When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (from Colossians 2, New International Version)
Most Christian believers understand this passage to mean that Paul is teaching the ‘Jewish’ things of the Old Testament, including the Law of Moses, ended with the arrival of Christ. And that we actually sin now if we hold to any of them, as they have 'only the appearance of wisdom, with their false humility and harsh treatment of the body' (verse 23).
But is that really what Paul is saying?
The above passage is from the New International Version, a very popular modern Bible. There are translation word choices made in this passage that affect its overall meaning. Let’s compare a couple of the verses in this passage with some from the Apostolic Bible, which is a more literal word for word rendering from Greek to English, beginning in this Part 1 with verse 14:
....having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (NIV)
....having wiped away the (against us handwriting by the decrees) which was contrary to us, and he has lifted it from out of the midst, having fastened it with a nail to the cross: (Apostolic Bible Polyglot)
The words translated ‘wiped away’ is the Greek word exaleiphó. In Strong’s Greek Lexicon (a fancy word for dictionary) it is listed as G1813, G stands for Greek and 1813 is the numerical value Strong’s has assigned to it, in its dictionary of word translations. Strong’s renders this word as ‘blot out, to wipe out, erase, obliterate, to smear out, to erase tears, figuratively to pardon sin.’
Now what exactly was the ‘written code’ that was wiped out or pardoned? Where the NIV uses ‘written code’ the Greek word here is cheirographon, which is Strong’s 5498, translated by them as ‘manuscript, a (handwritten) document, legal note, bond, certificate of debt, record of debt’. This is the only occurrence of this word in the entire Bible!
So we can see immediately that it cannot be the Law that was canceled or blotted out, for the word ‘Law’ appears many times in the New Testament. What it says here was canceled, blotted out, forgiven…was the legal record of debt against us.
We know that ‘the soul that sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4 and 20) and that Adam and Eve were told that if they disobeyed the Law God gave them and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would ‘surely die’ (Genesis 2:17). We also know that the sentence of death, the record of debt which hung over everyone before it was canceled, was not immediately carried out. In other words, it remained outstanding. People continued to live, Adam and Eve did not die immediately. The legal note and its sentence of death remained in force. Until Yeshua canceled it!
The NIV translates the phrase (against us handwriting by the decrees) used in the Polyglot as ‘the written code, with its regulations’. This makes it sound like the Law, doesn’t it? We know so far that the ‘written code’ was the legal record of debt against us, not the Law. But what are the ‘regulations’ the NIV is referring to?
This word (in Greek) is dogma. It is also a word used in English, though its English use is different. The Greek word is Strong’s G1378, and is rendered ‘decree, an opinion, a (public) decree, a civil, ceremonial or ecclesiastical law or ordinance’. This word is used (though in slightly different forms) twice in the Bible.
The next part of the verse says (NIV) ‘that was against us and stood opposed to us’ and (Polyglot) ‘which was contrary to us’. The word ‘contrary’ is hupenantios, Strong’s G5227, and is rendered ‘adversary, set over against, opposite, contrary to, opposed to, as an opponent or adversary’. It has one other similar use in the entire Bible, translated ‘adversary’ in Hebrews 10:27. In that use, it refers to the adversaries who will be judged and devoured by fire. There is no reference anywhere in Scripture that it is the Law of God which is our adversary and which God will judge and devour with His fire!
So far, we could rephrase this verse in an expanded form, as:
…having wiped out, obliterated, pardoned the sin of the legal record of debt, with its decree, that was our adversary and stood against us.
