Canceled

By Craig Ashton Jr., August 12, 2023

In this age of cancel culture, I may fear being canceled, censured, or condemned by today’s cancel culture, but I need not fear that God will write me off. Even if I err, He will not cancel or condemn me. My failures are not brought to the fore by God to exclude me; rather, I stand loved and forgiven as long as I am in Him. However, this does not mean that God never engages in serious canceling. A passage in Colossians 2:14–15 presents God completely and publicly stripping and deplatforming rulers and authorities, which in this context, was a really good thing:

God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

Colossians 2:13–15, NRSV

I have often wondered what exactly was nailed to the cross. As a carpenter, I believe it’s important to determine what was nailed and how. Many think that God’s laws were nailed to the cross, yet I can’t accept the idea that God’s law of love was ever against us. I can see how certain aspects and applications of laws and ordinances have been abolished. Such ordinances and regulations would include dogmas or man-made traditions for ritual conversion to Judaism. Years ago, I was invited to a large synagogue, where I was asked if I wanted to be immersed in the waters of the mikveh, an immersion ritual, to become Jewish. You see, I was a gentile who loved Jewish people and traditions, but I needed to complete identity rituals to enter the covenant relationship with God and have a place in the world to come.

At the time Colossians was written, many man-made identity markers created hostile factions among those arguing over whether only Jews could have a covenant relationship with God. Consider the incalculable ceremonial rituals of Jewish rulers and authorities, the hoops one had to jump through to become accepted, the burden of religion-imposed ordinances and teachings, and the legalism that linked the law to ritualism and resulted in legalistic abuse: these required God’s law and character to be liberated. When we see such misunderstanding about the relationship between ceremonies and salvation, we understand why it was necessary to nail these distortions to His cross.

We tend to act like biblical Jewish rulers and authorities regarding religious ceremonies and rituals. Despite the good news of God’s love for all humans, we can fall prey to the evil one, developing hostility for one another. The ceremonial system that points to Christ—to His death and priesthood—is ultimately not against us. The sacrificial offerings were eventually terminated, but they were not contrary to us. The opposition spoken of as “standing against us” can’t apply to the promised Savior, toward whom the ceremonial law pointed. The ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ, but I think Paul addressed something much bigger and greater.

God has a standard of right, and its requirements are not what’s nailed to the cross. Since Jesus is both the ceremonial and moral law revealed without distortion, this law cannot be against us. It was therefore not the law of God that was nailed to the cross but rather a handwritten note of debt condemning us.

The cross thus became a place of cancelation. The decrees leveled against us by accusing voices were taken away. The cross removed the consequence of sin, eliminating the accusatory power that once pointed to our faults and condemned us with the threat of death. God disarmed the powers and authorities that hold our indebtedness against us, replacing it with His liberating love and grace. God destroyed the power of death and every hostile faction that takes aim at us by giving us His life instead.

That’s the greatest cancel culture statement I have ever come across. God stripped away the finger-wagging, shaming accusations that were flung in our faces, accusing us of being vile and filthy and not worthy (Zechariah 3:1–10). Instead of accusing us and making us pay for our sins, Christ forgave us, canceling the note of debt that stood against us. The sentence against us is what God took away and nailed to the cross. The note of debt that was once used to condemn and deplatform us was wiped out. The condemnation and hostility aimed at us have been abolished, annulled, and annihilated. Jesus died so we would not be canceled.

Not only has my debt been canceled but the threat of death has been removed (Romans 6:23). The defilement that comes from death was overcome, canceling the rites and ceremonies having to do with death and defilement. Creation needed greater cleansing then the Old Testament ceremonies. God overcame death and on the cross, reversed the direction of the universe, eliminating all defilement. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The good news is that we are forgiven, receiving complete pardon through the death of Jesus. He destroyed our indebtedness. The rulers and authorities who are against us have been stripped of power and deplatformed. When Jesus removed the consequence of sin, He stripped every power of this ultimate threat, defeating them.

Now that’s powerful stuff.

Craig Ashton Jr.