Friday, March 3, 2017
Colossians 2:13-14 God made us alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
IT IS WRITTEN
Jesus of Nazareth spent years working as a carpenter and only hours nailed to a cross. But those hours on the cross were so important that when nails are noted in connection with Jesus, we are reminded not of Nazareth's workbench but of Calvary's cross. They nailed Jesus to the cross. His enemies had demanded it and Pilate gave in. But he wasn't happy about it. That's why, on the placard of crimes nailed above Jesus' head, the Roman governor had them write a contemptuous: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Unknown to Pilate, Jesus went willingly to His cross. Not because He was guilty of anything, but because we were guilty of everything-- and the Son of God willingly took our punishment from God.
For while Pilate was nailing up His sign above Jesus' head, God was nailing up a complete record of all our crimes against Him so that it could later be recorded in God's own record: "He has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross."
