Lessons for Their Special Moral Needs; Exhortation to Chastity (1 Thessalonians 4:1–8)

Chapters 4 and 5 contain chiefly moral instruction, into the midst of which is inserted the teaching on the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of all — 1 Thess. 4:13–18, yet in such a way that even this teaching is directed toward stirring up and strengthening moral vigilance and sobriety — 1 Thess. 5:1–11. For this reason the content of these chapters falls into three sections: 1) first come lessons on chastity, brotherly love, and diligence. One must suppose that these are lessons prompted by the moral condition of the Thessalonians, as it became known and was reported to the Apostle by holy Timothy, 1 Thess. 4:1–12.

2) Then follows the exposition of the teaching on the Second Coming of Christ, with the moral lesson drawn from it, 1 Thess. 4:13–5:11. Here too, no doubt, the perplexity that had been tormenting the Thessalonians is resolved.

3) Finally, there is an enumeration of moral lessons that define the moral order of Christian communities and of every Christian at all times and in all places — 1 Thess. 5:12–24.

1. Lessons according to the particular moral needs of the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:1–12)

The Apostle Paul had praised the Thessalonians. But since there are no perfect people and one cannot expect any community to be as if of one accord, he writes them lessons for life—to confirm those who are in good order in their good principles, and to correct those who are not.

There is no doubt that these lessons correspond to what the Apostle Paul had heard from holy Timothy; but in the course of the Apostle’s address they stand as a direct consequence of what precedes. He had prayed that God would more and more fill the hearts of the Thessalonians with love for one another and establish them in chastity and purity. But since the formation of the Christian life depends not on grace alone but is also the fruit of one’s own efforts, he invites them to care for this themselves as well. And he places first a) the exhortation to chastity, fortifying it with the strongest possible motives. The lack of chastity was common to all pagans; moreover, it barred the entry of God’s grace and placed a decisive obstacle before every advance in the Christian life. Hence holy Paul speaks of it at the outset and with such urgency. And it may be that this vice was displaying itself among the Thessalonians with particular lack of restraint, 1 Thess. 4:1–8.

Then the Apostle recalls b) brotherly love, 1 Thess. 4:9–10; and finally adds the lesson c) on diligence, 1 Thess. 4:11–12.

a) Exhortation to chastity (1 Thess. 4:1–8)

1 Thess. 4:1. Furthermore then we beseech you, brothers, and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more.

“Furthermore then.” — He has just set forth prayerful benedictions. Now he invites them to strive to become worthy of the blessings wished for them, and therefore begins his address with “furthermore then”—in consequence of this—you should live thus and thus.

“We beseech and exhort.” He does not speak as one clothed with authority from above, but as one equal to them, their sincere well-wisher. He imposes no bonds but entreats, giving to understand that, out of his strong love for them, their life pleasing to God is for him the greatest good. But when he adds: “in the Lord Jesus Christ,” his word there takes on a binding force. Whoever believes in Christ the Lord and loves Him receives with reverence everything proposed in His name and submits to it without objection.

The Apostle speaks as one devoted to the Lord and having consecrated his life to Him, addressing them as those likewise devoted to the Lord and having in conscience taken upon themselves the obligation to live according to His will. In another place he expresses the same thought thus: “we pray you in Christ’s stead” (2 Cor. 5:20). This is an exhortation against which no believing heart can hold out. We beseech you by Christ God, for Christ’s sake do thus and thus. By fulfilling our request you will do not what is pleasing to us but what is pleasing to Christ Jesus the Lord. “‘In the Lord Jesus Christ’ we beseech you as by God” (Chrysostom). — “See what humility! He does not count himself worthy of trust, even in matters of exhortation, but presents the word from Christ. I beseech you, he says, through Christ” (Oecumenius).

“As you have received of us”—as you were taught by us and learned from us. “Received” refers not to words only but to deeds as well (Chrysostom). So also in common speech we say: to receive and to take over. The Apostle says: as you received from us through the words of our preaching, and as you took over from our way of life. “As the Apostles themselves lived, this became the model for the Thessalonians” (Oecumenius). Everywhere the Apostles immediately brought order to the lives of the newly converted, giving them the necessary rules suited to the character of the people and the customs established among them—approving some things and setting aside others—so that faith might not remain for a single moment bare faith, but would at once pass over into life, changing and transforming it according to its own spirit. It is to these instructions that the Apostle now recalls them.

“How you ought to walk and to please God. “How you ought to walk”—points to the whole manner of life” (Chrysostom). ‘Walk and please’—stand side by side as inseparable companions. In practice, pleasing God is inseparable from walking rightly before Him, for the first is the goal of the second. Walking encompasses the particular deeds, acts, and conduct; ‘pleasing’ indicates what should be in the heart at the same time. The one is the body of life, the other its spirit. One is the practice, the other is the moving force. Together it may be said thus: to walk pleasing God, ever keeping God before one’s eyes, directing one’s steps with all attention, circumspection, and reverence, fearing to offend Him in any way, taking care to do everything in accordance with His will. Here the same is said as previously—‘walk worthy of God’ (1 Thess. 2:12). And toward this all the Apostles directed everything! — An upright life is not maintained for its own sake, but for the pleasing of God, and they themselves did everything ‘not as pleasing men, but God, who proves our hearts’ (1 Thess. 2:4).

“So you would abound.” The same he says to them below: “for you do it” (1 Thess. 4:10), and later: “even as you do” (1 Thess. 5:11). He considered it necessary to encourage them by the beginnings of an upright life already manifested, and therefore speaks thus. Or he spoke thus so that his lessons would not appear as a reproach for being in disorder. In every respect these words are in place here and should not be omitted, as was done in the Russian translation. Apart from the fact that they are read in the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, and in many others—without them, “that you abound” will not be altogether in harmony with the flow of the speech.

“Abound more and more”—more and more let you advance in the God-pleasing life you have begun, let you appear day by day more perfect. Christians are not suited to stand still in one place but to ascend ever higher, “from strength to strength” (Ps. 83:8). By their calling they are “zealous of good works” (Tit. 2:14), “created in Christ Jesus to good works… that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Moreover, the Christian life is such that it cannot be all at once appropriated and quickly expressed in deeds. It gradually fills the heart until, having transformed it wholly in its own spirit, it makes it an inexhaustible spring of God-pleasing deeds. The way to this is the fulfilment of particular prescriptions. Through habitual practice of these there is formed a goodness of heart as a permanent character of the person. Whoever reaches this no longer needs prescriptions and commands. Holy Chrysostom says: “Abound”—that is, so that you, as zeal increases in you, would not stop at the fulfilment of commandments but would ascend higher and higher. In the preceding chapter he praises the steadfastness of their faith, and here he teaches them to advance in virtuous life. And advance consists in doing more than commandments and ordinances require, for then everything is accomplished not by compulsion from a teacher but by one’s own free will.

1 Thess. 4:2. For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.

“For you know”—there is no need to repeat; you know. So recently has all of this been imparted to you—how you ought to order your life in the spirit of faith in Christ—that it is superfluous to explain it again. “His commandments he has left written in their memory” (Oecumenius).

“By the Lord Jesus”—the same as “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 3:6), or in the name of “the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:10). On His behalf, by His authority given to us. For He chose us and sent us, indicating what to preach and ordain, and continues to indicate. We give commandments not of ourselves but from the Lord Himself. He is the Lawgiver, and we are the proclaimers of His ordinances. He refers everything to God, so as to clothe his word with heavenly authority and to plant in hearts an unquestioning submission to it.

In these two verses is expressed the general law of the Christian life. Live as commanded, having in view only the pleasing of God, and do not stand still but advance more and more.

Particular rules then follow, set down not according to an abstract system but according to what the Thessalonians needed.

1 Thess. 4:3. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.

“For”—for. He adduces proof for what he said before, that the commandments given them are given on behalf of the Lord. As if to say: for that on which I insisted when I was with you, and on which I shall now remind you again, is not my counsel, but the direct will of God.

The words “for this is the will of God”—either stand as a heading: for this is the will of God—sanctification and the rest. In that case they will be a condensed expression of the general law already stated; or they refer directly to sanctification. In that case they raise the commandment of purity to the level of a particular and exclusive will of God, as if to say: nothing does God require of you so much as sanctification—purity. This latter seems to have been the Apostle’s intent. He intensifies the obligation to purity because of the difficulty of weaning away from impurity, which in paganism was so universal that it was not even considered a sin. The corruption of fallen human nature has made man above all else prone to sins of the flesh. The pagans were dissolute in fornication; among them the Thessalonians, perhaps more openly than others, if not more than others. Hence the Apostle had spoken more about it verbally, and now in writing places instruction on this matter in first place and hallows it with the will of God. Holy Chrysostom says concerning this word: “Note that he never hints so often at anything else as at this. And writing in another place, he commands: ‘follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14). And to Timothy he said: ‘keep yourself pure’ (1 Tim. 5:22). And in many places we shall find this, both in the Epistle to the Romans and in all the others. And indeed this evil is ruinous to all.” Oecumenius adds: “In each epistle his word offers much on the subject of chastity. For he knew that there is no passion more unruly and harder to correct.” “Sanctification” — αγιασμος — sometimes denotes the sanctifying action of God’s grace in the sacraments (1 Pet. 1:2); sometimes the purifying action of grace received by freedom, as moral sanctification, purification, correction of the soul (1 Cor. 1:30); sometimes the state of moral purity, the established disposition to live purely and blamelessly according to all God’s commandments: “be you holy, for I am holy,” the Lord requires (1 Pet. 1:16). In the present case, clearly the Apostle understands sanctification in the last sense, and moreover in relation to the purity of soul and body from the passion of lust, as the following words show: “abstain from fornication,” which in the flow of the discourse are the direct explanation of the word “sanctification.” General moral purity can only be understood as implied in this text on the ground that without it, chastity—in its full meaning and force—cannot be formed or maintained.

“That you should abstain from fornication”—this explains sanctification. “He said that God’s will requires sanctification, then makes known which virtue he calls sanctification” (Theodoret).

“Abstain”—in the Greek: to restrain oneself, to hold oneself back from something, to keep far away. By fornication he understands every kind of carnal impurity. “There are many forms of licentiousness, the pleasures of lust are manifold and various—and it is intolerable even to speak of them. (He cuts them all off with one word: ‘abstain from fornication’)” (Chrysostom).

1 Thess. 4:4–5. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles which know not God.

The meaning of the text depends on how one understands the word “vessel.” Every person is, according to Scripture, either a vessel of God’s mercy or a vessel of wrath (Rom. 9:22–23). The body is also called an “earthen vessel” (2 Cor. 4:7). And a wife is the “weaker vessel” (1 Pet. 3:7). The first meaning is obviously inapplicable here. Among the two remaining, some adopt one interpretation, others the other. This has been so since the time of Theodoret, who writes: “His vessel” some interpret as: his own wife. Among the ancients, blessed Augustine understood it thus, seeing in the Apostle’s words a lesson not only not to touch another’s wife, but to treat one’s own wife honestly and holily. Setting him aside, all the other known ancient commentators understand by vessel—the body. If therefore one is to settle the disagreement by the majority and weight of concurring opinions, this latter view must be given precedence. Moreover, on the basis of the letter alone, one cannot hold the view that wife is meant here, for certain expressions the Apostle employs do not apply altogether conveniently to a wife. Blessed Theodoret, after saying that some understand vessel to mean a wife, adds: “But I think the Apostle calls the body of each person a vessel, because he gives a law not to the married only”—“but presents the lesson to the unmarried and the widowed as well” (Oecumenius). The same thought is found in holy Chrysostom, Damascene, and Theophylact. The body is called a vessel either as the container of the soul and together with the soul of the gifts of grace (2 Cor. 4:7), or as the instrument for taking in what is needed from without and for making manifest what is within. Let the body be pure as an instrument, so as to perform God-pleasing deeds purely; let it be pure as a container, for an impure vessel spoils even pure wine. Let everything in the Christian be pure—from the thoughts and feelings of the soul to the last stirrings and impulses of the body—and let his life, bodily, soulful, and spiritual, being united, flow purely, as purely streams the bright, translucent water of a clean spring, flowing through pure places.

“Know how to possess.” To possess—to make one’s own, to use, and simply to have. The Apostle instils the habit of mastering the body, of using it and maintaining it in sanctity and purity. Whoever gives himself to fornication surrenders the body to sin; whoever puts an end to this sin redeems it from that captivity, masters it again, and begins to use it for his own purposes rather than at the impulse of lust. Holy Chrysostom writes: “When the vessel (the body) is pure, we possess it and it abides in holiness; but when it is impure, sin possesses it. For then it does not what we will, but what sin commands.” Such mastery of the body requires labour, struggle, and the training of the body. Hence the Apostle writes: “know how to possess.” Know—not in the sense of theoretical knowledge, but in the sense of practical experience—to be able to master the body. “Consequently, much learning is needed, lest one give oneself over to impurity” (Chrysostom). “Chastity therefore requires training and struggle” (Oecumenius). In this—the struggle is not only for the unmarried, but also for those living in marriage. This passion is very disorderly and unrestrained.

“In sanctification and honour.” Sanctification here is the same as holiness above—that is, purity. But if one takes into account the Apostle’s words about the body in other places, one may see here the lesson to maintain the body as the sanctuary of God’s Spirit, to relate to it reverently as to a temple of God. “Know you not”—he writes to the Corinthians—“that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” (1 Cor. 6:19). And again: “know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Accordingly he prescribes to them, as “temples of the living God,” not to “touch uncleanness” (2 Cor. 6:16–17), threatening that “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy” (1 Cor. 3:17). The meaning of the word “in honour” also fits with this. He maintains the body in honour who does not permit himself to fall into “vile affections” (Rom. 1:26). Deeds of fornication are pre-eminently deeds of shame. Whoever gives himself to them covers his brow with shame.

“Not in the passion of lust.” One must distinguish the manifestations of unlawfulness in this passion. Carnal stirrings are natural in the body, and in them there is no sin. The sin lies in how a person relates to them with his freedom and conscience. Whoever takes pleasure in these stirrings, deliberately arouses them and is ready to satisfy them—that person lusts. Whoever by frequent satisfaction of this lust forms in himself an inclination toward its pleasures, that person is afflicted with the passionate lust that weighs upon, torments, and tyrannically tortures him.

In this state lust takes hold of the whole person, and he begins to spend his life only amid those arrangements that can nourish and gratify it. For the sake of the pleasure afforded by its satisfaction. The Apostle Paul in his instructions condemns the whole domain of this passion, beginning with the first gratifications of the stirrings of the flesh and embracing the entire expanse of deeds, habits, and conditions in which it holds sway. Holy Chrysostom writes: “Here the Apostle shows the means by which one ought to attain chastity—namely, by cutting off the passions of lust”—that is, its first stirrings, impulses, and urgings. Blessed Theophylact adds: “By the passion of lust the Apostle means everything that inflames lust: pleasures, diversions, idleness, luxury, and the like. And from all of this that inflames lust one must abstain, if one desires to be chaste.” By its destructive effects on soul and body this passion is for the Apostle “evil concupiscence” (Col. 3:5), and by the degradation it inflicts on the rational creature it is a “vile passion” (Rom. 1:26).

“Even as the Gentiles which know not God.” It is well established that in those times Romans and Greeks openly surrendered themselves to all the unbridledness of this passion. And even today, persons and peoples returning to pagan views of life are pre-eminently enslaved to this passion. In explanation of why pagans and all who imitate them are such, the Apostle points to ignorance of God. Here the ignorance of God is understood not as intellectual but pre-eminently as ignorance of the heart and conscience. In the latter case, even with a good theoretical understanding, the fear of God departs from the heart—and with it the only strong guardian of purity. What good can be expected from such a state? Whoever does not remember God and has no fear of God is already without restraint given over to shameful deeds. “Pagans are such because they do not anticipate future punishment” (Chrysostom). “Not knowing God, they do not expect the due recompense for their deeds, and do everything only for their own pleasure” (Oecumenius).

By placing those who indulge the passion of lust on the same level as pagans who know not God, the Apostle provides a powerful motive for self-restraint in Christians, who have come to love Christianity and have recognized its great worth. Christians, from the moment of their belief, had separated themselves from the pagans both in their conceptions and in their conduct. They counted it a matter of honour that they had become different from what they had been before. The danger of returning to the old ways powerfully stirred in them the energy to avoid such deeds and occasions. This is what the Apostle holds up before them. “Powerful too is this to turn one from fornication—that the fornicator is ranked among those who know not God” (Damascene). “The Apostle speaks as if to say: you were freed from delusion, you came to know the true God—do not then imitate those who live in the darkness of ignorance and do not submit to the passion of lust” (Theodoret).

1 Thess. 4:6. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

According to holy Chrysostom, blessed Theodoret, holy Damascene, Oecumenius, Theophylact, and many other commentators, the Apostle here continues the instruction on the restraint of the passion of lust, and in the words “go beyond” and “defraud” they see a lesson not to touch another man’s wife. The flow of the discourse compels one to hold this same view. In the following, seventh verse, it is said that God has called us not to uncleanness but to holiness. And this is stated as the ground of what was said in verse six; consequently, both verses carry the same thought—a warning against impurity—the same as throughout the entire section, 1 Thess. 4:3–8.

“Go beyond” and “defraud”—these correspond to: “abstain from fornication” and to: “know how to possess his vessel in sanctification,” and together with them they trace out the entire circle of fornication forbidden by the Apostle. “Go beyond”—the limits set by the law in this regard; “defraud his brother”—to seize what is his, drawing his wife to oneself. Holy Chrysostom writes: “Before, the Apostle spoke of fornication in general; here he speaks of adultery. One must not commit fornication with another man’s wife or with unmarried women. ‘Go beyond’—for God has given each man a wife and set a limit for nature, namely union with one. Therefore union with another is already transgression, robbery, and fraud—indeed more dreadful than any robbery, for we are not so grieved when money is stolen from us as when our marriage is violated.” Theodoret amplifies this: “The Apostle here called adultery fraud, because he who undermines the marriage bond of others touches what does not belong to him, and seizes the bed granted to another. He intensified the accusation by making clear that the one wronged is a brother.” Why the Apostle did not use direct speech, holy Damascene explains: “With a decorous word he covertly designated adultery, calling it the defrauding of a brother.”

“Because that the Lord is the avenger.” The Thessalonians were evidently weak on this side. Hence the Apostle sets before them strong and fearsome motives for restraint. For the same reason, surely, he writes to them so much on this subject. God is the avenger of all lawlessness, but especially of deeds of fornication, because through them man degrades most of all the image of God in which he was created. At this point, however, the Apostle only recalls what he has said, for when he was with them he had expounded this to them at length and “testified” with assurance that so it is—that this transgression is very great, abominable before God, degrading and destructive for man. Holy Chrysostom sets out the Apostle’s thought thus: “First he implored, made them blush, saying: ‘even as the Gentiles;’ then through arguments he showed the ugliness of this, using the expression: ‘defraud his brother in any matter;’ and then he adds the main point: ‘because the Lord is the avenger.’ Doing this, we do not go unpunished, and we experience no such pleasure as would equal the torment awaiting us.” The Apostle here “points to punishment as a curb against lawlessness, setting fear against it” (Theodoret). By the words “of all such” the Apostle gives to understand that God is the avenger not of adultery alone, but of all deeds of fornication, as if to say: “Do not think I say this only concerning the wives of brothers. No—concerning the wives of other men also, and concerning unmarried women, and concerning women of common life. God avenges intercourse with all of them” (Theodoret).

1 Thess. 4:7. For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness.

“God has not called us.” We are called to the profession of the Gospel, to faith in Christ, to Christianity. In saying “us” he places himself in the same rank as the Thessalonians and all Christians. After the threats he recalls the spirit of Christianity. Such is the calling of Christians, by eternal appointment—to be pure. “For”—indicates the reason why God is the avenger especially of deeds of fornication. Because they are directly opposed to God’s calling and trouble not so much the right relations with brothers and with oneself as they offend God Himself. “God will punish you,” says holy Chrysostom, “not in order to avenge a brother, but because you have offended God Himself. He called you, and you offended the One who called you.” This is why Christianity begins with a vow of purity and a renunciation of deeds of lust. Pagans, on receiving baptism, were obligated to turn away from such deeds and to embrace chastity. On this condition, God grants them the grace of the Holy Spirit, which requires that the vessel of their nature be pure. “The devil,” writes blessed Theodoret, “filled the dogmas of non-existent gods with licentiousness, impelling people to enter this way (that is, of licentiousness); but the true God commands us to turn away from this way and prescribes walking in the way of chastity.” Christians were sharply distinguished from pagans in this regard, so that the latter marvelled that they did not “run with them” into the “same excess of riot” (1 Pet. 4:4).

1 Thess. 4:8. He therefore that despises, despises not man, but God, who has also given to us his holy Spirit.

To despise—to cast aside with contempt, to show no due attention or respect, to disregard. The Apostle says that whoever despises this commandment and is negligent about its exact fulfilment shows no disrespect and contempt toward a man, but toward God Himself. Not toward “man”—either the brother whose wife he would seize, or the Apostle who gave the commandment of purity. In the first case he despises God because God called him to purity and he gives himself to impurity; God says: I am the avenger of such, but he goes his own way. Consequently, he sets the threat of God and God Himself at nothing. In the second case—because the Apostles gave not their own commandments but God’s; accordingly, whoever disobeys them shows disobedience to God Himself: “he that despises you despises me; and he that despises me despises him that sent me,” says the Lord (Lk. 10:16). Both thoughts are found in holy Chrysostom. “God avenges, he says, not the persons you have offended, but Himself. You defiled yourself—you offended God. Even though the harlot has no husband, God will still avenge you, for He avenges Himself. In doing this (adultery), you show contempt not so much to a person as to God. This is evident from the fact that at least from the husband you hide it, but about God, who sees, you do not even think. Tell me: if a king had honoured someone with the purple robe and many other distinctions, and that man, having been commanded to live in accordance with his dignity, went and defiled himself with some woman—whom would he have offended, the woman or the king who had honoured him with the reward?”

“Who has given to us his holy Spirit. To us”—to us. To whom? — Either to the Apostles, who did not speak of themselves but were taught by the Holy Spirit. “For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you,”—the Lord said to the Apostles (Mt. 10:20). Hence whoever resists them sins not against men but against God, as Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:4). In this sense the cited words will contain an explanation of why he who despises the commandment of chastity despises not man but God; or to us—to all Christians, who, having received the grace of the Holy Spirit and having Him dwelling in them, must give Him rest and not grieve Him (Eph. 4:30). He is grieved above all by impurity. Hence on another occasion the Apostle, as a motive to purity, sets forth especially the fact that Christians are the temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them (1 Cor. 6:19). Whoever gives himself to fornication despises, offends, and drives out this heavenly guest of his. Oecumenius writes: “God gave us the Holy Spirit, and we drive Him out by impurity. How then do we not offend both the Giver and the Gift?” — In this sense the cited words provide Christians with the strongest motive for keeping themselves in purity.