Your tax bill is not the worst thing hanging over your head today.
All across America, men and women are opening envelopes, scrolling through forms and feeling that old pressure settle on the chest. What do I owe? Is it more than I thought? Did I miss something? A deadline can make paper feel heavy. Nothing turns tax day heavy like finding out you owe money you do not have.
That is the world Paul steps into in Colossians 2, only he is talking about a debt far heavier than taxes.
Paul takes us past the ledgers of this world and sets us under a greater reckoning. “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13).
The deepest debt in your life was never financial. It was spiritual. It was owed to a holy God. And you could not pay a penny of it.
False teachers had slipped into the church and started whispering the same lie that keeps showing up in every generation. Christ is good, they say, though you need something more. More rules and spiritual experiences.
More help from somewhere beyond Him. Paul answers by lifting Christ so high that every rival shrivels in the light. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:9-10).
Complete in Him.
That means the One who saves sinners is no mere teacher with wise sayings and clean hands. He is not one helper among many.
Travel in your mind to Bethlehem and kneel by the manger. The stable air is thick with straw and animal breath. A young mother bends over an infant wrapped against the cold. His fingers curl. His chest rises and falls. Yet Paul says the fullness of God dwells there bodily. This child is fully man and fully God. Only such a Savior could bear the full weight of human guilt and answer the full justice of God. A lesser christ could never clear this account.
Paul also says we were “dead in [our] sins.” Dead. That word leaves no room for self-rescue. When Paul says we were dead in sin, he strips away every dream of self-rescue. A corpse cannot clean its record or breathe life into its own chest.
The sinner’s problem is far worse than a poor moral record. He is spiritually lifeless, unable to please God, unable to clean his own heart, unable to undo one act of rebellion. Broken commands, cherished selfishness, and a proud heart that will not bow before God have piled up a debt no sinner can count.
The old village shops in early America used to keep two boards. On one board were the unpaid IOUs. A man would buy what he could not afford, sign his name, and his debt would hang there for others to see. There was no hiding it. The whole village could read the record. When the debt was paid, the IOU came down and was moved to the paid board. Shame gave way to relief. Your name was cleared in public.
That picture gets close to what Paul means when he says Christ has blotted out “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us” and has “taken it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Colossians 2:14). There was a written record against us. Heaven’s charges were not inflated. The list was accurate. Every sin had our name on it. Every transgression testified that we had lived in God’s world while resisting God’s rule.
Then Christ stepped forward.
He did not come to argue the record. He came to bear it.
He came to satisfy justice in full. At Calvary, the debt of His people was taken off the board and nailed to the cross with Him.
Picture the hammer rising and falling. Hear the crack of iron against wood. See the Son of God lifted up before earth and hell and heaven itself. Isaiah had already told us what was happening there: “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). The sins that condemned us were laid on Him. The judgment that should have fallen on us fell on Him.
The bill came due, and Christ paid it with His blood. All trespasses forgiven.
Not most or many. All. The hidden sins. The repeated sins. The public sins. The sins that still make your face burn when memory drags them into the light. For the Christian, every charge has been answered by Christ. The account is cleared because the Savior is sufficient. “Ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:10). Complete Savior. Complete forgiveness and complete payment.
Paul reaches even further. He says Christ, “having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15).
The cross looked like defeat to the watching world. It was victory. The powers of darkness trade in accusation. Satan is a skilled prosecutor. He points to guilt and demands condemnation. Yet once the debt has been paid, his case collapses in open court. His weapon is gone. His chains fall slack. The cross does not merely forgive sinners. It strips their accuser bare.
Tax Day reminds you that obligations are real and payment is expected. Let it remind you of something greater today. Your greatest crisis was never the amount owed to a government.
Your greatest crisis was the debt of sin before God. You could not erase it. You could not outwork it. You could not bury it under religion, tears, effort, or time.
Christ took it out of the way.
For every soul joined to Him by faith, the record is gone. The debt is paid and the accuser is silenced. The sinner is made alive! This is why the Christian does not cling to rituals, ladders, or spiritual supplements. He clings to Christ. The One who was God in flesh has done what no one else could do.
Today millions of people are thinking about what they owe.
Child of God, think about what you owed.
Then look to the cross and remember what Christ paid.
For more devotions click here.
Sign up for my email list here.
For a list of other essential Christian reads click here.
Enjoying this content? If you’d like to support my work and help me create more Bible-centered resources like this devotion, consider buying me a coffee! Your support means the world and helps keep this ministry going.
The Gospel in a nutshell! Perfectly said!