Put Off the Old Self (Colossians 3:5-11)

Paul appeals to the Colossians to make a decisive break with the sinful tendencies that they have carried into their Christian lives.

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; 10 And have put on the new [man], which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free: but Christ [is] all, and in all. (KJV; for other versions, see https://www.blueletterbible.org/)

5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. “Mortify” means put to death. Because Christians have died with Christ (3:3), they should get completely rid of sinful practices. “Fornication” is any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage. The next three vices which Paul lists also have to do with sexual purity, stressing the importance of bringing this part of life under control. Paul also equates covetousness with idolatry in 1 Timothy 6:16, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Similarly Jesus warned, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, … For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. “Cometh” is translated “is coming” in both the NIV and the ESV, and so “the wrath of God” may refer to the future day of the Lord described in Zephaniah 1:14-15. G. Preston MacLeod reflects on our difficulty in understanding God’s displaying such wrath, “How can a God of love express ‘wrath’? On the other hand, how can a God of righteousness condone sin?” He goes on to encourage us to think of God’s attitude to the sinner in terms of the relation of the loving father to the prodigal son. (Francis W. Beare and G. Preston MacLeod, “The Epistle to the Colossians” in The Interpreter’s Bible, Nashville, Tennessee: Abington Press, 1955, volume XI, page 214)

7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. Paul reminds the Colossians that they had been guilty of these vices before they accepted Christ into their lives. “Walked” points to outward conduct and “lived” to the attitudes and feelings from which that conduct flows.

8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Paul lists five more vices, all of which have a bearing on relationships among believers. Scholars disagree on the distinction between “anger” and “wrath,” some taking “anger” as a sudden flame of fury and “wrath” as the settled attitude, and others taking the opposite view. “Blasphemy” is translated “slander” in both the NIV and the ESV. The Greek for “filthy communication” may mean either obscene or abusive speech, and scholars are divided on its meaning here.

9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new [man], which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. The sin of lying’s being singled out for special mention emphasizes its condemnation. As a person takes off dirty clothes and puts on clean ones, Christians should abandon their evil ways (illustrated in verses 5 and 8-9) and practice the Christian virtues (illustrated in verses 12-14). Both the NIV and the ESV have “is being renewed” instead of “is renewed”, indicating that the transformation of Christians is an ongoing process. “Knowledge,” which is either the goal or the sphere of the renewing, denotes the knowledge of God’s will referred to in Colossians 1:9.

11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free. “Neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision” asserts that there are no status distinctions among the God’s new covenant people; compare Galatians 3:28. “Barbarians” were ones who didn’t speak Greek and were considered uncivilized. “Scythians,” who were located along the northern coast of the Black Sea, were known for their brutality. Jesus, who “is all, and in all,” binds Christians together, regardless of their differences.

Chapter 4. What Do People Believe Happens to Us When We Die?

In the evening of October 17 our Life group held our third meeting since we resumed meeting after the break caused by COVID 19. As in the previous two meetings, seven members of the group were present, Leonora led the worship part of the meeting and provided a lunch at the end of the meeting, and I guided the study. We continued studying Brian C. Stiller’s What Happens When I Die? A Promise of the Afterlife (Colorado Springs, CO: Pinon, 2001), considering Chapter Four, What Do People Believe Happens to Us When We Die?.

We began our study by reading Stiller’s opening statement, “Three primary influences have shaped the contemporary views of life after death in the Western world: theism, materialism, and reincarnation” (page 39), and what he said about it. Immediately after making it, he said that materialism, which asserts that life is only that which is material and thus is over at death, has nothing to offer us in a study of the afterlife. Next he defined theism as the belief that “life is under the watchful eye of the Creator God who, in his wisdom, created all of life and in whose caring hands all of life continues and holds together” (page 39) and noted that the concept began with Abraham. He went on to consider the views on the afterlife of the early Greeks and Roman although they weren’t theists (pages 39-40) and then the views on it of three religious groups who are theists–Jews (pages 40-44), Moslems (pages 44-46), and Christians (pages 50-52). Between his treatment of the views of Moslems and Christians, he considered reincarnation, “the … belief that the soul or spirit, after biological death, begins a new life in a new body that may be human, animal or spiritual depending on the moral quality of the previous life’s actions” (Google Search).

We spent most of our time considering the views of the religious groups referred to by Stiller. For each I asked what views(s) of the afterlife the group had or has and then had read some passages from What Happens When I Die? in order to clarify and/or supplement our answer(s) to the question. What follows are summaries of what we said and read about the groups’ views of the afterlife.

Early Greeks didn’t agree on the issue of life after death, some thinking that the soul lived forever and others that death was the end. Homer, the author of Iliad and Odyssey, taught that at death a person’s psyche left the body and as a phantom image entered the palace of Hades, the king of the dead. Early views included no rewards or punishments for good or bad living, but later these ideas began to have their influence. Plato, a Greek philosopher, taught that humans combine the mortal and immortal and that death occurred when the soul was released from the prison of the body. The Romans were influenced by the Greeks and “held that at death souls were taken to the river Styx, where they paid a ferryman to take them across. After crossing they entered Tartarus and were examined by three judges. They would be sent to one of [three] fields ruled by Hades, lord of the dead” (page 40)–Tartarus (for the worst), the Elysian Fields (for the best), and Asphodel Meadows (for the majority).

Judaism doesn’t have much to say about life after death. Moses’ five books gave the early Hebrews tribes instructions on how to live but nothing about what life might be like after death. However Job 7:9 and Daniel 12:1-3 give glimpses into the future and in Jesus’ time the Pharisees argued against the Sadducees for the resurrection of the body and life beyond the grave. “In the traditional Hebrew view, God takes the soul at death for a period of time … for purification. The soul is then returned by God to the heavenly ‘treasury’ where it awaits the coming of the Messiah to earth. Some time later the graves open and bodies, made perfect, rise. Their souls are returned to the body and the resurrection is complete” (page 42).

According to the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, after death each person will be given a book recording his works to read. As a result those who have been true followers of Allah in life will be rewarded with an eternal life of health and bliss and sinners will be punished with a life of suffering. For both life is progressive, the righteous increasingly experiencing joy and sinners being able to move out of punishment into a state in which they can react with joy to their surroundings.

Reincarnation, defined above, is a doctrine held by both Hindus and Buddhists. Based on the notion of karma, meaning I get what I deserve, it holds “that life is a process that goes on and on until we have been taught all the lessons we need to learn so that we can reach nirvana, the state in which, finally released from the cycle of birth, we are sufficiently enlightened to be free to be at one with the Universal Mind” (page 46).

The Christian Gospel tells how God stepped into human history to accept the penalty for mankind’s accumulated failure so that human life could have freedom to rise above death and have eternal life. “Death, a thief and a robber, is no longer our final destiny. Broken is the pattern accepted by some, cried out against by others and mourned over by all. Amid all sorts of pagan [and other] attempts to soften the blow of death and dying, hoping beyond hope that there is something–who knows what?–beyond, there comes from this one who said himself that he was God, not just a promise but hard physical evidence that for us too will come an actual physical resurrection. In that future moment our bodies will reconstruct and, uniting with our soul/spirit, live on and on an don and on” (pages 51-52).

Seek What Is Above (3:1-4)

These verses serve as a transition between Paul’s polemic against the false teachers and his appeal to the Colossians to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord. The passage being short, I’ve included lengthy quotations from three still popular older commentaries: Albert Barnes, Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1975 reprint (originally published in the 1830’s), John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians in Calvin’s Commentaries, Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1965 (originally published in French 1548), and Matthew Henry, A Commentary on the Whole Bible, Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, reprint (Colossians completed after Henry’s death in 1714). All three are available at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://www.ccel.org/.

1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (KJV; for other versions, see https://www.blueletterbible.org/)

1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. “If ye then be risen with Christ” implies that the Colossians have been so risen (a past occurrence, as in 2:12). To be seated at the right hand of a prince was esteemed the place of highest honour, and thus to describe Christ as seated “on the right hand of God” is to say that he has been exalted to the highest place in the universe. Since he is there and we have been risen with him, we should seek heavenly things.

2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Being risen with Christ (verse 1), our thoughts should be occupied with spiritual things rather than with earthly things. Some limit “things on the earth” to Jewish ceremonial regulations. For example, John Calvin comments: “He does not mean, as a little after, vicious appetites, which reign in earthly men, or even riches, or fields, or houses, or any other things of the present life, which we must use as though we did not use them. But he is still pursuing his argument on ceremonies, which he likens to entanglements that force us to grovel on the ground. ‘Christ,’ he says, ‘calls us upwards to Himself, while these drag us down.’ For this is the conclusion and exposition of what he had just considered on the abolition of ceremonies through the death of Christ. To paraphrase: ‘The ceremonies are dead to you through the death of Christ, and you to them, that, being raised up to heaven with Christ, you may think only of the things that are above. Therefore leave off earthly things.’ I shall not contend against others who think differently; but certainly the apostle appears to me to proceed step by step, so that, in the first instance, he opposes traditions about trivial matters to meditation on the heavenly life, and afterwards, as we shall see, goes a step farther.” (page 346)

3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Albert Barnes comments: “The idea of the apostle is, that as Christ became literally dead in the tomb, so we, in virtue of our connection with him, have become dead to sin, to worldly influences, pleasures, and ambition. Or, in other words, we are to be to them as if we were dead, and they had no more influence over us than the things of earth had over him in the grave…. The true condition of the Christian is, that he is “dead” to this world, but that he has immortal life in prospect, and that is secure, being in the holy keeping of his Redeemer, now in the presence of God. From this it follows that he should regard himself as living for heaven.” (pages 1073-74)

4 When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Matthew Henry comments: “ If we live a life of Christian purity and devotion now, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall also appear with him in glory, v. 4. Observe, (1.) Christ is a believer’s life. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Gal. ii. 20. He is the principle and end of the Christian’s life. He lives in us by his Spirit, and we live to him in all we do. To me to live is Christ, Phil. i. 21. (2.) Christ will appear again. He is now hid; and the heavens must contain him; but he will appear in all the pomp of the upper world, with his holy angels, and in his own glory and his Father’s glory, Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26. (3.) We shall then appear with him in glory. It will be his glory to have his redeemed with him; he will come to be glorified in his saints (2 Thess. i. 10); and it will be their glory to come with him, and be with him for ever. At the second coming of Christ there will be a general meeting of all the saints; and those whose life is now hid with Christ shall then appear with Christ in that glory which he himself enjoys, John xvii. 24. Do we look for such a happiness, and should we not set our affections upon that world, and live above this? What is there here to make us fond of it? What is there not there to draw our hearts to it? Our head is there, our home is there, our treasure is there, and we hope to be there for ever.” (pages 761-62)

Chapters 2-3. Can Near-Death Experiences Tell Us What Life after Death Is Like?

In the evening of October 3 we held our second Life group meeting since we resumed meeting after the break caused by COVID 19. We continued studying Brian C. Stiller’s What Happens When I Die? A Promise of the Afterlife (Colorado Springs, CO: Pinon, 2001), considering Chapter Three, Why Do We Fear Death? and Chapter Two, Can Near-Death Experiences Tell Us What Life after Death Is Like?. The reason that I had us consider Chapter Three before Chapter Two is that we’d actually discussed its topic (why we fear death) in studying Chapter One (why we deny death) in our previous meeting.

We opened our consideration of Chapter Three by reading the three reasons for fearing death given by Stiller from Robert Neale’s The Art of Dying: “fear about what happens after the moment that death occurs, fear concerning the actual process of dying, and fear over the loss of this, the only life we’ve known” (page 32). We then read and discussed what Stiller says about the first of those reasons, fear about what happens after the moment that death occurs. After affirming, “For us all, fear of the unknown is as natural as any emotion,” he elaborates on this fear of the unknown in paragraphs beginning “We wonder and perhaps fear what will become of our bodies,” “Many also fear judgment, a basic tenet of the Christian faith,” and “There is also the fear of not knowing what form future life will take” (page 33).

Omitting the rest of Chapter Three, we read and discussed Chapter Two, Can Near-Death Experiences Tell Us What Life after Death Is Like?. After giving a lengthy example of a near-death experience, Stiller defines a “near-death experience” as the experience of being clinically dead and then returning to life” (page 17). In the rest of the chapter he describes what Michael Sabom, a cardiologist, calls the autoscopic (the subject’s perceiving his/her body from outside the body) and transcendental (the subject’s moving through a tunnel, emerging from it, meeting others, and returning) phases of near-death experiences; gives two examples of near-death experiences in which the subjects describe events and details which they had no way of knowing; lists elements that may occur in a near-death experience (for a similar but shorter list see Common elements in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience); notes the positive changes in a person that often occur after he or she has a near-death experience; and considers what causes near-death experiences and whether they tell us what life after death is like.

In his discussion of whether near-death experiences tell us what life after death is like, Stiller gives these drawbacks to them: “they…do not take us far enough into the afterlife to provide any substantive information” (page 27), “any identifiable religious figures that appear during an NDE seem to fall in line with the person’s experience” (page 28), and “Few tell of meeting with unhappiness or a hellish kind of world. However, cardiologist Maurice Rawlings observes that in his research he found as many negative as positive near-death experiences. He suggests that the reason that so few are reported is that people are reluctant to talk about them, or they find them so fearful they repress the memory” (page 28). He concludes, “As impressive as they are, they give us no clue as to what life after death will be like. To the degree that they collectively affirm that death is not the end, we must turn elsewhere to learn what life beyond death is like.” (page 29)