Dead or Alive

Nonbelievers are so bound in the sphere of sin, the world (Eph. 2:12), the flesh (Rom. 8:8), and the devil (1 John 5:19) as to be unable to respond to spiritual stimuli; totally devoid of spiritual life. The spiritually dead have no ability to make themselves alive.

Only through a union with Jesus Christ can those hopelessly dead in their sins receive eternal life. Believer’s sins are all put to Christ’s account, nailed to His cross as He paid the penalty in their place, for them, thus satisfying the just wrath of God against crimes requiring punishment in full.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Colossians 2:13,14.

Justified

Justified-to be declared righteous, by His blood-through His violent, substitutionary death.  Christ bore the full fury of God’s wrath in the believing sinner’s place, and there is none left for him (see Romans 8:1, and 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9).

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Romans 3:24; 5:9.

Free Indeed

The term for “alienated” means “estranged,” “cut off,” or “separated.”  Before they were reconciled, all people were completely estranged from God (Ephesians 2:12,13).  The term for “enemies” can also be translated “hateful.”  Unbelievers hate God and resent His holy standard because they love “wicked works” (John 3:19,20; 15:18,24,25).  Actually there is alienation from both sides, since God “hates all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:5).  Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross that paid the full penalty for the sin of all who believe made reconciliation possible and actual (Romans 3:25;5:9,10;8:3).

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Colossians 1:21.

Sacrifice

This verse is filled with the language of substitution.  The Servant suffered not for His own sin, since He was sinless (Hebrews 4:15; 7:26), but as the substitute for sinners.  The emphasis here is on Christ being the substitute recipient of God’s wrath on sinners (2 Corin 5:21; Galatians 1:3,4; Hebrews 10:9,10).  He suffered the chastisement of God in order to procure our peace with God.  The stripe that caused His death has brought salvation to those for whose sins He died.  Peter confirms this in 1 Peter 2:24.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Isaiah 53:5.