What Was The Handwriting Nailed To The Cross?

What Was The Handwriting Nailed To The Cross?

Dear Bro. Waddey:
Can you explain what it was that Christ took out of the way, nailing it to his cross (Col. 2:14)?
-Gary

Dear Gary:
The Law, meaning Moses' five books, was taken out of the way, being nailed to the cross. But along with them the rest of the Old Testament, which was the governing and guiding document of the Mosaic covenant, was also taken away.

It is interesting that inspired men often used the term the law when speaking of other books of the O. T. than the Pentateuch. " Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, â€˜I said , Ye are gods?" The citation is from Ps. 82:6. Also John 15:25. The Jews themselves referred to passages in Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, yet they said, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever..." (John 12:34). Paul did the same in Rom. 3:19, 10-18. He cites the law, but quotes from Psalms and Isaiah. See footnotes in Rom. 3. Also in I Cor. 14:21 he uses "the law" but cites Is. 28:11ff.

It is true that in the strictest sense The Torah or The Law was Moses' books, but in more common usage, the word law, by metonymy, stood for all the Sacred Writings of the O.T.

Your view gives you more than you bargained for. We can look to the Psalms and find there God urging his people to praise him with instruments (Ps. 150). But we can look beyond the Torah and find exhortations and instructions to circumcise, to offer sacrifices, to tithe, to burn incense, all the aspects of Hebrew worship first legislated in the Law. One man picks instruments and choirs, another wants the Sabbath, circumcision, another wants incense and tithes. On what basis could you object?

None of the above means that the O.T. has no meaning or value for us today. You know the passages whereof I speak. They provide us valuable examples ( I Cor. 10:11). They were written for our learning...that we might have hope (Rom. 15:4) . There is a vast difference in them being a source of spiritual information and teaching for our example and their being the standard by which we are saved and are to worship and serve the Lord.

Two of my three weekly Bible classes are from the O. T. I often preach from O.T. texts. Yet should a man ask how to be saved or how to worship, I would most certainly point him to the teachings of Christ and his apostles.

That the early church sang the Psalms in their worship, does not make them our standard for how to worship today. We still sing some of the Psalms set to music. In our hymnal we have the 23rd Psalm. We sing, Let Them Praises Give Jehovah and O Lord Our Lord. We do this with no thought of animal sacrifices, incense or instruments. We do know that the early Christians sang after the manner of the synagogue, which was vocal in nature.

The Old Testament is our inspired source for how the cosmos came into being, how man originated, the origin of sin, sacrifice, marriage, family, the Hebrew race and religion. The other historical books are a divine record of the rise and falling of the Hebrews. The O.T. scriptures are valuable in our setting forth the proofs for the existence of God and the divinity of Christ. The prophets are invaluable to us in their inspired predictions of the coming messiah and his new covenant and his church. Yet given all the above, no N.T. writer cited them for specifics when sinners inquired what they must do to be saved.

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