9 Don't lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Lie not. When he forbids lying, he condemns every sort of cunning, and all base artifices of deception. For I do not understand the term as referring merely to calumnies, but I view it as contrasted in a general way with sincerity. Hence it might be allowable to render it more briefly, and I am not sure but that it might also be a better rendering, thus: Lie not one to another. He follows out, however, his argument as to the fellowship, which believers have in the death and resurrection of Christ, but employs other forms of expression. The old man denotes -- whatever we bring from our mother's womb, and whatever we are by nature. [1] It is put off by all that are renewed by Christ. The new man, on the other hand, is that which is renewed by the Spirit of Christ to the obedience of righteousness, or it is nature restored to its true integrity by the same Spirit. The old man, however, comes first in order, because we are first born from Adam, and afterwards are born again through Christ. And as what we have from Adam becomes old, [2] and tends towards ruin, so what we obtain through Christ remains for ever, and is not frail; but, on the contrary, tends towards immortality. This passage is worthy of notice, inasmuch as a definition of regeneration may be gathered from it. For it contains two parts -- the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of the new, and of these Paul here makes mention. It is also to be noticed, that the old man is distinguished by his works, as a tree is by its fruits. Hence it follows, that the depravity that is innate in us is denoted by the term old man
1 - See Calvin on the Romans, [41]p. 224; also Calvin on the Corinthians, [42]vol. 1, p. 188.
2 - "Deuient vieil et caduque;" -- "Becomes old and frail."
Lie not one to another - Notes, Ephesians 4:25.
Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds - Your former corrupt and evil nature; Notes, Ephesians 4:22. The reason for putting away lying, stated in Ephesians 4:25, is, that we "are members one of another" - or are brethren. The reason assigned here is, that we have put off the old man with his deeds. The sense is, that lying is one of the fruits of sin. It is that which the corrupt nature of man naturally produces; and when that is put off, then all that that nature produces should be also put off with it. The vice of lying is a universal fruit of sin, and seems to exist everywhere where the gospel does not prevail; compare the notes at Titus 1:12. There is, perhaps, no single form of sin that reigns so universally in the pagan world.
Lie not one to another - Do not deceive each other; speak the truth in all your dealings; do not say, "My goods are so and so," when you know them to be otherwise; do not undervalue the goods of your neighbor, when your conscience tells you that you are not speaking the truth. It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but afterwards he boasteth; i.e. he underrates his neighbour's property till he gets him persuaded to part with it for less than its worth; and when he has thus got it, he boasts what a good bargain he has made. Such a knave speaks not truth with his neighbor.
Ye have put off the old man - See the notes on Romans 6:6; and particularly on Romans 13:11-14 (note). Ye have received a religion widely different from that ye had before; act according to its principles.
Lie not one to another, (7) seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
(7) A definition of our new birth taken from the parts of it, which are the putting off of the old man, that is to say, of the wickedness which is in us by nature, and the restoring and repairing of the new man, that is to say, of the pureness which is given us by grace. However, both the putting off and the putting on are only begun in us in this present life, and by certain degrees finished, the one dying in us by little and little, and the other coming to the perfection of another life, by little and little.
Lie not one to another.... Which is another vice of the tongue, and to which mankind are very prone, and ought not to be done to any, and particularly to one another; since the saints are members one of another, and of the same body, which makes the sin the more unnatural; of this vice; see Gill on Ephesians 4:25, and is another sin that is to be put off, or put away; that is to be abstained from, and not used. The arguments dissuading from this, and the rest, follow,
seeing that ye have put off the old man, with his deeds. The Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read this as an exhortation, as they do the next verse also. Who is meant by the old man; see Gill on Romans 6:6, and what by putting him off; see Gill on Ephesians 4:22, and as for "his deeds", they are the same with the deceitful lusts there mentioned, and the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19 and with the members of the body of sin in the context, Colossians 3:5. Some, as Beza, think, that here is an allusion to the rite of baptism in the primitive church; which, as he truly observes, was performed not by aspersion, but immersion; and which required a putting off, and a putting on of clothes, and when the baptized persons professed to renounce the sins of the flesh, and their former conversation, and to live a new life.
(Ephesians 4:25.)
put off--Greek, "wholly put off"; utterly renounced [TITTMANN]. (Ephesians 4:22).
the old man--the unregenerate nature which ye had before conversion.
his deeds--habits of acting.
Lie not. Christ is truth, and they who are of Christ will be truth in word and deed.
Seeing. Lying would be a proof that the old man (the old fleshly nature, Ephesians 4:22; Romans 6:6) with his deeds had not been put off.
Have put on the new man. Are born again (John 3:5) and become new creatures in Christ. The new man has a new heart, new thoughts, a new life.
Is renewed in knowledge. With the new man there is a growth, a renewal. He grows continually in knowledge of Christ and into his image.
Where there cannot be Greek, etc. In Christ there can be no distinction of race, or of caste. The Greek, when he is converted, becomes a new being; not a Greek, but a Christian. So of Jew, Roman, Scythian. They are all naturalized into a new kingdom, that of Christ, and belong to a new, holy nation (1-Peter 2:9). All the old barriers to fraternity are removed.
Barbarian. The Greeks long called all who were not Greeks barbarians, but in the apostolic age applied it more particularly to those who had not accepted the Greek civilization.
Bond nor free. The master and the slave were on a level in the church. "Humanity is a word which you look for in vain in Plato and Aristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the children of one God, is an idea of Christian growth."--Max Muller.
But Christ is all. He is the life of all the new creation, and in all.
*More commentary available at chapter level.