Captivated
Intro:
Jesus said in John 17:18, “As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” He commanded His disciples, saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20). It is the privilege and sober responsibility of the church to proclaim the good news of the gospel “even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Our spiritual growth, joy, and fruitfulness require that we maintain a proper perspective on this world. We are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13), because “here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14). “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). We are “aliens and strangers” on this earth (1 Pet. 2:11). We are in the world, but not of the world. Until we realize that basic truth and live it, we will be ineffective in reaching the world with the truth of the gospel.
The verb actually means “to be co-resurrected.” It is an accomplished fact. Believers spiritually are entered into Christ’s death and resurrection at the moment of their salvation. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”
As we review these four spiritual motivations for godly living, we are impressed with the centrality of Jesus Christ. We forgive because Christ forgave us (Col. 3:13). It is the peace of Christ that should rule in our hearts (Col. 3:15). The Word of Christ should dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). The name of Christ should be our identification and our authority. “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).
Knowing that all wisdom is in Christ (2:1–5), Paul urged the Colossian Christians to continue in Him (2:6–7), not being deceived by vain philosophies (2:8–10). Since believers are identified with Christ, they are not to live under Jewish laws (2:11–17), for that would only rob them of their rewards (2:18–19). They have died with Christ and hence need not submit to legalistic rules (2:20–23).
Furthermore, they have also been raised with Christ. So they should set their hearts on heavenly things (3:1–4), put to death sinful worldly practices (3:5–11), and clothe themselves with Christ’s virtues (3:12–17). Stated in another way, believers are to seek spiritual values (3:1–4), put off the sins of the old life (3:5–11), and put on the virtues of the new life (3:12–17).
Having established the supremacy of Christ and salvation in Christ, in chapter 3 Paul turns his attention to the practical implications of living out what it means to be united to Christ by faith.
He begins by describing the status of believers and then the servanthood that follows from that status. In this way the indicatives of the gospel (who we are by virtue of God’s grace) drive the imperatives for our lives (what we should do in accordance with God’s Word).
In light of these many gracious eschatological blessings, Paul calls on the Colossians to seek, out of gratitude to and love for God, the knowledge and wisdom that comes from Christ alone (vv. 1–2). More than this, Paul summons them to serve others in a manner consistent with the characteristics of Christ’s kingdom. He describes Christlike servanthood as both a “putting off” (vv. 5–11), no longer practicing the old vices that characterized their lives before Christ, and a “putting on” (vv. 12–17), practicing the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Gal. 5:22–23). This ongoing process of becoming a Christlike servant (sanctification; cf. Phil. 2:12–14) occurs only because of the change in status (justification, etc.; cf. Rom. 3:21–31) that God has granted. It is as we learn of God’s love for us that our hearts are changed and we are moved to obey him from the inside out.
After all, it does little good if Christians declare and defend the truth, but fail to demonstrate it in their lives. There are some Christians who will defend the truth at the drop of a hat, but their personal lives deny the doctrines they profess to love. “They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him” (Titus 1:16).
He exhorted his readers to put off the graveclothes of sin and the old life, and to put on the “graceclothes” of holiness and the new life in Christ.
We see in these verses the “Great Divide” in the Christian life. What we set our minds on determines our seeking and thus the direction of our Christian lives. What do you think about when you have nothing else to do? Some common-sense qualifications are in order here, because we all variously daydream about our favorite team or a coming vacation or our yard. Sometimes we are under such pressures at home or work that we can scarcely think of anything else. But these things aside, do our minds regularly go up to Christ and “things above”? If they do not, we are in trouble. The Bible says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34; cf. Matthew 6:21). What will the divine postmortem reveal to be our highest priority? A dress? A fishing pole? Christ?
For Paul, doctrine demands duty; creed determines conduct; facts demand acts.
We will now begin to study the practical application of the vast theology we have already studied.
In the present section, which is practical and ethical in its emphasis, he exhorts his readers to give outward expression in daily living to the deep experience that is theirs in Christ. The Christian life is a life “hidden with Christ in God,” but it is still, Paul explains, a life lived out on earth. The Christian must therefore give attention not only to his inward experience with God but also to his outward relations with his fellowman.
Believers’ lives, however, will not always be hidden in this way. Now there is concealment, but when Christ appears, there will be a glorious manifestation of who they truly are (v. 4).
Paul turned his thoughts to a more positive aspect of Christian living in this section of Scripture. The foolish attempts at sanctification found in 2:20–23 often entrap Christian people. The real issue is the outlook found in 3:1–4. Here Paul explained the nature of the Christian’s higher calling (3:1–2) and the reasons to seek this higher calling (3:3–4). Although this section focuses on the Christian’s new values, clearly these values are rooted in conversion. Conversion includes a radical change of mind which produces the desire for separation from the world.
HAVING ARGUED THAT the Colossians have been set free from the powers, Paul now contends that they have been set free for living a life above moral reproach. The next paragraph (3:1–4), with its Leitmotif “with Christ,” serves as a transition from the negative warnings to positive exhortation. They have been raised “with Christ” in the past (3:1), are hidden “with Christ” in the present (3:3), and will be revealed “with Christ” in the future (3:4).
A catalog of vices and virtues follows in 3:5–14. As he does in the list of the works of the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:19–23, Paul first enumerates the vices of the old morality, which need to be renounced (3:5–9a). He then lists virtues of the new morality, which need to be embraced (3:12–14). A statement about the new creation in 3:9b–11 provides a bridge from the vices to virtues—virtues made possible because God has created in Christ a new humanity “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” The new creation enables the new morality, which, in turn, leads to the new worship in 3:15–17. Thanksgiving, an emphasis throughout the letter (1:3, 12; 2:7; 3:15, 17; 4:2), climaxes this section.
c) The emphasis on the believers’ incorporation into the life of Christ (see Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21) leads into the ethical exhortation that follows. The new life of obedience does not depend on their own feeble moral resolve but comes from being united with him.
“Put to death” is an aorist imperative. Grammarians usually distinguish the aorist imperative from the present imperative by maintaining that the aorist imperative commands, “Start to do something,” whereas the present imperative urges, “Continue to do something.” K. L. McKay, “Aspect in Imperatival Constructions in New Testament Greek,” NovT 27 (1985): 203–8, challenges this assumption. He argues that aorist imperative urges activity as a whole action “without dwelling on its internal details,” while the present imperative urges activity as an ongoing process “without focus on its progress or development.” “Put to death” refers to a complete action.
Paul reminds the Colossians that they have risen with Christ. This is the path to holiness, not self-denial, angelic experience, or ceremony. They are no longer living the old life they lived before their salvation, but possess the eternal life of Christ and have been raised to live on another plane. They must not be ignorant or forgetful of who they are and how they are to live. All sinful passion is controlled and conquered by the power of the indwelling Christ and our union with Him.
When he tells the Colossians to set their minds (hearts) “on things above” and to put to death “the members of the earth” (NIV, “earthly nature”), he wants their moral vision to be controlled by the divine reality that is coming.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (3:3)
Paul stresses the reason that living in the heavenlies is to be the norm for the believer. Believers have died to the world system, through their faith union with Christ in His death and resurrection. Paul wrote in Galatians 6:14, “May it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The past tense of apothnēskō (you have died) indicates that a death took place at salvation. “If any man is in Christ,” Paul writes to the Corinthians, “he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17).
A life put to death. Paul insists that the old nature is not renewed or reformed; instead, it is put to death. This forceful image means that Christian renewal is not some cosmetic overhaul of our sinful personalities. We do not simply add on a veneer of Christian values that only laminates our old nature and its value system. Paul does not tell us to put on new clothes over the old; the old must be stripped off and thrown away. We need more than a few minor adjustments and cannot skip over the key element of dying with Christ.
To quote E. D. Martin: “The process as described is not a matter of gradually changing the old into something better, but of progressively actualizing the already-existing new creation.”
responsibility for the true welfare of the other person involved in the relationship, and for any child who may be born in consequence of it. The Christian insight which was evolved from this deep respect for the personal life of others, and for lives yet unborn, has led to the Christian standard in sexual behavior which is normally summed up as chastity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage. The use of the sexual relationship for pleasure or excitement without any real sense of responsibility degrades personal life and personal relationships.
Schweizer lists several perils that unchecked anger poses in our lives.
• Gnawing anger can strain lifelong relationships.
• Wrath can explode, throw off all constraints, and utter ill-considered sentiments that cannot be taken back.
• Malice leads one to do and say things that harm one’s neighbor.
• Wickedness hurls abuse at someone without caring how much distress it causes.
• Gossip spreads like wildfire behind people’s backs. It is frequently impossible to control its damage, so that it makes life virtually unlivable for the victim and proliferates anger.
Such drives lead to craving what is not ours, and the objects of our greed can also be persons who attract us sexually. The plague of greed is painfully evident in the newspaper headlines reporting that a mother-in-law contracted a hit man to kill her son-in-law because she did not think he was good enough for her daughter, that a mother tried to insure a spot for her daughter on the cheerleading squad by having her rival’s mother killed, and that an athlete conspired to disable a competitor to better the chances for winning an Olympic medal. Such headlines reflect the pervasive idolatry of “me” over others and “me” over God that plagues our world.
The higher things, those above, are defined in Col 3:1 as “where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
This command called the Colossians to focus on matters related to the rule of Christ in the world. Since he is the sovereign one, his concerns should occupy the Christian. Here, as much as anywhere, the twofold perspective of believers appears. They lived in two domains: the fallen order and the redeemed order, a division Paul had already used in 1:15–20. While being a part of the fallen order, they were not to let that environment occupy their thoughts and minds. Their values were to be different. Creation will pass away; the things of God will remain.
The list moves from the specific to the general. The word here translated sexual immorality refers to any intercourse outside marriage: in the ancient world, as in the modern, intercourse with a prostitute would be a specific, and in pagan culture a frequent, instance of this. Impurity highlights the contamination of character effected by immoral behaviour. The word rendered lust could refer to any overmastering passion, but regularly, as here, indicates uncontrolled sexual urges. Evil desires (the word ‘evil’ is added because ‘desire’ by itself, which is what the Greek word means, could be used in a neutral sense) is the state which logically precedes lust. It is perhaps important to note, as is clearly implied by Hebrews 4:15, that experiencing sexual temptation is not itself sinful. Sin begins when the idea of illicit gratification, presented to the mind in temptation, is not at once put to death, but is instead fondled and cherished. Behind this stage, in turn, there is greed: another general term, here it refers to unchecked hunger for physical pleasure, which is the breeding-ground for more specific evil desires. Paul boldly unmasks this covetousness: it is idolatry. Literal idol-worship, of course, formed the setting for a good deal of the sort of behaviour here criticized, but that is only an illustration of the basic point. All such greed places at the centre of one’s attention and devotion that which is not God. In turning from the source of life, those who follow other paths are actually pursuing death (cf. Rom. 1:21ff., 32; 6:21), as the next verse indicates.
But what are these ‘heavenly things’? They are well set out in Philippians 4:8, and also in 3:12ff. of our present letter: the qualities of self-giving love are the chief characteristics of the life of heaven, because heaven is where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (NIV is certainly wrong to omit the comma and so to make ‘is seated’ into a single expression).
To put something to death you must cut off its lines of supply: it is futile and self-deceiving to bemoan one’s inability to resist the last stage of a temptation when earlier stages have gone by unnoticed, or even eagerly welcomed. This does not mean setting up a new hedge around the law, such as branding all theatrical performances (or whatever) as inherently ‘sinful’. Rather, every Christian has the responsibility, before God, to investigate the lifelines of whatever sins are defeating him personally, and to cut them off without pity. Better that than have them eventually destroy him.
Paul speaks forthrightly about the demands of the new life and our urgent need to repress all the degrading tendencies of the old nature. The three imperatives of the paragraph (“put to death,” v. 5; “rid yourselves,” v. 8; and “do not lie,” v. 9) are the pegs on which the thought hangs.
The verb nekrōsate, meaning literally “to make dead,” is very strong. It suggests that we are not simply to suppress or control evil acts and attitudes. We are to wipe them out, completely exterminate the old way of life. “Slay utterly” may express its force. The form of the verb (aorist imperative) makes clear that the action is to be undertaken decisively, with a sense of urgency. Both the meaning of the verb and the force of the tense suggest a vigorous, painful act of personal determination. Maclaren likens it to a man who while working at a machine gets his fingers drawn between rollers or caught in the belting. “Another minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody mass. He catches up an axe lying by and with his own arm hacks off his own hand at the wrist.… It is not easy nor pleasant, but it is the only alternative to a horrible death” (p. 275).
His catalog of sins is a grim one, and all of the sins, with the possible exception of the last, have to do with sexual vice. “Sexual immorality” translates porneia, the most general Greek word for illicit sexual intercourse. Originally it denoted the practice of consorting with prostitutes; eventually it came to mean “habitual immorality.”
This attitude is identified with “idolatry” because it puts self-interest and things in the place of God. (Cf. Romans 1:18ff., where the visible degradation of pagan life is represented as proof that the wrath of God is being poured out upon those who have rebelled against his rule in their lives.)
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (3:4)
Although the world may not now recognize those whose lives are hidden with Christ in God, that will not always be the case. When Christ … is revealed at His second coming, we also will be revealed with Him in glory. The apostle John describes that scene in Revelation 19:11–13, 15–16:
I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God.… And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
To this description of our Lord at His return in judgment, the vision adds that He will be accompanied by saints. John also wrote, “The armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses” (v. 14).
We might be surprised to read that living the risen life involves putting sin to death. Didn’t Paul just say that that had already been done? At the moment of salvation, “our old self was crucified with [Christ], that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:6). That positional reality, however, must be worked out in the believer’s practical living. There can be no holiness or maturity in a life where sin runs unchecked.
“Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the world: use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there” (
According to tradition, Origen, one of the great theologians of the early church, was voluntarily castrated (based on his misinterpretation of Matt. 19:12). A common sight in European cities during the Middle Ages was a group known as the Flagellants. Marching through the streets in solemn processions, they scourged themselves in penance for their sins.
These four verses, then, point to the believer’s union with Christ as the root principle of the whole Christian life. It is the point of departure and the source of power for all that he does.
If. Better translated, “since.” you were raised. This verb actually means “to be co-resurrected.” Because of their union with Christ, believers spiritually entered His death and resurrection at the moment of their conversion (see notes on Rom. 6:3, 4; Gal. 2:20) and have been and are now alive in Him so as to understand spiritual truths, realities, blessings, and the will of God. Those glorious benedictions (cf. Eph. 1:3) are the privileges and riches of the heavenly kingdom, all of which are at our disposal. Paul called them “things above.” To understand what these are, see note on 2:3. sitting at the right hand of God. The position of honor and majesty (cf. Ps. 110:1; Luke 22:69; Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:56; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 1 Pet. 3:22) that Christ enjoys as the exalted Son of God (see note on Phil. 2:9). That exaltation makes Him the fountain of blessing for His people (John 14:13, 14; cf. 2 Cor. 1:20).
Set your mind. This can also be translated “think,” or “have this inner disposition.” As a compass points N, the believer’s entire disposition should point itself toward the things of heaven. Heavenly thoughts can only come by understanding heavenly realities from Scripture (cf. Rom. 8:5; 12:2; Phil. 1:23; 4:8; 1 John 2:15–17; see note on Matt. 6:33).
When people engage in either greed or the sexual sins Paul has cataloged, they follow their desires rather than God’s, in essence worshiping themselves—which is idolatry (Num. 25:1–3; Eph. 5:3–5).
3:8 put off. A Gr. word used for taking off clothes (cf. Acts 7:58; Rom. 13:12–14; 1 Pet. 2:1). Like one who removes his dirty clothes at day’s end, believers must discard the filthy garments of their old, sinful lives. anger. A deep, smoldering bitterness; the settled heart attitude of an angry person (cf. Eph. 4:31; James 1:19, 20). wrath. Unlike God’s settled and righteous wrath (see note on Rom. 1:18), this is a sudden outburst of sinful anger, usually the eruption that flows out of “anger” (see note on Gal. 5:20; cf. Luke 4:28; Acts 19:28; Eph. 4:31). malice. From the Gr. term that denotes general moral evil. Here it probably refers to the damage caused by evil speech (cf. 1 Pet. 2:1). blasphemy. The normal translation when this word refers to God. But here, since it refers to people, it is better translated “slander.” To slander people, however, is to blaspheme God (James 3:9; cf. Matt. 5:22; James 3:10).
“Things above” were not material, but rather have to do with Christ’s sovereign reign over the universe as he fills the universe with his power. They include his character, his presence, his heavenly joys. We are not to be seeking heavenly geography, but the One who dwells there.
We died with Christ (v. 3a). The fullest explanation of this wonderful truth is found in Romans 6–8. Christ not only died for us (substitution), but we died with Him (identification). Christ not only died for sin, bearing its penalty; but He died unto sin, breaking its power. Because we are “in Christ” through the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), we died with Christ. This means that we can have victory over the old sin nature that wants to control us. “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:2)
It means that they are to unite with the transforming divine power working within them. One is either dead in sin (2:13) or dead to sin (Rom 6:11). The old nature is not renewed or reformed; it is “put to death.” Believers are to eradicate any persisting marks of the old life: its values, customs, and practices. These are summarized as “idolatry,” putting something else before God (e.g., sex, money, power) and wanting more and more of these things.
3:9–10 taken off … put on. The Colossians are to do more than simply reform their ways. Their whole nature has been exchanged—from an old self to a new self—and they are to live accordingly (Eph 4:20–25; cf. Gal 3:27). This renewing is an ongoing process (2 Cor 4:16). Those who are being renewed in “the image of [their] Creator” will produce Christlike conduct because that is the natural effect of their new nature.
3:12 humility. A Christlike attitude of putting the interests of others ahead of one’s own (Phil 2:3–8).
3:13 Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Jesus emphasized that receiving forgiveness from God obliges one to forgive others (Matt 6:12, 14; 18:21–35).
3:14 love. The all-inclusive commandment (Matt 5:43–48; Mark 12:28–33; Rom 13:8–10; 1 Cor 13:1–13) and foundation of the other virtues.
3:15 peace of Christ. It rules where the message of Christ dwells (v. 16); the church should display harmony and thankfulness as a result.
When the nation of Israel came to the border of the Promised Land, they refused to enter; and, because of their stubborn unbelief, they had to wander in the wilderness for forty years (see Num. 13–14). That whole generation, starting with the twenty-year-olds, died in the wilderness, except for Caleb and Joshua, the only two spies who believed God. How were Caleb and Joshua
No amount of positive talk about health will cure a ruptured appendix. The doctor will have to “get negative” and take out the appendix. No amount of lecturing on beauty will produce a garden. The gardener has to pull weeds! The positive and the negative go together, and one without the other leads to imbalance.
The word mortify means “put to death.” Because we have died with Christ (Col. 3:3), we have the spiritual power to slay the earthly, fleshly desires that want to control us. Paul called this “reckoning” ourselves to be dead to sin but alive in Christ (Rom. 6:11). Our Lord used the same idea when He said, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out” (Matt. 5:29–30).
Covetousness is the sin of always wanting more, whether it be more things or more pleasures. The covetous person is never satisfied with what he has, and he is usually envious of what other people have. This is idolatry, for covetousness puts things in the place of God. “Thou shalt not covet” is the last of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:17). Yet this sin can make us break all of the other nine! A covetous person will dishonor God, take God’s name in vain, lie, steal, and commit every other sin in order to satisfy his sinful desires.
Paul’s imagery moved from death and life to putting clothes on and off. Put to death … whatever belongs to your earthly nature. The Greek tense in this command suggests a decisive action, as if Paul said, “Mortify it! Do it now! Do it resolutely!” Of course, God has already done it, but Christians are to know this, count it to be true, and act accordingly (Rom. 6:5–14).
Paul commanded that they do so no more. Now you must rid yourselves of all such things. The word “rid” (apothesthe) means “to put off” like a suit of clothes. In its ethical use here it means “throw it off like a dirty shirt” (cf. Rom. 13:12; Eph. 4:22, 25; Heb. 12:1; James 1:21; 1 Peter 2:1). In the Bible, behavior is often likened to a garment (e.g., Job 29:14; Ps. 35:26; Isa. 11:5; Rom. 13:12; 1 Thes. 5:8).
That is, normal human distinctions are overruled and transfigured by one’s union in Christ.
All barriers are destroyed in Christ, and all believers are truly “created equal.” So it is to be expected that each believer—regardless of his nationality, former religion, culture, or economic standing—should do away with his former sinful practices and should live in accord with his “new self.”
The January 1984 issue of Psychology Today, a magazine not known for promoting Biblical concern, stated that a pervasive cultural desensitization has taken place through films which feature sexual violence, and suggested that such films be packaged with warning labels (as are cigarettes)!
Regardless of man’s delusion, God’s Word still speaks: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires.” This is a violent metaphor which expresses pain and effort. Killing naturally means tears and blood, but here it means even more. As Alexander Maclaren said: “It is far easier to cut off the hand, which after all is not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which, though they be my worst self, are myself.”
This metaphor teaches us that we must execute sensuality whatever the cost! Proverbs 6:27 says, “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” Many Christians are daily heaping fire onto themselves and are being profoundly scarred. We need to be like Job, who said, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1). We need to apply this across the board. There are books and magazines we must discard. Some of us need to toss out TVs. I am not endorsing any type of legalism, but God’s Word speaks today, and we are to kill the members of our body which lead us into sensuality or promote covetousness, which our text calls “greed, which is idolatry.”
The word “greed” or “covetousness” (KJV) which Paul used here denotes not merely the desire to possess more than one has, but more than one ought to have, particularly that which belongs to someone else. The mention of this at the end of a list of sexual sins is highly significant, for it is intimately associated with them. It is really another form of the same evil desire, except that it is fixed on material things. Often when sensuality loses its hold, materialism takes its place. In my opinion, this is why many middle-aged men who were once devoted to sensuality are now equally given to money. These sins have the same source. Such greed is really the lowest form of idolatry, for nothing could be lower than putting our trust in a material thing and making that our god.
There is a sense in which covetousness is even more dangerous than sensuality, because it has so many respectable forms. So often it is the successful covetous person whom we honor. As the proverb goes: If a man is drunk with wine, we kick him out of the church; if he is drunk with money, we make him a deacon!
Paul continued, “Do not lie to each other” (v. 9a). Lying is a great sin against God, against the Church, and against love. That is why God struck down Ananias and Sapphira in the first church. He wanted truth, not deception, not hypocrisy. “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (Ephesians 4:25). A great church demands great honesty.
The list in verse 3:8 is another ugly one: anger, the continuous state of smouldering or seething hatred; rage, when this state breaks out in actual angry deeds or words; malice, a word which in the Greek can simply mean ‘evil’, but which here probably has the overtone of ‘evil intended to cause hurt’; slander, speech which puts malice into practical effect (the Greek is blasphēmia, speech which dishonours God himself—in this instance, by reviling a human being made in his image); and filthy language, words which, either by their foul association or their abusive intent, contaminate both speaker and hearers. All such things are to be put away from your lips: one cannot always prevent angry or hateful thoughts from springing into one’s head, but they should be dealt with firmly before they turn into words.
But is this ethical appeal realistic? Paul answers with a strong affirmative, undergirding ethics with theology. Though it may not always feel like it, those who have joined the family of Christ have become different people. They have ‘taken off’ the old solidarity, the old humanity, like a shabby set of clothes. ‘Self’ in NIV is misleadingly individualistic, since the idea, here as in Romans 6:6, is much more than merely individual; it could also imply the false idea that ‘self’ and ‘Christ’ will always be opposed, whereas in truth it is one’s true self, one’s full humanity, that emerges once the shackles of the old humanity are thrown off. This metaphor of ‘taking off’ clothes does not mean simply the making of good resolutions or promises to behave differently. It is the action—itself the reflex, in human experience, of God’s action in grace by the Spirit—of leaving one family, or household, and moving lock, stock and barrel into another, where a different rule of life obtains.
Paul here may well be alluding to the familiar picture of the candidate for baptism, who, symbolizing this transfer of solidarities, exchanges his old clothes for new ones. (‘Taking off the old humanity’ and ‘putting on the new humanity’ are aorist participles in the Greek, indicating actions that are unique and unrepeatable.) The old humanity is the solidarity of Adam’s people: compare Romans 5:12–21 and (growing out of that paragraph) 6:1–7:6. The new humanity is the solidarity of those who are incorporated into, and hence patterned on, the Messiah who is himself the true Man (the same passages in Romans could be cited again). This new humanity is therefore (if we translate the passage literally) ‘renewed according to the image of the one who created it’.
In Col 3:4 Paul communicated this glory. Believers will appear in glory with Christ. Christians will share in Christ’s glory, and Christians will contribute to his glory. The present time is a time of death. Often Christians suffer for their faith, but they continue with a life source unknown to those who do not know Christ. Someday, however, Christ will be revealed. When he is, the source of Christians’ lives will become apparent to all persons. The reason Christians have had the values, outlook, and service to God and others will be clear. The hidden life will be manifested.
The values and goals of Christians will also be vindicated. The glory of Christ will captivate the minds of unbelievers as well as believers. Unbelievers will know that Jesus is Lord (Phil 2:10), and they will know that they based their lives on the wrong principles. They will also see that Christians built their lives correctly. Their lives and ambitions were energized by Christ through the Spirit, and they sought to contribute to the concerns of Christ on earth.
Until then, the Christian life remains hidden. Christians are misunderstood, belittled, and persecuted. Unbelievers attack both Christians and the Christ whom they love and worship. Someday, however, that will change. The King of glory will return and become the preeminent one in creation and redemption, as Paul wrote in 1:15–20. Christians will share in that great day.
For these reasons, Christians should seek higher things. The concerns of the false teachers caused misguided Christian living. Christians had a greater destiny than earth. They were to prepare for heaven. They were to call the people of earth to consider the things of heaven and of Christ’s rule. They were to work for the reconciliation of all things—natural and human—in the spirit of 1:15–20. In this, any preoccupations with the things of this earth sidetracked the real concerns.
Paul issued a series of commands, all of which seem to have equal weight. Thereafter, he sent various greetings. The command section contains at least fifteen commands. Four of these, based on the grammatical constructions of the passages, urged the Colossians to stop practices which were ongoing (3:5; 3:8; 3:9; 3:21), and eleven encouraged the cultivation of Christian attitudes in the individual or community. From a thematic or logical perspective, however, distinct groups of commands emerge. First, some encourage personal spiritual growth. These are: “put to death” (3:5), “put off” (KJV) or “you must rid yourselves” (3:8), “do not lie” (3:9), and “put on” (KJV) or “clothe yourselves” (3:12), “bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another” (3:13), “forgive” (3:13), and “put on love” (3:14). Paul used two pictures to organize these commands: death to life, and changing clothes.
For Paul, being dead to sin did not mean that persons did not sin. Three aspects of this truth speak to a life lived as dead to this world. They are logically identified in Rom 6. The first aspect is knowledge. Paul laid the foundation for Christian experience in knowledge. In regard to sin, the foundation is the knowledge of what Christ’s death means regarding sin. When a believer accepts Christ, a death takes place. In the spiritual reality, the believer “went to the cross” with Christ, was buried with Christ, and arose a new person. That ended any obligation to sin and its demands. The first aspect of victory over sin is to know the reality of the Christian experience. Death with Christ is the foundation.
If another type of sin is named earlier in the list of vices, as in Rom 1, that sin is some form of idolatry. Paul’s thought, therefore, moved from idolatry to immorality. Perhaps his thinking followed the two tables of the law. Positively, love for God and neighbor encapsulated the two sets of five commandments. Negatively, idolatry and immorality encapsulated these commandments. Certainly idolatry is the antithesis to having no other gods, and immorality is the blatant disregard of love for the neighbor. Lohse suggests that Paul mentioned sexual sins because they were the particular weakness of Gentiles. The typical Jewish polemic was that all Gentiles were idolaters and, thus, engaged in every vice.
The last member of the first list is “greed” (NIV) or “covetousness” (KJV; pleonexia). At first sight, it seems to be out of place for two reasons. First, it is not a sexual sin. Second, it is modified by a clause and none of the others are. These two indications make it remarkable in this context. It is the longing for something that belongs to someone else or placing supreme value on something not (yet) possessed. As used in this context, it is a serious sin; and Paul no doubt included it because it is, in kind, the same as sexual sin. It represents a strong movement of desire toward something out of God’s will at the time.
Paul never subdivided covetousness into smaller categories. That seems strange since Exod 20:17 explicitly explains what not to covet. Covetousness is the only commandment so explained. Perhaps this was done in the Old Testament because covetousness is a basically undefined sin—each person could be left to his own interpretation. Here Paul defined the nature of the sin, but he did not explain it by application as Moses did. He stated it is idolatry.
Was lying a particularly prominent sin at Colossae? If so, about what were they lying? The passage gives no specific information about these matters. The command seems to speak to more than verbal lying. It recalls all falsehood, whether by actions or words. Perhaps the church had a hypocritical or deceptive element in it. Perhaps the false teachers employed a tactic of deception regarding Paul and the gospel of grace. Perhaps the command is always appropriate for Christians without regard for specific situations which prompt it. In the command, two matters are clear. First, this command is of singular importance in the way it is expressed. Second, the Christian community is to be characterized by truth and truthfulness. All lying belongs with the old self who is gone.
Paul used the terms old self/new self in three important texts: Eph 4:20–24; Col 3:9–11; Rom 6:6. The closest parallel to this passage is Eph 4:20–24, although the actual constructions which express the concept vary somewhat. The Romans passage contains the most extensive explanation of the relationships between the two. It is worth noting that the term for “old” in “old self” (palaios) occurs in all three passages, but there are two different terms for “new” (kainos, Eph 4:24; neos, Col 3:10; omitted in Rom). The term “old” (palaios) basically means “old in years, or belonging to the past.” The terms for “new” mean new in time (neos) or new in quality (kainos). The distinction between them fades in specific contexts, and there seems to be significant overlap between the two terms in Ephesians and Colossians.
“all in all.” It seemed to be his way of saying God is totally in charge. In 1 Cor 15:28, Paul described the end of this age. Christ will subdue everything, then “God will be all in all.” Paul meant that everything will be focused on God himself, whereas previously each member of the Godhead has had his own focus. In heaven there will be a collective adoration of God.
The restrictions listed earlier, “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” (2:21), were a futile attempt to protect one’s members from sin’s domination; but such efforts failed to get at the problem’s root, the inner cravings and obsessions. It did not even scratch the surface of the problem. One may putty and paint over termite damage in a house, but unless the termites are eradicated and the damaged boards replaced, the house is doomed to collapse. Paul demands the complete “extermination of the old way of life.” The danger of an ethical relapse endures if the old is not obliterated. Caird likens the situation of believers to immigrants who have moved to a new country but have not yet become habituated to the new ways of life. Paul insists that Christians eradicate any persisting marks of the old pagan lifestyle—its values, customs, and practices.
(2) He grounds his exhortation in Christology. Christians are being transformed into Christ’s image (3:10). Because this is so, they are asked to be true to themselves.
Idolatry had as its chief purpose to get some material advantage from the gods, and idol worshipers tried to manipulate them to that end. The lust for worldly possessions quickly elbows God from the center of our lives as it captivates our total allegiance. We cannot serve both God and mammon, and those who serve mammon cannot serve God (Matt. 6:24). Our desires sit on the throne of our hearts rather than God.
God’s wrath manifests itself in a variety of ways in our lives, but should not be mistaken for the vindictive bursts of temper imputed to the pagan deities. The verb “is coming” need not point to some distant future (see Rom. 2:5, 8; 3:5; 9:22; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9). In Rom. 1:18–32, Paul maintains that the consequences of God’s wrath are already at work. The phrase “on those who are disobedient” (see NIV note) is a text variant, and it may have been inserted into the text from Eph. 5:6.
Moule cites the even more heinous list of sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 and comments that it “reveals the kind of life from which Christianity rescued people.” They used to live that way because that lifestyle was normative for their society. People tend to live the same way that others around them live, adopting their standards, values, and ways of thinking.
“Do not lie to each other” surprisingly caps the list. Adlai Stevenson, a U.S. senator and presidential candidate, once said, “A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in trouble.” In Ephesians 4:25 putting off falsehood and speaking the truth are linked to all being “members of one body,” and lying is rooted in an attempt to gain advantage over others. It therefore is at odds with Christian love even though Christians have been known to concoct lies to deceive others (see Acts 5:1–11). Such deceit reveals a lack of mutual trust, undermines community, and breeds anger.
THE IMAGE OF having stripped off old filthy rags and put on new clothes (see Gal. 3:28; Eph. 4:20–25; cf. Job 29:14; Isa. 61:10) marks the transition from the list of vices to the list of virtues. It helps us look beyond the individual ethical admonitions to see the basis of our moral transformation. The vices make indiscernible the image of God in a person. Who can see that image in those who misuse their sexuality or who try to destroy others in malicious anger? Christians have discarded the old solidarities and its behaviors like a set of shabby clothes and have joined themselves to a new solidarity, which renews the image of God in them and creates new behaviors.
The wrath of God. A survey of faith maturity in Christians discovered that most believe that God is forgiving (97%) and loving (96%), but far fewer believe that God is judging (37%) or punishes those who do wrong (19%). These Christians probably doubt that a God of such inclusive love could judge with such inflexible wrath. They may also recoil at an anthropomorphic view of God who, in a burst of temper, would lash out at sinners like an annoyed and frustrated parent swatting an unruly child. Jonathan Edward’s famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” would fall on skeptical ears today.
That passage makes clear that we must be careful not to project the emotion of human anger on to God. God is not like the Olympian gods, who petulantly and capriciously punished humans for the slightest offenses. Paul does not portray God’s white hot anger erupting in a tantrum against sinners and forcing them to pay for their sins. This image, however, is ingrained in popular consciousness by comic strips that picture God’s delivering lightning bolts that zap sinners in their tracks. This common image has nothing to do with the New Testament picture of God’s wrath.
In Romans, Paul portrays God’s wrath as his turning sinners over to themselves. Three times he repeats the verb “he gave them over” (paredoken). “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Rom. 1:24). “God gave them over to shameful lusts” (1:26). “Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (1:28). Since Paul repeats the verb three times, it suggests that he sees this “giving over” as a deliberate act of God. People have willfully deserted God, who, in turn, leaves them to themselves; God allows them to self-destruct.
Dodd adds a corollary to Hebrews 10:31—“It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” He notes that it is also a dreadful thing to fall out of the hands of the living God, “to be left to oneself in a world where the choice of evil things brings its own retribution.”
The result is that people tend to treat sin as something to be dreaded only if it is detected. They fear getting caught and hope that maybe God is not looking, or that perhaps God can be propitiated in some way to spare them from any retribution. But sin is like cancer that grows out of control and destroys other healthy parts of ourselves. The cancer is the deadly thing, not its detection. Only after the cancer has been diagnosed can treatment begin. The problems come when it goes undiscovered and untreated. Like cancer, sin carries with it its own destructive force. It is something that ruins lives. It distorts and destroys our human relationships as well as our relationship with God.
This idea is outlined in 1 Peter 4:3–5:
For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
We would do well to follow Paul’s example rather than that of his opponents with their ledger books and lists of prohibited behavior. Hill astutely recognizes that Paul “focuses on what a believer is rather than on what he must do. In a sense, the apostle’s ethics are more descriptive than prescriptive—he simply encourages readers to act consistently with their status in Christ.” Ethical behavior comes as a by-product of putting to death the old and of living in Christ, not from dutifully following a rigorous set of rules.
Schweizer aptly comments on this passage: “In the gospel the call to obedience is because one has already been saved and created anew, while in the law, by contrast, it is in order that one may become so.” Paul is telling the Colossians to live out ethically what they have become in Christ! Believers are to set their hearts on things above, to put to death the things on the earth, to rid themselves of past wicked practices, and to clothe themselves with the new. They are to work out the salvation that God has worked in us (Phil. 2:12–13).
A rabbinic tradition taught that if a man wants to keep his mind on the Law, he should not walk on a road behind a woman, even if she is his own wife. This advice ignores the fact that walking alone on the moon or making everyone wear floor length gunny sacks will not solve the problem of lust that lies buried deep within our hearts. The lustful look begins in the mind’s eye. The real solution for male lust is not to avoid women, segregate them, or cover them up, but to transform completely the way a man looks at a woman. He must see a person for whom Christ died, not an object for his own physical gratification. The same solution applies for female lust.
According to tradition, Origen, one of the great theologians of the early church, was voluntarily castrated (based on his misinterpretation of Matt. 19:12). A common sight in European cities during the Middle Ages was a group known as the Flagellants. Marching through the streets in solemn processions, they scourged themselves in penance for their sins.
Paul mentions greed, or covetousness, last because it is the evil root from which all the previous sins spring. It is also mentioned last in the Ten Commandments (cf. Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21). Pleonexia (greed) comes from two Greek words: pleon, “more,” and exō, “to have.” It is the insatiable desire to have more, to have what is forbidden. As such, it is the source of fights and quarrels (James 4:2), as well as lusts, passion, and sin.
Because it places selfish desire above obedience to God, greed amounts to idolatry. Covetousness is the root cause of all sin. William Barclay wrote, “It is, therefore, a sin with a very wide range. If it is the desire for money, it leads to theft. If it is the desire for prestige, it leads to evil ambition. If it is the desire for power, it leads to sadistic tyranny. If it is the desire for a person, it leads to sexual sin” (The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster, 1975], p. 152).
You can tell a lot about people in our society by the way they dress. From baseball players to bus drivers, from postal carriers to policemen, people wear the uniform of their profession. Who we are determines what we wear, and failing to “dress the part” can sometimes have embarrassing consequences.
To put on the new lifestyle is to put on Christ. That is the obligation of every believer: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Rom. 13:14). The goal of the Christian life is Christlikeness.
Moule’s comments are helpful: It requires “a continual ‘mortification’ of what is, in fact, already dead, a continual actualization of an already existing new creation.” This enduring process explains the use of the imperative. The believer “has been made Christ’s own” and “set on course,” but all must run the race tirelessly for themselves.20 Theological indicatives are the basis of the ethical imperatives: “You are, now be!”
“Clothe yourselves” (endysasthe) should be compared with “put to death” (nekrōsate, v. 5) and “rid yourselves” (apothesthe, v. 8). Those terms express the negative, this verse the positive aspects of the Christian’s reformation of character. The tense of endysasthe, an aorist imperative, speaks of an action to be undertaken with a sense of urgency.
Paul’s appeal is based on this threefold fact: Christians are chosen of God, set apart by and for God, and loved by God. The three terms—chosen, holy and dearly loved—signify essentially the same great fact, but under different aspects. Used in the OT of Israel, they emphasize the favored position now enjoyed by Christians as the heirs of Israel’s privileges.
What a thought! Paul says similarly in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” And again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” The more we put off the old nature, the greater freedom we have for the renewal of our new self according to the image of God.
in v. 14 as the crowning virtue. “Compassion” (splanchna oiktirmou) betokens pity and tenderness expressed toward the suffering and miserable. The word for “kindness” (chrēstotēs) combines the ideas of goodness, kindliness, and graciousness. Ellicott defines it as “sweetness of disposition” (p. 181). In Romans 11:22 it is contrasted with “severity,” and in Galatians 5:22 it is listed as a fruit of the Spirit. “Humility” and “gentleness,” which are related terms, were not considered virtues by the pagan world. The NT, however, deepened and enriched their meanings and made them two of the noblest of Christian graces. Humility (tapeinophrosynē), which originally meant servility, came to denote a humble disposition—“the thinking lowly of ourselves because we are so” (Ellicott, p. 182). “Gentleness” (prautēs) the opposite of arrogance and self-assertiveness, is the special mark of the man who has a delicate consideration for the rights and feelings of others. C.F.D. Moule aptly defines it as “willingness to make concessions” (p. 123). It is mentioned in the NT as a characteristic of Christ (Matt 11:29), a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:23), a distinctive trait of those who belong to Christ (Matt 5:5), and so on. “Patience” (makrothymia; lit., “longsuffering”) denotes the self-restraint that enables one to bear injury and insult without resorting to hasty retaliation. It is an attribute of God (Rom 2:4) and a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).
Two Greek participles (anechomenoi, “bear with” and charizomenoi, “forgive”) expand the thought of patience. Paul uses them to show that Christians who are truly patient will manifest this attitude by (1) a willingness to bear with those whose faults or unpleasant traits are an irritant to them and (2) a willingness to forgive those they have grievances against. “Bear with” suggests the thought of putting up with things we dislike in others. “Forgive,” a word used in 2:13 of God’s action toward us, has the sense of forgiving freely.
2. Put on … kindness (Col. 3:12). We have been saved because of God’s kindness toward us through Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:7; Titus 3:4). We, in turn, ought to show kindness toward others. “Be ye kind one to another” (Eph. 4:32) is God’s command.
One of the most beautiful pictures of kindness in the Bible is King David’s treatment of the crippled prince, Mephibosheth (see 2 Samuel 9). David’s desire was to show “the kindness of God” to King Saul’s family because of his own love for Saul’s son, Jonathan. The young man chosen was Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, a poor cripple. If David had acted according to justice, he would have condemned Mephibosheth, for the man belonged to a condemned family. But David acted on the basis of love and grace
8. Put on … love (Col. 3:14). This is the most important of the Christian virtues, and it acts like a “girdle” that ties all the other virtues together. All of the spiritual qualities Paul has named are aspects of true Christian love, as a reading of 1 Corinthians 13 will reveal. Love is the first of the fruit of the Spirit and the other virtues follow—joy (Col. 3:16), peace (Col. 3:15), long-suffering, gentleness, kindness, and meekness (Col. 3:12).
The word translated “rule” is an athletic term. It means “to preside at the games and distribute the prizes.” Paul used a variation of this word in his Letter to the Colossians: “Let no one declare you unworthy of a prize” (literal translation, Col. 2:18). In the Greek games, there were judges (we would call them umpires) who rejected the contestants who were not qualified, and who disqualified those who broke the rules.
When David covered up his sins, he lost his peace and his praise (Pss. 32; 51). When he confessed his sins, then his song returned.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” The first article of clothing is “compassion.” The old King James Version renders this more literally, “bowels of mercies” because the word literally refers to the stomach or entrails, where so much of our emotion is felt. Peter O’Brien says that this term forcefully expressed personality at the deepest level, especially in the matter of living. A good translation might be, “tenderness of heart” or “tender mercies.”
The second item of clothing is simply “kindness.” Kindness does not happen naturally in human relationships. George Bernard Shaw once wrote a letter to Churchill: “Enclosed are two tickets to the opening night of my first play … bring a friend (if you have one).” Churchill replied: “Dear Mr. Shaw, unfortunately I’ll be unable to attend the opening night of your play due to a prior engagement. Please send me tickets for a second night (if you have one).” We should probably understand that there is considerable playfulness by these words. But the human personality naturally descends to harshness in word and deed.
Wearing saintly attire promotes the capacity to “bear with each other.” That is no small accomplishment! In the days before smoking sections on planes, a passenger started to light a cigar when the stewardess informed him that cigar smoking was not allowed unless it was alright with the other person in the immediate area. “Do you object to his smoking?” she asked the woman seated next to the man. “I absolutely detest cigars,” was the stony reply. The stewardess then spoke to a young man near the front of the cabin and came back to report that he would not mind sitting next to a cigar smoker. As the cigar-smoking man walked forward to his new seat, his former seatmate, the boisterous woman, turned to the stewardess and confided, “I’ve been married to that man for thirty years, and I still can’t stand his awful cigars.” This is a humorous example of how closely related people —family—often relate (or fail to relate) to each other. Further, it is a parable of what all too frequently happens in God’s family.
He loved them. He forgave them. And He prayed God to forgive them. “Father, forgive these people, for they don’t know what they are doing.” His enemies hated. But Jesus forgave. I couldn’t get away from that.… It’s a profound, mysterious truth—Jesus’ concept of love overpowering hate. I may not see its victory in my lifetime. But I know it’s true. I know it’s true, because it happened to me. On that bed, full of bruises and stitches—God made it true in me. He washed my hatred away and replaced it with a love for the white man in rural Mississippi.
And that it is. The imperative thrust is continuous: keep putting on love over and over and over again.
May we never neglect “love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Specifically, these commands touch on the fullness of Christ’s peace (v. 15), the fullness of his word (v. 16), and the fullness of his name (v. 17).
“The peace of Christ” is different from any other kind. In the brief hours before he died, Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). He gives us a special peace which he calls “my peace.” He gives us his own personal peace. It is not just the peace we experience when there is no conflict. It is a sense of wholeness and well-being, completeness and totality. But it is even more—it is the presence of Christ. His peace and his presence are marvelously associated in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures (see, for example, Numbers 6:24–26).
The sense here is, “Let the peace of Christ be umpire in your heart amidst the conflicts of life. Let it decide what is right. Let it be your counselor.”
The fullness of Christ comes from an overflow of his peace and his word and his name. It is also seen in our thankfulness. Verse 15 ends with, “And be thankful.” Verse 16 concludes with, “gratitude in your hearts to God.” Verse 17 says, “giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The most direct of these exhortations to thankfulness is in verse 15, “And be thankful.” Literally it says, “become thankful,” because we are to keep on striving for a deeper gratitude than we have yet attained. The word for “thankful” is the word eucharesteo, from which we get the English word Eucharist, another word for the Lord’s Supper—a time for giving thanks.
“The word of Christ” (ho logos tou Christou) probably refers to the gospel, that is, the message about Christ. It may, however, refer to Christ’s teaching—a message from Christ—recorded or remembered by his apostles. To “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” is to let it “have ample room” (BV) or “remain as a rich treasure” (Wey.) in the heart. Thus we are to submit to the demands of the Christian message and let it become so deeply implanted within us as to control all our thinking.
God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. God has assured them in Christ that their membership in his people, their being ‘set apart’ for his service (that is the underlying meaning of ‘holy’), depends not on their goodness but on his grace, not on their lovableness but on his love. These titles are not only used of Israel in the Old Testament, but also of Jesus Christ in the New: he is the ‘chosen’ one (1 Pet. 2:4, 6), the holy one (John 6:69; Acts 4:27, 30, etc.), the one supremely beloved by the Father (Matt. 3:17; Eph. 1:6, etc.). It is in him that Christians find their identity as God’s people. Verses 12–17 contain echoes of the earlier Christological sections of the letter, applying here to those who belong to Christ what is there said of him personally.
They are to ‘put on’ a deep sensitivity to the needs and sorrows of others (compassion in NIV and RSV compresses into one word two words which together refer to an understanding sympathy with others that affects one’s innermost being). This heartfelt compassion is to be coupled with kindness—
Paul here makes two points, echoing (perhaps intentionally) the parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:23–35. First, it is utterly inappropriate for one who knows the joy and release of being forgiven to refuse to share that blessing with another. Second, it is highly presumptuous to refuse to forgive one whom Christ himself has already forgiven.
Paul now closes the circle which began at 2:6. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Acting ‘in someone’s name’ means both representing him and being empowered to do so. Paul’s exhortation is therefore a salutary check on behaviour (‘can I really do this, if I am representing the Lord Jesus?’) and an encouragement to persevere with difficult tasks undertaken for him, knowing that necessary strength will be provided.
‘whatever we do’: since ‘all things’ have been created through Christ and also, in principle, redeemed through him, Christians can do all that they do, whether it be manual work, political activity, raising a family, writing a book, playing tennis, or whatever, in his name and with gratitude. Jesus, the true divine and human image of God, the one whose cross secured our reconciliation, is the reason for our gratitude, and the one ‘through whom’ we can now offer that gratitude to the Father himself.
The peace is to “rule” in the congregation. The term for “rule” is often translated “umpire.” That was its original use and may well be the meaning here. However, the term became associated more broadly with any judgment to be made.
The verb is found in 1:3, 12; 3:17. The noun occurs in 2:7 and 4:2. This is the only occurrence of the adjective εὐχάριστος in the entire New Testament.
Paul ended this exhortation with the command to become thankful. Colossians contains many references to thankfulness. This particular word, however, does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The Colossians were to become thankful persons. The combination of thankfulness and peace is a logical one. Generally a lack of peace results from self-seeking or dissatisfaction with things as they are. Thankfulness points one to the realization that all things are provided in Christ. There is no room for ill will or bitterness if thankfulness prevails. The epistle provides ample reasons for thankfulness.
forcefully eliminate the Jew/Gentile division, which was primarily a religious distinction. The presence of these contrasting pairs is best explained by the fact that outside Jewish opponents have threatened the congregation’s assurance that they fully belong to God’s people.
The second two pairs, “barbarian, Scythian, slave or free,” eliminate cultural distinctions. The prejudice against barbarians was based on culture, not on the grounds of “blood” or “race.” “Barbaroi” originally referred to those who spoke what sounded like gibberish to the Greeks.
The gospel breaks down man-made walls. It does not classify people by race, tribe, nationality, or class; nor does it calculate their worth from the various permutations of these divisions. Jew, Greek, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free are subsumed under one word, “brothers” (1:2). Paul expounds on this idea powerfully in Ephesians 2:11–22. While cultural differences may continue to exist—“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22)—each group deserves equal respect (10:32). These distinctions, which arbitrarily set humans over against one another, evaporate when a person becomes joined to Christ’s body. The gospel shatters an “us” versus “them” mentality. It also dashes the presumption of any special entitlement, which explains why so many who are already privileged react to it with such hostility.
The graces listed are similar to “the fruit of the Spirit” (see Gal. 5:22–23). All these qualities characterized Jesus’ life, and they are vital for a harmonious life with our fellow human beings. “Compassion” (see Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 1:3) is all the more crucial when societies become consumed by the race to outdo others and become callous to the needs of the down-and-out.
“Kindness” (goodness, generosity; see Rom. 2:4; 11:2) is gracious sensitivity toward others that is triggered by genuine care for their feelings and desires.
“Humility” (see Phil. 2:8) checks the incessant quest to attain honor and to rise in the pecking order. In the ancient world, honor—what we would equate today with prestige and dignity—was considered to be a scarce commodity. People constantly vied with others to attain elusive glory and engaged in a constant game of one-upmanship. This pursuit of honor coaxed outward expressions of egotism and arrogance. Self-boasting, for example, was considered an act of honor; but it creates discord and, in the church, should be regarded as an act of dishonor. Humility allows us to serve others without caring whether it is noticed or not.
“Gentleness” (courtesy, meekness;see 2 Cor. 10:1) betokens the willingness to make allowances for others. Lindemann defines it as the power which, in a situation of conflict, enables us to criticize another’s conduct so that they experience it as help and not as condemnation.
“Patience” (Rom. 2:4; 9:22) refrains from exacting revenge or reprisals against enemies and is willing to endure wrongs.
These virtues lead to the action of forbearing and forgiving (3:13; see Eph. 4:2–3). By bearing with and bearing up the brother or sister who sins, we demonstrate this love and our obedience to the law of Christ (cf. Gal. 6:2). Paul’s asking believers to forgive one another reveals that he is no utopian dreamer. He recognizes that Christians are not perfect and will sin. They must be conformed to Christ in every aspect of their lives but particularly in the willingness to forgive others.
THE KEY WORD in each sentence of the last paragraph of this section has to do with Christ: “the peace of Christ” (3:15), “the word of Christ” (3:16), “the name of the Lord Jesus” (3:17).
The verb “rule” in the phrase “let the peace of Christ rule” recalls the athletic metaphor of the umpire used in 2:18. The opponents have decided against the Christians (katabrabeuo, “disqualify”); Christ’s peace, which broke down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph. 2:14), decides for them (brabeuo). It has two consequences. (1) Christ’s peace should characterize relationships in his body (see Rom. 14:19; 1 Cor. 7:15; 2 Thess. 3:16; see John 14:27).
Wall helpfully argues that if we define morality by certain rules of conduct, then we view the person who obeys these rules as moral. The elder brother in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son disproves this assumption. He stayed home with his father, faithfully worked the fields, and never disobeyed a single one of his father’s commands (Luke 15:29). But he was no less prodigal than his younger brother, who had skipped out to a far country and wasted his property with a dissolute lifestyle. The elder brother stayed home, but his heart wanted to be in the far country, making merry with his friends while begrudging his father’s joy at recovering his lost son. Wall correctly argues that “Paul’s ethical teaching flows from a moral vision rather than moral rules. He is less interested in ‘doing’ codes of rules, although he provides them, than he is in ‘being Christian.’ ” He goes on to say, “The moral issue, then, is not whether one complies with some prescribed code but whether one is the sort of person who is able to be moral. If one has moral character, then one will act morally.”
A Tennessee farmer once said, “What comes up in the bucket is usually what’s down in the well.” The sexual immorality, malevolent bursts of anger, and loathsome speech in Paul’s list are all tokens of an inner wickedness. No somber list of prohibitions will ever change that wickedness; they may only suppress the ways we overtly express it. The inner wickedness remains and will probably express itself covertly or publicly in ways that may be more socially acceptable but are no less evil. The only solution is to change what is down in the well of our very souls. Only giving ourselves completely to Christ and allowing his transforming power to fumigate and permeate our thoughts and actions will solve the sin problem in our lives. Because we have been raised with Christ and renewed by Christ, living a life pleasing to him is the fruit of our new nature.
A life hidden. Bengel’s comments on the affirmation in 3:3 are frequently cited: “The world knows neither Christ nor Christians, but neither do Christians really know themselves.” For some Christians their life in Christ is too much hidden from the world. They are at best closet Christians. It is no surprise that the world does not know they belong to Christ because they do not act or think like it. Their “lives sometimes do not measure up even to the lives of those who make no religious claims: they speak of the new life but they do not seem to have gotten as far as the best of the old.”64 But Paul refers here to the paradox that Christians claim to be now what they have yet to become. This new reality may be hidden from others.
Occasionally, a story surfaces in the media describing someone who died leaving millions of dollars. No one had a clue that the person was so rich because he or she led such a simple life, shunning all luxuries. The same may be said about the glorious future of Christians. Outsiders may mistake them for weak, insignificant, dishonored fools for Christ, little knowing that they are tied to the ruler of the universe and destined to reign with him in glory.
Paul may have in mind here the practice of baptism in the early church. Those being baptized would lay aside their old clothes before their baptism and be given a new white robe afterwards. Paul calls upon believers to put aside the remnants of their old life.
Paul warns against a final sin by exhorting believers not to lie to one another. It would be a helpful (and time-consuming) study to begin in Genesis and find every lie in the Bible. Satan lied in deceiving Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:4–5). Cain lied to God after murdering Abel (Gen. 4:9). Abraham lied, claiming Sarah was his sister instead of his wife (Gen. 12:11–19; 20:2). Sarah lied to the three angelic visitors (Gen. 18:15), and to the king of Gerar (Gen. 20:5). Isaac lied by denying that Rebecca was his wife (Gen. 26:7–10). Rebecca and Issac lied in their conspiracy to defraud Esau of his birthright (Gen. 27:6–24). That list does not even get us out of Genesis.
Lying characterizes Satan (John 8:44), not God (Titus 1:2). When believers lie, they are imitating Satan, not their heavenly Father. They, of all people, should tell the truth.
How can we be victorious in our struggle with sin? First, by starving it. Do not feed anger or resentment. Do not cater to sexual lust or covetousness. Second, by crowding it out with positive graces: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things” (Phil. 4:8). “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you” (Col. 3:16).
They invaded Asia, after they had driven the Cimmerians out of Europe … and made themselves masters of all Asia. From there they marched against Egypt; and when they were in that part of Syria which is called Palestine, Psammethichus, king of Egypt, met them and with gifts and prayer persuaded them to come no farther.… They ruled Asia for twenty-eight years; and all the land was wasted by reason of their violence and their arrogance.… The greater number of them were entertained and made drunk and were slain by Cyaxares and the Medes. They drank the blood of the first enemy killed in battle, and made napkins of the scalps, and drinking bowls of the skulls of the slain. They had the most filthy habits and never washed with water. (4.64, 65, 75)
The Jewish historian Josephus added, “The Scythians delight in murdering people and are little better than wild beasts” (Against Apion 2.269). The early church Father Tertullian could think of no greater insult to the heretic Marcion than to describe him as “more filthy than any Scythian” (Against Marcion 1.1).
A righteous identity must issue in righteous behavior. Such behavior is the outward manifestation of the inward transformation, and it is the only sure proof that such transformation has taken place.
Because of God’s election, believers are holy and beloved. Hagios (holy) means “set apart,” or “separate.” God chose believers out of the mainstream of mankind and drew them to Himself. They are different from the world. When believers fail to act differently from the world, they violate the very purpose of their calling.
That believers are beloved of God means they are objects of His special love. Election is not a cold, fatalistic doctrine. On the contrary, it is based in God’s incomprehensible love for His elect: “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Eph. 1:4–5).
Kindness is closely related to compassion. The Greek term refers to the grace that pervades the whole person, mellowing all that might be harsh. Jesus used the word when he said, “My yoke is easy” (Matt. 11:30), not harsh or hard to bear. The kind person is as concerned about his neighbor’s good as he is about his own. God is kind, even to ungrateful and evil people (Luke 6:35). In fact, it was His kindness that led us to repentance (Rom. 2:4; cf. Titus 3:4). Jesus’ kindness was expressed in His invitation to “take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light” (Matt. 11:29–30). Kindness was epitomized by the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), whose example we should follow.
Prautēs (gentleness) is closely related to humility. It is not weakness or spinelessness, but rather the willingness to suffer injury instead of inflicting it. The gentle person knows he is a sinner among sinners and is willing to suffer the burdens others’ sin may impose on him. This gentleness can only be produced by the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22–23) and should mark the Christian’s behavior at all times, even when restoring a sinning brother (Gal. 6:1), or defending the faith against attacks from unbelievers (2 Tim. 2:25; 1 Pet. 3:15).
Paul then mentions two specific results of the Word of Christ dwelling in the believer, one positive and the other negative: with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. Teaching is the impartation of positive truth. Admonishing is the negative side of teaching. It means to warn people of the consequences of their behavior. Both are the result of a life overflowing with the Word of Christ.