Pauls's Epistle to the Ephesians
Chapter Ten
CHRISTIAN TRUTH.
"Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another"-Eph. 4:25.

THE precept here, "Speak every man truth with his neighbour," has prefixed to it a sort of preliminary condition : "putting away lying:" and has annexed to it a reason: "for we are memhers one of another." Evidently therefore it is a precept having special reference to believers; to their character as putting away lying; and to their condition as members one of another. There is more here than the mere general enforcement of the duty required in the ninth commandment, the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man. It is as a specially Christian duty that speaking truth is here enjoined. This will appear as we consider,
I. The condition assumed.
II. The injunction itself.
III. The reason annexed to it.

I. Let us consider the condition. The precept manifestly assumes a preliminary condition, putting away lying. It founds upon that condition a specific command: "speak every man truth with his neighbour." It takes for granted that you put away or lay aside, that you have put away or laid aside, that you are putting away or laying aside, lying, the lie, the false thing - falsehood.
Observe, it is not merely speaking a lie, as opposed to speaking truth, that you put away; but lying itself, the false thing, falsehood. This is all-important. It distinguishes the special apostolic and evangelical rule from a mere general command not to tell lies. It touches the root of the matter. It points to the entire and thorough abandonment and renunciation, not in outward speech only, but in the inmost heart, of all falsehood. You put away the thing that is false, all false dealing in your inmost mind and spirit with any person or any thing. That I hold to be the true and full meaning of this preliminary condition of the precept "putting away lying."

We must connect this with what goes before. At ver. 22 we are exhorted to put off or put away the old man, which is corrupt after the lusts of deceit, i.e. to put away the lusts of deceit in which its corruption consists. Here we are assumed to put away the deceit itself to which the lusts belong, and by means of which they wield their corrupting influence. Now, consider what this implies. It cuts very deep. It goes down into the most intimate recesses of the heart. It searches and tries the reins. For is not falsehood, lying, not perhaps in the gross outward sense of uttering lying words; but in the more subtle sense of inwardly believing a lie, and loving it and making it, the very breath and element of our natural life? What sustains it but a lie? What makes it tolerable but a lie? What but the great lie of the devil gives us courage to live on and on our life of sin and selfishness; of ungodliness and carnality; of sensuality, sensuousness, and sloth? And then, what is the life that is thus cherished and nourished but itself one great lie, a system of fraud and imposition, of imposition on ourselves and others? For whom, or what, do we venture to face in the clear light of truth? With whom, or with what, do we deal truly, with entire, open, frank, guilelessness and unreserve?

I speak of inward dealing, remember, not of outward treatment. Let us look into ourselves from the new point of view which we occupy, as renewed in the spirit of our mind; let us note the falsehood of the old man which the new man has to put away. It is very potent, very powerful; for it wields as its instruments our lusts. And it is very inveterate, for these lusts are native. They are our old nature. The essence of the old nature is selfishness; and selfishness is of necessity radically falsehood. It is so in every form of it. Whether I am seeking to justify myself, or to profit myself, or to please myself, I am fain to believe some lie; to lean on some false support; to desire some false excuse; to cherish some false hope. I dare not look at things as they really are. I dare not look at God as he really is; no, nor at man either; least of all at myself. An uneasy sense of guilt secretly haunts me; a sore consciousness or suspicion of claims unmet, duties unfulfilled, injuries inflicted, degradation incurred; a feeling that I do not stand right with God, with man, with myself; from which I try to take refuge in concealment, disguise, reserve. I am involved in a miserable shifty game of make-believe and self-deception. I have rest and am quiet only in the dark, where false pretences and false delusions escape detection; shunning the light of noon; hiding like our first parents among the trees of the garden. Ah, it is a great matter to have put away this falsehood; to have purged the soul quite clean from selfish and partial counsel. Need I say how, and how only, this can be effected? How but by your state and your heart being made right with God? That first, that last, that always, is the only specific in this case. Let all be open between my God and me. Let there be no shrinking on my part from his holy presence, from his loving embrace. Let there be a full, thorough, satisfactory settlement of all that is outstanding, as ground of controversy or estrangement between us. Let there be the negotiation of a pure, righteous, perfect peace. Let me be made willing to renounce self; to deny, to crucify self; my own false self; and to take Christ in stead; Christ who tells me the truth; who is himself the truth. Let me see light in his light; in the light of him who is the light of the world. Let me hear him, and be taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. Let me consent to his bringing me out of my dark deceitful den, and placing me under his Father's open eye, washed in his own precious blood, clothed in his own spotless righteousness; so that all half measures, the devices of falsehood, being for ever at an end, there may be true, real, complete reconciliation. Then is there wrought in me that truth in the inward parts which God desires. Then the miserable necessity of guile is abandoned, and I can afford to be honest. All now is above board; nothing concealed; no subterfuge; no evasion. Thus, and only thus, I put away falsehood. Thus, and only thus, I must be always putting it away; in the exercise of simple honest faith ; walking in the light as God is in the light; the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing me from all sin.

Brethren, put away lying, falsehood. Realise your having put it away in your first frank acceptance of Christ and of God's free mercy in him. Persevere in putting it away, by abiding always in Christ whom you have learned, hearing him and being taught in him according to all the truth that is in Jesus. For indeed, you need to be always putting it away; it is so very prone, though put away once, ay put away a thousand times, to return, to come back and revisit your soul. Remember that as long as you are in the flesh, and in the world, you have the old corrupt man, with his lusts of deceit, still very near you; besetting you; clinging and cleaving to you; and you have the prince of this world making his own use of the lusts of the old man to deceive and slay you. Beware of yielding to these lusts, and so becoming again entangled in the wiles of your own self-excusing, self-justifying spirit, and of Satan's soothing lies. Stand fast in the holiness and righteousness of the new man. These are of the truth. Abiding and abounding in them, you put away lying.

II. Now it is having thus put away lying, and thus continuing to put it away, that you are to "speak every man truth with his neighbour," or "speak truth every man with his neighbour." Obviously the condition and the precept are closely connected. And the connection is natural. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If there is no falsehood in the heart, it may be anticipated that there will be truth in the lips. And the converse holds good. If falsehood is not put away from the heart, the mouth can scarcely be expected to speak truth. So far, generally, the connection here indicated is clear enough.

I am persuaded, however, that this is not all. Bear in mind what putting away falsehood, as I have endeavoured to explain it, really means. It describes a state or frame of mind, a character of the inner man, peculiar to the real Christian, the true believer. If so, it would seem to follow that by speaking truth every man with his neighbour, is meant a habit or mode of speech also peculiar to such a one. The true speaking must correspond to the putting away lying with which it is associated; out of which in fact it springs. They are both of them Christian graces and attainments, and not common virtues; excellences of which the renewed man is capable, but which are beyond the reach of the old.

And yet, one would say, speaking truth is not surely a monopoly of the Church as opposed to the world. The godly cannot claim it as exclusively their own. Are there no true speakers outside of their pale? Nay, is not speaking truth a point of honour among the high-minded men of the world ? Do not they scorn to tell a lie ? Is it not, in their view, the worst of all offences you can charge upon them, and that which they will resent, even to the death, when you call in question their veracity? To say they do not speak truth is a mortal affront.

Then moreover may they not retaliate the accusation? May they not point to doubtful principles and suspicious practices in the Church herself; principles and practices which seem to warrant the notion that, with a view to the high end she has to aim at, she claims to exercise some discretion in regard to the lower obligations of mere literal accuracy, or unreserved openness of statement?

Let us look at these two questions, which are undoubtedly pertinent and relevant. I take the last first. I admit that there is a snare for the Christian in this department of duty. If there were not, I scarcely think the apostle would have introduced this warning so emphatically. The temptation is to think that, because you have yourselves got rid of the devil's lie, and got hold of, or been got hold of by, the truth of God; the God-glorifying and soul-saving truth as it is in Jesus ; and because you feel yourselves bound and moved to do all you can to bring others to be as you are; therefore you may use policy, and take them craftily with guile. I do not here advert to the grosser form which this error takes in the minds and hearts of those who avowedly believe and openly teach that the end justifies the means; and that, according to times circumstances and persons, reticence dissimulation and even simulation are legitimate means of conversion to the true faith and the one church. That may be the full-blown development of the tendency. But the tendency itself exists and works, more or less, in the minds and hearts of all who, in the evangelical sense and the evangelical spirit, have put away lying. It may he a sad admission to make, humiliating, mortifying. It may seem, moreover, to be a monstrous paradox; self-contradictory, self-confuting ; that the expulsion of guile from my spirit, with reference to the great and vital concerns of my sin and God's salvation, should be the very secret and source and occasion of my being tempted to use guile with others. And yet it is not so wonderful after all. Looking at the way by which I have myself been led, I am apt to fancy that if I had been otherwise dealt with, and better managed, I might have been sooner and more easily brought to Christ. I think I see where allowance might have been made; where strict and stern rigidity of practice might have been judiciously relaxed; and dark and gloomy notions of sin and hell might have been advantageously shaded; and the higher views of the sovereignty of the divine purpose in salvation might have been prudently kept in abeyance and in the back ground, for a time. And perhaps I may be right. I may have been unwisely handled.

But mark the danger. I mean to be wiser in dealing with others than I think my pious friends were in dealing with me. I must be more cautious and discreet. I must speak truth of course, as it is in me; as it is in Jesus, truth, and nothing but truth. I put away falsehood; and there must be none in my mouth, as I seek that there shall be none in my heart. But then I must exercise discretion. I have a very high calling; a very high aim; and I must not be judged by ordinary standards, or limited and restricted by ordinary rules. I must determine for myself when the truth should be spoken; with whom; and how far. I must be regulated, in speaking it, by a holy expediency. That is the snare. And it is all the more seductive and perilous because there is a measure of apparent and partial soundness in the reasoning; such as may be plausibly turned to account by the timid and the temporising.

Therefore let all who seek to put away lying or falsehood, beware of the snare. See how it works. It begins in the way of suggesting the necessity of most sagacious discretion and discrimination in speaking the truth. Speak it by all means; but not so as to give offence, and thereby hurt the cause you have at heart. What follows? What but dissimulation, conformity, accommodation? Men of the world begin to see that you are not speaking, not acting, up to the full meaning of your profession. They shrewdly guess that you are not really speaking the truth, in its integrity, to one another, any more than you are speaking it to them. And alas, they soon have too good ground for their suspicion. For the likelihood is that you will not stop short at the point I suppose you to have reached. For you are compromised; you are committed; you cannot stand up for the whole truth of God always and everywhere; you are involved in worldly works and worldly ways. When challenged for inconsistency you can but hesitate, and shuffle, and hang your head and be dumb. It is here that honourable men of the world seem to have the advantage over the disciples of Christ. Speaking truth is their boast. It is, I repeat, their highest point of honour. To impute a lie is, with them, a mortal insult. And I am far from saying that their claim to the most scrupulous veracity is always unfounded. I do not dwell on the instances, rarer now, I would hope, than they once were, in which the most chivalrous sensitiveness as to the slightest imputation of falsehood on the part of an equal has been found compatible with systematic and deliberate lying to a creditor; and base, cowardly falsehood in the betrayal of female innocence. I hail, and I rejoice to hail, thoroughly truthful and honourable men, among those who, alas, are not yet joined to Christ. Nor do I care to inquire from whence they derived their high-minded principle, or how far the phenomenon they exhibit would have been possible without Christianity. I give them all credit for the strictest conscientiousness in adhering to the truth of fact, in whatever statements they have to make. And I give up freely to their tender mercies all professing Christians who are unscrupulous or unwise in that matter.

But after all, do these men, at the very best, really speak truth every man with his neighbour? Do they speak truth as you, who put away falsehood in the sense already explained, are bound, and should be prepared and prompt to do so? Do they, as the saying is, let themselves out, turn themselves, as it were, inside out, allow their inner spirit to have free scope and full expression outwardly in their intercourse with their fellow-men? Granted, that as regards all they speak about, they speak truth. They truly represent outward facts and circumstances, accordingto their knowledge. Granted, moreover, that so far as they give utterance to their inward views and sentiments, they do that also truly; telling truly what they think and feel. Still, all that being granted, I ask, does their outward speech, their external communication with their fellows, really manifest, fully and unreservedly, their inner selves? Is that possible unless they first, in the true spiritual sense, put away falsehood.

I am quite prepared for the objection to my view which may here be taken. It may be said that no man; not the best of men not the most thoroughly renewed and sanctified; will ever lay bare his whole inner life to his neighbour, or speak out all the truth regarding it. Even the believer cannot be expected or required to do so. That is partly true. Still there is a difference in this respect, a vast and vital difference, between him and the most truthful and trustworthy of worldly men with whom he might be compared.

The difference may be partly illustrated by contrasting the high specimen or type of worldly honour I have been indicating, with a lower and less respectable example. The unscrupulous worldly man cares nothing about the agreement between what he knows and feels and what he says. The man of honour does. He is thus separated from the other by a vast moral distance, and immeasurably elevated above him. But even he, the man of honour, does not care about his inward experience being outwardly expressed. For the most part, he will shrink from that. He will, of course, see to it that nothing is outwardly expressed by him that is inconsistent or at variance with his inward experience. But he does not feel himself to be under any obligation to open to his neighbour his mind and heart. He is not naturally - he cannot be - either willing or inclined to do so. For there is still guile in his spirit. He hugs and hides himself in his own deceitful self-esteem. It is the special duty and high privilege of believers, renewed in the spirit of their mind, and putting away falsehood, to speak truth every man with his neighbour. For their inner life now, being true and guileless, is such as may be truly and guilelessly expressed outwardly. It will and must be so. The incidents, if I may so say, of that inner life may often be secret, sacred, incommunicable; spiritual exercises of soul, spiritual communings with God, spiritual joys and sorrows, that can be shared with no neighbour. But all that is essential to it may be freely and frankly spoken out. Speak it then; speak it all out, 0 man of God! There is truth now in your inward parts. Let there be the same truth in your outward utterances. You have got rid of reserve in your heart; get rid of it also in your lips and life. Avow yourself, show yourself, speak yourself, to be what now you really are. Be yourself; express yourself; let the truth that is in you come out. Everywhere and always let it come out. Speak it with your neighbour, whoever he may be. Ask not, who is your neighbour? He is whoever is near you; at your side; within your reach; whoever will hear you. Speak with him. Speak truth with him. Let there be no dissimulation; no equivocation; no accommodation; no silence. Speak because you believe. Speak as you believe. "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: but verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me" (Ps. Ixvi. 16-20).

III. The reason given for observing this precept is drawn from the description of the church in the first part of the chapter, and is in harmony with the peculiar nature of the precept itself, "We are members one of another." That is not stated as the ground on which the ethical or moral obligation of truthfulness or veracity in general rests; nor is it meant to supersede or set aside the ordinary motives by which the practice of that virtue may be enforced. It is a new and special consideration, arising out of the new and special position which believers in Jesus are called to occupy. They are formed into one body, having a common head; from whom they all derive a common life, and in whom they all are one. There are not, therefore - there cannot be, if they realise and act out this great ideal - separate interests among them. They are not isolated from one another, and independent of one another. Nor are they simply a community of individuals, voluntarily associated together for certain common ends. On either of these suppositions there might still be room for concealment and caution on many points; there might be some apology for reticence and silence. But believers are a divinely constituted, a divinely created corporation. Their unity is of the Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Ghost. They are more intimately bound and knit together in one than are the limbs of man's corporeal frame.

They have absolutely, in the highest sense, all things in common. There is one body, one spirit, one hope of their calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above, and through, and in them all.

Surely, in such a society, there might be expected to be the most outspoken freedom of utterance; the fullest and frankest speaking of the truth. As members one of another, you should have no secrets to keep from one another. There ought to be no cold reserve; no jealousy; no suspicion; none of that wary prudence, that wise doubting of your neighbour, which prompts the keeping back of some of the truth from him, and the leaving of him in ignorance or in error. What, as members one of another, can you have to hide from one another? What, as believers in Jesus, can you have to hide from any man? I speak of your Christian life; your Christian history; your Christian experience; what you know and feel of the truth of Christ's gospel, its grace, its power, in your own souls. It is with that especially that you have here to do. It is with reference to that alone that you are here exhorted to speak truth every man with his neighbour.

I raise no nice questions of casuistry as to other matters. I enter into no discussion of any such delicate subject as the extent and limit of that outspeaking of the truth about your common affairs, which, as members of society, you owe to your fellow-men. As to all that, I appeal to the moral law, which is universally binding. But I have an additional claim to urge upon you. I address you as members of the body of Christ ; and therefore members one of another. I speak of what, in that capacity, you have to say to one another.

But, first, let me remind you I speak on the assumption of your having put away, and still ever putting away, falsehood. I assume that you are Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile; that there is truth in your inward parts. Alas, can it be that it is the want of that indispensable condition that makes you so timid and tongue-tied when you should be speaking the truth of God; speaking the truth for God? That it is the consciousness of some secret inconsistency, some lurking element of deceit, that paralyses you and tempts you to temporise. Seek more and more thoroughly to put away falsehood. "Create in me a clean heart, 0 God. Let there be truth in my inward parts. Open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise."

And now, secondly, I speak to you as members one of another; as incorporated into one divinely constituted body. And I urge that consideration, not only as a reason or motive, but as a help or means, to your compliance with this precept. For surely, in that capacity, you should feel yourselves free to throw off disguise, to speak yourselves out to be what you are. You are at home, among friends. All discrepancy between your inner life and the outward speaking of it in word and deed should be at an end. Among yourselves it should be so; and if it be so among yourselves, it must needs be so also before all the world, in so far as men have eyes to see. We surely need not, if we are really members one of another, be sensitively afraid of being misunderstood or harshly construed. We may trust one another, and rely on our doing justice to one another. Therefore we may let ourselves out.

Come then, brethren, let both of these hindrances be taken out of the way; let us strive and pray that they may be taken out of the way - guile in our spirit and isolation of ourselves. Then let us venture to be honest, true, open, bold. Let us have our hearts enlarged; our eye single; our whole body full of light. Let us have freedom of speech, unreserved, unembarrassed, unhesitating, frank, and joyous. Ah, were there more of that in our homes, in our churches, in all circles in which we mingle, among ourselves and toward all men; how might our own souls be gladdened refreshed, revived! How might the cause of God and his blessed gospel be advanced ! How might men have reason so to take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, as to be turned, through our full and faithful speech, from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to the living God !
Go to Chapter Eleven

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