| Geneva Study Bible {2} Speaking lies in {b} hypocrisy; having their {c} conscience seared with a hot iron; (2) Even though heretics pretend holiness ever so much, yet they have no conscience. (b) For they will as it were practise the art of disguised persons and players, so that we may not think they will lie lurking in some one corner or keep any resemblance of being shameful. (c) Whose conscience became so hard, that there grew a callous over it, and so became to have a canker in it, and now at length required by very necessity to be burned with a hot iron. People's New Testament 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy. Rather, Through the hypocrisy of men, speaking lies (Revised Version). Having their conscience seared. The liars just mentioned. The sensitiveness of their consciences is destroyed by the brand of the devil. Wesley's Notes 4:2 These will depart from the faith, by the hypocrisy of them that speak lies, having their own consciences as senseless and unfeeling as flesh that is seared with an hot iron. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 2. Rather translate, "Through (literally, 'in'; the element in which the apostasy has place) the hypocrisy of lying speakers"; this expresses the means through which "some shall (be led to) depart from the faith," namely, the reigned sanctity of the seducers (compare "deceivers," Tit 1:10). having their conscience seared-Greek, "having their own conscience," &c., that is, not only "speaking lies" to others, but also having their own conscience seared. Professing to lead others to holiness, their own conscience is all the while defiled. Bad consciences always have recourse to hypocrisy. As faith and a good conscience are joined (1Ti 1:5); so hypocrisy (that is, unbelief, Mt 24:5, 51; compare Lu 12:46) and a bad conscience here. Theodoret explains like English Version, "seared," as implying their extreme insensibility; the effect of cauterizing being to deaden sensation. The Greek, however, primarily means "branded" with the consciousness of crimes committed against their better knowledge and conscience, like so many scars burnt in by a branding iron: Compare Tit 1:15; 3:11, "condemned of himself." They are conscious of the brand within, and yet with a hypocritical show of sanctity, they strive to seduce others. As "a seal" is used in a good sense (2Ti 2:19), so "a brand" in a bad sense. The image is taken from the branding of criminals. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 4:1-5 The Holy Spirit, both in the Old and the New Testament, spoke of a general turning from the faith of Christ, and the pure worship of God. This should come during the Christian dispensation, for those are called the latter days. False teachers forbid as evil what God has allowed, and command as a duty what he has left indifferent. We find exercise for watchfulness and self-denial, in attending to the requirements of God's law, without being tasked to imaginary duties, which reject what he has allowed. But nothing justifies an intemperate or improper use of things; and nothing will be good to us, unless we seek by prayer for the Lord's blessing upon it. | 
