"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven."
The apostle classes the covetous man with the fornicator and the unclean, amongst those who by their worship of the shameful idols of the god of this world exclude themselves from their "inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
A serious warning this for all who handle the world's wealth. They have a perilous war to wage, and an enemy who lurks for them at every step in their path. Will they prove themselves masters of their business, or its slaves? Will they escape the golden leprosy,--the passion for accumulation, the lust of property? None are found more dead to the claims of humanity and kindred, none further from the kingdom of Christ and God, none more "closely wrapped" within their "sensual fleece" than rich men who have prospered by the idolatry of gain. Dives has chosen and won his kingdom. He "receives in his lifetime his good things"; afterwards he must look for "torments."
[127] =Dio apothemenoi to pseudos.= Despite the commentators, we must hold to it that _the lie_, _the falsehood_ is objective and concrete; not _lying_, or _falsehood_ as a subjective act, habit, or quality,--which would have been rather =pseudologia= (comp. =môrologia=, v. 4; and 1 Tim. iv. 2, =pseudologôn=), or =to pseudes=. So in Rom. i. 25, =to pseudos= is "the [one great] lie" which runs through all idolatry; and in 2 Thess. ii. 11 it denotes "the lie" which Antichrist imposes on those ready to believe it,--viz., that he himself is God. Accordingly, we take the participle =apothemenoi= to signify not what the readers are to do, but what they _had done_ in renouncing heathenism. The apostle requires consistency: "Since you are now of the truth, be truth-speaking men."
[128] 2 Cor. i. 18, 19, xi. 10.
[129] See ch. i. 13, 14, and 18 (last clause).
[130] Trench: _N. T. Synonyms_, § xxxiv.