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Not Like the Gentiles (1 Thessalonians)

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INTRODUCTION

We come now to the passage in Thessalonians that addresses the vast difference between the Christian sexual ethic and a pagan sexual ethic. We want to be careful here because there is a ditch on both sides of the road. Some Christians have confused being fastidious with being holy, and they are not the same thing at all. Other Christians have veered off the road on the opposite side, and are drinking all the ditch water that the porn industry can supply. So let us try to stay on the road, shall we?

THE TEXT

“Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 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. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 4:1–8)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We have seen how dear the Thessalonians were to Paul, as expressed in the previous chapter, and these exhortations are built on that foundation (v. 1). Paul says that just as they had received Paul’s teaching on how to please God, he now begs them, exhorting them, to do this more and more (v. 1). For “you know,” he says, reminding, what commandments we gave you (v. 2) “by the Lord Jesus.” Sanctification is God’s will for them, especially sexual sanctification (v. 3). Every one should know how to “possess his vessel” in sanctification and honor (v. 4). This is contrasted with the “lust of concupiscence,” which is characteristic of Gentiles who do not know God (v. 5). Sexual immorality is not “victimless,” as Paul says here that it is a matter of defrauding your brother—and God is the avenger for the defrauded one (v. 6). God’s calling for us is not to uncleanness, but rather to holiness (v. 7). If a man despises this commandment, he is not primarily despising man, but rather God (v. 8)—the same God who has given us His Holy Spirit.

THE POSSIBILITY OF PLEASING GOD

First, we must set the stage. Far too many Christians, particularly in our own Reformed camp, think of their Christian lives as having the ultimate goal of “not displeasing” God. Like the servant in the parable, they think their master is a hard master, and so their objective is simply to stay out of trouble. And that’s actually how they get into trouble.

Notice that Paul had taught them how to walk in a way that pleased God, and now he wanted them to do this more and more. Holiness is not the absence of sin, although cleansing from sin is a precondition. Holiness is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). It is the presence of something, and it is crowned with the pleasure of God. Not only so, but there is always room for advancement.

CAN GOD’S WILL BE THWARTED?

This is a good place for us to note that the phrase “the will of God” has to be understood in two senses. The decretive will of God cannot be thwarted by anyone at any time. Even Nebuchadnezzar knew this (Dan. 4:35). If God has determined that something will happen, then that something is going to happen.

God’s preceptive will has to do with what He has commanded us to do. This will can be thwarted, which is why we are instructed in v. 3 here not to disobey that will. We are told not to disobey that will because we could.

And remember there are times when the two kinds of wills intersect. When Jesus died on the cross, it was the will of God (Luke 22:42; Acts 4:26-28) even though it was accomplished by wicked hands (Acts 2:23). The violation of God’s preceptive will by Judas, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, etc. was the instrument God used to accomplish His decretive will.

POSSESSING YOUR VESSEL

There is an ambiguity here. When Paul says that each one should know how to “possess his vessel,” is he talking about the person’s own body, or is he talking about that person’s wife? It is true either way, and it amounts to the same kind of behavior either way, but I am taking it in the latter sense.

When it comes to sexual behavior, it is not a contrast between the Gentiles possessing and the Christians not possessing. Both possess “their vessels.” But one does so with these descriptors—dishonor, uncleanness, passionate lust, fraudulence, and contempt. Don’t possess anything that way, Paul says.

By way of contrast, he requires sexual behavior from Christians (not sexless behavior) that is sanctified, honorable, honest, clean, and holy. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, he is talking about avoiding sexual impurity (1 Cor. 6:18). He is not talking about avoiding refined sugar or transfats. (Something is transfat, for example, when a baby carrot identifies as grease on the inside.)

Some of you may be thinking, “Great. Now I have to talk with my kids about all this on the way home.” To which an appropriate response might be “and about time.” The Thessalonians had learned from Paul how they were supposed to behave in this area (vv. 1-2). He taught on it. To leave the subject untouched (for the sake of remaining prissy and fastidious, as mentioned earlier) will not leave your children in some neutral zone. The world does not hesitate to catechize everyone in their sexual mores—through sex ed, through pop entertainment, and through porn. But in our revolt against this, we want to be joyful in holiness, not grim in our moralism.

JUSTIFICATION AND THE PLEASURE OF GOD

We are called to live in such a way as to please God. But this is not possible without the baseline of justification—the legal and forensic declaration of not guilty in the court chambers of Heaven. Our free and complete justification sets us free to pursue our sanctification without timidity.

Because of that great declaration of not guilty, we have no condemnation (Rom. 8:1). On the foundation of that great declaration, we are set free to be spiritually minded, which is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). To fall short of this, to be carnally minded, results in what? It means that those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8).

And this is why we declare Christ as your righteousness, as your complete justification. Because of that, and only because of that, His Spirit is at work in your for your sanctification, which includes your sexual life—whether in thought, words, or deeds.

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Blood, Sap, and Salt

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INTRODUCTION

As we look at the state of the culture around us, we sometimes feel like we are locked in the graduate school of sin, in what appears to be some kind of demented calculus course. Believers look at this in dismay, thinking that we somehow need to come up with some sort of super-wise, uber-godly biblical answer to all of it. We want to come up with our own righteous calculus course, one where the answer key is most tidy, and entirely correct. But this is an optical illusion—what we actually need to do is take all our so-called urbane sophisticates back to kindergarten, and teach them all to draw a straight line between the carrot and the bunny. And before that can ever happen, we must come back to mere gospel. It must be a gospel with blood in it, and sap, and salt.

THE TEXT

“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:21–24).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Pascal once said that it was the mark of true philosophy to make light of philosophy. He and the apostle Paul would have been on good terms. Paul tells us that God in His wisdom made a determination about the wisdom of man. God determined that man, with all his pursuit of wisdom, would not be able to attain to the knowledge of God (v. 21). God settled our philosophy, which was the same thing as settling our hash. But God then determined that He would add insult to injury. Not only would He prevent man from climbing up to Him on that rope of sand called philosophy, He decided that the way that men would be enabled to come to Him would be through the foolishness of preaching (v. 21). Men would come preaching, and God would save those who believed the message (v. 21). There were two kinds of men that this offended. The Jews wanted a sign in the sky, or something like that, and God said no (v. 22ff). An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign (Matt. 12: 39; 16: 4). The Greeks wanted an argument in their brains, one that flattered their brains. Again God said no (vv. 22ff). Instead of all this, we preach a Messiah on a gibbet, Christ crucified. This is a skandalon to the Jews, and it is lunacy to the Greeks (v. 23). But from among the Jews and Greeks, there are the elect, the called ones (v. 24). To them this crucified Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. As the power He is the answer to the Jews, and as the wisdom He is the answer to the Greeks.

LISTEN O MAN

You are a finite point. Above your head is the endless expanse of sky, and beneath your feet is absolute nothing. You are not at the mid-way point between infinity, which you do not understand, and nothing, which you don’t understand either. But you are a lot closer to nothing than to everything. If fact, you even used to be nothing. The observable universe contains an estimated 200 billion galaxies, with an average galaxy containing about 100 billion stars. You cannot explain that, can you? But if we take you down to the other end, and ask you to explain nothing, you can’t do that either. Let’s give you just one electron, or one quark, keeping things simple for you. Explain that—why is it here, rather than not here?

Compounding your struggle with finitude is the fact that you are a selfish and prideful finite point. You are much more important than all the other finite points. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that you think you are. And your brain—a subset of your finite point—is filled with big thinks. But with all your big thinks, you do not know God. Moreover you cannot know God until He brings you face to face with your own sin, and humiliates you with that vision.

NEHUSHTAN NOW

You must look at your sin. But if you look at it there on your hands, you will despair. If you try to go muckraking in your heart, you will surrender all hope. If you look at it in the temptations that are so alluring to you, you will be sickened by how you are still drawn to it, even though you know it to be death.

You must look at your sin, straight at it, but you must look at where God has impaled it—on the cross of Jesus Christ. When the fiery serpents were afflicting the Israelites, God did not tell them to look at the place on their hand where they were bitten. He did not tell them look at the serpents on the ground. He commanded that they look at the bronze serpent, transfixed on a pole (Num. 21:4-9; John 3:14-15).

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14–15).

To look at the sinless Christ on the cross is the same thing as looking on the sinful Christ. This is because He never sinned, and He was always holy and pure—He knew no sin. But He was full of sin, covered with sin, buried in sin—God has made Him to be sin. So the catch is that all the sin was ours. So when we look at our sin there, what happens is that God imputes the righteousness of His Son to us here. It is a stupefying exchange.

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21)

WHAT GAVE JESUS JOY

God delights to tumble the powerful from their seats. He loves to knock square academic caps off of learned heads. He catches the wise in their craftiness, and ties them hand and foot.

This is not because He is sadistic. No, He also loves to save men, but He never saves the proud ones, at least not like that.

“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Luke 10:21).

It gave Jesus joy to think of the fact that the Father has hidden these simple things from the savants, and handed them all off to the toddlers. And if it gave Jesus joy, shouldn’t it give us joy? If it doesn’t, then let us rethink our understanding of the gospel. Does your gospel have the blood of the cross in it (Heb. 13:20)? Does it respond with the sap of a living faith in it (Ps. 92:14)? Does it have the salt of the covenant (Num. 18:19)?

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