Put to death therefore your members which [are] upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, vile passions, evil lust, and unbridled desire, which is idolatry.
Paul has just told the Colossians that they died, and that their life is now hidden with Christ in God. Then he names five ugly sins and tells them to kill those sins — so if a believer has already died, what is left to put to death?
The word "therefore" ties the command to what came before: what the believer already is becomes the reason for what he must now do. Where the ESV reads "what is earthly in you," older translations read "your members which are on the earth." The commentators below work from that older wording.
The Apostle shows them that their life is hidden with Christ in God. So they have the most perfect security. But it matches Christ's own place: hidden, not yet displayed. You are dead. You have this new life, even Christ. You are dead and risen with Him. So put to death your members which are on the earth.
The command is not to die, but to put to death. That difference decides whether the Christian struggles from weakness or acts from strength.
The apostle does not allow that we have any life here. He talks of our members: "Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth." Notice how different this is from dying to sin. Putting to death is the opposite — it is power. If I say, "I must die," that means I am still alive. Christ having died, we have died... Now I have the place of power to put to death every evil the flesh would produce. You are dead; therefore put to death your members. If you let them act, it is the flesh.
"Members" normally means hands, eyes and feet. Here the word means something else.
You have been urged to put to death — that is, a very practical matter — your members which are on the earth. These are not the parts of your body. They are the moral members of a sinful fallen nature: the ungoverned lusts and passions of the body. Given free rein, they lead to the dishonouring of the physical members of the body.
The five sins Paul names are not polite faults. Yet he addresses that list to people who are dead and risen with Christ.
What a humbling thought! People so blessed — dead, as we have said, and risen with Christ — are here told to put to death what is most shameful and shameless. It is really what man is; and that is the only nature we had as children of Adam. These are, in the strikingly forceful language of the Spirit of God here, called the members of the man.
The last item sounds milder than the rest, yet Paul gives it the harshest label. Greed is not just wanting too much; it puts something else where God belongs.
The love of money is such a deadly root of evils that one danger comes first: its power to draw people away from the faith. This may help explain the strong language in Ephesians 5:5. There a covetous person is called an idolater, just as Colossians 3:5 declares covetousness to be idolatry... The love of money is at least included in that unsatisfied greed which becomes an absorbing, idolatrous passion that shuts out true homage to the true God.
Escaping one sin on this list is no guarantee of escaping the next.
If sexual sin is no special trap for us, its twin brother covetousness may be. Let us beware. It has been truly said: "The slippery path of sin is always walked with faster and faster steps. The first sin tends to weaken in the soul the authority and power of the one thing that can stop us committing greater sins. That is the Word of God, along with the awareness of His presence, which gives the Word all its practical power over us."
Commentators differ on how the command works over time. One reads the force of the original verb as a decisive, finished act:
They are called members because they are things that cling to the flesh. Since we have crucified the flesh, let us also put to death all of its activities. The force of the Greek verb here is to have this matter settled once, not to have to keep on doing it. The child of God should judge these evils — sexual sin, uncleanness, passion, and so on — so completely that they have no influence over him at all.
Another sees an ongoing discipline, because the body and its tendencies remain:
As to the "members which are on the earth," they are not said to be crucified. The old mortal body and its members, prone to evil, are still present, and they have to be subdued... To mortify is to put to death. We cannot put to death what is already dead. Mortification, then, is a continual killing, if one may say so, of the members and of their deeds.
- Therefore — The command rests on a fact already true: dead and risen with Christ, your life hidden with Him. The order never reverses.
- Power — The command is not to die but to kill. Dying is not yours to do. Putting to death is what the new life gives you strength for.
- Members — Not hands and eyes, but the lusts and passions that cling to the flesh and will use the body if allowed.
- Idolatry — Greed puts something else in God's place: a craving nothing satisfies, which shuts out true homage to the true God.
- Vigilance — Escaping one sin on the list is no safety. The first indulgence weakens the Word's grip on the soul, and each step down the path comes faster.
On account of which things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Paul has just told the Colossians to put a list of sins to death, and now he gives the reason: these are the things that bring God's wrath. That raises two questions — who does this wrath fall on, and what does it mean for believers?
(Note: the ESV puts the phrase "upon the sons of disobedience" in a footnote here. The writers below quote older translations that keep it in the verse.)
The words "on account of these" tie verse 6 back to verse 5. Those sins are not just bad habits. They are the things God judges. One writer shows that being dead and risen with Christ does not soften God's view of sin.
Because you are dead, because you have this new life, even Christ, and so are dead and risen with Him, put to death what is earthly in you. And what is that? Sexual sin, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. That is what they — and what we — really are. It is a wonderfully strong and pointed way of presenting the truth. God is not mocked. Grace does not hold back His judgment — not in the verdict of His Word now, and not later, when He carries it out.
Why "sons"? One writer explains that the word points to likeness, not to birth.
Sons are those who show the typical or distinctive traits of their fathers. The Bible often uses this idea of representing a parent in moral matters. So the "sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2) are people whose conduct shows disobedience as clearly as a son resembles his father.
Disobedience here has a particular sense. One writer ties it to truth that has been heard and refused.
"The sons of disobedience" are those who have heard the truth, but have rejected it. The Jews in Paul's day were, as a class, the sons of disobedience in a special way, but the same is fast becoming true of the Christian world. Yet God will judge people for their wicked deeds, though the crowning sin will be disobedience to the Gospel.
That last line raises a question. Are people judged only for refusing the gospel? One writer answers no.
We think it very unsound and dangerous to teach that people will only be judged for rejecting the gospel… Scripture says the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience because of these things — and not merely because of their rejection of the gospel. (Col. 3:5-6)
This warning also answers a popular half-truth about God's love.
Scripture plainly declares God's wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people. It will surely fall on the children of disobedience. Rom. 1:18; Col. 3:6… How pointless, then, for false teachers to speak only of the love of God, and to say that because "God is love" there will be mercy for all in the end. There is grace for all now, but there is just as surely a day of wrath coming, for God is righteous.
So where does this leave a Christian? One writer points to what salvation changed.
It is because of these things that God's wrath comes on the ungodly, who are characterized as children of disobedience (v.6). These things therefore certainly have no place in a believer's life. Before being saved, we walked and lived in them, but under the wrath of God! Christ's salvation totally changes this.
Another writer puts the same truth as a matter of shame.
You walked in those things, he says, when you lived in them. But the walk must follow the character of the life. What a disgrace to walk in things in which we do not live!
- Cause. The sins listed in verse 5 are the stated reason God's wrath comes.
- Character. "Sons of disobedience" means likeness, not birth. Their conduct shows disobedience the way a son shows his father.
- Deeds. God judges people for these deeds, not only for refusing the gospel. Yet rejecting the truth once heard is the crowning sin.
- Certainty. God offers grace to all now. His Word already declares His verdict on sin, and the day of wrath is still coming, because God is righteous.
- Contrast. Believers once lived there, under that wrath. Christ has given them a new life, so the walk must now match it.
In which *ye* also once walked when ye lived in these things.
Paul has just listed sins the Colossians must put to death. Now he tells them these things were once their own way of life. Why does a believer need reminding of a past that is over?
The verse says two things: they walked in these sins, and they lived in them. Those are not the same thing.
These are very simple, but very telling words. As the hymn writer puts it: "By nature and by practice far, So very far from God". We have these two elements in these two verses, practice — "you too once walked" — and nature — "when you were living in them". We do what we do because we are what we are.
Every verb here is in the past. So where does that leave them now?
"In these you too once walked, when you were living in them." They are not supposed to be in them now that they are in Christ. They had walked in them, like other Gentiles.
A person's walk always matches the life behind it.
In the past these believers had walked in these things, and in them they had found their life. In those days their evil walk matched their unconverted life exactly. Now, as Christians, the apostle urges us to walk in a way that matches the new life.
Verse 6 names the wrath of God on the disobedient. Verse 7 says the readers were once among them.
It is because of these things that God's wrath comes on the ungodly, whom verse 6 calls children of disobedience. So these things have no place in a believer's life. Before we were saved, we walked and lived in them — and we were under the wrath of God! Christ's salvation changes all of that.
What did the change look like to the people around them?
This is a striking verse. It shows the clear change that had come into the lives of the Colossian believers since conversion. The things listed in verse 5 were once their way of life, but they were finished with them now. Those around them, no doubt, still lived that way. For these believers there was a separation: they lived differently.
God's call to put these things to death rests on something already finished.
God is acting on that blessed basis. The sacrificial death of your Saviour and mine has settled the righteous claims of God once and for all. Because of that, He makes this appeal to us: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you" — the very things you walked in when you lived in them. God never calls us to any practice without giving us the power to obey.
This backward look also changes how we treat other people.
We need to remember that we too were once in the condition we now dislike in others. This should humble us and make us patient with them. Such evils mark everyone: some things may stand out more in some people than in others, but all have the same nature that produces them. In us, nothing could change this but the grace of God in Christ. Others need that same grace if their condition is to be any different.
- Nature. "When you were living in them" points to what they were. "You too once walked" points to what they did. We do what we do because we are what we are.
- Wrath. That old nature and practice left them where verse 6 puts the disobedient: under the wrath of God. Christ's salvation changed that.
- Once. Every verb is past. They had walked in these things like other Gentiles. Now that they are in Christ, they are not supposed to be in them.
- Consistency. The old walk matched the old life exactly. Now the walk must match the new life.
- Grace. Remembering what we were humbles us and makes us patient with people still there. And God, who gives the command, also gives the power to obey.
But now, put off, *ye* also, all [these] things, wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of your mouth.
Paul has just told believers to put to death the gross sins of the body; now he turns to a second list, almost all temper and speech. So why do sins we excuse in ourselves — a lost temper, a cutting word, a coarse joke — belong beside them?
Commentators see an order running through the passage. Verse 5, this verse and verse 9 each deal with a different outlet of the same nature.
So the three ways in which the flesh expresses itself are: corruption, violence, and lying. In verse 3 of this third chapter of Colossians we get corruption; in verse 8, violence; and in verse 9, lying. Unless you see these three forms of the flesh's expression, it seems strange that lying comes in here.
The instruction changes. It is no longer "put to death" but "put off" — the ESV's "put them all away." Behind it lies a picture of clothing.
But there are other things besides those listed in verse 5 which we must be done with, and verses 8 and 9 mention them. It is not now "put to death," but "put off." We once lived wrapped up in these things like a garment. When people looked at us, that is what they saw. But they are to be seen no more. The ugly garment that once marked us out is to be visible no more. We are to put on another garment, as we shall see when we reach verse 12.
The order matters: the shocking sins come first, then the ones we grade as minor.
Now Paul urges them to put off those features of the "old man" that the natural conscience may find less offensive. They were not only to "put to death" the gross sins in which they once walked.
Anger is not craving. It reveals something else about the person losing it.
If I get angry, it is proof that the will of the old man is not broken. Anger is not a lust; but if you are living in grace, you do not fly into a passion. There is the power of a life that does not do these things, and that masters the thing that does them. We find anger and violence in Satan, who is a murderer; corruption and violence in men… I am to put off the movements of the old nature.
Many treat a hot temper as a fixed part of their personality.
Verse 8 uses the same form of the verb as verse 5. We are once and for all to have put off such things as anger, wrath, malice, vile language and lies. A believer has no excuse for not controlling his temper. And he should thoroughly judge as evil the slightest tendency to hold on to hard feelings.
Most of what this verse names travels by the tongue — and the tongue only carries out what the heart has already decided.
Notice how much of verses 8 and 9 has to do with our tongues. That means it has to do with our hearts, which speak through them. Sins of the tongue are terribly common even among Christians. We all know the kind of words that anger, wrath and malice provoke. Would any true believer blaspheme? Hardly — yet how very easy it is to speak of God and of divine things in a light and irreverent way. How easy too it is to say unsavoury things, even if we do not go as far as filthy language.
The ESV calls the fourth item "slander"; older translations read "blasphemy". The word reaches wider than today's use of it:
In Scripture this does not always refer to speaking evil of God, which is what the word is now limited to. The same Greek word appears as "railing" in 1 Timothy 6:4 and Jude 9, and as "evil speaking" in Ephesians 4:31. It could well read that way in other places too.
The list is severe, but it rests on something already true of the believer — and on a settled heart, not a straining one.
It is sweet to see how the truth that we died with Christ brings deliverance from nature in all its forms, whether corruption or violence. It is the judgment of the first Adam as a whole; nothing is spared… God wants His children to enjoy the fullest comfort. Indeed, no one can be holy in practice until he is happy… If we are called to put off anger, wrath and the rest, it is because we are dead.
- Root — the flesh shows itself in three ways: corruption, violence (v.8) and lying (v.9); this verse targets the second.
- Reach — first the sins everyone condemns, then the ones the conscience excuses. Paul refuses the distinction.
- Refusal — "put off" is a garment word: what once marked you out must not show on you again.
- Speech — almost every item here leaves by the mouth, and the word behind "slander" covers railing at people, not only at God.
- Power — you strip these off because you died with Christ, not by straining; and holiness in practice follows a heart at peace.
Do not lie to one another, having put off the old man with his deeds,
The command not to lie comes with an unusual reason: not a rule, but something that has already happened to the reader. That raises the two questions this verse turns on — what is "the old man," and in what sense has he already been put off?
Lying belongs to the nature this verse describes. One commentator traces it back to the first pages of the human story:
The old man is what accounts for lying; the old man is false, full of deceit. There is not, there cannot be, thorough truthfulness in nature as it is now. We see this from the first. Adam was false as soon as he sinned. Cain was false too. Other evils, such as violence, show up at times in some people and not in others. But all are false — lying you do see in everyone.
The ESV calls it "the old self." The writers quoted here keep the older wording, "the old man." Either way the phrase names a nature we inherit, not a person:
The old man and the new man speak of two natures. Both are found together only in someone truly born of God. The old man, palaios (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) is a term used of that sinful nature which governs the unconverted, and which we all inherit from Adam. It is also called the flesh, and sin… Before his conversion the man walked by the dictates of the old or former man. That is to mark him no longer. For that old man has been crucified with Christ; that is, God dealt with it in judgment at the cross.
"Put off" is the language of taking off a coat. The picture explains why these sins were things other people could see:
It is not now, "put to death," but, "put off." Once we lived wrapped up in these things as in a garment. When men looked at us that is what they saw. But they are to be seen no more. The ugly garment that once characterized us is to be visible no more. Another garment is to be put on as we shall see when we arrive at verse 12.
The reason given is not a threat or a reward. It is what faith has already done:
Put these off, because "you have put off the old man [faith has done it] and put on the new." You are done with the old in its very nature, and you have put on the new. So do not bring out the fruits of the old — the sour crab apples of the old tree.
Another writer names the day it happened, and adds what still needs doing with the old man's practices:
We have put off the old man. When did we do this? We put him off in the day when we trusted Christ as our Saviour. The exhortation in this chapter is to put to death the members of that old man which are listed for us here.
The words "to one another" point the command at the community, not just at private character:
Fellowship is the object here. Lying and deceit are marks of the old man. In verse 9 the Christian has put off the old man with his deeds. So honesty in our dealings with one another makes for brotherly confidence.
Ephesians 4:25 covers the same ground, but turns the instruction around:
We find in Col. 3:9, "Do not lie to one another." There it is a matter of practical life. But in Eph. 4:25 we have, "having put away lying, speak truth" to each other… In Colossians the call is only to refuse the practice of lying. Here the thing itself is looked on as gone, and the call takes the positive side.
The reason given differs too:
In Ephesians the ground for not lying is that we are members of one another. Here it is treated as inconsistent with our having put off the old man and put on the new man.
- Cross — the old man is the sinful nature we inherit from Adam, and God judged it at the cross of Christ.
- Conversion — that nature was put off the day a person trusted Christ; the verse states this as done, not as a goal.
- Clothing — what was once worn like a garment, and seen by everyone, is not to be visible any more.
- Conduct — lying shows up in everyone as a mark of the old nature, so honesty is the first test of the new.
- Community — honesty between believers builds confidence, and fellowship is what the command aims at.