It’s easy to overlook the word “therefore,” in verse 5 (above), but let’s not do that. It is there for a reason! And its purpose is to link what came before with what is being said. To be purposefully redundant, the “therefore” links the imperative to the indicative; it links the call to action with the truth that has already been substantiated. So, where is the indicative? Where is that truth that is grounding this ethical call to action? Unsurprisingly, it is contained within the passage that came just prior.

Therefore, to “put to death” means to live with a recognition that one is already freed, by means of death, from the power of sin. This relationship between the imperative and the indicative affects the interpretation from simply “put to death,” with no referential context to “in light of having died with Christ, put to death anything that does not belong to the new life you have in him.”

Using Colossians 3 as a case study, we see that the call to “put to death” the old and corrupted practices is to be balanced by the recognition that Christ’s death allows such an imperative to be possible.