Ver. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ] As ye profess to be, Colossians 2:12. Seek those things, &c.] As Christ risen spake and did only the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, Acts 1:3, and waited alway for his exaltation into heaven; there should be continual ascensions in our hearts. The Church is compared to pillars of smoke, elationibus fumi, Song of Solomon 3:6, as having her affections, thoughts, desires upward, heavenward. (Tremel.)
Ver. 2. Set your affections on things] Things above outlast the days of heaven, and run parallel with the life of God and line of eternity. Things on earth are mutable and momentary, subject to vanity and violence; when we grasp them most greedily we embrace nothing but smoke, which wrings tears from our eyes, and vanisheth into nothing. Here then the wise man’s question takes place, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?” Proverbs 23:5. Wilt thou rejoice in a thing of nought? Amos 6:13. Most people are nailed to the earth, as Sisera was by Jael: they go bowed downward, as that woman in the Gospel that had a spirit of infirmity, and was bound by Satan; they strive (with the toad) who shall die with most earth in their mouths. Surely the saying of that Roman general to the soldier that kept the tents, when he should have been fighting in the field, Non amo nimium diligentes, I like not those that are thus overly busy, will be used of God, if when he calls us to seek after and set our affections upon the things above, we are wholly taken up about things of an inferior alloy. Cor camera omnipotentis regis, the heart of man is an inverted Pyramis, narrow below, almost sharpened to a point, that it might touch the earth no more than needs must; and broad above, to receive the influence of heaven. But surely, as we used to say of a top, the keen point of it is toward the earth, but it is flat and dull enough toward heaven; so are most men’s affections. “My brethren, these things ought not so to be,” as St James speaketh in another case. Our souls should be like a ship, which is made little and narrow downward, but more wide and broad upward. And not on things on earth] Set not thy heart upon the asses, said Samuel to Saul, since the desire of all Israel is to thee; so, set not your affections on outward things, since better things abide you. It is not for you to be fishing for gudgeons, but for towns, forts, and castles, said Cleopatra to Mark Antony. So neither is it for such as hope for heaven to be taken up about trifles; as Domitian spent his time in catching flies, and Artaxerxes in making hafts for knives. There is a generation of Terrigenae fratres, whose names are written in the earth, Jeremiah 17:13, called the inhabitants of the earth, Revelation 12:12, in opposition to the saints and heirs of heaven. These may with the Athenians give for their badge the grasshopper, which is bred, liveth, and dieth in the same ground, and though she hath wings, yet flieth not; sometimes she hoppeth upwards a little, but falleth to the ground again. So here. Or at best, they are but like the eagle, which soars aloft not for any love of heaven; her eye is all the while upon the prey, which by this means she spies sooner and seizeth upon better. A small European fresh-water fish (Gobio fluviatilis), much used for bait. ŒD
Ver. 3. For ye are dead] Crucified to the world, as Paul, Galatians 6:14, weaned as a child from the breasts, or rather botches of the world, as David, Psalms 131:2. Dead also in regard of daily miseries, Isaiah 26:19 1Co 15:31. And your life is hid] As the pearl is hid, till the shell be broken; or as the life of flowers in winter is hidden in the root; or as God hid Christ under the carpenter’s son.
Ver. 4. Then shall we appear] What then do we loading onrselves with thick clay, or moiling ourselves here as muckworms?
Ver. 5. Mortify therefore] Sin hath a strong heart, and will not be done to death but with much ado. Peccata saepe raduntur, sed non eradicantur. Sins often are itchy but are not rooted out. Something is done about sins, little against them; as artificial magicians seem to wound themselves, but do not; or as players seem to thrust themselves through their bodies, but the sword passeth only through their clothes. Some part with sin, as Jacob did with Benjamin, because otherwise he should starve; or as Phaltiel did with Michal, lest he should lose his head; but to cast it away because it is offensivum Dei, et aversivum a Deo, an offence against God, and a breach of his law, this is mortification; this is more than to have seraphical knowledge and cherubinical affections in any duty. This (saith a Father) is the hardest text in all the Bible, and the hardest task in all Christianity that we can go about; but hard or not hard, it must be done, or we are undone, and check must be given to our corruptions, though full mate we cannot give. Covetousness, which is idolatry] For it robs God of his flower, his trust, and draws a man away from all the commandments, Psalms 119:36. [See Trapp on “Eph 5:5”]