(9) Lie not one to another.--Comp. Ephesians 4:25, and note the characteristic insertion there of a clause to which there is nothing here to correspond, "for we are members one of another."

Seeing that ye (have) put off the old man.--Comp. the fuller description of Ephesians 4:22-24.

Verse 9. - Lie not one to another, having stripped off the old man with his deeds (Ephesians 4:14, 15; 20-25; 1 Timothy 1:6; Revelation 21:8; Colossians 2:11; Romans 6:6; Romans 8:12, 13; Galatians 5:16, 24). The imperatives of vers. 5 and 8 were aorists, enjoining a single, decisive act; this is present, as in vers. 1, 2, 15, 18, 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 (Colossians 2:8: comp. Ephesians 4:14, 15; Acts 20:30; 2 Corinthians 11:13; 1 Timothy 4:2; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1; Revelation 2:2; Revelation 3:9). The lying in question is uttered within the Church ("to one another"), and is fatal to its unity (ver. 11; Ephesians 4:25; Acts 20:28-30). The following aorist participles, "having stripped off" and "having put on" (ver. 10), may, grammatically, be part of the command - "strip off," etc., and "lie not" - as e.g. in 1 Thessalonians 5:8; Hebrews 12:1; 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 (Colossians 2:11-13, 20; Colossians 3:1, 3, 7, 11; Ephesians 4:20-24; Galatians 3:27, 28): in ver. 12 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, Colossians 2:11, 15.) The "Old man"; is the former self, the "I no longer living" (Galatians 2:20) of the Colossian believer, to whom "the members that are upon the earth" (ver. 5) belonged - the entire sinful personality of "him who is in the flesh" (Romans 8:8). His "deeds" ("practices," "habits of doing," Romans 8:13; see Trench's 'Synonyms' on πράσσω) are the pursuits of which vers. 5, 8, 9 supply examples.

3:5-11 It is our duty to mortify our members which incline to the things of the world. Mortify them, kill them, suppress them, as weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them. Continual opposition must be made to all corrupt workings, and no provision made for carnal indulgences. Occasions of sin must be avoided: the lusts of the flesh, and the love of the world; and covetousness, which is idolatry; love of present good, and of outward enjoyments. It is necessary to mortify sins, because if we do not kill them, they will kill us. The gospel changes the higher as well as the lower powers of the soul, and supports the rule of right reason and conscience, over appetite and passion. There is now no difference from country, or conditions and circumstances of life. It is the duty of every one to be holy, because Christ is a Christian's All, his only Lord and Saviour, and all his hope and happiness.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.