Col 2:13-14 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. (14) He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
Before a person is liberated to this new life in Christ, he is dead in his sins and in his sinful nature. Death means separation, not annihilation. Even the unsaved still bear the image of God, but they are separated from God. Cut off from spiritual life, they still have human life. But now God made you alive with Christ. The same “power” that raised Christ from the dead resurrects believing sinners to spiritual life.
This new life came when God forgave us all our sins for He canceled the written code. Before God’s written Law, His “written code,” people stood condemned, so it worked against them and opposed them. But in Christ the Law is fulfilled and done away with. Legalism is wrong because believers are dead to the Law in Christ. He fulfilled its demands in His life and by His death, and Christians are in Him.
This written code, the Law, was like a handwritten “certificate of debt”. Since people cannot keep the Law, it is like a bill of indebtedness. So people, unable to pay the debt, are criminals. But Jesus took… away this criminal charge, this certificate of indebtedness, by His death. It is as if He were nailing it to the cross with Him, showing He paid the debt. He wiped the slate clean.
