Set Your Mind on Things Above

Matthew Henry

Colossians 3:1-11

To seek heavenly things is to set our affections upon them, to love them and let our desires be towards them…We must acquaint ourselves with them, esteem them above all other things, and lay out ourselves in preparation for the enjoyment of them...This is to be spiritually minded (Romans 8:6), and to seek and desire a better country, that is, a heavenly, Hebrews 11:14,16. Things on earth are here set in opposition to things above. We must not dote upon them, nor expect too much from them, that we may set our affections on heaven for heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, and a supreme regard to both is inconsistent and the prevalence of our affection to one will proportionably weaken and abate our affection to the other.

He assigns three reasons for this, Colossians 3:3,4.

That we are dead that is, to present things, and as our portion. We are so in profession and obligation for we are buried with Christ, and planted into the likeness of his death. Every Christian is crucified unto the world, and the world is crucified unto him, Galatians 6:14. And if we are dead to the earth, and have renounced it as our happiness, it is absurd for us to set our affections upon it, and seek it. We should be like a dead thing to it, unmoved and unaffected towards it.

Our true life lies in the other world: You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God, Colossians 3:3. The new man has its livelihood there. It is born and nourished from above and the perfection of its life is reserved for that state. It is hid with Christ not hid from us only, in point of secrecy, but hid for us, denoting security. The life of a Christian is hid with Christ. Because I live you shall live also, John 14:19. Christ is at present a hidden Christ, or one whom we have not seen but this is our comfort, that our life is hid with him, and laid up safely with him. As we have reason to love him whom we have not seen (1 Peter 1:8), so we may take the comfort of a happiness out of sight, and reserved in heaven for us.

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, Colossians 3:4. Christ is a believer’s life. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Galatians 2:20. 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, Philippians 1:21.

All the saints and those whose life is now hid with Christ shall one day be with Christ in that glory which he himself enjoys, John 17:24. Do we look for such a happiness, and should we not set our affections upon that world, and live above this world? 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 forever.

Necessity of Mortifying Sin.

Verses 5-7

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.

The apostle exhorts the Colossians to the mortification of sin, the great hindrance to seeking the things which are above. Since it is our duty to set our affections upon heavenly things, it is our duty to mortify our members which are upon the earth, and which naturally incline us to the things of the world: “Mortify them, that is, subdue the vicious habits of mind which prevailed in your Gentile state. Kill them, suppress them, as you do weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them, or as you kill an enemy who fights against you and wounds you."

He specifies,

The lusts of the flesh, for which they were before so very remarkable: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire --the various workings of the carnal appetites and fleshly impurities, which they indulged in their former course of life, and which were so contrary to the Christian state and the heavenly hope.

The love of the world: And covetousness, which is idolatry that is, an inordinate love of present good and outward enjoyments, which proceeds from too high a value in the mind, puts upon too eager a pursuit, hinders the proper use and enjoyment of them, and creates anxious fear and immoderate sorrow for the loss of them. Observe, Covetousness is spiritual idolatry: it is the giving of that love and regard to worldly wealth which are due to God only, and carries a greater degree of malignity in it, and is more highly provoking to God, than is commonly thought. And it is very observable that among all the instances of sin which good men are recorded in the scripture to have fallen into (and there is scarcely any but some or other, in one or other part of their life, have fallen into) there is no instance in all the scripture of any good man charged with covetousness.

He proceeds to show how necessary it is to mortify sins, Colossians 3:6,7. Because, if we do not kill them, they will kill us: For which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience, Colossians 3:6. See what we are all by nature more or less: we are children of disobedience: not only disobedient children, but under the power of sin and naturally prone to disobey. The wicked are estranged from the womb they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies, Psalm 58:3. And, being children of disobedience, we are children of wrath, Ephesians 2:3. The wrath of God comes upon all the children of disobedience. Those who do not obey the precepts of the law incur the penalties of it. The sins he mentions were their sins in their heathen and idolatrous state, and they were then especially the children of disobedience and yet these sins brought judgments upon them, and exposed them to the wrath of God.

In which you also walked some time, when you lived in them, Colossians 3:7. Observe, The consideration that we have formerly lived in sin is a good argument why we should now forsake it. We have walked in by-paths, therefore let us walk in them no more. If I have done iniquity, I will do it no more, Job 34:32. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 1 Peter 4:3.— When you lived among those who did such things (so some understand it), then you walked in those evil practices. It is a hard thing to live among those who do the works of darkness and not have fellowship with them, as it is to walk in the mud and contract no soil. Let us keep out of the way of evil-doers.

Verses 8-11

8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

As we are to mortify inordinate appetites, so we are to mortify inordinate passions (Colossians 3:8): But now you also put off all these, anger wrath, malice for these are contrary to the design of the gospel, as well as grosser impurities and, though they are more spiritual wickedness, have not less malignity in them. The gospel religion introduces a change of the higher as well as the lower powers of the soul, and supports the dominion of right reason and conscience over appetite and passion. Anger and wrath are bad, but malice is worse, because it is more rooted and deliberate…And, as the corrupt principles in the heart must be cut off, so the product of them in the tongue as blasphemy, which seems there to mean, not so much speaking ill of God as speaking ill of men, giving ill language to them, or raising ill reports of them, and injuring their good name by any evil arts,--filthy communication, that is, all lewd and wanton discourse, which comes from a polluted mind in the speaker and propagates the same defilements in the hearers,--and lying: Lie not one to another (Colossians 3:9), for it is contrary both to the law of truth and the law of love, it is both unjust and unkind, and naturally tends to destroy all faith and friendship among mankind. Lying makes us like the devil (who is the father of lies), and is a prime part of the devil’s image upon our souls and therefore we are cautioned against this sin by this general reason: Seeing you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, Colossians 3:10. The consideration that we have by profession put away sin and championed the cause and interest of Christ, that we have renounced all sin and stand engaged to Christ, should fortify us against this sin of lying. Those who have put off the old man have put it off with its deeds and those who have put on the new man must put on all its deeds--not only adopt good principles but act them in a good conversation. The new man is said to be renewed in knowledge, because an ignorant soul cannot be a good soul. Without knowledge the heart cannot be good, Proverbs 19:2. [The soul was made for God; and to be without His knowledge, to be unacquainted with Him, is not only not good, but the greatest evil the soul can suffer, for it involves all other evils…whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way - And this will be the case with him who is not Divinely instructed. A child does nothing cautiously, because it is uninstructed; a savage is also rash and hurried, till experience instructs him. A man who has not the knowledge of God is incautious, rash, headstrong, and hasty: and hence he sins - he is continually missing the mark, and wounding his own soul – Adam Clarke]. The grace of God works upon the will and affections by renewing the understanding. Light is the first thing in the new creation [regeneration], as it was in the first: after the image of him who created him. It was the honor of man in innocence that he was made after the image of God but that image was defaced and lost by sin, and is renewed by sanctifying grace: so that a renewed soul is something like what Adam was in the day he was created. In the privilege and duty of sanctification there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, Colossians 3:11. There is now no difference arising from different country or different condition and circumstance of life: it is as much the duty of the one as of the other to be holy, and as much the privilege of the one as of the other to receive from God the grace to be so. Christ came to take down all partition-walls, that all might stand on the same level before God, both in duty and privilege. And for this reason, because Christ is all in all. Christ is a Christian’s all, his only Lord and Saviour, and all his hope and happiness. And to those who are sanctified and set apart for God’s purpose, one as well as another and whatever they are in other respects, he is all in all, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end: he is all in all things to them.