Colossians 3:1 = Seeking the Heavenly
Colossians 3:5 = Slaying the Earthly
Therefore put to death your members -- Since you are dead to sin and the world, and are to appear with Christ in the glories of his kingdom, subdue every carnal and evil propensity of your nature.
(Romans 8:13, note; Galatians 5:24), and the meaning here is that they were entirely to subdue their evil propensities, so that they would have no remains of their old former life; that is, they were not at all to indulge them.
The word “members” here, refers to the different members of the body - as the seat of evil desires and passions; compare the notes at Romans 6:13. They were wholly to extirpate those evil passions which he specifies as having their seat in the various members of the earthly body.
fornication [sexual immorality] -- Read Romans 1:24. Romans 1:26-27. 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5;
Sexual relationship outside "the state of marriage, and which the Gentiles did not account sinful: hence so much notice is taken of it, with a censure, and so often, by the apostle, in almost all his epistles, and dehorted from, as a sin against the body, as what disqualified for church communion, and was not to be named among the saints, who should be dead to that, and that to them, as to the commission of it." - Gill
uncleanness [impurity] -- Romans 1:24. A general term often used of decaying matter, like the contents of a grave. It speaks here of sexual immorality (2 Corinthians 12:21; cf. Galatians 5:19-23; Ephesians 5:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:7), which begins in the heart and moves to the shame of the body. - MSB
... all other impure actions, as adultery, incest, sodomy, and every other unnatural lust; all which should be abstained from, and never committed by those who profess to be alive unto God. - BN
passion [inordinate affection] -- πάθος pathos. Rendered in Romans 1:26, “vile affections; [vile passions]” see the notes at that verse. In 1 Thessalonians 4:5, the word is rendered “lust” - which is its meaning here.
Identified in Romans 1:26-27 as homosexuality, a sin roundly condemned in Scripture (Gen. 19; Leviticus 18:22; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; cf. Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3-5; 1 Timothy 1:9-10; Judges 1:7). - MSB
evil desire [concupiscence] -- Evil desires; licentious passions; Romans 1:24. Greek.
and covetousness [greed], which is idolatry -- It is remarkable that the apostle always ranks covetousness with these base and detestable passions. The meaning here is:
(1) That it is a low and debasing passion, like those which he had specified; and,
(2) That it secures the affections which properly belong to God, and is, therefore, idolatry. Of all base passions, this is the one that most dethrones God from the soul. See Ephesians 5:3-5.