Nielsen’s Nook

Nestle-Aland 27

5 Νεκρώσατε οὖν τὰ μέλη τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς , πορνείαν ἀκαθαρσίαν ^a πάθος ^b ἐπιθυμίαν ^c κακήν, καὶ τὴν πλεονεξίαν, ἥτις ἐστὶν εἰδωλολατρία, 6 δι ʼ ἃ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ [ ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας ^d]. 7 ἐν οἷς καὶ ὑμεῖς περιεπατήσατέ ποτε , ὅτε ἐζῆτε ἐν τούτοις · 8 νυνὶ δὲ ἀπόθεσθε ^e καὶ ὑμεῖς τὰ πάντα, ὀργήν, θυμόν, κακίαν, βλασφημίαν, ^f αἰσχρολογίαν ^g ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν · 9 μὴ ψεύδεσθε εἰς ἀλλήλους , ἀπεκδυσάμενοι ^h τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον σὺν ταῖς πράξεσιν ⁱ αὐτοῦ 10 καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον ^j εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν κατ ʼ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν,^k 11 ὅπου οὐκ ἔνι Ἕλλην καὶ Ἰουδαῖος , περιτομὴ καὶ ἀκροβυστία , βάρβαρος , Σκύθης , δοῦλος , ἐλεύθερος , ἀλλὰ [ τὰ ] πάντα καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν Χριστός.

My Translation

5 Therefore put to death the parts of you which are earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil lust and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 The wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disbelief because of these things. 7 In these things you also formerly walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now lay aside these things: wrath, anger, malice, slander, obscene speech out of your mouths. 9 Do not lie to one another, in light of the fact that you have stripped off the old man with its ways of acting 10 and putting on the new, which is being renewed in full knowledge according to the image of its creator, 11 where there is neither Greek and Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is everything and in everything.

Grammar & Vocabulary

a ἀκαθαρσίαν � acc/sg/fem� ( ἀκαθαρσία ) impurity, immorality esp. of sexual sins.

b πάθος acc/sg/neu ( πάθος ) passion, often related to immoral sexual passions

c ἐπιθυμίαν acc/sg/fem ( ἐπιθυμία ) desire for something forbidden, lust

d ἀπειθείας � gen/sg/fem ( ἀπείθεια ) disobedience, disbelief

e ἀπόθεσθε � aor/mid/impv/2p/pl ( ἀποτίθημι ) take off, lay aside.

f βλασφημίαν acc/sg/fem ( βλασφημία ) slander, defamation [context tells us the object of slander is not God and therefore it is best to not translate this as blasphemy].

g αἰσχρολογίαν � acc/sg/fem ( αἰσχρολογία ) obscene or abusive speech

h ἀπεκδυσάμενοι aor/mid/ptc/pl/nom/masc ( ἀπεκδύομαι ) to strip off [c.f., v 2:15 – to disarm]

i πράξεσιν dat/pl/fem ( πρᾶξις ) way of acting, practice

j ἀνακαινούμενον � pres/pass/ptc/sg/acc/masc ( ἀνακαινόω ) to renew [figuratively of the Spiritual rebirth, only used in Pauline Epistles ¹

k αὐτόν here in v 10 would seem to refer to the new-person ( τὸν νέον ) which is being renewed.

Commentary

Colossians is a demonstration of how relatively few words can contain boundless profundity. The epistle began with Christ as the supreme image of God (1:15), who walked on this earth as the perfect (eschatological, 1:19) likeness of God, reconciling the world (cosmic implications, 1:20) by the blood of his cross.Chapter 2 largely deals with the connection between Christ as the archetypal image and us, His body, the church, who have been reconciled to the Father by means of the Son, through the Spirit. This is a mysterious union that believers have with the incarnate-crucified-risen-and-exalted Christ.

If all this is true, then does it affect me and you? And if it affects me and you, then what is the scope of its effect?

On account of what Christ has done for us, in reconciling us to the Father, we are engaged in what elsewhere is called the mortification of the flesh, the iterative putting to death of those principles in us that are unlike God. Interestingly, the first list of “earthly parts” is concerned with how we think about our body and others bodies. They all seem to be related semantically in varying degrees to the heading of sexual immorality ( pornea). So the deprecation of the body, the thinking of ourselves as objects to exploit for our own pleasures, is what is meant by those parts of us that are “earthly”.

It is for these dispositions of the heart, that the wrath of God is coming. These dispositions are iconic of disbelief or disobedience. The disposition of our hearts has always been that with which God, our Maker, has been concerned. Today in Western society, we are encouraged and prodded to think of ourselves in terms of fitness and physique. However, we were not made for our own bent-up pleasures, but to find that true pleasure is in being like God as his image. When we, as God’s image, seek to worship our bodies or other people’s bodies, which is idolatry, we misrepresent God in our manifest unlikeness of him to the world. It is against such unlikeness that the holy wrath of God is coming.

This is why believers are encouraged to truly live – not in the darkness – but in the light of the true life, of Christ himself. It is because believers are part of the church that is as a community united to him that we now struggle against the idolatry in our own persons. This struggle is a sign of life. It is indicative of the fact that when Christ gave us new life in himself, the old self was thrown off and the new self was born. We now live in that newness of life that is alone in Christ. This is why there is no longer distinction between Jew and Gentile in the Church. Christ is the defining element. Christ is the life that courses through all who are his. In this life, we, his people, now live.

After your heart has thus become firm in Christ, and love, not fear of pain, has made you a foe of sin, then Christ’s passion must from that day on become a pattern for your entire life. Henceforth you will have to see his passion differently. Until now we regarded it as a sacrament which is active in us while we are passive, but now we find that we too must be active, namely, in the following.[2]

Lord have mercy that we, your church, may live out our identity in you, by you, and through you. May the likeness of Christ abound in his church that God might be glorified. Amen.

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1 William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature : A Translation and Adaption of the Fourth Revised and Augmented Edition of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch Zu Den Schrift En Des Neuen Testaments Und Der Ubrigen Urchristlichen Literatur (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, c1979), 55.

2 Luther’s Works, Vol. 42 : Devotional Writings I ( ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan et al.;, Luther’s WorksPhiladelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1969), 42:13.