In which you also walked some time, when you lived in them.
εν οις και υμεις περιεπατησατε ποτε οτε εζητε εν αυτοις
10 Church Fathers comment on this verse
To stir up shame in them he said, "when you lived among them." Yet here there is also praise, because now they do not live in them, and this can be said only of the past. "In which," he says, "you also once walked," and were subject to them. He shows that they are still among such people. By speaking thus, he also praises them.
This word is not without praise, because now they no longer live in desires. But there was a time when they did live in them, for they were Gentiles.
The Colossians too were guilty of these sins and walked in them while they were Gentiles. "In them you once walked, when you lived among them," the Apostle says to them. But in Christianity the Colossians had to cast off their old defilements and habits, and become pure souls.
You also were not strangers to these same sins. You too once willingly moved among them, when you lived in them all.
So also in the Epistle to the Corinthians he said, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified," and so forth (1 Cor 6:11).
Are fury and anger different from one another? They are different both as names and as the things signified by them.
Fury is a disturbance of the blood and a strong inflammation. Anger is prolonged grief and a movement toward vengeance against those who have offended us.
Therefore when the soul rushes toward vengeance, such a passion is called anger. Here he called remembrance of wrongs malice, which elsewhere he calls bitterness. By blasphemy he means insults (Eph 4:31).
The phrase "from your mouth" may seem superfluous, because we insult and speak shamefully with no other member than the mouth.
Yet it is not superfluous. By it the Apostle signified that blasphemies and shameful words defile not only the hearing of listeners, but also the mouth of the speaker.
That mouth was created by God to glorify and praise Him, to confess the Orthodox faith, and to give profitable instruction to one's neighbor.
Concerning falsehood, whose inventor and father is the devil, since he "is a liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44), he wrote the same thing more fully in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
He said, "Therefore put away falsehood. Let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another" (Eph 4:25).
Notice here how the Apostle first spoke of fleshly sins and said, "in which you also once walked."
That is, you Colossians also formerly committed such sins, when as idolaters you were given over to them and served them as slaves.
Then he protects them by commanding that, now that they have been joined to Christ, they should cast away all sins.
"But now you yourselves also put off all these," even these sins that are thought to be smaller: anger, fury, malice, blasphemy, shameful speech, and falsehood.
Thus, after presenting all sins and all virtues, he commands them to avoid the former and to practice the latter, saying in verses 9 and 10:
"Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him."
From this it follows that we must put to death our earthly members: fornication, uncleanness, and the rest. In general, we must put off the old man and put on the new, in order to form a new society. In it there is no enmity or division of nationalities, no Greek, Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, and the rest. In it all are clothed in love, which is the bond of perfection, and the peace of God rules in hearts (Col 3:5-15).
The Apostle calls turning away from evil the mortification of sin-producing members. First he urges them to put to death everything lustful, in verses 5-7, and then what is wrathful and hostile, in verses 8-11.
"The first mortification was the gift of baptism, which removed original sin from us," says blessed Theophylact.
"But the mortification now proposed is the work of our own will. It consists in blotting out the sins that occur after baptism.
Even more, it consists in not allowing them to come alive in us, by cutting off their beginning through the mortification of the fleshly mind."
Another ancient interpreter adds: "The second mortification is not that we put ourselves to death, but that we put the passions to death, not allowing them to act in us" (Oecumenius).
"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."
Having risen to a new life, Christians themselves must put to death the members "which are on the earth." That is, they must not only take a negative stance toward earthly enticements, but also suppress in themselves, in their flesh, all sinful impulses and manifestations. For these things the wrath of God even now comes upon men (έρχεται; cf. Rom 1:18).
"In which" means in the passions and sins just mentioned. You too walked in them and acted according to the impulses of the passions and the habits of sins and vices.
This was when you lived among them, among the Gentiles, according to their spirit, rules, and customs.
He reminds them of the time before their conversion to faith in Christ the Lord. At the same time he leads them to compare how they now feel with what their former state seems to them.
Formerly everything in them was dark, unclean, and troubled. Now everything is bright, pure, and peaceful.
"So also in the Epistle to the Corinthians he said, 'And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified' (cf. 1 Cor 6:11)" (blessed Theodoret).
These words also made them feel from what extreme calamity they had been delivered by renouncing passionate deeds and separating themselves from the Gentiles.
They were delivered from the wrath coming upon the sons of disobedience. This wrath is about to fall, but it will not touch them, because they have left the company toward which it is directed.
Both points are strong inducements to withdraw from the passions. First comes the reminder of their former dark state and their present bright state.
Second comes the sense of deliverance from a dreadful calamity. Even now the passions disorder the one who gives himself to them and threaten unavoidable disaster in the future.
Ambrosiaster writes: "The Apostle does not pass over in silence how great a benefit the grace of God in Christ Jesus bestowed on them.
Thus, gratefully remembering their escape from the wrath that will suddenly come upon the unbelievers of the whole earth, they may always show themselves zealous doers of the commandments of Him through whom they were so certainly delivered from the second death."
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 10 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS