would do.
2 What are the three things that happen to the record of debt?
AnswerIt is canceled, taken away, and nailed to the cross. Not paid off slowly and not quietly ignored. It was removed and fixed up in public where anybody could see it had been dealt with.
3 Who does the burying, raising, forgiving and canceling here?
AnswerGod, every time. The people in the passage are the ones it all happens to. Paul is describing something done for them before it is anything they do.
4 Paul says a public spectacle was made at the cross. Of whom?
AnswerOf the powers. He disarmed them and made a public spectacle of them, and the verse says he did it by the cross.
What This Means for Us
The record that stood against us is the part most people carry longest. Not theology, but the specific list, the things we would not want read out. Paul says that document was taken away and nailed up, and the reason he says it in a letter about additions is that a person who still believes the list is live will accept almost any offer to deal with it.
There is also something for whatever this family is quietly afraid of. Paul's answer to powers is not that they are imaginary. He names them, says they were made through Christ, and says they were disarmed at the cross. Disarmed is a specific word. It does not mean gone. It means they no longer have what they used to hold over anybody.
So write down one thing that still feels like it stands against you. Anything, in a word or two, on a scrap of paper. Then read verse 14 out loud, and put the paper somewhere it will be thrown away rather than kept.
Prayer
Father, we were dead and you made us alive with Christ. Thank you that the list against us was not negotiated down but taken away and nailed up where everybody could see it. Thank you that at the cross the powers we are afraid of were stripped of what they held. Help us to stop picking the paper back up. Amen.