Discussion
In the first half of the book of Colossians, the apostle Paul focuses intensely on the supremacy of Christ. The practical weight of that supremacy becomes clear as the letter transitions into its second half. Because Jesus is over all, above all, before all, and the source of all, he is entirely sufficient over every dimension of our existence. We are called to hide ourselves in Christ, for that is the true source of power—but the power for what? The answer lies in verse 5: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” The Puritan John Owen describes this as the mortification of sin, or the active, ongoing practice of killing sin that genuine repentance produces. We often find ourselves frustrated, trying to do away with certain sins only to watch them return time and again. To break this cycle and truly put sin to death, we must focus on two specific movements: we must (1) look in, and we must (2) look up.
Look In
In verse 5, Paul lists sins like sexual immorality and greed, commanding us to “put to death” the earthly members of our body. This mirrors Jesus’ intense imagery in Matthew 5 about gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand to stop sin. However, both Paul and Jesus are driving at something deeper than physical amputation. Jesus clarifies that lust in the heart is already adultery; the outward action is merely the fruit of a deeper root. If a person were to physically remove every limb in order to stop sinning, they would still fail because the source remains untouched: the heart. So when Paul speaks of putting to death what belongs to the earthly nature, he is targeting the “old self” in the heart. We often fail in our struggle against sin because we reduce it to those specific things we believe we have or haven’t done. We attempt to manage these surface-level behaviors rather than viewing sin as our very nature—something that must be killed. If we focus only on external behavior, the old self will continue to rear its ugly head, and inner desires will inevitably overflow into sinful actions.
In verses 1-4, Paul argues that every spiritual pathology stems from failing to see the supremacy of Jesus and failing to set our hearts on things above. This leads to his call in verse 5 to put our old selves to death. While the world promotes self-fulfillment and autonomy, verse 6 warns that such a path leads to the wrath of God. This echoes Genesis 3, where Satan tempted Eve not with mere pleasure, but with the promise that she could be like God—deciding for herself what is good and evil. When she saw the fruit was "good for food," "pleasing to the eye," and "desirable for gaining wisdom," she chose autonomy over obedience. At its heart, sin is a choice to walk away from our Creator and go against our own design. It is like a patient who ignores a doctor’s life-saving advice to exercise and eat healthy. The resulting "wrath" isn't a random punishment, but the inevitable breakdown that occurs when we live in opposition to how we were made to function. By remaining distant from the one who designed us, we ensure our own brokenness.
Paul highlights our “evil desires” and “greed” in verse 5. The Greek word for evil desires is epithumia, which literally means an "over-desire"—an inordinate, excessive desire that enslaves and controls you. Often, sin isn’t a desire for something inherently bad, but an inordinate, excessive desire for something good. It only becomes evil when we look to that thing to complete us, making it supreme or sufficient in our lives. This is a violation of the first and greatest commandment: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. When we place anything above him, we are committing spiritual adultery. So sin is not just breaking a rule or a design; it’s breaking God’s heart. Our inability to see the relevance of Jesus’ sufficiency and supremacy in our decisions, relationships, suffering, and circumstances leaves us stuck in our failures and regrets, searching for healing in all the wrong places.
In verse 7, Paul notes that we once “[walked] in these ways,” living according to our earthly nature. However, verse 8 calls us to radically shift and rid ourselves of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language. Why? Because, as verses 9 and 10 explain, we’ve taken off the old self and put on the new self. This requires us to take action to kill the old self at the root. Many people, upon realizing how deeply shaped they’ve been by others’ expectations, simply vow to stop caring: I’m done trying to please them. But it never lasts, because they’re only treating the symptoms rather than the heart. This dynamic is captured in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that transforms him into the cruel and murderous Mr. Hyde. Horrified by Hyde's actions, Jekyll vows to live a virtuous life and puts the potion away. But the twist in the novel is that one evening, without any potion at all, Jekyll goes to bed as himself and wakes up as Hyde. Stevenson’s point is that Hyde was always there. We cannot simply restrain or control our sin—we must kill it.
Killing our sin requires us to be ruthless and honest. First, we must look at the nagging sin in our lives—stop rationalizing or justifying it. Second, we must stop "euphemizing" sin—renaming it with softer words like "mistake," "miscommunication," or "bad headspace" to avoid its unpleasantness. These labels imply our hearts are usually good and we just had a temporary lapse, which masks the true depth of the problem. Third, we must realize that the solution is not merely a pragmatic change of will—simply trying to "stop" or "do more." When we rely on pragmatism alone and fail, we fall into the fourth trap: self-pity and self-absorption. This leads us back to simply tolerating or trying to “manage” our sin as long as we don't go overboard. Rather, we must own the reality that sin runs much deeper than what’s visible on the surface and commit to the hard work of identifying and starving its roots. Since we cannot do this alone, we need a community we’ve authorized to be ruthless with us. Don't make friends chase you; proactively talk to them about the sin that is killing you. By trusting wise friends, we protect our hearts from falling into self-pity and self-absorption. This is the essence of looking in: refusing to tolerate sin and instead choosing to kill it at the root.
Question 1: Why do you think it’s easier to try to "manage" surface sins rather than addressing the "old self" at the root?
Question 2: What does a "ruthless” community look like in practice? How can we empower one another to address the roots of sin rather than just offering superficial encouragement?
Look Up
After looking in, we must look up. In verse 1, Paul instructs us to “set [our] hearts on things above.” The Bible never suggests that our problem is a lack of focus. Rather, it assumes the human heart is always set on something—that it’s impossible not to anchor our identity and meaning in an object of worship. Whether we’re religious or secular, our true objects of worship are revealed when we lose the things that make us feel secure. Unless we grasp this, we’ll never truly go deep enough to effect real change. Our struggle with sin will resemble a recurring horror movie, where the monster keeps coming back to life over and over again. We think we have shrunk the tumor or managed the symptoms through rationalization and pragmatism, but the “old self” keeps coming back because it was never truly put to death.
Scripture doesn’t provide a set of tasks for us to kill sin; instead, it calls us back to what Jesus has already done: “Set your hearts on things above.” In the movie A Quiet Place, the Abbott family survives in suffocating silence in order to avoid creatures that hunt by sound. In the climax, the father, Lee Abbott, sees his children cornered by an alien. In a devastating final act of love, he shatters the silence that kept him alive all those years, screaming to draw the creature to himself so his children can escape. Such stories move us because they point to a greater hero—an even more loving Father. Jesus Christ looked at our condition and came down to suffer the wrath we deserved. On the cross, he screams, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so that we would never have to. For us to live, Jesus had to die; for us to be raised, he had to be brought down. This is the “double imputation” of the gospel: our sin was transferred to him, and his perfect righteousness before God was transferred to us. Jesus was "cut off" from the Father so that we could always remain with him.
In Ezekiel 36, God promises to sprinkle clean water on us, to cleanse us from all impurities and idols, and to give us a new heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone. This is critical—as the Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers observed, the heart can’t exist without an object of desire, meaning its love can’t be destroyed by mere logic or a demonstration of sin’s worthlessness. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the "expulsive power of a new one." Putting sin to death means replacing it with a greater beauty and a more profound joy. That joy is Jesus Christ, who is seated at the right hand of God—the place of ultimate honor and authority. Because he finished his mission and won the victory over death, we are now raised and seated with him. God delights in us as if we were the ones who finished the work. When the gospel becomes our new affection, it reorders all our other loves. Our jobs, marriages, and friendships remain important, but they are no longer our "life." They no longer enslave us.
In verse 10, Paul explains that this new self is being renewed in knowledge—epignosis, or true saving knowledge. This new heart gives us the freedom to stop euphemizing and managing sin and instead confront it ruthlessly. It allows us to stop being hyper-focused on the consequences of our sin—like broken relationships or guilt—and focus instead on the Savior. It empowers us to trust a deep community to help smoke out the roots of our idols.
Finally, verse 11 shows that this transformation creates a new humanity. The gospel is the ultimate equalizer where there are no divisions of race, status, or religious background. In Christ, there is no "better" or "superior" person; Christ is all and in all. When a community stops asserting superiority and instead rests in their shared salvation, they form a new society that can transform the city around them. As John Owen famously warned, "Be killing sin or it will be killing you." Look in. Look up. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Question 3: How does Jesus’ "scream" on the cross provide the power to kill sin in a way that a mere "to-do list" cannot?
