Paul wrote to the Colossians:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming (Colossians 3:5–6 NIV84).

What does this mean? How are we supposed to put to death the earthly nature?

Some desperate souls throughout history have thought to do this by mortification of the body. The thought is that the body is tempting, so we must do things to punish the body, or have someone cut the body off from sinning. This can be anything—from fasting (not for the purpose of having a clearer mind for contemplation and connection with God, but to mortify the flesh), kneeling for hours, to wielding devices designed to inflict pain upon the body, even to cut it. Sometimes, this means going to places of seclusion and cutting oneself off from contact with others and remaining silent for long periods of time.  

One famous case is that of Simeon Stylites, who, in the fifth century, moved atop a pillar to get away from earthly influences. His first pillar was 10 feet high, but he kept extending it, and the final pillar was 50 feet high with a small platform on the top. Records vary, but it is reported that he spent between 35 and 42 years atop the pillar to get away from earthliness. And he is venerated today as a saint by the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodox Church.

Was Simeon showing us the way to put to death the things that are earthly, or was he actually demonstrating the opposite? In other words, would actions like Simeon’s contribute to a person becoming more or less like Jesus? 

If one accepts the lie that God’s law functions like human law, and that sin is doing bad deeds, then Simeon’s actions put him in a place where he cannot do any bad deeds and, from a worldly perspective, this looks righteous—and it looks righteous from a worldly perspective because it is using worldly methods to try to fix a worldly problem, which only makes the person more worldly!

When one returns to the truth that God’s law is design law, the laws of truth and love acting upon liberty, then one realizes worldliness is the opposite; it is lies, fear, selfishness—survival drives that seek dominance and control, and advantage for self, and that manifest in the behaviors we commonly think of as sins. However, the behaviors are secondary; the sin is the fear-driven, self-centered heart-mind attitude and motivation, not the deed.

Simeon was not living on a pillar because he loved people and was using his God-given abilities to help others. He was living on a pillar because he was afraid of sinning and getting punished by God. He was seeking to protect and advantage himself, to ensure he would not sin and thereby obtain eternal life. But his actions did not cause him to become a living conduit of God’s love ministering to others; they, instead, caused him to cut himself off from love and to solidify himself in fear and self-protection, hiding from life on top of a pillar. And how incredibly sad that he is venerated as a saint!

Righteousness is not about the external deeds, but the motives of the heart.

In Christ’s story, the Pharisee who brought a big offering to the temple loudly proclaimed,

God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get (Luke 18:11–12 NIV84).

The Pharisee’s deed, giving offerings to God’s temple, was a good deed, but he was not godly—he was worldly. His actions were sinful, not righteous. Why? Because sinfulness or righteousness is not about the act; it is about the motive of the heart, and his heart was not driven by love to uplift others, but to make self look good while degrading others. He gave to show how good he was and how much better he was than others, which is pride driven by fear and selfishness.

Love seeks to help others and not draw attention, recognition, power, control, or wealth to self. Lucifer in heaven sought to exalt himself to a higher station, but Jesus,

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:6–9 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Jesus always seeks to glorify the Father, not self; the Father always seeks to uplift and glorify the Son, not self; the Holy Spirit always seeks to glorify the Father and the Son, not self.

That is what love does—and, therefore, we put to death the things of the world not by hard work to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others, but by internal work through which we battle against the desires and feelings of our own spirit of fear and selfishness. And we battle by daily ingesting the Word of God into our hearts and minds, and by choosing to say no to the old temptations of fear by doing what we know is right and trusting God with how it turns out, rather than trying to control the outcome.

Putting to death the old goes like this:

• God brings truth and love to our hearts and minds to convict us that something is wrong and inspire us to something better, and He leads us to specific decision points, one point at a time.
• When we have been persuaded on an issue, where we are convinced of what is right for us and what is not right, then we are left completely free to choose for ourselves whether we will embrace and follow the truth or continue to do the old unhealthy pattern. For instance, if we are persuaded that a certain relationship is not right for us and that we need to end it, do we end it, or do we try to fix it because we don’t want to grieve the loss? If we are persuaded that certain media is not healthy for our mind and heart, do we stop watching it, or not? Choice by choice, God brings us to places where we are persuaded in our minds what the healthy action is, and then we are left free to make our choice.
• But here is the real secret to success: We don’t win in our power or strength; we win only with God’s power—but we don’t get the power until we make the choice! If we are open to truth and pursuing God’s will in our lives, we get insight, enlightenment, conviction, understanding of our choice, but we don’t get the power to overcome until we choose to say yes. However, when we say yes, not with our minds merely agreeing cognitively that it is right, but with our hearts choosing and committing to the truth such that we are willing to lose the things we have previously been getting comfort from, then we receive the power to succeed. Then, as we advance in this application of truth, our neurobiology changes and eventually our feelings, desires, and internal sense of self heal.

We put to death the worldly ways we have formed by choosing to apply God’s ways of love as we trust in Him.

The Wrath of God

But what does the second portion of the text mean: “because of these worldly ways the wrath of God is coming upon the world”?

What is the wrath of God? In Romans 1:18–32, Paul explicitly describes God’s wrath as the letting go of His restraining, protective, and redeeming power and setting people free to reap what they have insisted upon, what they have woven into the fabric of their identity.

And what happens when God lets people go? They are overwhelmed with fear, guilt, and shame; their internal sense of self fragments, as seen in the demoniacs in the New Testament, and they disintegrate and die. Why? Because God is the source of life, truth, love, order, structure, stability, coherence—and breaking away from Him is breaking away from reality on all levels, and the only result is decay, fragmentation, disintegration, decoherence—death.

Why does God let go like this? Because God is love, and love requires freedom. God built His universe with freedom encoded into the structure of reality. And what is the only action love can take when someone insists on leaving? To let them go—and in God’s case, letting go means releasing His sustaining, organizing, protective, and life-providing presence from someone—thus, they die.

This is the wrath that comes from design law—when we understand God’s laws are the laws reality is built to exist and operate upon, we understand that every single deviation from His law introduces damage, decay, error, discord, fracture, and disease, leading ultimately to death.

Understanding reality, we know that since sin entered, God has been using His power to restrain and hold at bay the destruction sin brings while keeping open the door for healing, restoration, recreation, unity, and wholeness. But in the end, when some people choose absolute rejection of God, He stops using power and sets them free to reap what they have chosen: disintegration and death. As Scripture teaches, those who sow to the carnal nature, from that nature reap destruction (Galatians 6:8).

But the wrath that comes from Satan and worldly systems is the opposite; it is the wrath of using physical power to inflict harm, pain, suffering, and even death upon one’s enemies.

Sadly, having accepted Satan’s lie about God’s law, much of Christianity teaches the lie that God is like Satan and that His wrath is the use of His power to inflict pain, suffering, and death as punishment for sin. In doing this, they promote Satan’s rebellion, for they undermine trust in God. Such distorted teachings actively delay the Second Coming, for they interfere with the final message of mercy that is to prepare people for Christ’s return. (For a deeper dive into the differences between God’s wrath and Satan’s, see our blog God’s Wrath Versus Satan’s Wrath—What’s the Difference?)

What is the final message of mercy? The truth about God’s character of love, which calls people back to worship Him as Creator, which requires we recognize that as Creator, all of God’s laws are design laws, the laws that life and health are built upon. When we do this, we realize that sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), breaking away from the protocols of life, and, therefore, sin is the cause of death and God is the cause of life (Romans 6:23; James 1:15; Galatians 6:8; Hebrews 2:14; 2 Timothy 1:10). We realize that through Christ, God has acted to take away sin in order to save sinners (John 1:29), not to punish them. And in that realization we are won to trust, open the heart to Christ, and receive the Holy Spirit, who brings us a new life, the life of Christ, and we are reborn with new heart motives (John 3:3), and then begin the daily walk with Christ, step by step, choice by choice, to put to death everything that belongs to the earthly nature.