Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
This Is the Will of God
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, · WEB
One of the few places Scripture states God's will in a sentence — and what it names is sanctification, defined concretely.
For this is the will of God: your sanctification. Scripture rarely puts it that flatly, and the flatness is worth pausing on. People commonly look for God's will in decisions — where to go, what to do — and the letter answers a question about direction with a statement about character.
Then the general term is given a specific content: that you abstain from sexual immorality. The Greek word covers the whole field of sexual sin, and Paul does not treat the application as narrowing the principle. Sanctification is not an abstraction that happens to include this; this is where it is being applied.
Verse 4 states the positive form: that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor. The verb is know how, so this is presented as a competence to be learned rather than a feeling to be waited for.
And verse 5 gives the contrast: not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don't know God. The link Paul draws is between conduct and knowledge — not knowing God is offered as the explanation for a way of living, which makes the readers' new knowledge the reason a different way is now expected of them.
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