Home
2nd October 2025
ThursdayReflection
'John Piper'
Founder & Teacher, Desiring God.org
************************
'How Did the Cross Disarm the
Devil?'
Colossians 2 v 14
We look at the power of our adversary - the devil.
The Bible tells us that Satan has been disarmed.
So what did he get disarmed of?
What powers did he have that he no longer possesses?
I love this question because I love the glorious truth, not only of Colossians 2:15, but the way verses 13 and 14 prepare for it and put a massive foundation under it.
So let's read the whole unit, here are the verses:
You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ. God forgave us all our sins; he cancelled the unfavourable record of our debts with its binding rules and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross. And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities; he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession.
This is one of the greatest passages, I think, in the Bible about what really happened when Christ died.
We were dead in trespasses and sins.
All human beings are spiritually dead and blind to the reality of the glory of Christ.
We are as dead to spiritual truth as a human corpse is dead to being touched.
In other words, we're not only spiritually impervious to God's touch, but we are legally condemned by the long record of sins that stood against us.
God took that long list, that record of sins, and put it in the hand of Christ, and drove a spike through it and through his hand so that he became a substitute for us, bearing the punishment for the record of our debts in his own death.
He nailed it.
The text says, "nailing it to the cross"
(Colossians 2:14).
Then verse 14 makes explicit that this nailing of the record of our debt to the cross cancelled - "cancelling the record of our debt"
(Colossians 2:14).
It is cancelled. The debt is cancelled because the debt of punishment that we owed to the justice of God has been paid in the punishment of Christ on the cross.
Then Paul adds, "This he set aside"
(Colossians 2:14).
Literally, it says he "took it out of the midst" - very unusual thing to say.
In other words, in the courtroom of heaven, where our record of debt guarantees our condemnation, nobody can find it.
It's taken.
Where did it go? This was in the folder here just a minute ago.
It's taken out of the midst. It's gone.
"As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us"
(Psalm 103:12).
Then he makes explicit that the effect of our sins being nailed, and the record of debt being taken out of the way, is that we're forgiven.
He applies to us personally what Christ accomplished perfectly.
When we are united to Christ by faith, his punishment becomes ours and his righteousness becomes ours, and God counts our sins against us no more.
Paul says in verse 13, therefore, "God made you alive together with him."
Because our sins are forgiven, he makes us eternally alive.
Now, we're no longer a corpse that can't be touched by spiritual reality.
We see Christ for who he is, and we are moved to prefer him and prize him and treasure him and love him and trust him above all things.
And now, on the basis of those terrible and glorious realities, we see in verse 15 that something amazing happened to the rulers and authorities, to Satan and his "cosmic powers ... in the heavenly places,"
as it says in Ephesians 6:12.
This is Colossians 2:15: The word translated disarmed means literally stripped.
It's used one other place - namely, in Colossians 3:9, where the Christians are to strip off their old nature.
So, what we see first in verse 15 is that just when people thought Jesus was being stripped of his clothing, and shamed in nakedness at his final trial, and led in triumphal procession to Calvary, what was really happening was the reverse.
Namely, Satan and his demonic forces were being stripped.
They were being shamed.
First, we know from Revelation 12:10 that Satan, by the very meaning of his name, is the great accuser.
Satan can do a lot of damage to us physically, emotionally, and relationally in this world, but he can only condemn us or damn us or bring us to eternal ruin in one way - namely, by a valid accusation of our sins before a holy God.
"The power to accuse God's people successfully has been taken away."
If he can do that, we're done for.
If he can make our sins stick in the courtroom of heaven as he accuses us before the judge of the universe, we're doomed; we're hopeless.
And the point of verses 13 and 14 is that the record of debt that Satan could use to accuse us and condemn us has been nailed to the cross.
The one damning weapon that he has - namely, unforgiven sin, with which he could accuse us - has been stripped out of his hands.
><(((°>
This is an edited version.
The full article is avaiable on request
John Piper
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
During the Interregnum
March 2025 to ....
Contact the Benefice Office
E-mail:
thebeneficeofbhkandr at gmail dot com
Contact the Benefice Office
Sunday School Rooms, Church Lane,
BUGBROOKE, Northampton, NN7 3PB
Land Line: 01604 830373
E-mail:
thebeneficeofbhkandr at gmail dot com
Mon., Tues., Wed., Thur.
9:00am to 11:30am
For Baptism bookings (Christenings)
to arrange an appointment please contact
the Benefice Office.
For Wedding bookings:
please contact the Benefice Office to arrange
an appointment.
Who Made This?
Seeing as you asked, if you can give helpful
advice or report factual corrections and
'deliberate mistakes',email:-
regparker3 at gmail dot com
Email addresses shown using words in an
attempt to avoid 'spam',
Type the email address replacing 'at' with '@',
and 'dot' with '.'