After Paul tells the Colossians in chapter three, verse 2 to "be disposed to that which is above, not to that on the earth," he tells them a mere three verses later to "deaden, then, your members that are on the earth." Don't you find it strange that a man who just told people not to mind things of earth
tells them now to deaden their members that are on the earth?
It would be strange and, in fact, contradictory—unless the second use of "the earth" was the location of their members, and not where the Colossians, themselves, were to be disposed. In other words, the Colossians were to deaden these members on the earth WHILE setting their affections above
the earth. But how can that be?
Does anyone imagine that Paul is saying here, "I know Jesus Christ put the old humanity to death, but now I want YOU to put it to death." Absurd.
This passage can only be a
confirmation of what we've been discovering in Romans, chapter six: We deal with our flesh by ignoring it, not fighting it. It is BY tending to realms above earth that these troubling things ON earth lose their insistency. It is this loss of insistency that inspired Paul's use of the word "deaden." The flesh is deadened by a thorough and complete lack of attention to it. It dies by attrition, not demolition.
Why do you stuff large amounts of pink insulation into the walls of your house? To keep it warm? Certainly. But also to dampen (deaden) the noise without. Thus do our members on the earth become barely audible as we pack our "pink insulation" (the revelation of Christ Jesus' victory over Sin) between us and the constant nagging of our soon-to-be-disappearing flesh.
