Ephesians 4:25 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ephesians 4:25.— After the general exhortation, in the foregoing verses, to renounce the old course of life which they led when they were heathens, and to become perfectly new men, conformed to the holy rules of the gospel,—St. Paul descends to particulars; dehorting them from many vices, and pressing them to the practice of several important virtues. The words Το ψευδος, rendered lying, might be rendered more properly every lie; and as lying is so opposite to that sincerity which becomes a Christian, what is said against it may be best taken in the most extensive sense. The Apostle might possibly allude to the doctrine of those heathen moralists,who thought that lying might, in many cases, be justified: as well as to those, who, in order to conciliate the esteem of the Jewsand Gentiles, did not confine themselves to the rigid truth.