Vv. 25-32. A paragraph containing a
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24- -26.
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25. Διὸ " ἀποθέμενοι τὸ “ψεῦδος " λαλεῖτε " ἀλήθειαν ἕκαστος n Ver. 22
μετὰ τοῦ πλησίον αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐσμὲν ἀλλήλων “μέλη.
ἵεσθεϊ καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε. p Zech. viii. 16.
1 After opy. insert δὲ PG ; και ΟΠ], Sah. ὅτω om. NAB, etc.
series of detached, practical exhortations, dealing with certain evils to be forsworn and duties to be fulfilled. These injunc- tions are all based on the preceding state- ment, or are delivered as applications of the foregoing charge to put off the old man and put on the new.
Ver. 25. Διὸ ἀποθέμενοι τὸ ψεῦδος, λαλεῖτε ἀλήθειαν ἕκαστος μετὰ τοῦ πλη- σίον αὐτοῦ: Wherefore, putting off false- hood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbour. διό, with the enlarged forms διότι, διόπερ, is rare in the NT except in Luke and Paul, but frequent with these, especially with the latter. It is = quam- obrem, on which account, and refers here to what was said about the new man and his creation κατὰ Θεόν as the ground for what follows. τὸ ψεῦδος includes false- hood in every form, of which lying τὸ ψεύδεσθαι (Col. iii. 8) is one chief in- stance. The partic. has its proper aor. force, expressing a thing understood to be done, completely and finally, = ‘‘ having put off then once for all falsehood in its every form”. λαλεῖτε, the continuous pres. following on the past act, has the force of ‘‘speak truth and speak it continu- ally,” as the result of that prior “ putting off”. The prep. μετά is appropriate here as the prep. of personal association and mutual action (Win.-Moult., pp. 470, 471). It is truth in intercourse between Christian brethren (rot πλησίον αὐτοῦ), not between Christians and their fellow- men in general, that is in view here (cf. Zech. viii. τ6).---ὅτι ἐσμὲν ἀλλήλων µέλη: for we are members one of another. Reason for this practice of truth—a reason drawn not from the common conceptions of duty or social weal, but from the pro- found Christian idea of union one with another through union with Christ. As in the human body each member is of the other in connection and for the other in service, so in the spiritual body of which Christ is the Head the members belong one to another and each serves the other; cf. Rom. xii. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 15. But can untruth consist with a union in which each is of and for the other? Why the sin of falsehood is first named, and why
q Rom. xii. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 27.
rei. 26. * ὀργί- ο John viii.
Ἢ 44; Rom. 6 ἥλιος μὴ " ἐπιδυέτω ἐπὶ” 1O° 1.25: Ps. ν. 6
r Ps, iv. 4. s Here only; Deut. xxiv. 16.
3 For επι, ev D 3, ἆ, 6, f, m, Vulg., etc.
the sins of anger, dishonesty and corrupt speech are next dealt with, we have no means of determining. The explanation lies no doubt in local and congregational circumstances which Paul did not need to particularise.
Ver. 26. ὀργίζεσθε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε: be ye angry, and sin not. The words are taken from Ps. iv. 4, and follow the LXX rendering. The original Hebrew,
ἸΝΌΓΙΓΙ. 5) WIN, is rendered by some ‘Tremble and sin not’ (Ewald; AV, ‘Stand in awe and sin not”), {.ο., -- “let wholesome fear keep you from this sinful course”’; by others, as the LXX gives it (Hitz., Del., etc.). As used by Paul here the words recognise the fact that anger has its rightful place and may be a duty, while they indicate also how easily it may pass into the sinful. Great difficulty has been felt with this, and in various ways it has been sought to empty the in- junction of its obvious meaning. Some take the first imperative conditionally, as if = ‘if ye are angry, do not sin” (Olsh., Bleek, etc.) ; others, in a way utterly at variance with the quotation, take ὀργί- ἵεσθε as an interrogative (Beza, Grot.) ; others declare it impossible to take the first command as direct (Buttm., Gram. of N. T. Greek, p. 290), or deal with the first imper. as permissive, and with the second as jussive (Winer, De Wette, etc.), as if = “‘be ye angry if it must be so, but only do not sin”. Such a construction might be allowable if the first imper. were followed by ἀλλὰ καί or some similar disjunctive: but with the simple καί it is inadmissible. Both impers. are real jussives, the only difference between them being in the py—which also throws some emphasis on the second. The καί has here the rhetorical sense which is found also in atque, adding something that seems not quite consistent with the pre- ceding or that qualifies it, =‘‘and yet” (cf. Matt. iii. 14, vi. 26, x. 29, etc.). Nor is the difficulty in admitting ὀργίζεσθε to be a real injunction of anger anything more than a self-made difficulty. Moralists of different schools, the Stoics excepted,