Letters from Paul

A taste of the study room coming with Paul — pull open whatever you'd like to sit with.

The reading — Colossians 3:1-11

¹If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. ²Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. ³For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. ⁵Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry; ⁶for which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. ⁷You also once walked in those, when you lived in them; ⁸but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. ⁹Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, ¹⁰and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator, ¹¹where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.

World English Bible

The words behind the words

When I say "seek the things that are above" (Colossians 3:1), the word for "seek" is not a glance but a pursuit — you set your whole aim there, the way a man's life leans toward what he loves. And "put to death" (Colossians 3:5) is no gentle taming; it is execution. I do not tell you to manage these sins or keep them on a leash — greed, impurity, that rotten anger — but to kill them, because in Christ you have already died, and what is dead has no more claim on you.

Where else you say this

I take up this same dying and rising when I wrote to Rome — reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11), and put off the works of darkness (Romans 13:12-14). I said it again to Ephesus: put off the old man, be renewed, put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24). And I said the whole matter plainly of myself — I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20).

The situation

At Colossae men were pressing a false teaching on the brothers — a religion of rules and visions and severe treatment of the body, as though climbing to God by observances and abstaining. I answer that such things have the appearance of wisdom but no power against the flesh (Colossians 2:23). Real holiness does not come by clutching at earthly rungs; it comes from being hidden with Christ, who is your life (Colossians 3:3). I write this bound and under guard in Rome, yet the argument holds — your life is out of reach, kept above where Christ is seated.

The hard question

If I am already dead to sin and raised with Christ, why must I still be commanded to put sin to death — is the old man dead or not? Both, and hold them together, do not release the tension. In Christ the verdict is finished: you died, the old self was crucified. Yet the killing works itself out in you day by day, because what God has made true he now calls you to become. Look again — I ground the command in the fact: "you have died" (Colossians 3:3), therefore "put to death" (Colossians 3:5). The indicative carries the imperative. You do not labor to become dead; you labor because you are.

This is a small window into what a study room with Paul will hold — word by word, letter by letter, and the maps and journeys behind them. Get notified when it opens →

← back to the word