Colossians 2 Encourages Keeping the Law Part 2
When we are forgiven of our sins, those old traditions, doctrines and ordinances of men which are AGAINST us, have no power over us any longer; conditioned upon if we are in Yahshua (operating under the gracious power and rule of His Holy Spirit's leading in our lives)...
Rom.8:1,"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Messiah Yahshua, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yahshua hath made me free from the law of sin and death"
Do these satanically inspired ordinances of fleshly men have power over once saved Christians who are operating or living outside of Yahshua's gracious Holy Spirit leading and keeping? Yes they do! These ordinances of the flesh enslave us back to the condemnation of sin!
Roma 6:16 (NKJV) Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin [leading] to death, or of obedience [leading] to righteousness?
17 But Yahweh be thanked that [though] you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Colo 1:13 (NKJV) He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love,"
Therefore, it was the satanically inspired Law or ordinance of our sin nature written on our hearts, that was nailed to the tree; not Elohim's Law. It was this Satanic Law whose power of control over us, corrupting our previously good traditions and philosophies inspired by Elohim.
This sin nature effected even our very imaginations towards having enmity against Elohim's Law of righteousness...
Genesis 6:5"And Elohim saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6And it repented Yahweh that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7And Yahweh said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
When we repent and are forgiven for our sins, we receive the Holy Spirit and are given a new heart with Elohim's Law written on it. Receiving this new heart also sets us free from the control of our old heart; written on with satanically inpired engravings.
Whether talking about the justified Old Covenant or New Covenant people of Yahweh, if we yield to sin, it's satanically inspired writings seek to write over what Yahweh has impressed upon our hearts. Once fed our sin nature which is supposed to be denied as dead to us is strengthened and seeks to rule our hearts as god; instead of Yahweh Elohim.
Yahweh talking to both His Old covenant people, as well as today's New Covenant people, communicates through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah Chapter 17. Here is a pivotal lesson that we all need to grasp and appreciate. The lesson is about the deceitfulness of the fleshly heart and yet the surety of Yahweh's promises....
Jeremiah 17:1,“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars,2while their children remember their altars and their (wooden images)Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills,"
What's going on here? Yahweh is describing for us how that sin, once yielded to, like a diamond tip pen of iron, leaves its lasting engraving or impression written upon the hearts of His once sanctified and forgiven Covenant people.
Their yielding to the temptation of their satanically inspired sin nature influenced them in disobedience to Yahweh's Law; corrupting the tablets of their hearts with its own Law ordinance of writings towards un repentance and condemnation!
This effect of Sin initially happened to the first man and woman Adam and Eve who before yielding to Satan's sinful thinking, were originally created good and righteous in the Garden of Eden paradise. Now Yahweh through Jeremiah communicates how under the New Covenant of Grace, Yahweh wants to write His law on our hearts right?...
Jeremiah 31:"31Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith Yahweh:
33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith Yahweh, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people."
How is His law written on our hearts? Is it just a supernatural work? I would suggest to you that part of it is supernatural; okay. When we give our hearts to Yahshua he gives us his holy Spirit , he gives us the desire to follow him.
But part of Yahweh changing our character is based upon our obedient yielding to the Elohim's Law of the Spirit, of Life in Yahshua living in and through us leading. This is the only Law powerful enough to override and keep dead and denied the Law of sin and death nature.
These men with their man made philosophies and doctrines are helping to tempt the Collossians into going back and resurrecting that sin nature to be able to re-write on their hearts and retake control of the Gentiles of the church of Colossae into the idolatry to "the rudiments of the world", Participating in idolatry is against the Law commandments of Yahweh; and how does the Holy Spirit's gracious leading, influences us who are his people?
Ezekial.11: 27"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.… "
It's not just a miraculous work. Yahweh calls us to obey him. You read thru the book of Jeremiah, even through those first seventeen chapters; again and again, the call is to obey. To obey, to obey! And when we obey even if its difficult, what happens?!
The Holy Spirit changes us, through the way we obediently behave. This goes into the Holy Spirit led process of Sanctification that immediately follows Justification.
Strong's 38: Definition: the process of making or becoming holy, set apart, sanctification, holiness, consecration.
Cognate: 38 hagiasmós (a masculine noun derived from 40 /hágios, "holy") – sanctification (the process of advancing in holiness); use of the believer being progressively transformed by the Lord into His likeness (similarity of nature ). See 40 /hagios ("holy"). Anyone who has been changed after truly repenting and accepting Yahshua as Savior and Lord of their life, after a lifetime of sin can attest to this fact!! In agreement with this point of view; the Bible commentary...
MacLaren's Expositions
Sin's Writing and It's Erasure
Jeremiah 17:1. - 2 Corinthians 3:3. - Colossians 2:14.
I have put these verses together because they all deal with substantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet’s solemn appeal. It describes the sin of the nation as indelible.
It is written in two places. First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the promise of the new covenant to be written on the heart. The ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ are like waxen tables on which an iron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar. So Judah’s sin is, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say, tattooed on it. It is also written on the stone horns of the altar, with a diamond which can cut the rock {an illustration of ancient knowledge of the properties of the diamond}.
That sounds a strange place for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound meaning, as we shall see presently.
Then the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the same metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the hearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away ‘the handwriting contrary to us.’ The general thought drawn from all is that sin’s writing on men’s hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription substituted.
I. The handwriting of sin.
Sin committed is indelibly written on the heart of the doer.
‘The heart,’ of course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural.
Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are ‘the issues of life,’ the whole outgoings of the being. It is the fountain and source of all the activity of the man, the central unity from which all comes.
Taken in this wide sense it is really the whole inner self that is meant, or, as is said in one place, ‘the hidden man of the heart.’ And so the thought in this vigorous metaphor may be otherwise put, that all sin makes indelible marks on the whole inward nature of the man who does it.
Now to begin with, think for a moment of that truth that everything which we do reacts on us the doers.
We seldom think of this. Deeds are done, and we fancy that when done, they are done with. They pass, as far as outward seeming goes, and their distinguishable consequences in the outward world, in the vast majority of cases, soon apparently pass.
All seems evanescent and irrecoverable as last year’s snows, or the water that flowed over the cataract a century ago. But there is nothing more certain than that all which we do leaves indelible traces on ourselves.
The mightiest effect of a man’s actions is on his own inward life. The recoil of the gun is more powerful than the blow from its shot.
Our actions strike inwards and there produce their most important effects. The river runs ceaselessly and its waters pass away, but they bring down soil, which is deposited and makes firm land, or perhaps they carry down grains of gold.
This is the true solemnity of life, that in all which we do we are carrying on a double process, influencing others indeed, but influencing ourselves far more.
Consider the illustrations of this law in regard to our sins.
Now the last thing people think of when they hear sermons about ‘sin’ is that what is meant is the things that they are doing every day.
I can only ask you to try to remember, while I speak, that I mean those little acts of temper, or triflings with truth, or yielding to passion or anger, or indulgence in sensuality, and above all, the living without God, to which we are all prone.
{a} All wrong-doing makes indelible marks on character. It makes its own repetition easier. Habit strengthens inclination. Peter found denying his Lord three times easier than doing it once. It weakens resistance. In going downhill the first step is the only one that needs an effort; gravity will do the rest.
It drags after it a tendency to other evil. All wrong things have so much in common that they lead on to one another. A man with only one vice is a rare phenomenon.
Satan sends his apostles forth two by two. Sins hunt in couples, or more usually in packs, like wolves, only now and then do they prey alone like lions. Small thieves open windows for greater ones.
It requires continually increasing draughts, like indulgence in stimulants. The palate demands cayenne tomorrow, if it has had black pepper to-day.
So, whatever else we do by our acts, we are making our own characters, either steadily depraving or steadily improving them. There will come a slight slow change, almost unnoticed but most certain, as a dim film will creep over the peach, robbing it of all its bloom, or some microscopic growth will steal across a clearly cut inscription, or a breath of mist will dim a polished steel mirror.
{b} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the memory, that awful and mysterious power of recalling past things out of the oblivion in which they seem to lie. How solemn and miserable it is to defile it with the pictures of things evil!
Many a man in his later years has tried to ‘turn over a new leaf,’ and has never been able to get the filth out of his memory, for it has been printed on the old page in such strong colours that it shines through. I beseech you all, and especially you young people, to keep yourselves ‘innocent of much transgression,’ and ‘simple concerning evil’-to make your memories like an illuminated missal with fair saints and calm angels bordering the holy words, and not an Illustrated Police News. Probably there is no real oblivion. Each act sinks in as if forgotten, gets overlaid with a multitude of others, but it is there, and memory will one day bring it to us.
And all sin pollutes the imagination. It is a miserable thing to have one’s mind full of ugly foul forms painted on the inner walls of our chamber of imagery, like the hideous figures in some heathen temple, where gods of lust and murder look out from every inch of space on the walls.
{c} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the conscience. It does so partly by sophisticating it-the sensibility to right and wrong being weakened by every evil act, as a cold in the head takes away the sense of smell. It brings on colour-blindness to some extent.
One does not know how far one may go towards ‘Evil! be thou my good’-or how far towards incapacity of distinguishing evil. But at all events the tendency of each sin is in that direction.
So conscience may become seared, though perhaps never so completely as that there are no intervals when it speaks. It may long lie dormant, as Vesuvius did, till great trees grow on the floor of the crater, but all the while the communication with the central fires is open, and one day they will burst out.
The writing may be with invisible ink, but it will be legible one day. So, then, all this solemn writing on the heart is done by ourselves. What are you writing? There is a presumption in it of a future retribution, when you will have to read your autobiography, with clearer light and power of judging yourselves.
At any rate there is retribution now, which is described by many metaphors, such as sowing and reaping, drinking as we have brewed, and others-but this one of indelible writing is not the least striking.
Sin is graven deep on sinful men’s worship.
The metaphor here is striking and not altogether clear. The question rises whether the altars are idolatrous altars, or Jehovah’s.
If the former, the expression may mean simply that the Jews’ idolatry, which was their sin, was conspicuously displayed in these altars, and had, as it were, its most flagrant record in their sacrifices. The altar was the centre point of all heathen and Old Testament worship, and altars built by sinners were the most conspicuous evidences of their sins.
So the meaning would be that men’s sin shapes and culminates in their religion; and that is very true, and explains many of the profanations and abominations of heathenism, and much of the formal worship of so-called Christianity."
Paul expands on this in the next verse..
Colo 2:15 [And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
He overcame and disarmed the spirits of darkness, the evil angels. He triumphed over Satan and all his powers. He Put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in his resurrection and ascension.
Now if verse 14 was speaking of Yahweh's commandments then why in the next verse is it talking about disarming Satan? Yahweh is the author of the true commandments. Satan is the author of the Pagan commandments that Paul was speaking of here.
There is another deeper scriptural angle or perspective that shows the abolished hand written ordinances can't be talking about the Law of Elohim itself. We must look at what these ordinances of men are, without straying away from the consistent message of the whole counsel of Elohim's word?" This brings us to....
A CONNECTED VIEW:
Based on the whole counsel of Yahweh's word, we've already looked at the philosophies and doctrines of worldly sinful fleshly natured men being co-conspirators in connection with Adam and Eve adopting Satan's inspired Law or philosophy, whose ordinance or strong influence became written on the hearts of all mankind. As we look at, the ordinances that were against us....
Eph. 2:15,"Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;"
Colo 2: 13, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 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 tree (cross);"
Yahweh's word as a whole also shows evidence that for those in faith, what was nailed to Calvary's tree, involves specifically the curses and penalties described in Elohim's inspired Law of Moses as the consequences of our sin (Deuteronomy 28:16-68).
In order to truly understand this connected scriptural perspective or concept, instead of trying to do away with Elohim's LAW itself, one should again look at the three scriptures above and blend them together asking what specifically was nailed to the Tree?
To better understand this we need to look deeper Into Colossians 2:14, the Greek word for "handwritings" is Cheirographon. The Cheirographon is what was nailed. You should know this word if you want to understand what was nailed to the Tree in Colossians 2:14.
Many indoctrinated by Mainstream Christianity erroneously go to far believing and being taught that "the handwriting of ordinances" (cheirographon tois dogmasin) in Colossians 2:14 refers to Elohim's written Old Covenant Law of Moses.
Again we know this cannot be the proper balanced understanding because if we let scripture set the guidelines for interpreting or defining scripture, our Lord and Savior Yahshua who described what the work of Calvary He came to do did not mean said...
Matthew 5:17,""Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose(goal). 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
According to Mainstream Christianity's misinterpretation, YAHWEH's Law itself was "against us" and "contrary to us" because it was a heavy yoke of bondage. It was an impediment, a hindrance to man's attempt to be reconciled to YAHWEH Elohim.
Therefore despite the fact that heaven and earth haven't yet passed away, they say YAHWEH had to "take it out of the way" and abolish or get rid of His own Law. He did this by nailing it to the Tree.
In other words, we are reconciled to YAHWEH Elohim by the Messiah's abolition of His own Father's Law. So says this popular false teaching and misinterpretation of Colossians 2:14.
This view is flawed for a few different reasons...
First, it contradicts the Biblical truth that YAHWEH's Law, properly understood, is neither "against us" nor "contrary to us." According to the Bible, YAHWEH's unadulterated Law is a blessing -- not a burden. (See, e.g., Deuteronomy 4:5-9, Psalm 19, Psalm 119, Romans 7:22, 1 Timothy 1:8, and many other passages.)
Second this view is flawed because it portrays the Messiah (Elohim the Son) as a slick lawyer who finds a legal loophole to thwart His own justice. The Messiah gets us off the hook by simply abolishing His own given commandments that we broke.
"You've been accused of breaking the Sabbath? No problem. I'll just abolish that commandment." But the Messiah said we are to not even think that he came to abolish the Law. (See Matthew 5:17-19.)
Third this view is flawed because of the meaning of that long word cheirographon. A study of this word will reveal exactly what it was that got nailed to the Tree in Colossians 2:14.
When you see what really got nailed to the Tree, you will find it far more liberating than believing that the Messiah blotted out his own Father's commandments.
The Greek word cheirographon is a compound word that is formed by combining the two words cheir ("hand") and grapho("to write or engrave"). In its simplest sense, the word means a hand-written document.
Other than in Colossians 2:14, the word cheirographon appears nowhere else in the Greek New Testament, nor does it appear anywhere in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. However, the word does appear in extra-Biblical Greek documents.
It is in these documents that we learn that cheirographon is a legal term. It is a word that was used to refer to the written evidence of a person's guilt in a courtroom. It is the written record of a person's crimes -- the laws he has broken and the penalty he owes for his law-breaking.
In ancient times the accuser would present the cheirographonfrom the middle of the courtroom, called tou mesou, "the middle" -- the exact same term Paul uses when he says the cheirographon is taken "out of the way [tou mesou]."
Because cheirographon and tou mesou are legal terms, you must think of cheirographon in a legal context to understand its meaning and to appreciate the significance of Paul's statement in Colossians 2:14.
You must picture yourself in the modern context of someone who has been pulled over for sinful speeding and running a heavenly red light which Elohim's law commands us to obey.
The police officer who represents Elohim's enforcement agent of the Law against those who either in ignorance, or for selfish reasons chose to ignore and violate Elohim's good and holy commandment designed to serve, protect and keep everybody safe from suffering disastrous loss, injuries and death.
Since you are a transgressor/sinner..., Elohim's Law representative points out your specifically described sin by writing you a ticket (handwritten notice or evidence that he observed you transgress this Law) and now you owe some penalty points and a fine that you cannot afford to pay. Unable to afford the heavy penalty and fine, you must go before the the Heavenly Courtroom.
YAHWEH Elohim is the presiding Judge. You have been brought into the Courtroom of YAHWEH Elohim. You stand before Elohim found guilty of breaking YAHWEH's laws.
In YAHWEH's Courtroom, there is a prosecuting attorney: Satan, the Adversary -- the Accuser of the brethren. In his hands the Adversary holds up the ticket or cheirographon, a legal written document. It is a written record of the speeding and red light sins you have committed.
Even your past driving history of every infractions you've ever committed against YAHWEH's road of life Law comes with it in a detailed account. The ticket or cheirographon list the date, the time, the location, the testimony of witnesses, and all the other details of your law-breaking. The information on this written document is not based on hearsay or unfounded suspicions.
It is recognized by the Court as a legal and legitimate document proving your guilt. The Adversary holds in his hands the indisputable proof, along with the penalties that the Court prescribes for such crimes, and he presents the cheirographon or ticket to the Judge.
Fortunately, you have an Advocate with you in the Courtroom of YAHWEH Elohim. "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Yahshua Messiah the righteous" (1 John 2:1). Your Advocate does not deny the truth of the charges brought against you.
Your Advocate admits that the information on the ticket or cheirographon is true. You have indeed committed all these crimes, and you do indeed deserve the penalty which is prescribed on the cheirographon.
However, your Advocate says, the penalty for all your crimes has already been fully paid. Your Advocate paid the penalty himself when he went to the Tree and took upon himself the sins of the world and bore the punishment for your sins.
Because the penalty has already been fully paid, the Judge tells Satan that based on the gracious word and deed of your defense attorney Messiah Yahshua, the ticket or cheirographon is withdrawn or thrown out as inadmissible evidence in the Heavenly Courtroom.
Not only that but our Messiah advocate also pays to have all my old, past traffic violations expunged from off my record.
2 Peter 1:9,"But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."
Romans 3:25,"Whom Elohim hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of Elohim;"
Therefore the tickets or cheirographon that was against us, which was contrary to us, is taken out of the way. It is removed from tou mesou -- the middle of the Courtroom occupied by the Accuser. Then it is nailed to the Tree like a banner, proclaiming the Messiah's triumph over our sin on our behalf.
By paying the penalty for our sins, Yahshua spoiled the Adversary's plans to condemn us with the ticket cheirographon. That is why the very next verse says "And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15).
This removal of the cheirographon is something entirely different from the erroneous assumption that YAHWEH's Law itself got nailed to the Tree. What because I was graciously spared the fine or penalty of the handwritten ticket or cheirographon, of my past, does that mean that the Law itself has somehow vanished and I without fear of more fines and penalties can just go around on the road speeding and running all kinds of red lights and stop sihns. No! To do that again would make me a violator of the Law; put once again under the bondage of penalty...
Gal 2: 16,"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Yahshua Messiah, even we have believed in Yahshua Messiah, that we might be justified by the faith of Messiah, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17But if, while we seek to be justified by Messiah, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Messiah the minister of sin? Elohim forbid. 18For if I build again the things (transgressing Elohim Law, revive sin nature's control) which I (through Yahshua) destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."
Gal.4:9,"But now, after that ye have known Elohim, or rather are known of Elohim, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"
Rom. 6:1"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2Elohim forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ":
Eph. 2:10,"For we are his workmanship, created in Mesiah Yahshua unto good works, which Elohim hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
It's the guilty charge of violating Elohim's Law that sentences us to having to pay the penalty of our own sins that was taken away, not the Law itself.
Colo. 2:14,"having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. "
The word "law" (Greek, nomos) does not even appear anywhere in the entire Book of Colossians, neither in the Greek text nor in the KJV translation. Of course YAHWEH's commandments are alluded to in conjunction with the cheirographon (tois dogmasin, "of ordinances"), because in order to accuse us, the Prosecution or Adversary obviously has to list which commandments ("ordinances") we broke.
Again, people need to understand that it's not the commandments of the Law of Elohim which are removed; Rather, it is the written record or evidence of our past lawbreaking that is removed from the Courtroom.
This proper understanding of the cheirographon as the legal record of a person's sins can be seen not only in Gentile Greek literature, but in Jewish Greek literature as well. The Greek text of the apocryphal book The Apocalypse of Elijah describes an angel holding a book. The book is called a cheirographon, and it contains the record of sins.
The traditional Jewish Avinu Malkenu prayer likewise paints a similar picture. This prayer is in Hebrew, so it obviously cannot use the Greek word cheirographon. However, it describes a scenario similar to Colossians 2:14 when it asks YAHWEH Elohim to "erase all the documents that accuse us."
YAHWEH Elohim does more than erase all the documents that accuse us. If YAHWEH merely erased the record of our sins, the Adversary could point to the smudged cheirographon and say that someone tampered with the evidence. So YAHWEH Elohim does something even better than just erasing the record of our sins.
YAHWEH takes the cheirographon and REMOVES IT FROM THE COURTROOM, leaving the Accuser empty-handed, with absolutely no evidence to condemn us -- and with no power to punish us. The cheirographon is nailed to the Tree like a banner to declare our victory. Thus the instrument of our guilt that Satan intended to use against us YAHWEH Elohim in his mercy and grace forgives.
YAHWEH Elohim nailed the cheirographon to the Tree (verse 14) and thereby spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly and triumphing over them (verse 15). But what about verse 16, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days"?
Does the removal of thecheirographon mean that we can now be gluttons and drunkards and Sabbath-breakers? Does the fact that the Messiah paid the penalty for our law-breaking mean that it is okay for us to return to a life of law breaking?
The Apostle Paul is not saying that YAHWEH's dietary laws and holy days are unimportant. The context of these verses is in regards to the imposing of man-made rules and regulations.
Six times the words man or men appear in Colossians chapter 2: "And this I say, lest any man should beguile you" (vs. 4); "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men" (vs. 8); "Let no man therefore judge you" (vs. 16); "Let no man beguile you" (vs. 18); "why...are ye subject to ordinances (Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men?" (vs. 20-22).
The Sabbath and dietary laws of the Bible are not commandments of men -- THEY ARE COMMANDMENTS OF YAHWEH ELOHIM! Paul is not telling us we can disregard the commandments of YAHWEH Elohim; he is telling us we can disregard the commandments of men -- men who would impose false teachings or heavy burdens upon YAHWEH's people, burdens that YAHWEH Elohim did not command, burdens that turn Sabbath-keeping into a burden instead of a blessing.
Along with the false teaching of pagan angel worship, some teachers in the mainly gentile church of Colossae may have been doing this, just like some Pharisees added their own man made teachings to the Jews keeping of Yahweh's Law.
Matthew 23:4 "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders"
Not only did they enforce upon the people their own man made commandment as if they were the commandments of Yahweh, they even went so far as to put their own man made teachings above the law of Yahweh; ignoring or abolishing the peoples obligation to keep certain of the Elohim's commandments....
Mark 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.8,"For laying aside the commandment of Elohim, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.9And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of Elohim, that ye may keep your own tradition."
Does this sound familiar? When it comes to Yahweh's people, there is nothing new under the sun. When compared to the erroneous man made teachings and traditions of the Jewish Pharisees of old, this sound similar with what the modern day Mainstream Christian Pharisees are doing.
The Orthodox Judaism of today evolved from the Judaism of the Pharisees, and it still retains some of the leaven of the Pharisees. Like the Pharisees of old, modern-day rabbis expect Jews to abide by hundreds of man made rabbinical rulings that prescribe exactly how to keep the Sabbath and all the rest of the Torah.
The rabbis prescribe how to keep the Sabbath in such great detail that a person never has to be led by the spirit; theoretically he will never find himself in a situation where he has to hear from YAHWEH Elohim and make his own decision about how to obey the Torah.
The rabbis have already prescribed every detail. They even have man-made laws that govern bug-killing on the Sabbath. They tell Jews which kinds of bugs can be killed and under which circumstances these bugs can be killed.
If you happen to kill the wrong kind of bug, or you kill the right kind of bug under circumstances that the rabbis have not authorized, then you have violated the Sabbath according to their view. This is just one of many examples of doctrines and commandments of men that put YAHWEH's people in bondage.
YAHWEH's unadulterated Law does not put people in bondage; it liberates...
Psalm 119:44, "So shall I keep Thy law continually forever and ever. 45 And I will walk at liberty".
YAHWEH Elohim wants us to keep His commandments, but we can disregard man-made commandments that men have added to YAHWEH's commandments. Adding to the commandments of YAHWEH Elohim -- as the rabbis do and as the Pharisees did and as some teachers at Colosse did -- perverts the Law and turns it into "a yoke...which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10). In contrast to this man-imposed yoke, Yahshua says...
Matthew 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light"
Yahshua does not say that the yoke of Torah is nailed to the Tree and abolished. He only says that his teaching of Torah is light compared to that of the Pharisees, who taught a Torah weighed down with additional, excessive, man-made demands.
Then immediately after Yahshua's statement about his light yoke, the very next verse begins a story that demonstrates the contrast between the Pharisees' yoke and Yahshua's yoke. The Pharisees' interpretation of Torah would condemn the hungry disciples for plucking and eating a bit of grain as they walked through a field on the Sabbath.
Yahshua's yoke would permit the hungry disciples to do what they did in those circumstances, just as David and his hungry men were permitted to eat the priests' showbread in their unusual circumstances.
As a Jewish grandmother once remarked about the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath, "You mean these were hungry Jewish boys with no place to eat on Shabbat? Why didn't those Pharisees invite them to dinner instead of scolding them?"
The cheirographon, THE RECORD OF OUR LAW-BREAKING, has been taken out of the Courtroom and nailed to the Tree because Yahshua paid the penalty for our law-breaking. But again, this does not give us a right to return to a life of continued law-breaking. As Yahshua said to the woman taken in adultery, so he says to us...
John 8:11, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and SIN NO MORE".
Rom.8:1,"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Messiah Yahshua, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yahshua hath made me free from the law of sin and death"
Do these satanically inspired ordinances of fleshly men have power over once saved Christians who are operating or living outside of Yahshua's gracious Holy Spirit leading and keeping? Yes they do! These ordinances of the flesh enslave us back to the condemnation of sin!
Roma 6:16 (NKJV) Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin [leading] to death, or of obedience [leading] to righteousness?
17 But Yahweh be thanked that [though] you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Colo 1:13 (NKJV) He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love,"
Therefore, it was the satanically inspired Law or ordinance of our sin nature written on our hearts, that was nailed to the tree; not Elohim's Law. It was this Satanic Law whose power of control over us, corrupting our previously good traditions and philosophies inspired by Elohim.
This sin nature effected even our very imaginations towards having enmity against Elohim's Law of righteousness...
Genesis 6:5"And Elohim saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6And it repented Yahweh that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7And Yahweh said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
When we repent and are forgiven for our sins, we receive the Holy Spirit and are given a new heart with Elohim's Law written on it. Receiving this new heart also sets us free from the control of our old heart; written on with satanically inpired engravings.
Whether talking about the justified Old Covenant or New Covenant people of Yahweh, if we yield to sin, it's satanically inspired writings seek to write over what Yahweh has impressed upon our hearts. Once fed our sin nature which is supposed to be denied as dead to us is strengthened and seeks to rule our hearts as god; instead of Yahweh Elohim.
Yahweh talking to both His Old covenant people, as well as today's New Covenant people, communicates through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah Chapter 17. Here is a pivotal lesson that we all need to grasp and appreciate. The lesson is about the deceitfulness of the fleshly heart and yet the surety of Yahweh's promises....
Jeremiah 17:1,“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars,2while their children remember their altars and their (wooden images)Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills,"
What's going on here? Yahweh is describing for us how that sin, once yielded to, like a diamond tip pen of iron, leaves its lasting engraving or impression written upon the hearts of His once sanctified and forgiven Covenant people.
Their yielding to the temptation of their satanically inspired sin nature influenced them in disobedience to Yahweh's Law; corrupting the tablets of their hearts with its own Law ordinance of writings towards un repentance and condemnation!
This effect of Sin initially happened to the first man and woman Adam and Eve who before yielding to Satan's sinful thinking, were originally created good and righteous in the Garden of Eden paradise. Now Yahweh through Jeremiah communicates how under the New Covenant of Grace, Yahweh wants to write His law on our hearts right?...
Jeremiah 31:"31Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith Yahweh:
33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith Yahweh, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people."
How is His law written on our hearts? Is it just a supernatural work? I would suggest to you that part of it is supernatural; okay. When we give our hearts to Yahshua he gives us his holy Spirit , he gives us the desire to follow him.
But part of Yahweh changing our character is based upon our obedient yielding to the Elohim's Law of the Spirit, of Life in Yahshua living in and through us leading. This is the only Law powerful enough to override and keep dead and denied the Law of sin and death nature.
These men with their man made philosophies and doctrines are helping to tempt the Collossians into going back and resurrecting that sin nature to be able to re-write on their hearts and retake control of the Gentiles of the church of Colossae into the idolatry to "the rudiments of the world", Participating in idolatry is against the Law commandments of Yahweh; and how does the Holy Spirit's gracious leading, influences us who are his people?
Ezekial.11: 27"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.… "
It's not just a miraculous work. Yahweh calls us to obey him. You read thru the book of Jeremiah, even through those first seventeen chapters; again and again, the call is to obey. To obey, to obey! And when we obey even if its difficult, what happens?!
The Holy Spirit changes us, through the way we obediently behave. This goes into the Holy Spirit led process of Sanctification that immediately follows Justification.
Strong's 38: Definition: the process of making or becoming holy, set apart, sanctification, holiness, consecration.
Cognate: 38 hagiasmós (a masculine noun derived from 40 /hágios, "holy") – sanctification (the process of advancing in holiness); use of the believer being progressively transformed by the Lord into His likeness (similarity of nature ). See 40 /hagios ("holy"). Anyone who has been changed after truly repenting and accepting Yahshua as Savior and Lord of their life, after a lifetime of sin can attest to this fact!! In agreement with this point of view; the Bible commentary...
MacLaren's Expositions
Sin's Writing and It's Erasure
Jeremiah 17:1. - 2 Corinthians 3:3. - Colossians 2:14.
I have put these verses together because they all deal with substantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet’s solemn appeal. It describes the sin of the nation as indelible.
It is written in two places. First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the promise of the new covenant to be written on the heart. The ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ are like waxen tables on which an iron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar. So Judah’s sin is, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say, tattooed on it. It is also written on the stone horns of the altar, with a diamond which can cut the rock {an illustration of ancient knowledge of the properties of the diamond}.
That sounds a strange place for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound meaning, as we shall see presently.
Then the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the same metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the hearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away ‘the handwriting contrary to us.’ The general thought drawn from all is that sin’s writing on men’s hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription substituted.
I. The handwriting of sin.
Sin committed is indelibly written on the heart of the doer.
‘The heart,’ of course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural.
Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are ‘the issues of life,’ the whole outgoings of the being. It is the fountain and source of all the activity of the man, the central unity from which all comes.
Taken in this wide sense it is really the whole inner self that is meant, or, as is said in one place, ‘the hidden man of the heart.’ And so the thought in this vigorous metaphor may be otherwise put, that all sin makes indelible marks on the whole inward nature of the man who does it.
Now to begin with, think for a moment of that truth that everything which we do reacts on us the doers.
We seldom think of this. Deeds are done, and we fancy that when done, they are done with. They pass, as far as outward seeming goes, and their distinguishable consequences in the outward world, in the vast majority of cases, soon apparently pass.
All seems evanescent and irrecoverable as last year’s snows, or the water that flowed over the cataract a century ago. But there is nothing more certain than that all which we do leaves indelible traces on ourselves.
The mightiest effect of a man’s actions is on his own inward life. The recoil of the gun is more powerful than the blow from its shot.
Our actions strike inwards and there produce their most important effects. The river runs ceaselessly and its waters pass away, but they bring down soil, which is deposited and makes firm land, or perhaps they carry down grains of gold.
This is the true solemnity of life, that in all which we do we are carrying on a double process, influencing others indeed, but influencing ourselves far more.
Consider the illustrations of this law in regard to our sins.
Now the last thing people think of when they hear sermons about ‘sin’ is that what is meant is the things that they are doing every day.
I can only ask you to try to remember, while I speak, that I mean those little acts of temper, or triflings with truth, or yielding to passion or anger, or indulgence in sensuality, and above all, the living without God, to which we are all prone.
{a} All wrong-doing makes indelible marks on character. It makes its own repetition easier. Habit strengthens inclination. Peter found denying his Lord three times easier than doing it once. It weakens resistance. In going downhill the first step is the only one that needs an effort; gravity will do the rest.
It drags after it a tendency to other evil. All wrong things have so much in common that they lead on to one another. A man with only one vice is a rare phenomenon.
Satan sends his apostles forth two by two. Sins hunt in couples, or more usually in packs, like wolves, only now and then do they prey alone like lions. Small thieves open windows for greater ones.
It requires continually increasing draughts, like indulgence in stimulants. The palate demands cayenne tomorrow, if it has had black pepper to-day.
So, whatever else we do by our acts, we are making our own characters, either steadily depraving or steadily improving them. There will come a slight slow change, almost unnoticed but most certain, as a dim film will creep over the peach, robbing it of all its bloom, or some microscopic growth will steal across a clearly cut inscription, or a breath of mist will dim a polished steel mirror.
{b} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the memory, that awful and mysterious power of recalling past things out of the oblivion in which they seem to lie. How solemn and miserable it is to defile it with the pictures of things evil!
Many a man in his later years has tried to ‘turn over a new leaf,’ and has never been able to get the filth out of his memory, for it has been printed on the old page in such strong colours that it shines through. I beseech you all, and especially you young people, to keep yourselves ‘innocent of much transgression,’ and ‘simple concerning evil’-to make your memories like an illuminated missal with fair saints and calm angels bordering the holy words, and not an Illustrated Police News. Probably there is no real oblivion. Each act sinks in as if forgotten, gets overlaid with a multitude of others, but it is there, and memory will one day bring it to us.
And all sin pollutes the imagination. It is a miserable thing to have one’s mind full of ugly foul forms painted on the inner walls of our chamber of imagery, like the hideous figures in some heathen temple, where gods of lust and murder look out from every inch of space on the walls.
{c} All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the conscience. It does so partly by sophisticating it-the sensibility to right and wrong being weakened by every evil act, as a cold in the head takes away the sense of smell. It brings on colour-blindness to some extent.
One does not know how far one may go towards ‘Evil! be thou my good’-or how far towards incapacity of distinguishing evil. But at all events the tendency of each sin is in that direction.
So conscience may become seared, though perhaps never so completely as that there are no intervals when it speaks. It may long lie dormant, as Vesuvius did, till great trees grow on the floor of the crater, but all the while the communication with the central fires is open, and one day they will burst out.
The writing may be with invisible ink, but it will be legible one day. So, then, all this solemn writing on the heart is done by ourselves. What are you writing? There is a presumption in it of a future retribution, when you will have to read your autobiography, with clearer light and power of judging yourselves.
At any rate there is retribution now, which is described by many metaphors, such as sowing and reaping, drinking as we have brewed, and others-but this one of indelible writing is not the least striking.
Sin is graven deep on sinful men’s worship.
The metaphor here is striking and not altogether clear. The question rises whether the altars are idolatrous altars, or Jehovah’s.
If the former, the expression may mean simply that the Jews’ idolatry, which was their sin, was conspicuously displayed in these altars, and had, as it were, its most flagrant record in their sacrifices. The altar was the centre point of all heathen and Old Testament worship, and altars built by sinners were the most conspicuous evidences of their sins.
So the meaning would be that men’s sin shapes and culminates in their religion; and that is very true, and explains many of the profanations and abominations of heathenism, and much of the formal worship of so-called Christianity."
Paul expands on this in the next verse..
Colo 2:15 [And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
He overcame and disarmed the spirits of darkness, the evil angels. He triumphed over Satan and all his powers. He Put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in his resurrection and ascension.
Now if verse 14 was speaking of Yahweh's commandments then why in the next verse is it talking about disarming Satan? Yahweh is the author of the true commandments. Satan is the author of the Pagan commandments that Paul was speaking of here.
There is another deeper scriptural angle or perspective that shows the abolished hand written ordinances can't be talking about the Law of Elohim itself. We must look at what these ordinances of men are, without straying away from the consistent message of the whole counsel of Elohim's word?" This brings us to....
A CONNECTED VIEW:
Based on the whole counsel of Yahweh's word, we've already looked at the philosophies and doctrines of worldly sinful fleshly natured men being co-conspirators in connection with Adam and Eve adopting Satan's inspired Law or philosophy, whose ordinance or strong influence became written on the hearts of all mankind. As we look at, the ordinances that were against us....
Eph. 2:15,"Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;"
Colo 2: 13, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 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 tree (cross);"
Yahweh's word as a whole also shows evidence that for those in faith, what was nailed to Calvary's tree, involves specifically the curses and penalties described in Elohim's inspired Law of Moses as the consequences of our sin (Deuteronomy 28:16-68).
In order to truly understand this connected scriptural perspective or concept, instead of trying to do away with Elohim's LAW itself, one should again look at the three scriptures above and blend them together asking what specifically was nailed to the Tree?
To better understand this we need to look deeper Into Colossians 2:14, the Greek word for "handwritings" is Cheirographon. The Cheirographon is what was nailed. You should know this word if you want to understand what was nailed to the Tree in Colossians 2:14.
Many indoctrinated by Mainstream Christianity erroneously go to far believing and being taught that "the handwriting of ordinances" (cheirographon tois dogmasin) in Colossians 2:14 refers to Elohim's written Old Covenant Law of Moses.
Again we know this cannot be the proper balanced understanding because if we let scripture set the guidelines for interpreting or defining scripture, our Lord and Savior Yahshua who described what the work of Calvary He came to do did not mean said...
Matthew 5:17,""Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose(goal). 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
According to Mainstream Christianity's misinterpretation, YAHWEH's Law itself was "against us" and "contrary to us" because it was a heavy yoke of bondage. It was an impediment, a hindrance to man's attempt to be reconciled to YAHWEH Elohim.
Therefore despite the fact that heaven and earth haven't yet passed away, they say YAHWEH had to "take it out of the way" and abolish or get rid of His own Law. He did this by nailing it to the Tree.
In other words, we are reconciled to YAHWEH Elohim by the Messiah's abolition of His own Father's Law. So says this popular false teaching and misinterpretation of Colossians 2:14.
This view is flawed for a few different reasons...
First, it contradicts the Biblical truth that YAHWEH's Law, properly understood, is neither "against us" nor "contrary to us." According to the Bible, YAHWEH's unadulterated Law is a blessing -- not a burden. (See, e.g., Deuteronomy 4:5-9, Psalm 19, Psalm 119, Romans 7:22, 1 Timothy 1:8, and many other passages.)
Second this view is flawed because it portrays the Messiah (Elohim the Son) as a slick lawyer who finds a legal loophole to thwart His own justice. The Messiah gets us off the hook by simply abolishing His own given commandments that we broke.
"You've been accused of breaking the Sabbath? No problem. I'll just abolish that commandment." But the Messiah said we are to not even think that he came to abolish the Law. (See Matthew 5:17-19.)
Third this view is flawed because of the meaning of that long word cheirographon. A study of this word will reveal exactly what it was that got nailed to the Tree in Colossians 2:14.
When you see what really got nailed to the Tree, you will find it far more liberating than believing that the Messiah blotted out his own Father's commandments.
The Greek word cheirographon is a compound word that is formed by combining the two words cheir ("hand") and grapho("to write or engrave"). In its simplest sense, the word means a hand-written document.
Other than in Colossians 2:14, the word cheirographon appears nowhere else in the Greek New Testament, nor does it appear anywhere in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. However, the word does appear in extra-Biblical Greek documents.
It is in these documents that we learn that cheirographon is a legal term. It is a word that was used to refer to the written evidence of a person's guilt in a courtroom. It is the written record of a person's crimes -- the laws he has broken and the penalty he owes for his law-breaking.
In ancient times the accuser would present the cheirographonfrom the middle of the courtroom, called tou mesou, "the middle" -- the exact same term Paul uses when he says the cheirographon is taken "out of the way [tou mesou]."
Because cheirographon and tou mesou are legal terms, you must think of cheirographon in a legal context to understand its meaning and to appreciate the significance of Paul's statement in Colossians 2:14.
You must picture yourself in the modern context of someone who has been pulled over for sinful speeding and running a heavenly red light which Elohim's law commands us to obey.
The police officer who represents Elohim's enforcement agent of the Law against those who either in ignorance, or for selfish reasons chose to ignore and violate Elohim's good and holy commandment designed to serve, protect and keep everybody safe from suffering disastrous loss, injuries and death.
Since you are a transgressor/sinner..., Elohim's Law representative points out your specifically described sin by writing you a ticket (handwritten notice or evidence that he observed you transgress this Law) and now you owe some penalty points and a fine that you cannot afford to pay. Unable to afford the heavy penalty and fine, you must go before the the Heavenly Courtroom.
YAHWEH Elohim is the presiding Judge. You have been brought into the Courtroom of YAHWEH Elohim. You stand before Elohim found guilty of breaking YAHWEH's laws.
In YAHWEH's Courtroom, there is a prosecuting attorney: Satan, the Adversary -- the Accuser of the brethren. In his hands the Adversary holds up the ticket or cheirographon, a legal written document. It is a written record of the speeding and red light sins you have committed.
Even your past driving history of every infractions you've ever committed against YAHWEH's road of life Law comes with it in a detailed account. The ticket or cheirographon list the date, the time, the location, the testimony of witnesses, and all the other details of your law-breaking. The information on this written document is not based on hearsay or unfounded suspicions.
It is recognized by the Court as a legal and legitimate document proving your guilt. The Adversary holds in his hands the indisputable proof, along with the penalties that the Court prescribes for such crimes, and he presents the cheirographon or ticket to the Judge.
Fortunately, you have an Advocate with you in the Courtroom of YAHWEH Elohim. "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Yahshua Messiah the righteous" (1 John 2:1). Your Advocate does not deny the truth of the charges brought against you.
Your Advocate admits that the information on the ticket or cheirographon is true. You have indeed committed all these crimes, and you do indeed deserve the penalty which is prescribed on the cheirographon.
However, your Advocate says, the penalty for all your crimes has already been fully paid. Your Advocate paid the penalty himself when he went to the Tree and took upon himself the sins of the world and bore the punishment for your sins.
Because the penalty has already been fully paid, the Judge tells Satan that based on the gracious word and deed of your defense attorney Messiah Yahshua, the ticket or cheirographon is withdrawn or thrown out as inadmissible evidence in the Heavenly Courtroom.
Not only that but our Messiah advocate also pays to have all my old, past traffic violations expunged from off my record.
2 Peter 1:9,"But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."
Romans 3:25,"Whom Elohim hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of Elohim;"
Therefore the tickets or cheirographon that was against us, which was contrary to us, is taken out of the way. It is removed from tou mesou -- the middle of the Courtroom occupied by the Accuser. Then it is nailed to the Tree like a banner, proclaiming the Messiah's triumph over our sin on our behalf.
By paying the penalty for our sins, Yahshua spoiled the Adversary's plans to condemn us with the ticket cheirographon. That is why the very next verse says "And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15).
This removal of the cheirographon is something entirely different from the erroneous assumption that YAHWEH's Law itself got nailed to the Tree. What because I was graciously spared the fine or penalty of the handwritten ticket or cheirographon, of my past, does that mean that the Law itself has somehow vanished and I without fear of more fines and penalties can just go around on the road speeding and running all kinds of red lights and stop sihns. No! To do that again would make me a violator of the Law; put once again under the bondage of penalty...
Gal 2: 16,"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Yahshua Messiah, even we have believed in Yahshua Messiah, that we might be justified by the faith of Messiah, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17But if, while we seek to be justified by Messiah, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Messiah the minister of sin? Elohim forbid. 18For if I build again the things (transgressing Elohim Law, revive sin nature's control) which I (through Yahshua) destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."
Gal.4:9,"But now, after that ye have known Elohim, or rather are known of Elohim, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"
Rom. 6:1"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2Elohim forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ":
Eph. 2:10,"For we are his workmanship, created in Mesiah Yahshua unto good works, which Elohim hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
It's the guilty charge of violating Elohim's Law that sentences us to having to pay the penalty of our own sins that was taken away, not the Law itself.
Colo. 2:14,"having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. "
The word "law" (Greek, nomos) does not even appear anywhere in the entire Book of Colossians, neither in the Greek text nor in the KJV translation. Of course YAHWEH's commandments are alluded to in conjunction with the cheirographon (tois dogmasin, "of ordinances"), because in order to accuse us, the Prosecution or Adversary obviously has to list which commandments ("ordinances") we broke.
Again, people need to understand that it's not the commandments of the Law of Elohim which are removed; Rather, it is the written record or evidence of our past lawbreaking that is removed from the Courtroom.
This proper understanding of the cheirographon as the legal record of a person's sins can be seen not only in Gentile Greek literature, but in Jewish Greek literature as well. The Greek text of the apocryphal book The Apocalypse of Elijah describes an angel holding a book. The book is called a cheirographon, and it contains the record of sins.
The traditional Jewish Avinu Malkenu prayer likewise paints a similar picture. This prayer is in Hebrew, so it obviously cannot use the Greek word cheirographon. However, it describes a scenario similar to Colossians 2:14 when it asks YAHWEH Elohim to "erase all the documents that accuse us."
YAHWEH Elohim does more than erase all the documents that accuse us. If YAHWEH merely erased the record of our sins, the Adversary could point to the smudged cheirographon and say that someone tampered with the evidence. So YAHWEH Elohim does something even better than just erasing the record of our sins.
YAHWEH takes the cheirographon and REMOVES IT FROM THE COURTROOM, leaving the Accuser empty-handed, with absolutely no evidence to condemn us -- and with no power to punish us. The cheirographon is nailed to the Tree like a banner to declare our victory. Thus the instrument of our guilt that Satan intended to use against us YAHWEH Elohim in his mercy and grace forgives.
YAHWEH Elohim nailed the cheirographon to the Tree (verse 14) and thereby spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly and triumphing over them (verse 15). But what about verse 16, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days"?
Does the removal of thecheirographon mean that we can now be gluttons and drunkards and Sabbath-breakers? Does the fact that the Messiah paid the penalty for our law-breaking mean that it is okay for us to return to a life of law breaking?
The Apostle Paul is not saying that YAHWEH's dietary laws and holy days are unimportant. The context of these verses is in regards to the imposing of man-made rules and regulations.
Six times the words man or men appear in Colossians chapter 2: "And this I say, lest any man should beguile you" (vs. 4); "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men" (vs. 8); "Let no man therefore judge you" (vs. 16); "Let no man beguile you" (vs. 18); "why...are ye subject to ordinances (Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men?" (vs. 20-22).
The Sabbath and dietary laws of the Bible are not commandments of men -- THEY ARE COMMANDMENTS OF YAHWEH ELOHIM! Paul is not telling us we can disregard the commandments of YAHWEH Elohim; he is telling us we can disregard the commandments of men -- men who would impose false teachings or heavy burdens upon YAHWEH's people, burdens that YAHWEH Elohim did not command, burdens that turn Sabbath-keeping into a burden instead of a blessing.
Along with the false teaching of pagan angel worship, some teachers in the mainly gentile church of Colossae may have been doing this, just like some Pharisees added their own man made teachings to the Jews keeping of Yahweh's Law.
Matthew 23:4 "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders"
Not only did they enforce upon the people their own man made commandment as if they were the commandments of Yahweh, they even went so far as to put their own man made teachings above the law of Yahweh; ignoring or abolishing the peoples obligation to keep certain of the Elohim's commandments....
Mark 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.8,"For laying aside the commandment of Elohim, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.9And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of Elohim, that ye may keep your own tradition."
Does this sound familiar? When it comes to Yahweh's people, there is nothing new under the sun. When compared to the erroneous man made teachings and traditions of the Jewish Pharisees of old, this sound similar with what the modern day Mainstream Christian Pharisees are doing.
The Orthodox Judaism of today evolved from the Judaism of the Pharisees, and it still retains some of the leaven of the Pharisees. Like the Pharisees of old, modern-day rabbis expect Jews to abide by hundreds of man made rabbinical rulings that prescribe exactly how to keep the Sabbath and all the rest of the Torah.
The rabbis prescribe how to keep the Sabbath in such great detail that a person never has to be led by the spirit; theoretically he will never find himself in a situation where he has to hear from YAHWEH Elohim and make his own decision about how to obey the Torah.
The rabbis have already prescribed every detail. They even have man-made laws that govern bug-killing on the Sabbath. They tell Jews which kinds of bugs can be killed and under which circumstances these bugs can be killed.
If you happen to kill the wrong kind of bug, or you kill the right kind of bug under circumstances that the rabbis have not authorized, then you have violated the Sabbath according to their view. This is just one of many examples of doctrines and commandments of men that put YAHWEH's people in bondage.
YAHWEH's unadulterated Law does not put people in bondage; it liberates...
Psalm 119:44, "So shall I keep Thy law continually forever and ever. 45 And I will walk at liberty".
YAHWEH Elohim wants us to keep His commandments, but we can disregard man-made commandments that men have added to YAHWEH's commandments. Adding to the commandments of YAHWEH Elohim -- as the rabbis do and as the Pharisees did and as some teachers at Colosse did -- perverts the Law and turns it into "a yoke...which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10). In contrast to this man-imposed yoke, Yahshua says...
Matthew 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light"
Yahshua does not say that the yoke of Torah is nailed to the Tree and abolished. He only says that his teaching of Torah is light compared to that of the Pharisees, who taught a Torah weighed down with additional, excessive, man-made demands.
Then immediately after Yahshua's statement about his light yoke, the very next verse begins a story that demonstrates the contrast between the Pharisees' yoke and Yahshua's yoke. The Pharisees' interpretation of Torah would condemn the hungry disciples for plucking and eating a bit of grain as they walked through a field on the Sabbath.
Yahshua's yoke would permit the hungry disciples to do what they did in those circumstances, just as David and his hungry men were permitted to eat the priests' showbread in their unusual circumstances.
As a Jewish grandmother once remarked about the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath, "You mean these were hungry Jewish boys with no place to eat on Shabbat? Why didn't those Pharisees invite them to dinner instead of scolding them?"
The cheirographon, THE RECORD OF OUR LAW-BREAKING, has been taken out of the Courtroom and nailed to the Tree because Yahshua paid the penalty for our law-breaking. But again, this does not give us a right to return to a life of continued law-breaking. As Yahshua said to the woman taken in adultery, so he says to us...
John 8:11, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and SIN NO MORE".