Silencing the law

      Christ crucified, by satisfying the justice of God, brake the thunders of the law and dissolved the frame of all its anathemas. Being made a curse for us, he hath redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), that is, from the sentence of the Law-giver, denounced in his law against the transgressors of it. So that now 'there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8:1) because they are 'dead to the law by the body of Christ' (Romans 7:4). By the body of Christ as slain and raised again, this handwriting of ordinances, which was contrary to us, is taken out of the way by God, being nailed to his cross (Colossians 2:14). He hath abolished the obligation of the moral law as to any condemning power, it being the custom to cancel bonds anciently by piercing the writing with a nail. The ceremonial law was abolished in every regard, since the substance of it was come, and that which it tended to was accomplished; and so one understands, 'having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly'(verse 15), of the ceremonies of the law, called 'principalities and powers' in regard of the divine authority whereby they were instituted. These he spoiled, as the word signifies, unclothing or unstripping, he unveiled them, and showed them to be misty figures that were accomplished in his own person. The flower falls when the fruit comes to appear; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, grace to obey the precepts, and truth to take away the types.