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Colossians 3:9

The Pulpit Commentary on Colossians 3:9

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Lie not one to another, having stripped off the old man with his deeds (, ; 20-25; ; ; ; ; , ; , ).

The imperatives of and were aorists, enjoining a single, decisive act; this is present, as in , , , , etc., giving a rule of life.

Only in Colossians and Ephesians do we find the apostle give a general warning against lying. What reason there was for this we cannot tell; unless it lay in the deceit of the heretical teachers ( : comp.

, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). The lying in question is uttered within the Church ("to one another"), and is fatal to its unity (verse 11; ; ).

The following aorist participles, "having stripped off" and "having put on" (verse 10), may, grammatically, be part of the command—"strip off," etc., and "lie not"—as e.g. in ; ; or may state the fact on which that command is based.

The latter view is preferable (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, English Version; but see Lightfoot); for the participles describe a change already realized—a change of principle, which has, however, still to be more fully carried out in practice (, ; , ,,; ; , ): in the imperative mood is resumed with an emphatic "therefore," implying a previous reference to fact.

(On the double compound ἀπ εκ δυσάμενοι, "having stripped off (and put) away," see notes, , .) The "Old man"; is the former self, the "I no longer living" () of the Colossian believer, to whom "the members that are upon the earth" () belonged—the entire sinful personality of "him who is in the flesh" ().

His "deeds" ("practices," "habits of doing," ; see Trench's 'Synonyms' on πράσσω) are the pursuits of which , , supply examples.

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