When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took 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. -Colossians 2:13-15
Down through the ages mankind has come up with ingenious and terrible ways of execution. The cross (crucifixion) was particularly gruesome because of its horrific slowness. The condemned person might hang upon the cross in agony for hours or days. Up until a relatively recent time, executions were done in public. I have read that throughout the ages that when an execution took place that people of all ages would come, and in some cases it became something of a public fair with food vendors and a festival atmosphere. All that odd revelry would then culminate in the execution of a condemned prisoner. Indeed, such a celebratory atmosphere would have been a macabre sort of spectacle.
When we consider what the Lord did for us on the cross we are amazed that He would die such a painful death for us and in our place. When we see what Christ did for us on the cross we see the greatest sacrifice ever made. He died not just for my sins, although He would have had I been the only one, but He died for the sins of the world. Christ bore upon Himself the sins of humanity. All of what kept us away from God was nailed to the cross with Jesus and in Him we die to the old self. Furthermore, the Bible says that the cross upon which the Lord died was done in public, and in dying for us, Christ took our sins, nailed them to the cross, and made a public spectacle of them. We are no longer to be held captive by the sin which used to enslave us. It has lost its power over us due to the power of the cross and the resurrection. Not only were we crucified with Christ, but we have been raised with Him, as the Scripture says Romans 6:4, to now walk in newness of life.
As we have trusted the Lord Jesus, and as we walk in victory and newness of life, we are empowered to praise the Lord - in all circumstances and in the midst of all our trials.
Praise the Lord!
