p. 8 | Blotting Out

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 41.

Blotting Out

No. 646. "Blotting Out." Col. 2:14.

Will you kindly explain to me Col. 2:14: "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 the cross."

The text refers doubtless to all those ceremonies and ordinances which grew up because of the entrance of sin, with especial reference to the old covenant in which the professed people of God promised in themselves to do God's law. See Ex. 19:7, 8; 24:3-8. Could they have kept God's law, that covenant would have been perfectly proper; but they could not, and their transgression made their covenant or bond against them. Many of the types and ceremonies of the Levitical law were ordained for a disobedient and gainsaying people, bringing their sin constantly to remembrance, but the ordinances could not take the sin away. Heb. 10:1-4. But Christ is the offering which could take away the sin, because he could take away the enmity of the carnal heart which produces sin (Eph. 2:15; Rom. 8:7); therefore the apostle declares: "And you being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you I say, did he quicken together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that were against us, which was contrary to us [because of our transgression]; and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross." Col. 2:13, 14. R. V. To put it briefly, that which our Lord destroyed is the power of sin, of which all the "carnal ordinances" of the past were symbolical; and the freedom from sin is for all who will accept it by faith.