The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 168

11nother." For II man to deceive his neighbour by word or deed, is as if the eyes should conspire to trick the ear or misguide the band. The ancients condemned falsehood between men of the same community, but generally regarded it as a lawful weapon to use against enemies or strangers; although the Stoics, with their wider views of humanity, taught on this point, as on others, a higher morality. The "Greek" might deceive the "barbarian," the "bondman" might lie to his master, and have no sense of moral wrong. And so it bas been too commonly in the dealing of servants or schoolboys with their masters, of civilized men with savages, of libertines in their con- duct towards the other sex. Witness the immoral maxim, "All's fair in love and war." One chief cause of deceit would be removed if men would understand that the instinct of honour which bids them be truthful to their equals and comrades, require~ the same honesty in dealing with every man as man. The Christian acts on this principle; he will not in any sense "hold the faith of our Lord Jesus with respect o' persons" (Jas. ii. 1). (a) Many men who would resist the temptation to utter a lie in so many words, will silently act it; especially iu a continued course of action, where the deception lies not in any single definite act, but in the general construction which they lead others to put on their proceedings. Such deception is no less culpable in itself, and as a rule still more disastrous in its effects, than a palpable lie. (b) And again, men find it easy to lie collectively who would not do so singly. Though men of probity in their private affairs, they will put their hands to documents, they will consent with others to acls, which they know to bo misleading, or, at least, which they do not know to be true. And now that business is becoming more anu more a matter of "limited liability," the perils of divided respousibility in this direction should be well under- stood. 5. "Because of all these things God's anger is coming on the sons of dis- obedience" (ver. 6). Every act or thought of any of these kinds is a disobeaience, a breach of "the holy and just and good Law" under which man was first created in his Maker•~ image (ver. 10). This "Law worketh out wrath," inexorably and per- petually, against "every soul of man that doeth evil" (Rom. ii. 9; iv. 15). And that unger of God is coming (Isa. xxx. 27, 28). 'l'here is a day appointed for its "revela- tion" (Rom. ii. 5, 16; Mai. iv. 1), even as for "the manifestation of the sons of God" (ver. 4; Rom. viii. 19). It is already "revealed from heaven" (Rom. i. 18), aud ~ives forewarning of its advent in many a personal and public calamity (Isa. xxvi. D; :Mai. iii. 5; Mntt. xxiv. 3-42; 1 Cor. v. 3-5; xi. 30-32). On every account, the Christian must have done with the old lifo of sin. He sees it to bo incompatible with fellowship with Christ, to be hateful to God, to be ruinous to himself and tu his fellow- men. No return to it, no renewal of it, no dallying or temporizing with it in any kind or degree, can be tolerated. It must die if lie is to live. III. Till!: UNITY OF MANKIND IN CHRIST. (Vers.10, 11.) This truth belonged, at least in St. Paul's time, to the more advanced Christian knowledge, "unto which" the believer was "being renewed" (ver. 10); and the Church still comes far short of its full apprehension. 1. The gospel of Christ reveals the spiritual unity of mankind. 'l'o make this known was a part of the apostle's mission, and of the special "mystery Goel" entrusted to him ( eh. i. 25-28; Eph. iii. 1-G; Rom. iii. D-30; xv. 5- 12). Its manifestation, and the consequent "breaking down of tho middle wall of pnrtition" (Eph. ii. 14), were necessary to II complete Christian virtue, the propel' virtue of man as man, caJTied out in all his relations to God ancl to his fellows; and fur tue regeneration of human society, t.he salvation of the world. There was a preparation for this belief in the breaking down of the old nations into tho unity of the Roman empire, in the decay of local and ancestral relil!:ions, nnd in the advance of philosophy from the narrower and more political ethics of Plato and Aristotle to the moral system of tho Stoics, which wns at once more inward and more humane. But there was want- incr that conception of a living, Divine centre of the human race, given in Christ, which alone could make the sentiment of universal humanity a creative, organic force. 2. This unity has been realized in the Christian Church. It appears in the beautiful 8implicity of its childlike beginning, in the communism of the infant Church ot' Jerusalem (Acts ii, 44-47). It was eet forth in e. larger and fuller way by tho Apostle Pa.ul in addressing the mixod Churches of the great cities where ho laboured; aud was actually put into practice there in a goou degree. Jew and Greek (Gal. ii. 12), rich anu poo1· (1 Cur. xi, 20-22; the exception prov/!6 the rule: comp. Jas. ii. 1-4),  164 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. [oH. III, 1-25.