Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians

Comm on Phil, Col, Thes
For the tree did not confer life, but its being taken away was a sign of death. 378 Paul has in this
place briefly expressed both. He says that these were dead in sins: this is the cause, for our sins
alienate us from God. He adds, in the uncircumcision of your flesh. This was outward pollution,
an evidence of spiritual death.
By forgiving you. God does not quicken us by the mere remission of sins, but he makes mention
here of this particularly, because that free reconciliation with God, which overthrows the
righteousness of works, is especially connected with the point in hand, where he treats of abrogated
ceremonies, as he discourses of more at large in the Epistle to the Galatians. For the false apostles,
by establishing ceremonies, bound them with a halter, from which Christ has set them free.
14. Having blotted out the hand-writing which was against us. He now contends with the false
apostles in close combat. For this was the main point in question, — whether the observance of
ceremonies was necessary under the reign of Christ? Now Paul contends that ceremonies have been
abolished, and to prove this he compares them to a hand-writing, by which God holds us as it were
bound, that we may not be able to deny our guilt. He now says, that we have been freed from
condemnation, in such a manner, that even the hand-writing is blotted out, that no remembrance
of it might remain. For we know that as to debts the obligation is still in force, so long as the
hand-writing remains; and that, on the other hand, by the erasing, or tearing of the handwriting,
the debtor is set free. Hence it follows, that all those who still urge the observance of ceremonies,
detract from the grace of Christ, as though absolution were not procured for us through him; for
they restore to the hand-writing its freshness, so as to hold us still under obligation.
This, therefore, is a truly theological reason for proving the abrogation of ceremonies, because,
if Christ has fully redeemed us from condemnation, he must have also effaced the remembrance
of the obligation, that consciences may be pacified and tranquil in the sight of God, for these two
things are conjoined. While interpreters explain this passage in various ways, there is not one of
them that satisfies me. Some think that Paul speaks simply of the moral law, but there is no ground
for this. For Paul is accustomed to give the name of ordinances to that department which consists
in ceremonies, as he does in the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Ephesians 2:15,) and as we shall find he
does shortly afterwards. More especially, the passage in Ephesians shews clearly, that Paul is here
speaking of ceremonies.
Others, therefore, do better, in restricting it to ceremonies, but they, too, err in this respect, that
they do not add the reason why it is called hand-writing, or rather they assign a reason different
from the true one, and they do not in a proper manner apply this similitude to the context. Now,
the reason is, that all the ceremonies of Moses had in them some acknowledgment of guilt, which
bound those that observed them with a firmer tie, as it were, in the view of God’s judgment. For
example, what else were washings than an evidence of pollution? Whenever any victim was
sacrificed, did not the people that stood by behold in it a representation of his death? For when
persons substituted in their place an innocent animal, they confessed that they were themselves
deserving of that death. In fine, in proportion as there were ceremonies belonging to it, just so many
exhibitions were there of human guilt, and hand-writings of obligation.
Should any one object that they were sacraments of the grace of God, as Baptism and the
Eucharist are to us at this day, the answer is easy. For there are two things to be considered in the
ancient ceremonies — that they were suited to the time, and that they led men forward to the
378 See Calvin on Genesis, vol. 1, p. 184.
115
John Calvin