Scripture

He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Observation

When we came to Christ, we underwent a kind of circumcision. This is not a physical process done in the flesh, but a spiritual process by which our sinful nature is cut away.

In baptism, we are buried with Christ and raised to life in Him, because we trusted the same God who raised Christ from the dead.

Before we came to Christ, we were dead in our sins. Then God made us alive in Christ. He cancelled the record of the charges against us and nailed it to the cross. By doing this He disarmed. the spiritual rulers and authorities.

Application

When Christ died on the cross, it was not just a transaction of one life taking the place of many lives. Jesus’s death, and resurrection also represents God’s total victory over all the forces of evil. He disarmed them forever.

More than that, God took the record of our sins and nailed it all to the cross. When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” He was saying that all of our sin was gone and the record was destroyed.

In our legal system, there is a term used for this – expunged. That means that not only is a conviction overturned, the records are deleted and trashed so that it is as if the person never came to the attention of the legal system.

When we come to Christ, and receive his forgiveness, the records are expunged. When we try to remind God of the past, He says, “I have no record of that.”

We have a clean record with Christ because it has all been nailed to the cross.

Prayer.

Thank you, Lord, for such a thorough forgiveness. I am washed clean by the blood of Christ. Amen.