The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 166

ix. 28; 1 Pet, i. 7; 1 John ii. 28; Rev. i. 7; xxii. 20, etc.). It is the consnmmation of human history, the denouement of the great time-drama," the one far-off Divine event, to which the whole creation moves." But he waits till "the gospel of the kinrrdom is preached to nil the nations,"" till his enemies be made his footstool," till" the harvest of the earth is ripe," till the hour has struck appointed in the Father's eternal counsels (Mar1!: xiii. 10, 32; Heb. x. 12, 13; Rev. xiv. 15, 18). Then be will appear in that glory (Matt. xxv. 31; xxvi. 64; 'l'itus ii. 13), something of which the three saw "in the holy mount" (2 Pet. i. 16-18), which dying Stephen beheld as he fell asleep, and Saul of Tarsus as he journeyed to Damascus, and John in Patmos (Acts vii. 56; ix. 3-6; Rev. i. 13-18); of which in entering upon his earthly estate he had "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil. ii. 6, 7). " We shall see him even as he is-the Lord of glory" (1 John iii. 3; Jas. ii.1). (2) Christ's glory his mints will share. They, too, will be man,;fested. 'rhere will be an "unveiling of the sons of God" (Ilom. viii. 18-25). "In this tabernacle we do gro,rn, being burdened" (2 Cor. v. 4), Our life is "cribbed, cabined, and confined." The body, virtually "clead because of sin," oppresses and conceals, while it contains, the immortal "spirit, which is life because of righteousness" (Rom. viii. 10, 11). "Now we see through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor. xiii. 12). We move about as if under a heavy, muffling cloak. "We are spirits in prison, able only to make signals to each other." But we shall then enjoy "the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21). This "natural body" will become a "spiritual body," in which the spirit will be perfectly expressed and for ever at home, (3) Then Christ's glory will be manifest in us. He will be" glori- fied in his saints," and they glorified in him (2 Thess. i.10; Ps. xc. 16, 17). Like some sculptor's work, prepared in concealment and with long labour, carved out of the rough, unshapely block by many a painful stroke of hammer and of chisel, till the artist's glorious ideal is wrought out, and on some public day the finished master-piece is at last unveiled; so the man, perfect fo Ohrist, will be "presented faultless before the pre• sence of bis glory with exceeding joy" (eh. i. 22, 28; Jude 24). II. 'l'HE DEATH OF 'l'HE OLD SELF. (Vers. 5-9.) lmpurity, greed, malir.e, falsehood,- these are the leading features of the former life of sin which the apostle represents his readers as having followed before they became Christians. He does not, of course, charge all of them equally and alike with these offences. But then, as now, these four types of vice were prevalent amongst the great mass of ungodly men (ver. 7; 1 C.:.r. vi. 9-11). Such statements, when applied to men living under the influences of Christian society, must be applied with discrimination, and in the light of our Lord'8 teaching addressed to the moral Jews in Matt. v. 17--48, etc. These vices are native to the soil of the human . heart (Mark vii. 20-23). By habitual practice they take possession of the man, so that his "members" are made "slaves to uncleanness and iniquity" (Rom. vi. 19; John viii. 34), and his body becomes a "body of sin" and "of death" (Rom. vi. 6; vii. 23-25; eh. ii. 11). 'l'hey become virtually his "members that are upon the earth" (ver. 5). Under tho sway of sensual appe- tite and worldly desire, ungoverned by any influence from "the things above," hi~ person becomes more and more completely an incarnation of sin (Hom. vii. Ii, 20, 23). These "members," then, individually and collectively, must be" put to death;" this" body of the flesh," as a" body of sin," must be" stripped off" and" done away" (eh. ii. 11; Rom, vi. 6). Christ cannot dwell in the soul whilo "sin reigns in the mortal body'' (Rom. vi. 12). He bas no "concord with Belia!," or with Mammon (2 Cor. vi. 15; Matt. vi. 24). "The old man" must be "so buried, that tho new man may be raised up" in us (comp. Epb. iv.17-24). 1. Unchast-ity was the most conspicuous sin of the Gentile world in which St. Paul moved. There it prevailed in the groijsest and most Hhameless forms; and its prevalence is a fearful warning, as ho points out (Rom. i. 18-27), of the outcome of a godless civilization, The society of the populous Greek cities of that day was one in which "fornication, uncleanness, lustful passion, evil desire" (var. 5), had free course, and its moral condition was only less abandoned than the "reeking rottenness" of Sodom and Gomorrha. Adultery, indeed, was con- demned as a civil crime by pagan moralists; but fornication they held, as a rnle, to bo an innocent and almost a necessary thing. It was in writing to Corinth, perhaps the most licentious city in that licentious age, that the apostle launched his sternest and most vehement interdict against this crime, which is a moral leprosy an,l 1w~Li- OOLOSSIANB~ I:;  1G2 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. [orr. m. 1-25.