Colossians 2:14 - Real Gone

"...having wiped away the against-us handwriting to the dogmas which were against us, and it He has taken up out of the way having nailed it to the cross."

-What was actually nailed to the cross was a list of the crimes of which Jesus was accused and for which obstensibly He was executed.  And it was customary for such a list to be posted on behalf of the accused.  But Paul is saying that in this case, our own list of transgressions was nailed to the cross of Christ.  He paid the penalty for the crimes of which WE are guilty and for which we should fairly be held accountable.  The penalty for those things is death - we could have been on that cross.  And in a spiritual sense we were, such that now our list has actually been wiped away, completely erased and removed.  Expunged - there is no longer any record of it!  Our crimes, our transgressions, the sins which caused us to fall short of the glory of God and which separated us from Him have been paid for, expiated, and taken out of the way as far as the east is from the west.  This is THE Good News.  Our crimes, our guilt and the shame of it all - gone.  Real gone.  That thing you did yesterday?  Gone.  Those 'youthful indiscretions'?  Gone.  That season of waywardness?  Gone.  That dark secret which lurks in your past, haunting you, try as you might to suppress and forget it?  Gone.  It's gone too, never ever to resurface or come back on you in any way.  That thing you don't even know you're gonna do next week or next year?  It's gone too.  They're all gone, wiped out by a sacred tsunami, the pure precious blood of Christ, poured out over your sins and mine.  Do you believe this?  It IS hard to believe, but believe it we must.  There is no longer any record of our sins - in God's eyes we have done everything right!  We have been forever saved, and Jesus is our Savior!  There is no one else Who could have paid our death penalty - only this One in Whom was no sin or guilt whatsoever.

-But without taking anything away from this spiritual truth, let’s be completely clear about what was nailed to the cross.  Jesus was nailed to the cross.  His hands and feet were impaled with metal spikes, no escape, and He hung on that cross, for hours, suffocating, agonizing, bloodied and humiliated, tortured until He died.  It was Jesus.  He did that for you.  And He did that for me.  How can it be...