Colossians
2:11-15
In him you were
also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole
self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.
Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him
through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God
made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. Having cancelled
the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us;
he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the
powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over
them by the cross.
Because of
the work of the cross our legal standing before God is complete at
the moment we are born again.It
can have nothing added to it, no matter how obedient or committed to Jesus we
become after we are converted. This is because it is given to us purely on the basis of God’s
undeserved grace and mercy. It is not something we
can earn or deserve. It is received by faith. It involves the total
cancellation of our previous legal standing of guilt and condemnation before
God the Supreme Ruler and Judge John Stott wrote 'The Christian community is a community of the
cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its
worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. The Christian life is an
unending festival. And the festival we keep, now that our Passover Lamb has
been sacrificed for us, is a joyful celebration of his sacrifice, together with
a spiritual feasting upon it.'
