Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Colossians 3:6

"for which things` sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience:" — Colossians 3:6 (ASV)

Paul now mentions two factors that point out how improper it is for the sins listed in v.5 to exist in the lives of the Colossian believers. (1) Those sins incur “the wrath of God” (cf. Romans 1:18), a phrase that almost certainly refers to the eschatological wrath of God. “Is coming” (a present tense) may suggest that God’s judgment on sin is already on the way, but more likely it depicts with vivid certainty that God’s judgment will indeed someday fall on the disobedient. (2) Those sins characterized the pre-Christian experience of the Colossian believers (v.7). This kind of life belongs to the past, and Christians should be done with it. “Walk” (GK 4344) calls attention to outward conduct; “lived” (GK 2409), to the attitudes and feelings from which that conduct flows.