Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Ephesians 4:22

"that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit;" — Ephesians 4:22 (ASV)

Paul now gives the content of the teaching his readers received. Their previous lifestyle was to be discarded completely. They must forsake their old behavioral haunts and indeed lay aside the costume of their unregenerate selves. The metaphor of doffing and donning garments is common in Scripture. There may also be an allusion here to the fact that baptismal candidates changed into white robes.

The old self is subject to an internal process of continuous disintegration.

Moral degeneration has set in and the road to perdition lies ahead. “Deceitful desires” translates a phrase in which the treacherous duplicity of sin is almost personified.