Colossians Chapter 3 Verses 5-9

Col. 4:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: 7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. 8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. 9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;” 

In this passage, Paul has prefaced before the fact that we are dead with Christ and that we are risen with Christ and we shall appear with Christ in glory.  Based on this, he exhorted us to seek and set our affections on things above.  Now Paul gives us instructions on how to seek and set our affections on things above.  He instructs us to mortify (put to death) some things and to put off some other things.  Moreover, in this passage and in the next verse he uses the terms “old man” and “new man.”  Plainly this has reference to the two-fold nature of a child of God.  We have the “old man” nature of the flesh and we have the “new man” nature of the spiritual inner man.   

“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:” Paul speaks of our “members which are upon the earth.”  He is not speaking of our body parts such as hands, arms, legs, etc.  He is, however, speaking of our carnal sinful actions which are a part of the flesh and its desires.  He tells us several things to mortify: 

1.  fornication – this is ungodly sexual relations contrary to God’s design which was set forth for us in the 2nd chapter of Genesis.  Included under this category would be premarital sexual relations, homosexual relations, adultery against a spouse and spiritual adultery with false gods and false religious systems. 

2.  uncleanness – included in this category would be unclean thoughts, filthy language, dirty jokes, filthy communication, and unclean spirits. 

3.  inordinate affection and evil concupiscence – these speak to the lust or desires of the flesh.  Thus it would refer to inordinate and evil desires of the flesh.   

4.  covetousness which is idolatry – Idolatry is the worship of something other than the true God of heaven.  Covetousness speaks of greed.  Often times idolatry takes the form of greed for money, greed for control, greed for things, greed for power, etc.   

“For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:” Paul plainly states there is a coming manifestation of God’s wrath that will be poured out upon the children of disobedience for the things listed above.   

“In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.”  The nature of a child of God before he is born of the Spirit, is the same as the nature of those who are never born of the Spirit.  Before we are born of the Spirit and before we came to the knowledge of the truth, we went about living out our evil fleshly nature.  Now, however, we are taught to mortify those actions in our bodies.   

“But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.”  In a similar fashion in which we would put off dirty garments and put on clean garments, we are to put off the actions listed above in our Christian walk: 

          1.  anger – violent passion of the mind.

          2.  wrath – fierce anger often manifest against others.

          3.  malice – wicked action taken against others.

          4.  blasphemy – evil speaking or railing especially against God.

          5.  filthy communication out of your mouth – vile conversation. 

“Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;”  To lie is to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood.  This is probably one of the hardest things that we are to eliminate from our lives.  Even though it may be difficult, yet we should make every effort to eliminate lying to others. 

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