The word “handwriting” is used once only in the A.V.: in Col. 2. 14. It is an extremely interesting word, behind which is a wealth of matter. .It literally means a holograph, a dictionary meaning of which is “any document, as a letter, deed, etc., wholly written by the person from whom it bears to proceed”. Paul in using this word to describe the law, testifies, therefore, to his belief that it was wholly written by God, through his servants: but even though this was so, and the law perfect, he and all men found that these ordinances were against them and contrary to them. Writing to the Romans (7. 9) he comments, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death”. This being the case none had hope, until Jesus blotted it out and took it out of the way by nailing it to his cross.
“Handwriting” came also to mean, in a technical sense, any document which acknowledged a debt that had to be paid. The common method of cancelling such a document was to write the Greek letter chi, being the same shape as our letter X, right across it. This stood for the word “chiazein”, meaning cancelled. We do much the same today when we write “paid” across a bill. Of course, in both cases the details of the debt could still be read. The record was written on papyrus and the ink used was a simple mixture of soot and gum diluted with water. When dry and kept dry, this was age-enduring, as remains found of recent years testify. This ink did have a disadvantage. If it got wet it washed off because is contained no acid to bite into the paper. This sponging off was often used in practice as a method of erasure, but extreme care was needed not to damage the papyrus.
Knowing all this, Paul carefully avoids the common word for cancelling a debt and uses rather the word translated “blotting out”. Two reasons suggest themselves. Firstly, Jesus does more than cross out the debt we owe. He does not leave the old record still visible beneath the cross of love, but goes much further and blots out the record of sins completely, leaving a clean sheet on which to record the, new life in Christ. In Rev. 7. 17 and 21. 4, the translators of the A.V. do not have God blotting out all tears from men’s eyes, but use the more appropriate “wipe away”. This gentle care is equally applicable to the wiping away of the past record of sins, so that the believer may have an undamaged sheet on which to start afresh. The ink God uses has no acid in it.
Peter uses the same word in Acts 3. 19: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” or wiped away. In Col. 3. 13 Paul exhorts, “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye”. But our repentance and conversion must be incomplete, when too frequently our forgiveness does not include forgetting. We often prefer only to cross out the debt, feeling an unholy satisfaction that the record is still visible, mainly by our own repeated reference to it. Our ink has the acid of malice, hatred, fear and envy in it and it bites deep into our hearts and minds, where these unforgotten (though forgiven?) transgressions against us are stored. In the example of Christ it should not and must not be so.
Listen again to what Jesus has done for us: “You, who were spiritually dead because of your sins and your uncircumcision (i.e. your disobedience to the Law of God), God has now made to share in the very life of Christ! He has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over His own Head on the Cross. And then, having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, He exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in His final glorious triumphant act!” (J. B. Phillips Trans.)
Practise this forgiveness which can both forgive and forget and so keep your heart and mind clean and free to receive God’s law of love.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay