Lie not one to another
&c.] 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 Colossians 3:8 ) . 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.