Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds;
All Commentaries on Colossians 3:9 Go To Colossians 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
It is worth enquiring here, what can be the reason why he calls the corrupt life, members, and man, and body, and again the virtuous life, the same. And if the man means sins, how is it that he says, with his doings? For once he said, the old man, showing that this is not man, but the other. The moral choice does rather determine one than the substance, and is rather man than the other. For his substance casts him not into hell, nor leads him into the kingdom, but men themselves: and we neither love nor hate any one so far as he is man, but so far as he is such or such a man. If then the substance be the body, and in either sort cannot be accountable, how does he say that it is evil? But what is that he says, with his doings? He means the choice, with the acts. And he calls him old, on purpose to show his deformity, and hideousness, and imbecility; and new, as if to say, Do not expect that it will be with this one even as with the other, but the reverse: for ever as he farther advances, he hastens not on to old age, but to a youthfulness greater than the preceding. For when he has received a fuller knowledge, he is both counted worthy of greater things, and is in more perfect maturity, in higher vigor; and this, not from youthfulness alone, but from that likeness also, after which he is. Lo! The best life is styled a creation, after the image of Christ: for this is the meaning of, after the image of Him that created him, for Christ too came not finally to old age, but was so beautiful as it is not even possible to tell.
