In the which ye also walked some time
Either in or among the children of disobedience, ( Colossians
3:6 ) , or rather in the afore mentioned sins, ( Colossians
3:5 ) . Sin is a road or path, in which sinners walk a way of
their own, or of their own choosing and approving, though a dark
and crooked one, and which leads to destruction: walking herein
denotes a continued series of sinning, a persisting in it, a
progress therein, a proceeding from evil to evil, taking
pleasure, and going on securely in it; and which is the case and
state of God's elect before conversion, which is a turning of
them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, and
out of the ways of sin, into the paths of righteousness, when the
course of their walk, of their lives and conversations, is
altered; and which is suggested here, and made use of as another
reason for the mortification of the deeds of the body of sin,
taken from their former state, and their deliverance out of it;
and therefore the time past of their lives, when they walked in
these things, should suffice, and they should now cease from sin,
from a series and course of sinning:
when ye lived in them;
in sins, and were dead in them; for to be dead in sin, and to
live in sin, is the same thing; living in sin is the death of
sin. To live in sin is to live after the flesh, after the
dictates of corrupt nature, to live a sinful course of life; it
is for a man to give up himself to sin, be wholly bent upon it,
take delight in it, and make it his work and business. This had
been the case of these believers, but now they were dead to sin,
and it became them to live no longer therein, but to mortify it
by denying it, and abstaining from it, and living soberly,
righteously, and godly.