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?
Three faces of one nature
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.
A changed command
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.
What anger proves
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.
Sins that come out of the mouth
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.
Where the strength comes from
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.
Summary
- 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.