Ephesians Chapter 4 verse 22 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 22. - That ye put off, as concerning the former conversation, the old man. The sum of Christ's practical lessons is given in two particulars - putting off and putting on. The change is very decided and very complete. It is emphatically personal; not a mere change of opinions or of religious observances, but of life, habit, character; not altering a few things, but first putting off the man as we put off a garment. "It is a change which brings the mind under the government of truth, and gives to the life a new aspect of integrity and devoutness." Which is rotting according to the lusts of deceit. The present participle, φθειρόμενον, indicates continuance or progress in corruption. Sin is a disintegrating dissolving thing, causing putridity, and in all cases, when unchecked, tending towards it. Deceit is personified; it is an agent of evil, sending out lusts which seem harmless but are really ruinous - their real character is concealed; they come as ministers of pleasure, they end as destructive tyrants. Lust of power, lust of money, lust of pleasure, have all this character; they are the offspring of deceit, and always to be shunned.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(22-24) These verses explain the substance of the teaching of Ephesians 4:21. The original may be interpreted either of the teaching of a fact, "that ye did put off . . . and are being renewed," &c., or of a duty, "that ye put off . . . and be renewed." The latter is, on the whole, the more probable, although the former would yield a simpler sense. It is to be noted that the words "put off" and "put on" in the original denote a distinct and complete act; the word "be renewed," a continuous and still incomplete process. The complete act is consummated, and the continuous process begun, by the practical "learning" of Christ--that is, by growth in spiritual communion with Him.(22) Concerning the former conversation.--So far, that is, as concerns the conversation or mode of life described above (Ephesians 4:17-19) as the moral condition of heathenism. It is in relation to this, the corruption of the true humanity, and not in relation to the true humanity itself, that the "old man" is put off.The phrase "the old man" (found also in Romans 6:6; Colossians 3:9) is here illustrated by the description following: which is being marred in virtue of the lusts of deceit. The word rendered "corrupt" expresses not so much pollution as disintegration and decay, much as in 2Corinthians 4:16; and so carries out the idea implied in the epithet "old." The unregenerate nature, subject to "the lusts of deceit"--the lusts, that is, of the spirit of delusion, blind themselves, and blinding the soul which yields to them--is gradually sinking into the spiritual decay which must become spiritual death, unless by the effort of faith, entering into the communion with Christ, it be, once for all, "put off." The various qualities of the nature thus stripped off are variously described: in Rom. 13:22, as the "works of darkness; in Hebrews 12:1, as simply "encumbrance;" in James 1:21, as "filthiness and excess of evil;" in 1Peter 2:1, as "malice, and craft, and hypocrisies, and envies." All these are the "lusts of deceit." . . .