Wherefore, having put off falsehood, speak truth every one with his neighbour, because we are members one of another.
Ephesians 4 turns from teaching to daily life. The first thing it deals with is how Christians speak to one another. The command not to lie is old. The reason given here is new: believers belong to one body.
The word translated "lying" reaches further than spoken untruths. One writer ties it to the new self, quoting an older translation of the verse just before:
In verse 23 the apostle speaks of the new man these believers had put on. He tells us that "after God" it was "created in righteousness and true holiness," or, literally, holiness of the truth. So all falsehood is shut out. It can have no part in this new creation of God… "lying," or "falsehood," means everything that has the character and nature of falsehood. It is abstract: what has this quality, not just the act of lying. We should keep this in mind, because it may search many of us who would never be caught telling outright untruths. A look, a gesture, our manner, unclear speech, evasion, compliments and many other things can fall under this sense of lying.
One writer traces lying to both our nature and its first author.
Lying is natural to us all. Men are said to go astray from the womb, speaking lies (Ps. 58:3). And even believers are ready to forget, when they twist the truth, that they are only following the devil, who did not stand in the truth and who became the originator of falsehood (John 8:44). We should not lie to anyone. But when we are all members of one body, how horrible it is to bring in deception, and so bring corruption into the body of Christ.
Another writer adds what lying reveals about the person telling it:
Lying is both an instrument of selfishness and a confession of personal wretchedness. No happy spirit can ever be a false one. It is the instinctive refuge of a guilty conscience. So it should have no place in a heart that the precious blood of Jesus has cleansed from an evil conscience. Falsehood and faith stand in essential opposition. Faith feeds on truth, because it trusts in God; while it is the absence of that trust that gives a lie its power over the human soul.
Most people can give reasons for honesty. The reason given here is not one of them.
We are too apt to treat falsehood on the human basis of honour. Many a man would not lie on moral grounds. Another would be too proud to tell a lie. A godly man, with a certain fear of God before his eyes, would not lie, because it is a practical denial of God. It is as good as saying that God does not hear… But this is not enough for a Christian. It matters greatly for our souls that we walk well and righteously. But the motive, character and extent must be according to God too.
Another writer sets this reason against the reasoning of moral philosophy:
Moral philosophy never gave a reason anything like the one given here… Who can imagine falsehood from the lips of Him whose words were the words of God, and whose truth was the truth of God? One who walked in His spirit and showed His life could no more speak falsehood.
The final clause supplies the logic. Deceiving another believer turns out to be self-injury.
Nothing could be more horrible than one member of the body trying to deceive the others. No one could be guilty of such wickedness if he had any real sense of the oneness of that spiritual body… But who ever saw the parts of a man's body fighting each other in bitterness and anger? If I deceive the members of the body, I deceive myself. If I quarrel with them, I quarrel with myself. For though we are many members, the body is one, and we are all one body in Christ.
The verse does not only forbid. It says what to speak instead.
If we speak truth, we speak what is helpful, what builds up, refreshes and encourages, and what is good in the sight of God… We should speak truth at all times because we have put off the old man. But there is one more reason for it here: the close and living links that bind us to all the saints.
One writer points out where this command stands in the letter.
Have you noticed, in the letter that reveals the church more than any other, which is the first command? … And read carefully every word that follows to the end of the chapter. If all believers walked according to these commands, division would be impossible.
- Put off — falsehood belongs to the old self, now laid aside. It is our inborn habit, and it comes from the devil, the first liar.
- Put on — truth is the voice of the new self, created after God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
- Wider than words — a look, a gesture, evasion or a hollow compliment can all carry the character of falsehood.
- Higher motive — honour, morals, even the fear of God: none of these is the reason given here. Membership in one body is.
- Body logic — deceive a fellow member and you deceive yourself. Speak the truth, and division becomes impossible.
Be angry, and do not sin; let not the sun set upon your wrath,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
neither give room for the devil.
Paul has just told believers that anger itself is not always sin, but that it must not be carried into the night. This next line closes the door that anger leaves open, because the devil takes any room the flesh gives him.
One writer traces this command back to the first murder, then widens it far past temper:
This instruction follows naturally from the one before. An angry man is only a tool of Satan. Cain, who killed his brother in his anger, belonged to that wicked one. But in a far wider sense the devil is behind all that stirs up the evil feelings and passions of the old nature.
The devil asks for little at first. One writer shows where that small yielding ends:
Many have agreed to go a mile with Satan who never intended to go two. So Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by a winding staircase. They never see the bottom they are heading for. First he presents something that stirs a few thoughts. These thoughts set the affections on fire. The heated affections cloud the understanding. Now Satan dares to show himself a little more, and boldly urges the person to do what he would once have refused outright. Give no place to Satan! Not an inch, not in his first suggestions. A beggar who is modest outside the door will command the house once he is let in.
So what opens the door? One writer answers by naming what Satan can reach in us and what he cannot:
This verse shows us that we ought not to open the door to Satan. If it is the flesh that is acting, then the wicked one can touch us; but he cannot touch the new man, he cannot entice it (1 John 5:18). If I give way to a thought which is not of God, then I give place to Satan; if I give way to anger, the enemy is there. We are then hindered in service, troubled in prayer; and that is no surprise.
Anger is the example here, but it is not the only door. One writer points to a disciple who fell through another one:
We are warned that by acting in the flesh, whether in anger or in any other way, we open the door for the devil. Peter, by his self-confidence, made room for the devil to lead him into a denial of the Lord.
There is no neutral option. Either we hand the matter over to God and stay quiet, or the enemy takes what we keep holding:
The Lord says, "Vengeance is mine." Rather leave room for the wrath of God (Romans 12), and "give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4). But if you do not leave room for God's wrath, you will give room to the devil. Shall we lose anything by being quiet and taking things patiently?
(Older translations use one phrase, "give place," in both verses. That is the wordplay here.)
Resistance has a named means. The same writer points to where the victory comes from:
The Christian should keep this truth always in mind, and here he is encouraged to resist the devil. We overcome him by standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:9). He works most powerfully as the accuser of God's people, after first leading them into sin. But by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony they will certainly prevail (Revelation 12:10-11).
The guard is to let nothing carry over to the next day. One writer tells of a long life lived under attack:
The Christian ends his day with a mind free from irritation. I once asked an aged Christian how he had been able to live so long, having been so often unjustly attacked. He replied that for forty-five years he had been able to leave everything with the Lord each day, in deep rest of mind. He did this despite the indignation often stirred in him by so much wickedness. This takes the opportunity away from the enemy, who has often taken advantage of an irritated spirit.
- The door. Anger held past sunset is the opening. The devil is behind all that stirs the passions of the old nature, and an angry man becomes his tool.
- The inch. He asks small and takes large. Let the beggar in and he commands the house, then leads you down a stair whose bottom you never see.
- The room. He cannot touch the new man. He works only where the flesh acts — through anger, or through self-confidence, as with Peter.
- The cost. Give him room and he hinders your service and troubles your prayer. The loss shows at once in daily Christian life.
- The remedy. Stand firm in the faith, and leave the matter with God each day. A mind at rest before nightfall takes the enemy's opportunity away.
Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him toil, working what is honest with [his] hands, that he may have to distribute to him that has need.
One line about theft sits in a letter written to a thriving church, and it does more than tell a man to stop taking what is not his. It replaces the old habit with honest work, and gives that work a purpose the thief never had.
The ESV says "thief," but the term used covers more than that, and the warning went to a church that was doing well.
The word is not exactly "him who stole," but "the stealer." "Thief" would be too strong, and "he who stole" is too weak. The apostle was led to choose a term wide enough to take in every shade of such dishonesty. Do you think the caution needless? Beware, or your self-confidence and your slighting of any word God has written will trap you. The Spirit who inspired the letter clearly judged this warning necessary for all believers, not only for the Ephesians. Yet nowhere do we find a church more happy, flourishing, and blessed of God than the church in Ephesus.
The first readers came out of a world where taking was normal, and the command reaches further than burglary.
Remember that the early churches were made up of people just brought out of paganism, with all its horrors. Some of them were slaves, an oppressed and degraded class, and among them theft was common, with no guilt or shame attached to it. The exhortation also goes beyond open theft. In principle it condemns every kind of unfair advantage — the sort that even the fuller morality of our own day often condemns only weakly.
That principle lands on the ordinary workplace, where small dishonesty passes unnoticed.
For an employee to take small things from where he works is no less than stealing. Many do this without thinking, but a believer must take care never to take anything that does not belong to him.
Stopping is only half of it. The hands that once took must now work, and work at something honest.
Idleness is neither right nor safe. So the Spirit cheers and directs the man whose hands were once used in unworthy ways. So He opens a happy path where grace can prove its power, despite a dishonest nature and habit. Only the work must be good and honest. It is no use pleading that money gained dishonestly went to a kind or religious purpose! No job that goes against God's will is good for a Christian; he should give it up at once.
The verse names the goal of the work, and it is not survival. Kelly puts the contrast plainly in the same passage: the worldly man works in order to live; the Christian works in order to give.
People have often pointed to verse 28 as a display of the true energy of Christianity. The thief becomes a giver — and not only a giver out of his plenty, but one who works to earn the means of giving to others. What a wonderful transformation! Paul needed spiritual energy to stay up making tents for his own needs and for the needs of others — and he had not been a thief before his conversion. Only the Holy Spirit can produce active virtues and true devotion, the very opposite of what came before.
Commentators repeatedly note that the old rule against stealing would have been satisfied long before this verse is.
The thief is to become a worker and even a giver, for grace transforms. The law required the thief to pay back what he took, but grace makes him actively generous.
The same article puts the two principles side by side.
Law forbids evil; grace delights in doing good. Law is what God demands from man; grace is what God is in Himself.
The change asked for here mirrors what Christ Himself did, so the man once despised is handed the most honourable of errands.
That a man who once robbed others should become the willing and hardworking servant who hands out Christ's gifts to the needy — that would beautifully adorn the grace that saved him.
- Stop. The term covers every shade of dishonesty, and it went to a thriving church, so no believer is past needing it.
- Work. Idleness is neither right nor safe. The hands that once took must work, and work at something honest, because no kind use of the money excuses how it was gained.
- Give. Earning has a new aim. The world works to live; the Christian works to have something to hand to someone in need.
- Beyond. The law made a thief pay back what he took. Grace makes him generous, because law forbids evil while grace delights in doing good.
- Christ. The man who once robbed people now hands out Christ's gifts to the needy, and that is what grace looks like when it has done its work.
Let no corrupt word go out of your mouth, but if [there be] any good one for needful edification, that it may give grace to those that hear [it].
This verse puts a test on everything we say. The question is not just whether a word is clean, but whether it builds someone up and leaves grace with the person who hears it.
William Kelly reads the verse as covering a whole class of talk that most people would call harmless:
Throw worthless language away as you would throw away spoiled fruit. If such a word is on your tongue, let it go no further. Unclean talk we will find named and forbidden in the next chapter. Here I think the circle is wider. Many people would never speak or listen to dirty talk. Yet they often have to grieve over talk that does no good, and over those who approve it. It is better to say nothing than to speak when there is nothing good to build others up.
Darby asks which of two natures is doing the talking:
Here we see the contrast between the old self and the new. One or the other speaks: either it complains, or it gives thanks. The mature Christian would only speak to build others up. The new self, moved by the Spirit, will only take part in what builds up.
"As fits the occasion" adds a second filter after "good." A word can pass the first test and still fail the second:
The point is not only that corrupt talk stops. Positive good comes out — words that build up according to the need. Not only good language, but good for the occasion, and this assumes the Holy Spirit's power. We have often said things that were good in themselves but not needed at the time. I once saw a man give away food and medicines. The gifts were excellent, but he paid no attention to what the people receiving them actually needed.
Kelly draws the practical rule from the same clause: "The need measures the service, and love builds up instead of puffing up as knowledge does."
A. Pridham gives a test for what we say, and warns that talk which does not build up does harm:
Christian conversation calls for a constant remembrance that God is present. That memory holds back the outbursts of our sinful nature. Nothing that we cannot say with confidence in that presence is fit for the ears of one another. We would do well to remember that if our words do not edify, they are harmful. Whatever does not have the flavour of Christ has the flavour of the world. Talk like that does not strengthen God's building; it pulls it down.
T. B. Baines points to Christ Himself as the pattern:
It is not enough for the believer to avoid corrupt talk. That kind of talk belongs to "the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires." The believer has put on the new self, and Christ is its perfect pattern. Did Christ merely refrain from evil in His conversation? No; His words, like His life, gave grace to those who heard. And so will the words of one who is in communion with Christ.
W. T. P. Wolston shows what careless talk does to the Holy Spirit:
If we walk carelessly, letting corrupt talk come out of our mouth, we will by that very thing grieve the Holy Spirit. When that happens, in His infinite mercy He brings a cloud over us. He gives us a sense of our folly and sin, and our conscience gives us no rest. The normal work of the Spirit is to show us the beauty of Christ and fill our hearts with Him. But if we grieve Him, He must turn our attention to ourselves and our sin. That lasts until we confess and He restores us.
- Source. One of two natures does the talking. Old self or new self — the words show which is in charge at that moment.
- Supply. Grace to give out comes from grace taken in. Time with the Lord feeds the mouth that builds others up.
- Standard. Not just clean words, but good ones — and good for this need, this hearer, this moment. Silence beats a word that meets no need.
- Scope. Wider than dirty talk. The same net catches useless and unwholesome speech. Words that fail to build are pulling down.
- Sequel. Careless speech grieves the Spirit. He must then turn us to our own sin instead of the beauty of Christ, until we confess.