Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Christians are a bunch of sex-starved, homophobic, prudes. They are only interested in forcing their morals on society. Christians are sour-faced, judgmental, and loveless, religious critics. They are part of the oppressor class who oppress the LGBTQ class of human beings. Their religious power is to be overthrown and brought down.
If you listen to most reports on American media, you would think the first paragraph was true. It is not. There are probably some people claiming to be Christian who would largely embody that description, but that is the exception, not the rule for the Christian community. And it is undoubtedly not what Scripture teaches for how Christians are to live.
Why the conflict with the non-Christian community? It’s really quite simple. Jesus calls his followers to live holy lives. The non-Christian community is not called to holiness, according to their standards.
We are taught to walk and please God. The Thessalonian Christians were mainly doing so. However, there was apparently some degree of immorality among them since Paul had to issue this directive and warning.
Paul places sanctification, or holiness, in juxtaposition to sexual immorality; the two are incompatible. What, exactly, does Paul mean when he refers to “sexual immorality?” The Greek word, porneia, refers to any sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage. So, that entails pre-marital sex, adultery, all forms of homosexual sex, and other perverse sexual conduct such as bestiality, etc. God has designed sexual activity to be between a husband and wife exclusively. It is the means for obedience to God in multiplying and filling the earth with more humans. It is also a highly pleasurable expression of love and intimacy between a man and his wife. It is a powerful magnet to bring spouses together. I know there is often a reference to “make up sex” as an act that spouses engage in when making up after they have fought. This may seem a little below the standard for a devotional commentary, but let’s be real. Scripture is very real and practical, so why shouldn’t we be also? God created a beautiful thing when he created the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Our problem is, we pervert it and pursue the pleasure God placed in the sexual union for pleasure’s sake alone, and we pursue it outside the God-ordained bonds of marriage. God has something to say about that.
The will of God is that we abstain from sexual immorality (porneia): all forms of sexual conduct outside of marriage.
Christians have a different God-ordained standard than those who do not know God in Christ. We are to control our bodies in holiness and honor. That is not the standard that the Gentiles (those who do not know God in Christ) follow. They live in the passion of lust. “Fulfill your lusts” is the standard of the population outside of Christ. I know there are some individuals you know who don’t seem to fit this description. I believe this is a generalization in Scripture that generally applies to humanity outside Christ.
Why should we be concerned about his standard? Paul writes, “…because the Lord is an avenger in all these things as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”
Christians are accused of making up these rules. Not so. This is clearly the rule of God, and He takes it seriously. So much so that he is the avenger in all these things.
What is the avenger? The Old Testament pictures the avenger in the avenger of blood, the person appointed to go and execute the murderer of a relative. If you murdered my close relative and I am the avenger, it is my duty to hunt you down and take your life because you have taken the life of my relative. This is not a family feud. This is the execution of God’s justice.
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
Genesis 9:6
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
This is the institution of capital punishment. It is the definition of justice for murder.
God plays the role of avenger when bringing justice in the cases of sexual immorality. Some of these sexual sins call for capital punishment under the law. Is God enacting capital punishment immediately after someone violates this law? Obviously not. So, what is the meaning of the statement that God is the avenger? It means that God is patient, giving man time to repent. Some do experience a form of judgment now in the form of sexually transmitted diseases. It is a “natural” result of immoral activity in some cases.
For those who seem to get away with an immoral lifestyle, they forget that there will be a judgment day that none of us will escape. The only way to avoid personally experiencing the judgment of the avenger for your personal sins is to repent and believe the gospel that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life for you, he died on your behalf so you won’t have to, and rose again to prove that his work was sufficient to forgive you and make you a new creation in Christ. God’s vengeance, in such cases, is unleashed on himself in the person of Christ. There is still punishment for our sin, but it has been laid on Christ in our stead. The heinousness of sexual immorality is not ignored or overlooked. Jesus, our innocent Savior, has taken it all upon himself for we who place our trust in his work and turn from our ways to walk in the way of the Lord, the way of true love and eternal pleasure.
The linchpin is that God gives us his Holy Spirit. Those indwelt by the Holy Spirit have the power to walk in sanctification or holiness due to the presence of God the Holy Spirit who lives in us. God is just to require holiness of us since he has equipped us to be holy by the presence of his Holy Spirit.
Holiness is a beautiful thing. Holiness is not obeying a bunch of religious rules that make us acceptable to God. Holiness is living a life led by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of holiness. It looks like the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. May we who love Jesus and want others to come to know him as we do, manifest the fruit of the Spirit, and make the false caricatures of Christians be obvious lies.
