Colossians 3:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

They destroy whole villages, districts, and even states. Then fornicators acknowledge their passions, but too late.

Their disease corrodes them, and conscience gnaws and torments them. Such a man becomes not only useless to the population, but even a harmful member of society.

The wrath of God came upon covetous Ahab. Therefore swine and dogs licked his blood, and harlots washed themselves in it, according to the word of the Lord that He had spoken (3 Kgs 22).

Those sons of disobedience who are not punished in the present life store up for themselves "wrath on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Rom 2:5; Prov 16).

All-wretched men are kept for the day of evils.

"The Apostle called the passions members because they seem to be inseparable parts of our nature. In reality, the passions are not our natural members.

They are foreign additions, grafted onto certain natural parts and distorting them. When a passion is grafted on, it deadens the members.

But you, by putting the passion to death through a certain mortification of the members, will free them from the passion's deadening power and give them life."

"Whatever one understands by the particular forms of passions indicated by St Paul, it is evident that he commands us to put fleshly passion to death in all its manifestations."

"To his persuasions the Apostle added the threat of punishment, perhaps because of the nature of the passions.

Lustful passion and covetousness are poorly healed by the remembrance of God's benefits. When these passions begin to stir, nothing sobers so strongly as a living representation of the coming wrath of God" (Bishop Theophan).

The reminder of the Colossians' former sinful life was also a strong inducement for them to withdraw from the passions.

They had experienced their ruinousness through the bitter experience of life, when they did not believe in the true God, but were His adversaries.

They honored silver, gold, and many other things more than God. Explaining why the Apostle called covetousness idolatry, St John Chrysostom says:

"Those who have renounced God's dominion and serve lifeless gold are clearly idolaters."

This is the wrath that will be revealed at the dread judgment. The Apostle keeps our thought fixed on that decisive moment.

Above he did this with the words, “you will appear in glory.” Here he does it with the words, “the wrath of God is coming.”

He teaches that whoever will not put his passions to death will not only fail to appear in glory, but on the contrary will meet the wrath of God. Then comes the final reckoning.

Even now the wrath of God comes, but now it is temporal and corrective. Then it will be decisive and irrevocable.

Here the Apostle has the same thought as in Romans: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (cf. Rom 1:18).

By sons of disobedience the Apostle means unbelievers, both Jews and Gentiles, who seeing do not see and hearing do not hear. Whatever one says to them, and however one persuades them, nothing takes hold of them.

A sound preaching is offered, and they do not heed it. Signs are added to the word, and even this does not persuade them. They are like a stone which no instrument can work.

Therefore they are called sons of disobedience, απειθειας, of being unpersuaded. It is as though their nature were to be persuaded by nothing and to desire no persuasion.

Blessed Theophylact writes: “He calls them sons of disobedience, depriving them of every excuse and showing that they remain in the passions not through ignorance, but through stubbornness, εξ απειθειας.

They have so given themselves over to it that they have, as it were, adopted themselves to it, receiving from it their distinguishing and characteristic features.”

Something fearful is brought upon such people by the Savior’s words. They do not listen because they are not of the truth. For “everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (Jn 18:37), says the Lord.

They are not of the truth, and there is no truth in them, as there is none in him who was a murderer from the beginning (Jn 8:44). There is no truth in them.

Truth is not received by them. It does not fit within them, finding nothing akin to itself in them. The truth of God walks on the earth and has faithful witnesses to itself.

Whoever sincerely desires it will always find it. If there are those who do not find it, it is because they do not seek it. They do not seek because they do not want the truth.

They do not want it because they are not of the truth. Yet there is nothing fatalistic in this. Everything is the work of free will.

By reminding the Colossians of the coming wrath, the Apostle offers an incentive for the mortification of the passions. The remembrance of God’s benefits is sufficient to restrain one from passions and sins.

But the presentation of God’s wrath is stronger than all for this purpose (see Chrysostom). “The Apostle considered it necessary to add the threat of punishment to his persuasions” (Blessed Theodoret).

Why so? Perhaps because of the nature of the passions from which he prescribed withdrawal and which he commanded to be mortified.

The passion of lust and covetousness respond poorly to the action of remembering God’s benefits. While these passions are not in motion, that remembrance has its effect.

But when they stir, nothing sobers so powerfully as a living representation of the coming wrath of God. In general, to stand attentively at the judgment is the best place for an ascetic.

It is an especially useful place when the passion of lust is in motion.