This past week, I was inspired by several things that popped in the Scripture but one stuck out more than the rest.
"by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" (Col. 2:14-15 ESV).
These passages are packed with several implications for the believer, all of which we desperately need to sink deep into our lives. The first implication is that when we come to Christ, receive Him as our Lord and Saviour, he takes the record of our sins, that long, miles long list of all the junk we either committed or omitted and he cancels the WHOLE thing. It's done, completely erased and our record of sin is thrown as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12)!
Satan is a good accuser and he loves to remind us of our haunted past. He keeps a record of our sins so that when we receive the grace of God in the forgiveness of sins, he can remind us of the junk and try to keep us down and hating ourselves by this. Satan jeers at us, laughs at us and points his finger at our sins. He speaks lies over us that we sadly succumb to and believe. He says things like:
"God could never forgive that sin, might as well pack it in now"
"You are so disgusting"
"No one will love you once they find out about this past junk"
"Your life is a heap of failures, bad decisions and mess ups, you will never be different"
Those statements however believable are lies. God is more powerful than our past and more powerful than the lies that keep us down. The next part of these verses is just as powerful.
Paul, knowing this to be a tactic of Satan, doesn't then just mention the forgiveness of sins, he goes deeper and shows that God exposes Satan's lies and puts him to open shame through the nailing of our sins to the cross.
When Christ went to the cross and died for our sins, several things happened all at once and one of those things is that God stripped Satan down naked and exposed him to the world! When God died, he set in motion the ability to see the lies of Satan and laugh at how ridiculous they are.
Christ death on the cross gives us the power to laugh in Satan's face for the lies he spins, because we can now see them as they are: comical jokes that have no power. This is why the cross ticked Satan off so much, not only did he lose his grip on humanity, he was no the laughing stock of heaven. He was fully exposed and now we can jeer at his lies!
Christ, when he rose from the dead looked Satan in the eye and said: "Look Who's Laughing Now!"
Now we come to the point of what implications this has for us as believers.
First, it's a great passage to remind us that our sins are forgiven, they are cancelled. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, he takes our rap sheet and BURNS it in the middle of the courtroom.
Second, this passage reminds us that our sins are nailed to the cross. We see again, the power of Christ's death on our behalf. The only reason our rap sheet can be burned is by the sacrificial death of the pure lamb: being Christ. So much was done in that act that the full implications of it won't be seen until heaven, but this we know: by the power of the cross we now can have life.
Third, we no longer have to allow the past to determine our future not matter how volatile the past may be. Our past no longer holds us down the way it once did. We will still possibly deal with the consequences of those sins and actions, but they can no longer put us to shame. With those records being cancelled, we no longer need to fear their power.
Fourth and last, Satan is exposed. We now can turn and laugh at his silly jokes. We don't need to listen nor believe his lies upon our lives. We can now stand by the Power of Christ through the Holy Spirit within us and jeer at Satan when he accuses us and jeers us. We can now, like Jesus say: "Look Who's Laughing Now!"
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