But speaking the truth in love. — It has been doubted whether the words “in love” should not be connected with “may grow up,” &c., exactly as in Ephesians 4:16, “maketh increase of the body... in love.” But both order and sense seem to point to the connection given in our version. The correct rendering is, being true in love; including in this the “being true” to others, by speaking truly and acting honestly towards them (as in Galatians 4:16), but including also the “being true” absolutely — that is, the loving the truth, and clinging to it at all costs. The latter element, indeed, is the one which stands here more properly in antithesis to the childish instability described in the preceding verse; as it is in itself the more important, and is, in fact, the only basis for the other.
“To thine own self be true,
And it will follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
This “being true” is expressed in many forms. Sometimes as “being of the truth” (John 18:37; 1 John 2:21; 1 John 3:19); sometimes as “abiding in the truth” (John 8:44), or “having the truth in us” (1 John 1:8); sometimes as “doing the truth” (John 3:21), and “walking in the truth” (2 John 1:4; 3 John 1:4). In all cases it is closely connected with the idea of unity with Him who is Himself “the Truth” (John 14:6).
With the phrase “being true in love” we may compare the corresponding phrase of “loving in truth... for the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us” (2 John 1:1; see also Ephesians 4:3, and 3 John 1:1). In both we recognise the harmony of the two great principles of individuality and unity, on which true humanity, and therefore likeness to God, depends. In the contemplation and love of truth each of us is alone; even in the speaking and doing truth towards others we have to consult only God and our own conscience, which is His voice within. In love, on the contrary, we deny and sacrifice self, merging our individual being in humanity or in God. Taking the first alone, we have a hard, almost stoical, self-concentration; taking the other alone, it may become towards man an idolatry, to which both truth and freedom are sacrificed, and even towards God may pass into a mysticism, in which all active energy is lost. Uniting both, we have the perfect humanity, at once individual and social, at once free before God and lost in God. Accordingly, it is thus that we “grow up into Him who is the Head, even Christ,” who, by perfect truth and perfect love, manifested to us in His humanity all the fulness of God.
The head, even Christ. — In this name of our Lord we have the link of connection between the individual perfection and corporate unity. He is (as in 1 Corinthians 11:3) the Head of each man. He is also the Head of the whole Church.