Colossians 2:13-15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And you Believing Gentiles; being formerly dead in your sins Under the guilt and power of your sins, (see on Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:5,) and the uncircumcision of your flesh Your corrupt and unrenewed nature, your uncircumcised heart and affections; hath he God the Father; quickened Brought you out of that state by infusing into you spiritual life: together with him Through the merit of Christ's death, and in conformity to his resurrection; having forgiven you all trespasses In consequence of his having atoned for them. Blotting out the handwriting Where a debt is contracted, it is usually testified by some handwriting. And when the debt is forgiven, the handwriting is destroyed, either by blotting it out, taking it away, or tearing it. The apostle expresses in all these three ways God's destroying the handwriting which was contrary to us. And perhaps, as Macknight thinks, in the expression, nailing it to the cross, he alludes to “an ancient custom of abrogating laws, by driving a nail through the tables on which they were written, and hung up to public view.” The word δογματα, here rendered ordinances, is used by the LXX., Ezekiel 20:26, for the rites of the ceremonial law, as it is also Ephesians 2:15, and that law is evidently here meant. St. Paul says, it was against us; meaning, 1st, The Jews, who had been under an obligation to fulfil it, and whose guilt and liableness to punishment it testified. It was also, 2d, Against and contrary to the Gentiles, as being a middle wall of partition, hindering them from coming to God, and putting an enmity between them and the Jews. This Christ took away by abolishing the obligation of it, and admitting the believing Gentiles to be fellow-heirs with the believing Jews, of the promises and blessings of the gospel, without their becoming subject to it. See notes on Ephesians 2:14-18. And having spoiled principalities and powers The evil angels, of their usurped dominion, in consequence of his having conquered them. For in the original expression, απεκδυσαμενος, which signifies having stripped off, there is an allusion to the ancient custom of victors, who were wont to strip the vanquished of their arms and clothes. Hence the word is taken to signify spoiling in general. That the evil angels are here said to be spoiled by Christ's dying on the cross, seems evident from what we read elsewhere. Christ, speaking of his death, said to his disciples, (John 12:31,) Now shall, ο αρχων, the prince, or ruler, of this world be cast out; and, John 16:11, ο αρχων, the prince of this world is judged. See also Ephesians 4:8. And by spoiling them we may understand, with Hammond, Whitby, and others, the destruction of idolatry, the silencing the heathen oracles, and the banishing of those grievous superstitions, with which mankind had been so long oppressed. Some others, however, by these principalities and powers understand the Jewish rulers and great men, who in the first age grievously persecuted the disciples of Christ. But this interpretation seems unnatural, and certainly was not verified by fact at the time when the apostle wrote this epistle, the Jewish sanhedrim and rulers being still in power. He God the Father; made a show of them openly Before all the hosts of hell and heaven; triumphing over them in or by it Even that cross whereby they hoped to have triumphed over him, God turning their counsels against themselves, and ruining their empire by that death of his Son which they had been so eager to accomplish. Or the clause may be rendered, triumphing over them in him; in Christ. By turning the heathen from the power of Satan to God, it was shown that the evil spirits, who formerly ruled them, were vanquished and stripped of their power. It is supposed, that in this and the preceding clause there is an allusion to the Roman triumphs, of which see on 2 Corinthians 2:14; and that St. Paul represents Christ himself, or his apostles, as riding in triumph through the world, with the evil spirits following the triumphant car in chains, and exposed to public view as vanquished enemies.