Handwriting

Handwriting in biblical usage refers specifically to the handwriting of ordinances (Greek cheirographon) mentioned in Colossians 2:14, where Paul declares that Christ has blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. The cheirographon was a technical term in the Greco-Roman world for a handwritten certificate of debt—a bond or IOU signed by the debtor acknowledging what was owed.

Paul applies this legal metaphor to the Mosaic law and the moral demands of God's ordinances that humanity has violated: Christ's cross simultaneously cancels the certificate of debt and publicly triumphs over the powers that wielded the law as a weapon of condemnation. The image of nailing the document to the cross may reflect the Roman practice of posting the charges against a condemned criminal above his cross (as with the titulus above Jesus' head in John 19:19). The passage is central to Paul's theology of atonement as redemption from legal indebtedness.