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015 - Verses 5-8 · Commentary on the Epistle to the Colossians

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  Speaker 1: Section fifteen of Commentary on the Epistle to the Colautians
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  Speaker 1: by John Calvin, translated by Reverend John Pringle, this LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings on the public domain, Verses five through eight. Mortify,
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  Speaker 1: therefore your members, which are upon the earth fornication, uncleanness,
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  Speaker 1: inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for
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  Speaker 1: which things sake. The wrath of God cometh on the
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  Speaker 1: children of disobedience in the which ye also walked some
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  Speaker 1: time when ye lived in them. But now ye also
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  Speaker 1: put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication
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  Speaker 1: out of your mouth. Five. Mortify Therefore, hitherto he has
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  Speaker 1: been speaking of contempt of the world. He now proceeds
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  Speaker 1: further and enters upon a higher philosophy as to the
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  Speaker 1: mortification of the flesh. That this may be the better understood.
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  Speaker 1: Let us take notice that there is a twofold mortify.
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  Speaker 1: The former relates to those things that are around us.
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  Speaker 1: Of this he has hitherto treated. The other is inward,
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  Speaker 1: that of the understanding and will, and of the whole
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  Speaker 1: of our corporate nature. He makes mention of certain vices
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  Speaker 1: which he calls not with strict accuracy, but at the
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  Speaker 1: same time elegantly members. For he conceives of our nature
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  Speaker 1: as being, as it were, a mass made up of
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  Speaker 1: different vices. They are therefore our members, inasmuch as they,
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  Speaker 1: in a manner stick close to us. He calls them
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  Speaker 1: also earthly, alluding to what he had said, not the
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  Speaker 1: things that are on earth verse two, but in a
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  Speaker 1: different sense. Quote, I have admonished you that earthly things
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  Speaker 1: are to be disregarded. You must, however, make it you
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  Speaker 1: ar aim to mortify those vices which detained you on
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  Speaker 1: the earth end quote. He intimates, however, that we are
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  Speaker 1: earthly so long as the vices of our flesh are
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  Speaker 1: victor curius in us, and that we are made heavenly
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  Speaker 1: by the renewing of the spirit after fornication. He adds uncleanness,
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  Speaker 1: by which term he expresses all kinds of wantonness by
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  Speaker 1: which lascivious persons pollute themselves to these. Is added pathos,
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  Speaker 1: that is lust, which includes all the allurements of unhollowed desire.
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  Speaker 1: This term, it is true, denotes mental perturbations of other
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  Speaker 1: kinds and disorderly motions contrary to reason. But lust is
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  Speaker 1: not an unsuitable rendering of this passage. As to the
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  Speaker 1: reason why covetousness is here spoken of as a worshiping
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  Speaker 1: of images, consult the Epistle to the Ephesians that I
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  Speaker 1: may not say the same thing twice six on account
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  Speaker 1: of which things the wrath of God cometh. I do
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  Speaker 1: not find fault with the rendering of Erasmus, so that
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  Speaker 1: Veneer is wont to come. But as the present tense
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  Speaker 1: is often taken in scripture instead of the future, according
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  Speaker 1: to the idiom of the Hebrew language, I have preferred
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  Speaker 1: to leave the rendering undecided, so that it might be
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  Speaker 1: accommodated to either meaning. He warns the Colautians, then, either
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  Speaker 1: of the ordinary judgments of God, which are seen daily,
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  Speaker 1: or of the vengeance which He has once denounced upon
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  Speaker 1: the wicked, and which impends over them, but will not
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  Speaker 1: be manifested until the last day. I willingly, however, admit
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  Speaker 1: the former, meaning that God, who is the perpetual judge
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  Speaker 1: of the world, is accustomed to punish the crimes in question.
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  Speaker 1: He says, however, expressly, that the wrath of God will
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  Speaker 1: come or is wont to come upon the unbelieving or disobedient,
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  Speaker 1: instead of threatening them with anything of this nature. For
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  Speaker 1: God would rather that we should see His wrath upon
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  Speaker 1: the reprobate than feel it in ourselves. It is true
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  Speaker 1: that when the promises of grace are set before us,
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  Speaker 1: every one of the pious ought to embrace them equally,
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  Speaker 1: as though they were designed for himself particularly. But on
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, let us dread the threatenings of wrath
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  Speaker 1: and destruction in such a manner that those things which
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  Speaker 1: are suitable for the reprobate may serve as a lesson
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  Speaker 1: to us. God, it is true, is often said to
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  Speaker 1: be angry even with his children, and sometimes chastens their
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  Speaker 1: sins with severity. Paul speaks here, however, of eternal destruction,
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  Speaker 1: of which a mirror is to be seen only in
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  Speaker 1: the reprobate. In short, whenever God threatens, he shows, as
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  Speaker 1: it were, indirectly, the punishment that beholding it in the reprobate,
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  Speaker 1: we may be deterred from sinning seven in which Ye walked.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus mistakenly refers this to men, rendering it interquos among whom,
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  Speaker 1: For there can be no doubt that Paul had in
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  Speaker 1: view the vices in which he says that the Colossians
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  Speaker 1: had walked during the time that they lived in them,
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  Speaker 1: For living and walking differ from each other, as power
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  Speaker 1: does from action. Living holds the first place. Walk comes afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: as in Galatians five twenty five. If ye live in
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  Speaker 1: the spirit, walk also in the spirit. By these words,
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  Speaker 1: he intimates that it were an unseemly thing that they
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  Speaker 1: should addict themselves any more to the vices to which
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  Speaker 1: they had died through Christ. See the sixth chapter of
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  Speaker 1: the Epistle to the Romans. It is an argument from
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  Speaker 1: a withdraw meant of the cause to a withdraw mint
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  Speaker 1: of the effect. Eight. But now that is after having
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  Speaker 1: ceased to live in the flesh. For the power and
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  Speaker 1: nature of mortification are such that all corrupt affections are
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  Speaker 1: extinguished in us, lest sin should afterwards produce in us
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  Speaker 1: its wonted fruits. What I have rendered indignationionem Indignation is
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  Speaker 1: the Greek thumos, a term which denotes a more impetuous
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  Speaker 1: passionateness than org anger. Here, however, he enumerates, as may
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  Speaker 1: easily be perceived forms of vice that were different from
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  Speaker 1: those previously mentioned. End of Section fifteen read by David
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  Speaker 1: Ronald