Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Colossians 2:14 - 2:14
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Having blotted out (exaleipsas). And so “cancelled.” First aorist active participle of old verb exaleiphō, to rub out, wipe off, erase. In N.T. only in Act 3:19 (lxx); Rev 3:5; Col 2:14. Here the word explains charisamenos and is simultaneous with it. Plato used it of blotting out a writing. Often MSS. were rubbed or scraped and written over again (palimpsests, like Codex C).
The bond written in ordinances that was against us (to kath' hēmōn cheirographon tois dogmasin). The late compound cheirographon (cheir, hand, graphō) is very common in the papyri for a certificate of debt or bond, many of the original cheirographa (handwriting, “chirography”). See Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 247. The signature made a legal debt or bond as Paul says in Phm 1:18.: “I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it.” Many of the papyri examples have been “crossed out” thus X as we do today and so cancelled. One decree is described as “neither washed out nor written over” (Milligan, N. T. Documents, p. 16). Undoubtedly “the handwriting in decrees” (dogmasin, the Mosaic law, Eph 2:15) was against the Jews (Exo 24:3; Deu 27:14-26) for they accepted it, but the Gentiles also gave moral assent to God’s law written in their hearts (Rom 2:14.). So Paul says “against us” (kath' hēmōn) and adds “which was contrary to us” (ho ēn hupenantion hēmin) because we (neither Jew nor Gentile) could not keep it. Hupenantios is an old double compound adjective (hupo, en, antios) set over against, only here in N.T. except Heb 10:27 when it is used as a substantive. It is striking that Paul has connected the common word cheirographon for bond or debt with the Cross of Christ (Deissmann, Light, etc., p. 332).
And he hath taken it out of the way (kai ērken ek tou mesou). Perfect active indicative of airō, old and common verb, to lift up, to bear, to take away. The word used by the Baptist of Jesus as “the Lamb of God that bears away (airōn) the sin of the world” (Joh 1:29). The perfect tense emphasizes the permanence of the removal of the bond which has been paid and cancelled and cannot be presented again. Lightfoot argues for Christ as the subject of ērken, but that is not necessary, though Paul does use sudden anacolutha. God has taken the bond against us “out of the midst” (ek tou mesou). Nailing it to the cross (prosēlōsas auto tōi staurōi). First aorist active participle of old and common verb prosēloō, to fasten with nails to a thing (with dative staurōi). Here alone in N.T., but in 3 Maccabees 4:9 with the very word staurōi. The victim was nailed to the cross as was Christ. “When Christ was crucified, God nailed the Law to His cross” (Peake). Hence the “bond” is cancelled for us. Business men today sometimes file cancelled accounts. No evidence exists that Paul alluded to such a custom here.