Blotted and Wiped Away

From Colossians 2, with some notes:

You, who were spiritually dead because of your sins and your uncircumcision (that is, the fact that you were outside the Law), God has now made to share in the very life of Christ! He has forgiven you all your sins... to which we might reply, 'Yes, we know that. We've certainly covered that doctrine well enough; it's an established fact." To which I might respond to you, 'Yes, but do you know how fully Jesus has done that work for you?' 

Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads..." Again, you could read that statement and say you already know it. But listen to the power of the original language -- Jesus "having blotted and wiped away the handwriting in the judgments which were set against us." Do you see that in your mind's eye? There was a handwritten charge that the evil one had prepared against us because of the sin within us. But Jesus, by His blood, dabbed the handwriting and then, in going to the cross, wiped away the smeared inkblots until there was nothing legible there. And then what did He do with that mess of a document?

...and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. Let's make something crystal clear here: Jesus absolutely knew what He was dying for. Your sin? He knew it. That's why it's so desperately offensive when we act as if our sin is the truest thing about us. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father on the Mercy Seat, saying, "Listen, that's done now. I shed my blood while hanging under the judgment of your sin. Now you be done with it too." To which you might reply, "Yes, but the evil one still accuses us constantly! He's still constantly point to that 'handwritten judgment' against us all the time."

Listen to Jesus' endgame at the Cross: Satan, standing off to the side of the crowd at Calvary, is thinking he's surely won the day and the whole game. But Jesus, having disarmed the rulers and authorities (meaning that He'd taken away that prized condemnation of humanity that Satan had held since the Fall), made a show of them in public, having triumphed over them in himself. Ha! How amazing! Satan had begun slinking away from the field of battle when Jesus, from the Cross, called him to the center. "You see this? (He nods with His head to the smeared charge against us, above Himself) Well, I've blotted it out and now I'm taking it upon Myself. You are disarmed now. You have nothing left with which to confront these people."

Thank you, Jesus! Oh the boundlessness of your love, your grace, your goodness to us!