Colossians 3:8 — What No Longer Fits

Yet now you also be putting away all these: anger, fury, malice, calumny, obscenity out of your mouth.

“Yet now.” With these words, Paul marks a turning point. He is not speaking about improving the old life, but about a new situation. Therefore, the exhortation follows: “be putting away.” Just as a garment is taken off because it no longer fits, these things too are to be put away.

It is striking that the sins listed mainly have to do with aggression. Anger and fury live within. Malice is the disposition that arises from them. It then comes outward in calumny and obscenity. What fills the heart eventually finds its way to the mouth. The movement is now outward. Whereas the previous list spoke of desires that want to possess something for themselves, here it concerns reactions that harm the other person. In verse 5, the old humanity is driven by desires; in verse 8, it reacts with anger when those desires are thwarted.

The image of putting away is highly significant. Paul is not speaking about something that needs to be repaired, but about something that is discarded because it no longer fits. In the previous verse, he said, “once.” Here he says, “yet now.” That is why he calls on them to put these things away. A person does not put on old, worn-out clothing when new clothes are ready.

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