Col. 2:11-15, The Handwriting of Requirements

WORD STUDY: handwriting  (cheirographon)

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 his cross.

Versions:

1.    NASV: certificate

2.    Amplified: handwriting of the note (or bond)

3.    Alford: handwriting in ordinances

4.    Weymouth, RSV, NEB: bond

5.    Berkeley: red ledger

6.    KJV: handwriting

 

·       Strongs: cheirographon, something handwritten, i.e. a manuscript. The only use of this term in the NT.

·       Vincent: recommends "an autograph", "note of hand, bond" III,490.

·       Vine: a handwriting, trans "bond" in RSV, II,193

·       ATR (A. T. Robertson): … very common in the papyri for a certificate of debt or bond. … The signature made a legal debt or bond as Paul says in Philemon 18f: “I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it.”  … Undoubtedly “the handwriting in decrees” (dogmasin, the Mosaic law, Eph. 2:15) was against the Jews (Ex. 24:3; Dt. 27:14-26) for they accepted it, but the Gentiles also gave moral assent to God’s law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14f).  So Paul says “against us” and adds “which was contrary to us” because we could not5 keep it. … It is striking that Paul has connected the common word cheirographon for bond or debt with the Cross of Christ. ,,, “When Christ was crucified, God nailed the Law to His cross” (Peake).

·       Conclusion: There is a great “preaching point” at stake here.  I have heard it often, and might have said it myself, that our sins were nailed to the cross of Christ. If the emphasis in Col. 2:14 is on the handwritten note being a debt you could make a case for that interpretation.  However, the connection with the Law of God through Moses seems to obvious.  The Ten Commandments were hand-written by God Himself (Ex. 31:18).  Without the Law there would have been no “imputation” of sin (Rom. 5:13, i.e. the transfer of our sin to Christ by which He “became sin for us,” 2 Cor. 5:21).  The Law identifies sin: for by the law is the knowledge of sin … I would not have known sin except through the law (Rom. 3:20; 7:7).  Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree; He became sin for us.  He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:3-4); this removed the Law, so that Satan no longer had a legal claim against us.  Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them.